About Josh

Josh Garrett-Davis is a writer, historian, and curator. His work focuses on the American West, Indigenous histories, and art/media history. He is the author of two books: What Is a Western? Region, Genre, Imagination (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019), which won the Outstanding Western Book award from the Center for the Study of the American West; and Ghost Dances: Proving Up on the Great Plains (Little, Brown, 2012), a personal geography of his home region. His article “The Intertribal Drum of Radio: The Indians for Indians Hour and Native American Media, 1941–1951” appeared in Western Historical Quarterly in 2018 and won the Oscar O. Winther Award. He has written for numerous other publications.
Josh was born and raised in South Dakota. He completed an undergraduate degree at Amherst College, an MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia University, and a PhD at Princeton University. He is adapting his dissertation, about Native American sound media, into a book. He works as a history curator at the Autry Museum of the American West, where he is leading the NEH-funded renovation of its long-term popular culture galleries, among other exhibitions and initiatives. He also co-edited 3 books with M12 Studio, including This Road Leads to Nowhere: Pierre Punk, about his hometown scene. He collaborates in gardening, parenting, and life with Marina Libel.
(Shirt by Dandy & Rose)
Josh was born and raised in South Dakota. He completed an undergraduate degree at Amherst College, an MFA in nonfiction writing at Columbia University, and a PhD at Princeton University. He is adapting his dissertation, about Native American sound media, into a book. He works as a history curator at the Autry Museum of the American West, where he is leading the NEH-funded renovation of its long-term popular culture galleries, among other exhibitions and initiatives. He also co-edited 3 books with M12 Studio, including This Road Leads to Nowhere: Pierre Punk, about his hometown scene. He collaborates in gardening, parenting, and life with Marina Libel.
(Shirt by Dandy & Rose)