James Tejani

James Tejani

Associate Professor

Fields

  • US History
  • Western History
  • Pacific History

Contact Information

Education

  • Columbia University, PhD (2009)
  • University of California at San Diego, BA in History and Political Science (1998)

Research and Teaching Interests

My area of specialization is modern United States history but in particular the antebellum period through the Great Depression. I am interested in the history of political and economic development in California, the American West, the Southwest borderlands, and the Pacific world. My teaching interests also include the history of law and business and the history of race, ethnicity, and immigration.

Currently I am revising my dissertation, “San Pedro Bay and the Making of an American Pacific: Private Enterprise, State Imperatives, and the Industrialization of Natural Resources, 1846-1917,” for publication. The project examines the creation of the Port of Los Angeles through the transformation of nature, property relations, and local entrepreneurial practices and in the collision of unfettered capitalist economy with the rising power of federal and municipal bureaucracies in the West. My work seeks to better understand the connection between the era of US expansion and consolidation on the continent and the era of US imperialism and global power.

Awards and Honors

  • Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. Award,Historical Society of Southern California (2015) — best article by a junior historian, 2012-2014, for “Dredging the Future: The Destruction of Coastal Estuaries and the Creation of Metropolitan Los Angeles, 1858-1913,” Southern California Quarterly 96, 1 (spring 2014). 
  • [Honorable Mention] Alice Hamilton Prize, American Society of Environmental Historians (2015) – best article, for “Harbor Lines: Connecting the Histories of Borderlands and Pacific Imperialism in the Making of the Port of Los Angeles, 1858-1908,” Western Historical Quarterly 45, 2 (summer 2014). 
  • Ray Allen Billington Prize, Western History Association (2014) - best article, for “Dredging the Future: The Destruction of Coastal Estuaries and the Creation of Metropolitan Los Angeles.” 
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Fellowship, “The View from the East: The Federal Government and the American West” (2014) 
  • Fletcher Jones Foundation Fellowship, Huntington Library (2005) 
  • Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Summer Research Fellowship (2003) 
  • John & Louise K. Jay Scholarship Award, Columbia University (2002-2004) 
  • Richard Hofstadter Fellowship, Columbia University (2000-2005) 
  • Phi Beta Kappa (UC San Diego, 1998)

Selected Articles

  • "Harbor Lines: Connecting the Histories of Borderlands and Pacific Imperialism in the Making of the Port of Los Angeles, 1858-1908," Western Historical Quarterly 45, 2 (summer 2014), 125-146.
  • "Dredging the Future: The Destruction of Coastal Estuaries and the Creation of Metropolitan Los Angeles, 1858-1913," Southern California Quarterly 96, 1 (spring 2014): 5-39.

Conference Presentations

  • “Western History Where Continent and Ocean Meet,” as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, The View from the East: The Federal Government and the American West, George Mason University, Virginia, August 7-8, 2014.
  • “The Civil War & the Foundations of Global California,” at California and the Civil War,California Historical Society, San Francisco, California, September 21, 2012.
  • "Yankee Leviathan on the Pacific Coast," at the 51st Annual Conference of the Western History Association, Oakland, CA, October 13-16, 2011.
  • “The Pacific West.” Panel Commentator, “Many Wests”: The 50th Annual Conference of the Western History Association, Incline Village, NV, October 13-16, 2010.
  • “Reimagining the Boundaries of Property and Nation in the Making of the Port of Los Angeles, 1883-1913,” at “Moving Beyond National, Cultural, and Disciplinary Boundaries”: The Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch-American Historical Association, Santa Clara University, CA, August 12–14, 2010.

University Service

  • College of Liberal Arts Representative, Academic Senate Budget & Long Range Planning Committee (2014-16 term)
  • Faculty Advisor, Cal Poly Surfrider Foundation, Cal Poly Associated Students, Inc. -- Winner of ASI’s 2013-14 “Club of the Year” Award.

Organizational Memberships & Affiliations

  • American Historical Association (AHA) and the Pacific Coast Branch (PCB-AHA)
  • Historical Society of Southern California (HSSC)
  • Organization of American Historians (OAH)
  • Western History Association (WHA)
  • Los Angeles History and Metro Studies Group, Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW)  

Courses

  • HIST 201 - United States History to 1865
  • HIST 207 - Freedom and Equality in American History
  • HIST 208 - California History
  • HIST 406 - African-American History from 1865
  • HIST 433 - History of the American West, California, and the Southwest Borderlands
  • HIST 505 - Graduate Seminar in the History of the American West 

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