
Lee Hanover
Graduate Student
M.A. and B.A. in History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Environmental History, Indigenous Sovereignty, Public History, California History
Lee Hanover is a current PhD student interested in the history of Paiute water sovereignty in Owens Valley, California. He received his M.A. in history from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2018, where he investigated aspects of settler colonialism and Owens Valley Paiute sovereignty between 1870-1937. These processes included settler erasures of Paiute and Shoshone presence through map-making, history, fiction, and anthropological literature, as well as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s attempts to remove Paiutes from the valley to acquire their lands and water resources. Lee’s thesis also investigated how Paiutes resisted these erasures through continuities of cultural, economic, and political sovereignty.
Committee Members
Chair: Clifford Trafzer