Our Colloquia Series presents engaging research from around the world. Guest presenters cover varied topics from all aspects of Geography. This page lists abstracts from past and future colloquia.

Map of Tibet

Charting the Outlines of a Tibetan Cartography

Nov. 15, 2019

Presentation by Kenneth Bauer, Anthropology, Dartmouth College Drawing upon fieldwork in western Nepal, the Tibet Autonomous Region, and the eastern Tibetan Plateau as well as historical and contemporary maps, I will argue that there is a recognizable but as yet underappreciated body of knowledge and traditions that comprise a Tibetan...

Poster with colloquium time, location, description and person holding a dog

How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog

Nov. 8, 2019

Anthropology Colloquium Series Co-Sponsored by the Department of Geography and the Department of History Presentation by Dr. Lee Dugatkin Hale 230, Nov 8, 4 PM Abstract: For the last six decades a dedicated team of researchers in Siberia has been domesticating silver foxes to replay the evolution of the dog...

woman overlooking vast water project with dam

Eric Perramond: Unsettled Waters: Rights, Law, and Identity in the American West

Nov. 1, 2019

Eric Perramond Environmental Science and Southwest Studies Professor, Colorado College Abstract In the American West, water adjudication lawsuits are adversarial, expensive, and lengthy. Unsettled Waters is the first detailed study of water adjudications in New Mexico. The state envisioned adjudication as a straightforward accounting of water rights as private property...

Forest fire

Virginia Iglesias: If the trees burn, is the forest lost?

Oct. 25, 2019

Virginia Iglesias Research Scientist Earth Lab Abstract Socio-environmental dynamics are driven by top-down changes in climate and bottom-up positive (destabilizing) and negative (stabilizing) biophysical feedbacks involving disturbance and biotic interactions. When positive feedbacks prevail, the resulting self-propagating changes can potentially shift the system into a new state, even in the...

Aaron Bobrow-Strain colloquium poster

Aaron Bobrow-Strain: The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story

Oct. 18, 2019

Book presentation by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, Author and Professor of Politics at Whitman College. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Geography, Latin American Studies Center, and the Department of Sociology. Book Title The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story (Published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux on...

silhouettes of people helping each other climb a mountain

Max Boykoff: Creative (Climate) Communications: productive pathways for science, policy and society

Oct. 11, 2019

Max Boykoff Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy (CIRES) Associate Professor, Environmental Studies, University of Colorado Boulder. Abstract: Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have remained stuck. The presentation based on a recently published book integrates lessons from social science and humanities research...

data distribution map

Jing Gao: Data-Driven Spatiotemporal Modeling for Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Studies

Oct. 4, 2019

Jing Gao Assistant Professor of Geospatial Data Science Affiliated with the Department of Geography and the Data Science Institute University of Delaware Abstract: Over the 21st century global environmental change may pose critical challenges for societies across the world. To understand its potential impacts, global long-term spatial projections of societal...

Henry Lovejoy colloquium image of free slaves

Henry Lovejoy: The Collapse of the Slave-Trading State of Oyo: A Predictive Model of the Flow of People Involved in Pre-Colonial African Warfare to Cuba, Brazil and Sierra Leone, 1816-1836

Sept. 27, 2019

Henry Lovejoy Assistant Professor, Department of History University of Colorado Boulder Abstract: While scholars have amassed large amounts of data related to the transatlantic slave trade, a more pressing question lingers: Where did those 12.7 million people come from within pre-colonial West Africa before boarding slave ships destined for the...

Woman using surveying equipment

Sharon Bywater-Reyes: Tamarix versus Populus plant traits differentially influence morphodynamics in alluvial rivers

Sept. 13, 2019

Sharon Bywater-Reyes Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science University of Northern Colorado Abstract: The strength of interactions between plants and river processes is dependent on plant traits such as stem density, plant frontal area, and stem bending properties. In many rivers, the composition of riparian vegetation communities has changed because...

Back end of truck with items laying on the ground

Geography PhD Theses Presentations

April 26, 2019

April 26 is the last colloquium of the semester. It features three different graduating PhD students doing short presentations of their theses. Spaces of Diaspora Policy by Aaron Malone This paper examines the transnational / translocal landscapes of migrant organizing and state diaspora policies. Examining early diaspora engagement practices, Smith...

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