Biography
Rosalyn is an award winning Indigenous writer, environmental historian, and ethnobotanist. She/they work within Indigenous communities to revitalize traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and to strengthen public policy for Indigenous languages. She/they are the author of Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet. Rosalyn is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis.
Rosalyn is serving as a Fellow in Garden & Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, a research center & library of Harvard University in Washington, DC. for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Research Interests
Indigenous Knowledge, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Sacred Landscapes, Ethnobotany, Environmental Justice & Indigenous Activism, Native American Religion & Religious Practice, and the American West.
Recent Projects: PBS Series, The American Buffalo
Rosalyn served as an advisor & interviewee for the PBS documentary The American Buffalo, directed & produced by Ken Burns and Julie Dunfey, written by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns. The American Buffalo broadcast on October 16 and 17, 2023 & available online. Rosalyn was part of a special one-hour PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff "The American Buffalo: Story of Resilience," available online. Rosalyn's interview for the film is also included in the companion book Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbably Resurrection of the American Buffalo (Knopf, 2023).
Awards and Honors
Research Appointment:
Research Associate, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 2021-2024.
Fellowship:
Fellow, Garden & Landscape Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, 2023-2024.
Courses Taught
Rosalyn has over 20 years of teaching experience at research universities and Native American-controlled institutions. Their teaching focuses on environmental issues within Indigenous communities, the American West & Native American history at the undergraduate and graduate level. She/they are a Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana.
Prospective students interested in American Indian, Native American & Indigenous History @ UIUC should also reach out to our cohort of Professors David R.M. Beck, Bob Morrissey, Yuri Ramírez & Jacki Rand to learn more about the History Department.
Highlighted Publications
Rosalyn is an award winning Indigenous writer, environmental historian and ethnobotanist. She/they have written two award winning books, dozens of articles and commentaries, and two Blackfeet language lexicons. Rosalyn's recent work can be found below & on their website.
Recent Publications
Books
Invisible Reality: Storytellers,Storytakers and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet, University of Nebraska Press, 2017. Available as an e-book & paperback. Winner of the John C. Ewers Book Award & the Donald Fixico Book Award, Western History Association.
City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934, by Rosalyn LaPier & David R.M. Beck, University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Available as an e-book & paperback. Winner of the Robert G. Athearn Book Award, Western History Association.
Sacred Landscapes & Indigenous Knowledge
"Indigenous Knowledge, Grasslands and Bison", PBS The American Bison, October 15, 2023.
“Bison are Sacred to Native Americans – but each tribe has their own relationship to them,” The Conversation, October 6, 2023.
"Native Hawaiian Sacred Sites have been Damaged in the Lahaina Wildfires -- but, as an Indigenous Scholar Writes, Their Stories Will Live On," The Conversation, August 11, 2023. (Also translated into Spanish, "Los lugares sagrados de Hawái perdurarán a pesar de los incendios," The Conversation, August 11, 2023.)
“For Native Americans, A River is More Than a “Person; It is also a Sacred Place,” The Conversation on Water, edited by Andrea K. Gerlak, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023. (Reprint from The Conversation, October 8, 2017).
“Land as Text: Reading the Land,” in the “Forum on Narrative and Environmental Justice” with essays by Connie Chiang, Tiya Miles, and Lauret Savoy, edited by Mart Stewart, Environmental History, Volume 28, Number 1, January 2023.
"Native Americans' Decades-long Struggle for Control Over Sacred Lands is Making Progress," The Conversation, September 30, 2022.
“Ella Mad Plume Yellow Wolf Photographs by a Native American Woman in the Early 1940s,” Montana The Magazine of Western History, Winter 2021/22. Finalist for Best Western Short Nonfiction, Western Writers of America.
“New Wave of Anti-Protest Laws May Infringe on Religious Freedoms for Indigenous Peoples,” The Conversation, July 12, 2021.
“Mountaintop Removal Threatens Traditional Blackfoot Territory,” High Country News, February 1, 2021.
"The Legacy of Colonialism on Public Lands Created the Mauna Kea Conflict," High Country News, August 6, 2019.
Contemporary Indigenous Public Health Issues
"New Anti-Transgender Laws Will Hurt Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Religious Expression," The Conversation, June 1, 2023.
"Traditional Plant Knowledge is Not a Quick Fix," Interview with Regina Barber on NPR's Short Wave, November 8, 2022.
“For Indigenous Peoples, Abortion is a Religious Right,” with Abaki Beck, Aftermath: Life in a Post-Roe America, edited by Elizabeth Hines, October, 2022. Pp. 126-130. (Reprint from Yes! Magazine, June 30, 2022.)
"For Indigenous People, Abortion is a Religious Right," with Abaki Beck, Yes! Magazine, June 30, 2022.
“Misrepresenting traditional knowledge during COVID-19 is dangerous,” with Abaki Beck, High Country News, March 23, 2020.
"How a Native American Coming-of-age Ceremony is Making a Comeback," The Conversation, February 10, 2020.
Native American History of Illinois & Chicago - Co-Produced Work
Professors Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet/Métis) & David R.M. Beck have researched and written award-winning history of Native American and Indigenous peoples of Chicago for over a decade. Below are some of their individual and co-produced publications -- they are great resources for community, parents, teachers & scholars:
UnFair Labor? American Indians and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. by David R.M. Beck. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. Available as an e-book & paperback. (David is the sole author).
City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934, by Rosalyn LaPier & David R.M. Beck, University of Nebraska Press, 2015. Available as an e-book & paperback. Winner of the Robert G. Athearn Book Award, Western History Association.
“American Indians Moving to Cities,” by Rosalyn LaPier & David R.M. Beck in Why You Can't Teach U.S. History Without American Indians, edited by Susan Sleeper-Smith, Juliana Barr, Jean M. O’Brien, Nancy Shoemaker, and Scott Stevens, University of North Carolina, 2015. Available as an e-book & paperback. Pp. 210-26.
“‘One Man Relocation Team:’ Scott Henry Peters and American Indian Migration in the 1930's,” by Rosalyn LaPier & David R.M. Beck, Western Historical Quarterly, 45:1, Spring 2014. Pp. 17-36. Finalist for several awards.
“Crossroads for a Culture: American Indians in Progressive Era Chicago,” by Rosalyn LaPier & David R.M. Beck, Chicago History, 38:1, Spring 2012. Pp. 22-43.
The Chicago American Indian community, 1893-1988: Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Sources in Chicago. by David Beck, preface by Sol Tax, forward by Faith Smith. Chicago: NAES College Press; 1988.
Community-Based Engagement & Activism
Rosalyn co-founded Saokio Heritage a community-based organization led by Indigenous women, which works to revitalize Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge & ethnobotanical knowledge. She/they work with the National Coalition of Native American Language Schools and Programs to strengthen public policy for Indigenous languages. She/they work with The Natural History Museum and projects like Unfence the Future & Red Natural History.
