Hiʻilei Hobart

Hiʻilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart (Kanaka Maoli) is Assistant Professor of Native and Indigenous Studies at Yale University. An interdisciplinary scholar, she researches and teaches on issues of settler colonialism, environment, and Indigenous sovereignty. Her first book, Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment (Duke University Press, 2022) is the recipient of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) Best First Book Prize, the Scholars of Color First Book Award from Duke University Press, the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize from the Yale University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and received an honorable mention for the Lara Romero First Book Prize from the American Studies Association (ASA).

 

Hobart’s articles have appeared in refereed journals such as NAIS, American Quarterly, and Political Geography, among others. Her article “At Home on the Mauna: Ecological Violence and Fantasies of Terra Nullius on Maunakea’s Summit,” received the 2020 NAISA prize for “Most Thought-Provoking Article” in the field of Native and Indigenous Studies. She is the co-editor of the special issues “Radical Care,” for Social Text (2020) and “We are Not American, Still,” for American Quarterly (2024). She is currently at work on her second book project, Pleasure Seekers: Land, Power, and Colonial Parkspace, under contract with Duke University Press. Short essays towards this project have been recently published in Parapraxis, The Avery Review, and Places Journal.

 

Professor Hobart holds a PhD in Food Studies from New York University, an MA in Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture from the Bard Graduate Center, and an MLS in Rare Books Librarianship and Archives Management from the Pratt Institute. She joined Yale from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was an Assistant Professor of Anthropology. Hobart currently sits on the Editorial Boards of the NAIS, Food, Culture, and Society, and Critical Ethnic Studies journals.