The professor of history is a nationally-known scholar whose work on American Indian cultures and histories has been hailed for its breadth and for its attention to community voices.
Ellis was recognized as a nationally-known scholar whose work on American Indian cultures and histories has been hailed for its breadth and for its attention to community voices. His published work includes “To Change Them Forever: Indian Education at the Rainy Mountain Boarding School, 1893-1920″ (1996), “The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns” (with Ralph Kotay and Eric Lassiter, 2002), “A Dancing People: Powwow Culture on the Southern Plains” (2003) and “Powwow: An Anthology” (with Gary Dunham and Eric Lassiter, 2006). His current book project addresses the American fascination with and appropriation of Native cultures.
His essays have appeared in The Western Historical Quarterly, The American Indian Culture & Research Journal, The Pacific Historical Review, The American Indian Quarterly, Montana, The Magazine of Western History and Native South. In 2002 Ellis held the Gordon Russell Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, and he has served as distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and as a consultant to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Ellis has also been a grant reviewer for the Guggenheim Fellowships, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the National Science Foundation. At Elon he has been awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award from both the College of Arts & Sciences and the university. He is currently a recipient of an Elon Senior Faculty Research Fellowship.