Boyd Cothran
Professor
Office: 2132 Vari Hall
Phone: 416 736-2100 Ext: 66959
Email: cothran@yorku.ca
Attached CV
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Accepting New Graduate Students
Boyd Cothran is Professor of U.S. and Global History in the Department of History at York University in Toronto, Ontario.
Born and raised in Ventura County, California, Boyd Cothran is a second-generation Okinawan-American and the first in his family to attend university. He now lives in Toronto, Canada, where he is Professor of History in the Department of History at York University. He is a former editor of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2017-2022) and he now co-hosts the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast with Cathleen D. Cahill. He is the author of Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making of American Innocence (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), which received the 2015 Robert M. Utley Prize for the best book in military history from the Western History Association, and The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). He has also written for the New York Times, Indian Country Today, Aeon, and other venues, both public and academic. He has also co-edited two volumes of global history, Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Histories (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Bridging Cultural Concepts of Nature: Indigenous People and Protect Spaces of Nature (University of Helsinki Press, 2021). He is currently developing Outlasting the Missions: Indigenous Elderhood and the Lives Behind California’s Colonial Memory, a collaborative book and exhibition project on Indigenous survivors of California's mission system.
Degrees
PhD, University of MinnesotaMA, University of Minnesota
BA, University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests
- Lloyd Lewis Fellowship in American History - 2016-2017
- Dean's Award for Distinction in Research - 2015
- Recipient of the Robert M. Utley Prize for the Best Book in Military History from the WHA - 2015
- Finalist for Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies from NAISA - 2015
- Henry Roe Cloud Fellow in Native American Studies at Yale University - 2010-2011
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Outlasting the Missions: Indigenous Elderhood and the Lives Behind California's Mission Past is a collaborative research and exhibition project that recovers the biographies of Indigenous Californians who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were repeatedly photographed and described as "centenarians," "ancient," or the "last" of their tribes. Bringing together historical research, community knowledge, and contemporary Indigenous art, the project reconstructs the lives behind these images and reframes them as evidence of survivance rather than disappearance.
Description:Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, elderly Indigenous Californians appeared again and again in photographs, postcards, newspapers, and museum collections, cast as living relics of a vanished mission-era past. These images circulated widely and helped shape a romanticized public memory of California in which Indigenous people figured as remnants of history rather than as members of living families, communities, and nations. Outlasting the Missions asks why these representations became so powerful, and sets out to recover the individual lives — the families, labor, kinship networks, and communities — that they obscured. To date, the project has identified more than seventy-five such individuals.
The project is led by Boyd Cothran (History, York University) together with Yve Chavez (Gabrielino/Tongva, University of Oklahoma), Olivia Chilcote (Luiseño/Payómkawichum, San Diego State University), and Martin Rizzo-Martinez (Amah Mutsun, UC Santa Cruz), and is carried out in collaboration with the Gabrielino/Tongva, Luiseño/Payómkawichum, Amah Mutsun, and Chumash communities. It builds on nearly two decades of research into Indigenous survival and resistance in colonial California, bringing that history into conversation with photography and visual culture, memory studies, and the study of aging and elderhood.
The research will inform a major collaborative exhibition, also titled Outlasting the Missions alongside a co-authored exhibition catalogue and other scholarly and public-facing outputs.
The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914, co-authored with Adrian Shubert. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. 312 pp.
Bridging Cultural Concepts of Nature: Indigenous Peoples and Protected Spaces of Nature, co-edited with Rani-Henrik Andersson and Saara J. Kekki. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2021. 336 pp.
Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Histories, Boyd Cothran, Joan Judge, and Adrian Shubert, eds. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making of American Innocence (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014)
“The Lava Beds Monument and the Making of California’s Last Indian War.” In Unforgiving Landscape: Lava Beds National Monument and the Modoc War (Klamath Falls: Shaw Historical Library, 2011), 121-132.
“Book Review: LeeAnna Keith’s The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, and the Death of Reconstruction, History: Reviews of New Books 39:3 (Spring 2011): 80.
“Book Review: Allison Varzally’s Making a Non-White America: Californians Coloring Outside Ethnic Lines, 1925-1955, History: Reviews of New Books 36:3 (Spring 2008): 103.
“Exchanging Gifts with the Dead: Lava Beds National Monument and Narratives of the Modoc War.” International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 4:1 (Spring 2011): 30-40
“Working the Indian Field Days: The Economy of Authenticity and the Question of Agency in Yosemite Valley, 1916-1929.” American Indian Quarterly 34:2 (Spring 2010): 194-223.
"Melancholia and the Infinite Debate." Western Historical Quarterly, 47:01 (November 2016):
435-438. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/whq/whw091
"Enduring Legacy: U.S.-Indigenous Violence and the Making of American Innocence in the
Gilded Age." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 14:04 (October 2015): 562-579.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2026 | AP/HIST3622 3.0 | A | The U.S. Civil War and Public History | LECT |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2027 | GS/HIST5190 3.0 | N | Indigenous History of North America | ONLN |
Boyd Cothran is Professor of U.S. and Global History in the Department of History at York University in Toronto, Ontario.
Born and raised in Ventura County, California, Boyd Cothran is a second-generation Okinawan-American and the first in his family to attend university. He now lives in Toronto, Canada, where he is Professor of History in the Department of History at York University. He is a former editor of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2017-2022) and he now co-hosts the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Podcast with Cathleen D. Cahill. He is the author of Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making of American Innocence (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), which received the 2015 Robert M. Utley Prize for the best book in military history from the Western History Association, and The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914 (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). He has also written for the New York Times, Indian Country Today, Aeon, and other venues, both public and academic. He has also co-edited two volumes of global history, Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Histories (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Bridging Cultural Concepts of Nature: Indigenous People and Protect Spaces of Nature (University of Helsinki Press, 2021). He is currently developing Outlasting the Missions: Indigenous Elderhood and the Lives Behind California’s Colonial Memory, a collaborative book and exhibition project on Indigenous survivors of California's mission system.
Degrees
PhD, University of MinnesotaMA, University of Minnesota
BA, University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests
Awards
- Lloyd Lewis Fellowship in American History - 2016-2017
- Dean's Award for Distinction in Research - 2015
- Recipient of the Robert M. Utley Prize for the Best Book in Military History from the WHA - 2015
- Finalist for Best First Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies from NAISA - 2015
- Henry Roe Cloud Fellow in Native American Studies at Yale University - 2010-2011
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Outlasting the Missions: Indigenous Elderhood and the Lives Behind California's Mission Past is a collaborative research and exhibition project that recovers the biographies of Indigenous Californians who, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were repeatedly photographed and described as "centenarians," "ancient," or the "last" of their tribes. Bringing together historical research, community knowledge, and contemporary Indigenous art, the project reconstructs the lives behind these images and reframes them as evidence of survivance rather than disappearance.
Description:Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, elderly Indigenous Californians appeared again and again in photographs, postcards, newspapers, and museum collections, cast as living relics of a vanished mission-era past. These images circulated widely and helped shape a romanticized public memory of California in which Indigenous people figured as remnants of history rather than as members of living families, communities, and nations. Outlasting the Missions asks why these representations became so powerful, and sets out to recover the individual lives — the families, labor, kinship networks, and communities — that they obscured. To date, the project has identified more than seventy-five such individuals.
The project is led by Boyd Cothran (History, York University) together with Yve Chavez (Gabrielino/Tongva, University of Oklahoma), Olivia Chilcote (Luiseño/Payómkawichum, San Diego State University), and Martin Rizzo-Martinez (Amah Mutsun, UC Santa Cruz), and is carried out in collaboration with the Gabrielino/Tongva, Luiseño/Payómkawichum, Amah Mutsun, and Chumash communities. It builds on nearly two decades of research into Indigenous survival and resistance in colonial California, bringing that history into conversation with photography and visual culture, memory studies, and the study of aging and elderhood.
The research will inform a major collaborative exhibition, also titled Outlasting the Missions alongside a co-authored exhibition catalogue and other scholarly and public-facing outputs.
All Publications
“The Lava Beds Monument and the Making of California’s Last Indian War.” In Unforgiving Landscape: Lava Beds National Monument and the Modoc War (Klamath Falls: Shaw Historical Library, 2011), 121-132.
“Book Review: LeeAnna Keith’s The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, and the Death of Reconstruction, History: Reviews of New Books 39:3 (Spring 2011): 80.
“Book Review: Allison Varzally’s Making a Non-White America: Californians Coloring Outside Ethnic Lines, 1925-1955, History: Reviews of New Books 36:3 (Spring 2008): 103.
The Edwin Fox: How an Ordinary Sailing Ship Connected the World in the Age of Globalization, 1850-1914, co-authored with Adrian Shubert. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. 312 pp.
Bridging Cultural Concepts of Nature: Indigenous Peoples and Protected Spaces of Nature, co-edited with Rani-Henrik Andersson and Saara J. Kekki. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2021. 336 pp.
Women Warriors and National Heroes: Global Histories, Boyd Cothran, Joan Judge, and Adrian Shubert, eds. (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
Remembering the Modoc War: Redemptive Violence and the Making of American Innocence (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014)
“Exchanging Gifts with the Dead: Lava Beds National Monument and Narratives of the Modoc War.” International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 4:1 (Spring 2011): 30-40
“Working the Indian Field Days: The Economy of Authenticity and the Question of Agency in Yosemite Valley, 1916-1929.” American Indian Quarterly 34:2 (Spring 2010): 194-223.
"Melancholia and the Infinite Debate." Western Historical Quarterly, 47:01 (November 2016):
435-438. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/whq/whw091
"Enduring Legacy: U.S.-Indigenous Violence and the Making of American Innocence in the
Gilded Age." Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 14:04 (October 2015): 562-579.
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2026 | AP/HIST3622 3.0 | A | The U.S. Civil War and Public History | LECT |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2027 | GS/HIST5190 3.0 | N | Indigenous History of North America | ONLN |
