James F. Brooks

An interdisciplinary scholar of the Indigenous and Colonial past, James F. Brooks is Professor of History and Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has held professorial appointments at the University of Maryland and UC Berkeley, as well as fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and at the School for Advanced Research. In 2002 he became director of SAR Press, and between 2005 and 2013 served as president of SAR. He recently fulfilled service as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Western National Parks Association, which supports research, preservation and education in 67 National Parks, including Bandelier National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and Channel Islands National Park. He is a trustee of the Mission Santa Barbara Archive/Library, and of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. Brooks is the recipient of numerous national awards for scholarly excellence. His 2002 book Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship and Community in the Southwest Borderlands focused on the traffic in women and children across the New Mexico as expressions of intercultural violence and accommodation. His latest book, Mesa of Sorrows: A History of the Awat'ovi Massacre, appeared from W.W. Norton in Spring 2016.