Upcoming events
“Wild Words: Poetry & Prairie.” Reading and walk, Kauffman Museum, Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, 7 October 2023.
Past public and scholarly presentations
Wild Words showcase. Panel participant, Kansas Book Festival, Topeka, Kansas, 16 September 2023.
“The Possibilities of Place: Building a Digital and Material Commons in Public Environmental Humanities.” Panel participant, Association for the Study of Literature & Environment conference, Portland, Oregon, 9-12 July 2023.
Agroecology Summit: Co-Creating a Research Roadmap for the USA. Theme facilitator, Excelsior Springs, Missouri, 22-25 May 2023.
“Learning the Roots of the Plants We Live By.” Invited keynote presentation, University of Nebraska Center for Great Plains Studies Conference, Plant to Table: Food Production, Culture, and Consequences on the Great Plains, 18-20 April 2023.
“Realizing Roots: Toward More Just, Diverse, and Perennial Grain Agroecosystems.” Invited presentation, Union College Environmental Science, Policy & Engineering Program Winter Seminar Series, Schenectady, New York, 22 February 2023.
“Perennializing the Great Plains.” Invited webinar with Timothy Crews, University of Northern Illinois Innovation Conversation, 9 February 2023.
“Toward a Perennial Future for the Prairie Region.” Invited presentation, Friends of Konza Prairie, 29 January 2023.
“Sustainable Agriculture, Native Plants, and Perennial Grains.” Invited presentation, Northwest Arkansas Community College, 14 November 2022.
“Umóⁿhoⁿ Ethnobotany.” Project presentation with Kelly Kindscher, Vida Stabler, Pat Phillips, and Brye Lefler, Umóⁿhoⁿ Nation Public School, Macy, Nebraska, 3 November 2022.
“Biogeography of Intermediate Wheatgrass.” Invited keynote presentation with Omar Tesdell, Kernza®CAP all-hands digital meeting, 24 October 2022.
Prairie Festival, The Land Institute, 23-25 September 2022.
“Edible Plant & Wildflower Tour.” Guided tour with David Van Tassel and Marilyn Jones, Flint Hills Counterpoint, 10 September 2022.
“Realizing Roots: Perennial Grain Ag and Culture in a Time of Climate Change.” Invited presentation, Transylvania University, online event, 18 May 2022.
“Roots of Resilience: Soil Communities, Participatory Science, and Environmental Justice.” Lightning talks event, Lawrence Public Library, 23 May 2022.
“Plants We Live By: Humility, Creativity, and Perennial Grain Civic Science.” Invited keynote, University of Minnesota Plant Sciences Symposium, online event, 15 April 2022.
“Researchers as Learners: Building More Inclusive, Just, and Perennial Practices with Agroecological Civic Science Communities.” Invited symposium presentation with Anna Andersson, International Association for Landscape Ecology North America conference, online event, 12 April 2022.
“New Roots: An Introduction to The Land Institute.” Kansas Sierra Club, online event, 28 January 2022.
“Science, Community, Story: Social Learning for a Just Perennial Future.” Invited presentation, Minnesota Organic Conference, online event, 7 January 2022.
“Spotlight on Care: Learning to Live Within Limits.” Invited webinar, University of Kansas Commons, 2 December 2021.
“A Perennial Revolution of Agriculture—is it desirable, possible, imminent?” Panel with Lennart Olsson, Tim Crews, Pheonah Nabukalu, Fengyi Hu, Anna Westerbergh, and Omar Tesdell. UN Food Systems Summit 2021 side event, 6 July 2021.
“Healing Land and Community.” Keynote conversation with Liz Carlisle, Grain School, University of Colorado-Colorado Springs and Colorado Grain Chain, online event, 3 April 2021.
“How Disciplines Can Work Together.” Invited panel participant, Climate Change & Culture in the Great Plains, Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, online event, 2 April 2021.
“Ecosphere Studies: Learning and Unlearning for a Perennial Future.” Invited webinar, University of Guelph, 18 November 2020.
“De Novo Domestication in the Age of Gene Editing.” Roundtable with David Van Tassel and Lee DeHaan. Tri-Societies conference (American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, & Soil Science Society of America), 13 November 2020.
“Collaborative Land Restoration for Resilience.” Invited roundtable participant, Regenerate conference (Quivira Coalition, Holistic Management International, American Grassfed Organization), 9 November 2020.
“Crossing the Threshold into Diverse, Perennial Agriculture.” Invited public keynote, Let’s Grow conference, KC Farm School, 7 November 2020.
“An Integrative Story: Civic Science Communities for Perennial Crops and People.” Invited webinar, Center for the Study of the American West, West Texas A&M University, 1 October 2020.
“Perennial Practice.” Interactive session, series on Agriculture, Craft, and Food Justice, Socially Engaged Craft Collective, 24 June 2020.
“How to Get Off Fossil Fuels Quickly—and Fairly.” Webinar with Stan Cox, Wes Jackson, and Robert Jensen, Yes! Magazine, City Lights, and Land Institute, 23 May 2020.
“Caring for the Ecosphere.” Invited public keynote, Green Lands Blue Waters 2019 Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 20 November 2019.
“Caring for the Ecosphere.” Invited public keynote, Down to Earth: Nourishing Change in the Champlain Valley, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, 15 November 2019.
“Persistent Plant Science: Stories from the Lab to the Field.” Invited public keynote with Tim Crews, NEA Big Read: Wichita Public Library, Botanica, Wichita, Kansas, 9 October 2019.
“Ecosphere Studies Update.” Prairie Festival, The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas, 28 September 2019.
“Diversity and Perenniality in Contemporary Agroecological Storytelling.” Panel organizer and participant, Association for the Study of Literature & Environment, Davis, California, 26-30 June 2019.
“A Social Perennial Vision.” Invited public keynote with Omar Imseeh Tesdell, Is the Future of Agriculture Perennial Conference, Pufendorf Institute of Advanced Studies at Lund University and The Land Institute, Lund, Sweden, 8 May 2019.
“Care Work in the Field.” Is the Future of Agriculture Perennial Conference, Pufendorf Institute of Advanced Studies at Lund University and The Land Institute, Lund, Sweden, 8 May 2019.
“Virtues of Place: Wendell Berry and Rural Kansas.” Invited panel with Jeffrey Bilbro and Jack Baker, Sterling College, Sterling, Kansas, 29 April 2019.
“Ecosphere Studies.” Crafting the Long Tomorrow, University of Arizona, 21-24 February 2019.
“Conversation with Brooke Hecht and Aubrey Streit Krug.” Prairie Festival, The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas, 30 September 2018.
“Ecosphere Studies Update.” Prairie Festival, The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas, 29 September 2018.
“Perennial Healing: Agriculture in the Ecosphere.” Invited presentation, Institute for Human and Planetary Health, Doane University, Crete, Nebraska, 15 September 2018.
“Plants, Place, Planet.” Invited workshop for Kansas City Design Center’s West Bottoms Reborn, Kansas City, Missouri, 28 April 2018.
“Ecology.” Invited panel with Bob Hagen and Marguerite Perret. Big Botany Symposium, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 28 March 2018.
“Ecosphere Studies.” Invited Lunch & Learn presentation for the League of Women Voters of Salina, Salina Public Library, Salina, Kansas, 13 February 2018.
“My Life in the Ecosphere.” Invited sermon for the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Salina, Salina, Kansas, 28 January 2018.
“Teaching and Learning the Stories of Standing Rock and #noDAPL.” Roundtable organizer and participant, Modern Language Association, New York City, New York, 5 January 2018.
“Talking Plants: Making Kin with Our Rooted Relations.” Invited conversation with Wendy Makoons Geniusz and Claire Pentecost, Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois, 2 December 2017.
“Healing Roots: Indigenous Plant Knowledge in Tallgrass Prairie Literature.” Invited talk for the Center for Kansas Studies, Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, 14 November 2017.
“Storytelling and Environmental Justice in the West.” Panel with Kyle Bladow and Jennifer Case, Western Literature Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 25-28 October 2017.
“WLA and the Public Humanities.” Invited panel with Audrey Goodman, Christine Bold, and Krista Comer, Western Literature Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 25-28 October 2017.
“Plants, Place, Planet.” Invited workshop for Kansas City Design Center’s West Bottoms Reborn, Perennial Agriculture Project Field Station, Lawrence, Kansas, 16 October 2017.
“Stories for the Long Game.” Invited conversation with Brooke Hecht and Gavin Van Horn, Headwaters Conference: Science, Story, and Justice, Western State Colorado University, 6-8 October 2017.
“Ecosphere Studies Update.” Presentation with Bill Vitek and Wes Jackson, Prairie Festival, The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas, 23 September 2017.
“Mentoring Relationships and Diverse Professional Paths in the Environmental Humanities: Graduate Student and Early Career Special Session.” Roundtable organizer and participant, Association for the Study of Literature & Environment, Detroit, Michigan, 20-24 June 2017.
“Ecosphere Studies: Recovering Our Membership in ‘Earth Alive!’” Panel organizer and participant, Association for the Study of Literature & Environment, Detroit, Michigan, 20-24 June 2017.
“The New Emergency: Ecosphere Studies and the Future University.” Workshop led with Chris Brown, Matt Burke, John Head, Wes Jackson, and Bill Vitek, Series on The Future University, The Commons, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 13 April 2017.
“Shifting Ground: Dynamic Personal Maps on the Great Plains.” Panel with Great Plains Graduate Fellows, University of Nebraska Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, 30-31 March 2017.
“Environmental Justice and Indigenous Plant Knowledge.” Invited keynote on the environment co-presented with Alicia Harris, Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference, Bethel College, Newton, Kansas, 10 Feb. 2017.
“Ecospheric Studies.” Presentation with Bill Vitek and Wes Jackson, Prairie Festival, The Land Institute, Salina, Kansas, 24 September 2016.
“Development of a Native Language Textbook: An Update on the Omaha Language Textbook of UNL & UNPS.” Presentation with Rory Larson and Bryan James Gordon, Siouan-Caddoan Language Conference, Newkirk, Oklahoma, 20-22 May 2016.
“Forms of Knowledge about Plants: The Botanical Survey of Nebraska and the Bessey Herbarium.” Nineteenth Century Studies Association, Lincoln, Nebraska, 13-16 April 2016.
“Before Black Elk: John G. Neihardt’s Omaha Stories.” University of Nebraska Press and Center for Great Plains Studies Special Symposium on The Epic Neihardt: The Life and Literature of John G. Neihardt, Lincoln, Nebraska, 10 Feb. 2016.
“Learning from the Teachings of Plants in Braiding Sweetgrass.” Association for the Study of Literature & Environment, Moscow, Idaho, 23-27 June 2015.
“Learning the Language of Relation: Plants, Peoples, and the Ethnobotany of Melvin R. Gilmore.” Western Literature Association, Victoria, British Columbia, 5-8 Nov. 2014.
“Critical Plant Studies on the Great Plains.” Willa Cather Spring Conference, Red Cloud, Nebraska, 5-7 June 2014.
“Reproducing Plant Bodies on the Great Plains.” Rhetoric Society of America, San Antonio, Texas, 22-26 May 2014.
“Just Dust: Native and Settler Poetics of Drought.” University of Nebraska Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1-4 April 2014.
“Solving for Perennial Patterns: Composing Place-Conscious Citizenship.” Association for the Study of Literature & Environment, Lawrence, Kansas, 28 May-1 June 2013.
“Thinking Like a Prairie: A Contemporary Land Ethic in Great Plains Literature.” Western Literature Association, Lubbock, Texas, 7-10 Nov. 2012.
“Ethnobotany as Literature, Plants as Peoples: Stories of Relations on the Great Plains.” Under Western Skies 2: Environment, Community, and Culture in North America, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta, 10-13 Oct. 2012.
“Education and the Effects of 1862 in Francis La Flesche’s The Middle Five.” University of Nebraska Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, 28-30 March 2012.
“A ‘Native’ Great Plains Agrarianism?” Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, Bloomington, Indiana, 21-26 June 2011.
“From the Plains to the Tatras: Learning and Teaching Place-Consciousness in Contemporary Slovakia.” University of Nebraska Center for Great Plains Studies Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, 7-9 April 2010.