Dr. Alex Stern
|
Historian of Power
Nineteenth Century America & Native America |
A specialist in the Civil War & Reconstruction eras, I am an assistant professor of nineteenth-century American history at the City College of New York (CUNY), where I previously held a two-year ACLS postdoctoral fellowship. I earned my Ph.D. in 2020 from Stanford University, where I studied under Dr. Richard White.
My research and teaching explore the intersecting histories of power, race, land, law, and violence in nineteenth-century America. My work focuses on the overlooked relevance of events in the trans-Mississippi West to traditional narratives of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Exploring the sizable but uneven growth of federal power in the nineteenth-century West, my current book project details the history of Reconstruction in Indian Territory. In it, I show how federal Indian policy was an essential element of the larger federal political project to reunite the nation fractured by civil war, homogenize its citizenry, and implement a free labor, private property-oriented national order. Uncovering a distinctive history of Reconstruction in Indian Country, my work offers a fresh understanding of the ways in which Americans remade the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century and the centrality of Native people and politics to that story.
To learn more about my current research, check out my interview with H-Net CivWar, as well as my interview on my work in support of the Creek Nation's suit in Sharp v. Murphy/McGirt v. Oklahoma.
I also run The Native Reconstruction Project (NativeReconstruction.com), an online resource highlighting scholars and their work excavating the history of Reconstruction in Indian Country. While still in its early stages, the site features relevant scholars, readings, events, and teaching resources. It officially launched as part the "The New Native Reconstruction" roundtable I organized for the OAH in 2022.
My research and teaching explore the intersecting histories of power, race, land, law, and violence in nineteenth-century America. My work focuses on the overlooked relevance of events in the trans-Mississippi West to traditional narratives of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Exploring the sizable but uneven growth of federal power in the nineteenth-century West, my current book project details the history of Reconstruction in Indian Territory. In it, I show how federal Indian policy was an essential element of the larger federal political project to reunite the nation fractured by civil war, homogenize its citizenry, and implement a free labor, private property-oriented national order. Uncovering a distinctive history of Reconstruction in Indian Country, my work offers a fresh understanding of the ways in which Americans remade the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century and the centrality of Native people and politics to that story.
To learn more about my current research, check out my interview with H-Net CivWar, as well as my interview on my work in support of the Creek Nation's suit in Sharp v. Murphy/McGirt v. Oklahoma.
I also run The Native Reconstruction Project (NativeReconstruction.com), an online resource highlighting scholars and their work excavating the history of Reconstruction in Indian Country. While still in its early stages, the site features relevant scholars, readings, events, and teaching resources. It officially launched as part the "The New Native Reconstruction" roundtable I organized for the OAH in 2022.