Biography
Dr. David E. Wilkins is a citizen of the Lumbee Nation of North Carolina. He earned his Ph.D. in political science (comparative politics) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He concentrates much of his work on Native politics and governance, with particular attention on the transformations that Indigenous governments have both coercively and voluntarily engaged in from pre-colonial times to the present.
The concepts of Native sovereignty, self-determination, and diplomacy are at the heart of Wilkins’ research and teaching. He has focused much of his work on the political and legal relationships between Native nations and the intergovernmental affairs between Native peoples and states and Native peoples and the federal government. He has been a visiting professor at Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and Wake Forest University.
Wilkins is the author or editor of over 20 books, including most recently “Indigenous Governance: Clans, Constitutions, and Consent” (Oxford University Press, 2024); “Of Living Stone: Perspectives on Continuous Knowledge and the Work of Vine Deloria Jr.,” co-edited with Shelly Hulse Wilkins (Fulcrum Publishing, 2024); “Documents of Native American Political Development” (Oxford University Press, 2019); and “Red Prophet: The Punishing Intellectualism of Vine Deloria, Jr.” (Fulcrum Publishing, 2018).
Before coming to the University of Richmond, Wilkins was the McKnight Presidential Professor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, where he also held appointments in law, political science, and American studies.
