October 14
11:30am
Sage 5711
In and Out of Place
Abstract: During the second half of the 19th century, the United States dispatched legions of survey geologists to Lakotan treaty lands, where they mapped the location and abundance of valuable resources for economic extraction. In the course of this work, scientists also unearthed countless prehistoric fossils in the Badlands of what are now South Dakota and Nebraska, which were then accessioned to the “permanent collections” of museums in urban centers such as Chicago and New York. As they journeyed across the United States, these fossils were stripped of their original meanings and inserted into a new, teleological narrative about the evolutionary history of life on earth. By composing an Earth history they billed as North America’s one true creation story, survey geologists effectively sought to assert mastery over newly colonized lands.
Bio: Lukas Rieppel is a historian of science, capitalism, and museums at Brown University. He published Assembling the Dinosaur in 2019 and he is currently a Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellow, researching the deep history of Lakotan treaty lands. In addition, he is collaborating with the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies in the Pine Ridge Reservation to develop a museum exhibit about vertebrate fossils from the Missouri Watershed.