Rebecca J. Dobkins

History and Interests

Joined Willamette faculty in 1996, after working as a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Interests include museum studies, Native American contemporary and traditional arts, Maori (New Zealand) arts, and the indigenous peoples, human rights, and the environment. As a curator at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Dobkins has organized exhibitions of Native American art that have toured nationally and internationally. Recent projects include the exhibition The Art of Ceremony: Regalia of Native Oregon, which was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts 2008 American Masterpieces grant. Dobkins is the faculty supervisor for the Chemawa Indian School-Willamette University Partnership Program, a collaborative community service learning project.

Publications

Books and Exhibit Catalogues

2008 The Art of Ceremony: Regalia of Native Oregon. Hallie Ford Museum of Art. 16 pp.

2008 Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs. Seattle: University of Washington Press, in association with Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University. A volume in the Jacob Lawrence Series on American Artists. With essays by Barbara Earl Thomas and Gail Tremblay. 126 pp.

2008 James Lavadour: The Properties of Paint. Salem, OR: The Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University. 8 pp.

2002 Rick Bartow: My Eye. Salem, OR: Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University. Distributed by University of Washington Press. 80 pp.

1997 Memory and Imagination: The Legacy of Maidu Indian Artist Frank Day. Oakland: Oakland Museum. Distributed by University of Washington Press. With essays by Carey Caldwell and Frank LaPena. Named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1997. 106 pp.

Journal Articles

2007 Toi Maori: The Eternal Thread: The Changing Art of Maori Weaving. Bulletin of Christchurch Art Gallery 148: 6-14.

2000 Honoring the Past, Embracing the Future: Native American Art at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University. In American Indian Art Magazine 25:46-53.

1999 The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in its First Decade. In International Journal of Cultural Property 8:77-107. The Cultural Heritage of Indigenous Peoples. Co-authored with James A. R. Nafziger. Special Issue:

Book chapters

2004 Art. In A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians, edited by Thomas Biolsi. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, Ch. 11.

Conference Papers

2007, September. Conduit to the Mainstream: Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts. Native American Art Studies Association. Fairbanks, AK.

2006, September 15. “Consultation/Collaboration, Representation/Responsibility.” Panel chair. Preserving Our Pasts, Telling Our Stories: Indians, Museums, and the Management of History, Morse Center, University of Oregon.

2005, October 28. “The Eternal Thread: Museums as Facilitators of International Indigenous Exchange.” Native American Art Studies Association Conference. Scottsdale, AZ.

2005, April 8. “Practicing Applied Anthropology in an Art Museum.” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings. Santa Fe, NM.

Awards and Fellowships

Millicent C. McIntosh Fellowship of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, 2007-2009

National Society of Collegiate Scholars Faculty of the Year Top Ten Finalist, 2006

Willamette University Lilly Grant, 2003

Graves Award in the Humanities, 2002

Willamette University United Methodist Distinguished Teaching Award, 2002

Oregon Council for the Humanities Research Grant, 2000

Willamette University Faculty Achievement Award, 2000, 2005

Major Grants

National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America Grant (for The Art of Ceremony project), 2008-09

National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Native American Visual Arts Award, (for the publication of Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs), 2008

National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Program (for The Art of Ceremony project, Hallie Ford Museum of Art), 2007

Degrees Held

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. 1995

M.A., English, University of California, Berkeley. 1990

B.A., Women's Studies, Summa cum laude, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 1983