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Robert Michael Morrissey

Profile picture for Robert Michael Morrissey

Contact Information

309 Gregory Hall
810 S. Wright Street
M/C 466
Urbana, IL 61801

Professor
DGS

Biography

Bob Morrissey writes and teaches about early American frontier history and environmental history. His recent book is People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America, an environmental and cultural history of the tallgrass prairie region of North America in pre-modern times. This book won the Hal K. Rothman Prize in Environmental History of the American West from the Western History Association. For information about the book, read about it on Bob's website and watch this mini-documentary video. You can also learn about it in this interview on the New Books Network.

In 2018-2020, Bob was Mellon Faculty Fellow in Environmental Humanities at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, where he led an interdisciplinary team in programming, research, and curriculum development. Click here for their group study, The Flatland Project, including Bob's essay "The Drains out of Town." In 2016-17, Bob was Helen Corley Petit Scholar in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. From 2016-2021, he was a Conrad Humanities Scholar in LAS.

Bob also helped to create the Colonial American History Lecture Series at the Newberry Library in Chicago, which is now in its sixth year.

Bob is founding co-editor of the book series, Environmental Studies of the Great Lakes, a new interdisciplinary series from Michigan State University Press. He is also a member of Reclaiming Stories, a collaborative project to help revitalize knowledge and practices of hide painting and tattooing within Miami and Peoria Indigenous communities. This project is sponsored by the HWW initiative, and you can read about it here.

Bob teaches courses in early America, environmental history, and the American West. His course on Colonial American history now features a major project on one special object in the UIUC collections; you can learn about it in this web exhibit and in this mini-documentary. In Spring 2024, Bob will lead a Humanities Research Lab on Midwestern environmental history.

Are you a prospective graduate student? We are recruiting a fully-funded history PhD student to work on the "Indigenous Midwest."

Research Interests

U.S. Colonial
Atlantic World
Environmental History
Borderlands/ U.S. West
Native American History

Education

MA, M.Phil, PhD, Yale University
BA Carleton College, Northfield MN

Awards and Honors

Conrad Humanities Scholar, 2016-2021
Helen Corley Petit Scholar, 2016-17
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2015-16
Illinois Center for Advanced Study Fellowship, 2015
George and Gladys Queen Excellence in Teaching Award, Department of History, University of Illinois, 2014-2015
Lester J. Cappon Award for Best Article in William and Mary Quarterly for "Kaskaskia Social Network"
IPRH (Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities) Prize for Best Faculty Research, 2012

Courses Taught

History 570a: Problems in U.S. History to 1830
History 570b: Global Environmental History
History 170/171: U.S. History to 1877
History 202: American Environmental History
History 370: Colonial America
History 371: The American Revolution
History 200: Natives and Newcomers in Early America

Additional Campus Affiliations

Professor, History
Director of Graduate Studies, History
Professor, Program in Medieval Studies
Professor, American Indian Studies Program

Highlighted Publications

Morrissey, R. M. (2022). People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America. (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books ). University of Washington Press.

View all publications on Illinois Experts

Recent Publications

Morrissey, R. M. (2022). People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America. (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books ). University of Washington Press.

Gitlin, J., Morrissey, R. M., & Kastor, P. J. (Eds.) (2021). French St. Louis: Landscape, Contexts, and Legacy. (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization). University of Nebraska Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1s5nztt

Gitlin, J., Morrissey, R. M., & Kastor, P. J. (2021). Introduction: A French City in North America. In J. Gitlin, R. M. Morrissey, & P. J. Kastor (Eds.), French St. Louis: Landscape, Contexts, and Legacy (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization). University of Nebraska Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1s5nztt.5

Morrissey, R. M. (2021). Empire by Collaboration: St. Louis, the Illinois Country, and the French Colonial Empire. In J. Gitlin, R. M. Morrissey, & P. J. Kastor (Eds.), French St. Louis: Landscape, Contexts, and Legacy (pp. 21-34). (France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization). University of Nebraska Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1s5nztt.6

Morrissey, R. (2020). Native Peoples in the Tallgrass Prairies of Illinois. In K. A. Brosnan, A. D. Keating, & W. C. Barnett (Eds.), City of Lake and Prairie: Chicago's Environmental History (pp. 17-25). (History of the Urban Environment). University of Pittsburgh Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1595nc9.6

View all publications on Illinois Experts