Paul C. Rosier, PhD
Professor of History; Director, Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Villanova University
- Villanova PA
Paul C. Rosier, PhD, is an expert in American history, environmental history and sustainability studies.
Media
Social
Areas of Expertise
Biography
Education
Hobart College
BA
The University of Rochester
PhD
Select Accomplishments
2009 Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award
Awarded for "Serving Their Country: American Indian Politics and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century."
2009 John Topham and Susan Redd Butler Faculty Research Award
Awarded by Brigham Young University's Charles Redd Center for Western Studies for research increasing knowledge and understanding of the intermountain regions of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah or Wyoming.
2007 Arrell M. Gibson Award
Awarded by the Western History Association in recognition of the "Best Essay on the History of Native Americans."
Select Media Appearances
Anger, Then Relief After Pentagon Restores Navajo Code Talker Webpages
The Washington Post
2025-03-22
Native Americans have served in nearly every major U.S. military conflict for over 200 years, and tens of thousands served in the two world wars... The Navajo code talkers "were fighting in the name of freedom and democracy that they themselves didn't have at home," said Paul Rosier, a professor of history at Villanova University who has spent 20 years researching them. "They believed in the promise of America and that they'd eventually get those freedoms..."
Lenape Tribe Brings Treaty, Fight for Recognition to Bucks County During Delaware River Journey
Bucks County Courier Times
2022-08-13
The Walking Purchase land swindle in 1737 forced the tribe to turn over its land to colonial authorities who claimed to have found a so-called lost treaty adopted in 1686... "They were pushed west to the Ohio River Valley, including to the Moravian settlement of Gnadenhutten, where 96 Lenape and Mohican children, women and men were massacred by Pennsylvania militia in 1782," said Dr. Paul Rosier, Villanova University's Mary M. Birle Chair in American History and a supporter of Lenape recognition by the state.
In Philly Lies a Casualty of the Battle of the Little Bighorn—and a Question of Duty
The Philadelphia Inquirer
2019-05-26
Lt. Benjamin Hodgson, "Benny" to his friends, was shot down on the Little Bighorn River on June 25, 1876, five days short of his 28th birthday, lost in the merciless clash of forces that lives in the American imagination as Custer's Last Stand... Villanova University history professor Paul Rosier said that Custer had no right to be on Sioux land that was protected by treaty and that the Army attack was "dishonorable." But individual soldiers, then and now, have little control over their assignments in the service. Look at the nation's divisive war in Vietnam as an example, he suggested.
"Words Matter": The Complicated Language of Mass Shootings, Killings and Massacres
Philadelphia Daily News
2017-10-12
After the Las Vegas massacre was deemed the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, criminologists and historians continue to debate how we catalog American tragedies, what we call them and who decides... Said Paul C. Rosier, a history professor at Villanova University: "All nations like to read a positive history [of themselves]. History's job is to complicate the narrative."
Little Chief, Other Native Children to Finally Go Home
The Philadelphia Inquirer
2017-07-03
After more than a year of hearings, studies and planning, the Army has set an Aug. 8 date to begin turning over the remains of Indian children to their families and tribes. A Northern Arapaho delegation will travel to Carlisle to formally accept the first three... "American Indians are very attuned to legal decisions that cement sovereign rights," said Villanova University history professor Paul Rosier, a specialist in native studies.
Research Grants
Summer Stipend
National Endowment for the Humanities
Awarded in 2005.
Summer Research Fellowship/Summer Research Grant
Villanova University
Awarded in 2010, 2013 and 2021.
Native American Research Grant
Phillips Fund, American Philosophical Society
Awarded in 2007.
Select Academic Articles
Crossing New Boundaries: American Indians and Twentieth-Century U.S. Foreign Policy
Diplomatic HistoryPaul C. Rosier
"Thomas W. Zeiler noted in his 2009 assessment of the 'State of the Field' of diplomatic history that scholarship by historians of foreign relations had increasingly converged with and contributed to the 'mainstream' profession. Zeiler highlighted new emphases on the study of ideology, international history, culture and identity and the 'migration of other scholars into diplomatic history' who have 'pollinated the study of U.S. foreign relations from other fields.' Scholars of American Indian history, and the perspectives and politics of Indians who have viewed themselves as both citizens and members of Indian nations with sovereign rights, can similarly enrich both the mainstream and the dynamic field of diplomatic history."
"Modern America Desperately Needs to Listen": The Emerging Indian in an Age of Environmental Crisis
The Journal of American HistoryPaul C. Rosier
"American Indian leaders linked the past to the present in providing energy to their communities and preventing the problems of invasive resource development that had polluted those communities. In mediating the twin crises of environment and energy, American Indians worked to establish a common outlook and common principles with non-Indians via a green patriotism that reified and updated Indians' ecological values in modern America. As Navajo nation chairman Peter MacDonald put it in an essay on Navajo natural resources, Indians and non-Indians 'are bound up in the same future.' Emerging, American Indians contributed to a national conversation about progress, environment and justice not as ecological Indians but as ecological citizens, joining millions of like-minded Americans and other denizens in the interconnected global ecosystem."
