Department of History
Dr. Greg O'Brien
Contact Information
Email: wgobrien@uncg.edu
Office: 2110 MHRA
Office Phone: 336-334-3988
Education
Ph.D., University of Kentucky, 1998
M.A., James Madison University, 1994
B.A., Randolph-Macon College, 1988
Teaching Experience
Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008-
Associate Professor, University of Southern Mississippi, 2002-2008
Visiting Professor of Native American Studies, Dartmouth College, 2004
Assistant Professor, University of Southern Mississippi, 1998-2002
Research Interests
My research interests are in ethnohistory, American Indians of the Southeast, American environmental history (particularly in the South), and the American Revolutionary era. I have focused extensively on Choctaw Indian history before the 1830s.
Current Project
My current book project is a study of the 1849 New Orleans flood, the worst flood to hit that city before Hurricane Katrina. My longer-range project is a study of the Seven Years War (French and Indian War) in the South (1750s-1760s) focusing on American Indian diplomatic initiatives and relations between Indians and Europeans.
Courses Taught
- HIS 211 US History before 1865 (Spring 2009)
- HIS 333 American Indian History to 1840 (Fall 2009)
- HIS 335 Colonial America (Spring 2009)
- HIS 511A Seminar in Historical Research and Writing: "American Indian History before 1840" (Fall 2008)
- HIS 701 - Colloquium in US History to 1865 (Fall 2008, Fall 2009)
Selected Recent Publications
- Pre-Removal Choctaw History: Exploring New Paths (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008).
- The Timeline of Native Americans: The Ultimate Guide to North America’s Indigenous Peoples (Thunder Bay Press, 2008).
- Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750-1830 (University of Nebraska Press, 2002, 2005).
- George Washington’s South (co-edited with Tamara Harvey, University Press of Florida, 2004).
- “The Conqueror Meets the Unconquered: Negotiating Cultural Boundaries on the Post-Revolutionary Southern Frontier,” Journal of Southern History, (Feb. 2001) 68:39-72.
Selected Awards and Honors
- Dianne Woest Fellowship in the Arts and Humanities, Historic New Orleans Collection, 2006
- Mississippi Humanities Council Teacher Award, 2005
- Who’s Who in American Education, 2004
- McLemore Prize from the Mississippi Historical Society for the best book published on a Mississippi history topic in 2003.
- Fletcher M. Green and Charles W. Ramsdell Award for the best article published in the Journal of Southern History during the two-preceding years, 2002.
Links of Interest
- I am book review editor for the journal Ethnohistory, published by the American Society for Ethnohistory (www.ethnohistory.org)
- I am associate editor for the journal Native South, published by the University of Nebraska Press (www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Native-South,673964.aspx)
- I am co-editor of the SUNY Press series Early American Ethnohistory, which offers the Francis Jennings Prize in early American ethnohistory (www.sunypress.edu/l-46-manuscript-prizes.aspx#AE)
- I give presentations on various American history topics to public school teachers as part of the Teaching American History grant program in conjunction with the American Institute for History Education ( www.americaninstituteforhistory.org/AIHEpress/viewer.php?id=36).