Caine to Give Sandeen Lecture at UW Dec. 9

Allison Caine, a University of Wyoming assistant professor in cultural anthropology, will deliver this year's Sandeen Lecture in the Humanities Monday, Dec. 9, at 4 p.m. in Room 506 of Coe Library.

Caine's lecture is titled "The Herder's Laboratory: Indigenous Climate Science in the Peruvian Andes."

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 likewise are 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.

Caine's lecture will consider what the alpaca herders of the Andes can tell us about the state of planet and the complicated practices of being in relation with others in a time of global instability.

The Sandeen Lecture in the Humanities is named for Eric Sandeen, founding director of the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research. The lecture is co-sponsored by the institute and the Wyoming Humanities Council.

The Sandeen Lecture takes place annually in December, on the Monday of finals week. Each year, the faculty fellows in the institute's Humanities Research Group vote to decide which fellow will deliver the lecture.

For more information about the event, including a link for the livestream of the lecture, visit the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research's website at www.uwyo.edu/humanities/sandeen-lecture.html.