George Fox University | Academics | Departments | History | Paul Otto

Paul Otto

Department Chair, Professor of History
University Fellowship Advisor
Box 6105
503-554-2676
potto@georgefox.edu



Paul Otto came to George Fox University in 2002 after teaching at Calvin College and Dordt College. He earned a BA at Dordt College, an MA at Western Washington University, and a PhD at Indiana University where he specialized in early America and Native American history. In 1993-1994, he was a Fulbright scholar in the Netherlands.

Otto's research has focused upon Dutch-Native American relations in colonial New York. His first book, The Dutch-Munsee Encounter in America: The Struggle for Sovereignty in the Hudson Valley, is published by Berghahn Press. In 1998, he received the Hendricks Award for his work on Dutch-Indian interactions.

With Hubert Krygsman, he is currently editing a collection of essays providing a Christian analysis of diversity and post-modernity titled Culture, Society, and Diversity: Essays by Sander Griffioen.

Growing out of his original research on the early American frontier, Otto has also begun work on a new project focusing upon the use and development of wampum in the colonial northeast in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

His teaching duties include America and the World, Latin America, Southern Africa, the African-American experience, Colonial America, and the Making of the American Republic.

Paul Otto has been the Chair of the Department of History and Political Science since 2005 and serves as the advisor for the local chapter (Alpha-Eta-Omega) of Phi Alpha Theta, the History Honor Society. In addition to these duties, as University Fellowship Advisor, he advises students pursuing prestigious national fellowships such as Rhodes, Javits, National Science Foundation, Truman, and many others. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Providence Christian College in Ontario, California.

Professor Otto is available for public speaking on the following topics:

• "Going Native: White Indians Take Hollywood Films Captive" (slides and lecture)
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• "The Selling of Manhattan: Dutch, Munsees, and the Birth of New York"
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• "Beads of Power: Wampum and the Making of Early America"
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• "Henry Hudson's 1609 Voyage: Its Significance for New York History" (commemorating 400th anniversary)