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History in Service of Sovereignty

How One Historian Reexamines Confinement, Policy, and Indigenous Resilience

Congratulations are in order for Mary Ludwig, Assistant Professor in the Department of History, whose groundbreaking dissertation, Incarcerated Nations: Confinement, Removal, and Policing on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, has received the Outstanding Non-STEM Dissertation Award from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). This prestigious honor recognizes exceptional doctoral research in the humanities and social sciences, and is a testament to Ludwig’s dedication, scholarly rigor, and community-centered approach to historical inquiry.

Each year, UNLV’s Graduate College hosts its Outstanding Thesis & Dissertation Awards to honor academic excellence across disciplines. Within the non-STEM category, nominations are highly competitive—each college may only submit one dissertation for consideration. From there, the Graduate College Awards Committee selects a single winner whose work represents the pinnacle of scholarly achievement in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 

Ludwig's selection for this award highlights the significant impact and interdisciplinary reach of her work. Ludwig’s dissertation examines the often-overlooked relationship between federal Indian policy and the rise of mass incarceration in the United States. Through a detailed historical analysis of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, she demonstrates how settler colonialism and the confinement of Indigenous Peoples laid the groundwork for modern carceral structures.

Her interest in this topic began while teaching at Laramie County Community College. “I had military students who offered to bring in the equipment Navajo Code Talkers had used in WWII and show the class how radio communications worked with the code,” she shared. “This led to me revising my lecture on Indigenous Peoples in WWII, and I came across a couple of sentences that mentioned the placement of Japanese American internment camps on Indian reservations. When I entered my PhD program at UNLV, I thought this might be an excellent topic to research, and the Colorado River Indian Reservation was only a couple of hours away. I visited the reservation, and while meeting with the Mohave elders, they let me know that they had been incarcerated before Japanese Americans were forcibly moved onto their reservation. This conversation led me to consider how the confinement of Indigenous Peoples contributed to normalizing the incarceration of others.”

Ludwig’s work has clear implications beyond the academy. It provides essential context for policymakers, historians, and communities seeking to understand the deep-rooted systems that sustain mass incarceration. “I hope that my work reaffirms the necessity of recognizing tribal sovereignty and working with tribal governments to address issues of policing and jurisdiction,” she says. “I also hope that this work is a narrative that contributes to the history of the Colorado River Indian Tribes and that it reveals the resilience of the Mohave, Chemehuevi, Navajo, and Hopi Peoples.”

Her approach to research offers valuable guidance for students across all fields of the humanities. “I would advise students to take the time and effort to work within communities and give back to the communities that they are studying. When you take on a project, ask yourself, how is this useful to others? How does this project help us understand our world?”

Ludwig’s award is not only a personal achievement, but a celebration of the rich, interdisciplinary landscape fostered within ������’s College of Liberal Arts. Her work is a vivid example of how historical scholarship can illuminate present-day issues, build bridges between communities, and encourage us all to think more critically about justice, policy, and power.

At ������, the Department of History offers students the opportunity to explore the past through lenses that challenge traditional narratives. With faculty expertise spanning Indigenous history, global empires, gender studies, and public history, the department equips students with tools to understand the complexities of the world around them.

The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program emphasizes the importance of intersectional thinking and social justice across disciplines. Faculty and students engage in critical dialogue and research that interrogates structures of power and amplifies marginalized voices—values deeply aligned with Ludwig’s work.