Sandeen Lecture in the Humanities

The institute's marquee lecture is named for the institute’s founding director, Dr. Eric Sandeen. Each year, fellows in the Humanities Research Group vote to decide who among them will deliver this annual faculty lecture. The process shows that the winner has the respect of their peers and that their work showcases some of the finest humanities research on campus.

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2024 Sandeen Lecture in the Humanities

Monday, December 9th

4 p.m. in Coe Library 506

Livestream: Link to be added soon

 

The Herder's Laboratory: Indigenous Climate Science in the Peruvian Andes by Dr. Allison Caine

The mountain ranges of Peru are considered some of the most critical “climate laboratories” of the world. World-renowned climate scientists travel there to monitor global climate change in the receding glaciers of the Andes. The Quechua alpaca herders living at the edges of these glaciers are likewise producing knowledge and theory about a changing world. In their daily lived experience, Indigenous herders sense and make sense of changing socioecological conditions through subtle shifts in their interactions with humans, animals, and landscapes. In doing so, they draw our attention to the complicated practices of being-in-relation with others, and the precarity of these relationships in a time of global instability. By analyzing climate change from the ground up, this project asks what the alpaca herders of the Andes can tell us about the state of the planet.