I am a Colorado-born citizen of the Cherokee Nation, appointed as Professor in the Department of English and First Nations and Indigenous Studies in the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies. My work in Indigenous literary studies takes up questions and issues of kinship, belonging, sexuality, personhood, and nationhood, with increasing attention to the intersections between Indigenous literatures, speculative fiction, and other-than-human peoples. My published work includes the literary studies Why Indigenous Literatures Matter and Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History, the animal cultural histories Raccoon and Badger, the Indigenous epic fantasy The Way of Thorn and Thunder, and have edited and co-edited numerous works, including The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature (with James H. Cox), and Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege (with Jean M. O’Brien). More information about my work and commitments can be found on my website, www.danielheathjustice.com.

Our Creaturely Kin: A Podcast on Other-than-Human Histories, Lives, and Relations, part of the SSHRC-funded Amplify Podcast Network, is a podcast series in development dedicated to understanding the powerful, peculiar, sometimes painful, always complex relationships between humans and the other-than-human beings with whom we share our lives in North America/Turtle Island. Each episode considers not just biology and natural history but the role of the animal or plant in human cultures, economies, and imaginations, and draws on a diverse and eclectic range of knowledge holders for in-depth interviews, including scientists, historians, artists, wildlife activists, hunters and trappers, food sovereignty advocates, and others from within and beyond the academy. Approachable and engaging, it appeals to both interested laypeople and specialists. The purpose of the podcast and each individual episode is twofold: to illuminate the complex realities of iconic as well as unexpected individual plant and animal species, and to help audiences gain a greater appreciation for our relationships with them in all their diversity and contradictions. Each season ends with a half-length reflective citational episode that addresses the season’s critical, theoretical, and methodological concerns, along with the research process, scholarly questions that emerged, generative audience feedback, and emerging implications.

Areas of specialization:

• Indigenous literary studies
• Indigenous Studies
• Animal studies
• Speculative fiction
• Gender and sexuality

Authored Books

• Raccoon. Animal Series, ed. Jonathan Burt. London: Reaktion, 2021. 224 pp.
• Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2018. 284 pp.
• Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006. 277 pp.
• The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles. Fully revised, one-volume omnibus edition of The Way of Thorn and Thunder trilogy. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 2011. 616 pp.

Selected Co-Edited Books

• Allotment Stories: Indigenous Land Relations Under Settler Siege. Co-edited with Jean M. O’Brien. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2022. 376 pp.
• The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature. Co-edited with James H. Cox. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. 741 pp.

Selected Journal Articles, Book Chapters, and Short Stories

• “R is for Raccoon.” Animalia: An Anti-Imperial Bestiary for Our Times. Eds. Antoinette Burton and Renisa Mawani. Duke UP, 2020. 153-161.
• “Tatterborn.” Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories from Turtle Island. Eds. Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, and David Gaertner, Wildrid Laurier UP, 2017. 327-336.
• “The Boys Who Became the Hummingbirds.” Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-Fi Anthology. Ed. Hope Nicholson. Toronto: Bedside Press, 2016. 54-59.
• “Reflections on Indigenous Literary Nationalism: On Home Grounds, Singing Hogs, and Cranky Critics.” Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies. Eds. Jean O’Brien and Chris Andersen. Routledge, 2016. 23-30.
• “A Better World Becoming: Placing Critical Indigenous Studies.” Critical Indigenous Studies: Engagements in First World Locations. Ed. Aileen Moreton-Robinson. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. 19-32.
• “Indigenous Writing.” The World of Indigenous North America. Ed. Robert Warrior. New York: Routledge, 2014: 291-307.
•  “Notes Toward a Theory of Anomaly.” Special issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, ed. Mark Rifkin, Bethany Schneider, and Daniel Heath Justice, 16.1-2 (2010): 207-42.

My primary teaching appointment is in Critical Indigenous Studies, but I supervise graduate students in English and teach either an undergraduate or graduate course in the Department every year. I welcome discussions with students interested in Indigenous literary studies, speculative fiction, animal studies, sexuality and gender studies, and cultural studies.