Robin Wall Kimmerer visits Cornell
Partners across Cornell University are thrilled to welcome Robin Wall Kimmerer to campus on November 1. Robin is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is also the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim.
All events listed below are open to the public.
12:20pm-1:10pm | Warren Hall 401 and Zoom
Land Justice: Engaging Indigenous Knowledge For Land Care
Distinguished Speaker in Global Development and American Indian & Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) Seminar
What might Land Justice look like? Dr. Kimmerer will explore Indigenous perspectives on land conservation, from biocultural restoration to Land Back. This discussion invites listeners to consider how engaging Traditional Ecological Knowledge contributes to justice for land and people.
Registration is not required for in-person attendance. Registration is required for Zoom attendance.
3:30pm-4:45pm | Warren Hall 401 and Zoom
Professional Development Session: Restoration and Reciprocity
Ecological restoration can be understood as an act of reciprocity, in return for the gifts of the earth. This session explores the ecological and ethical imperatives of healing the damage we have inflicted on our land and waters. We trace the evolution of restoration philosophy and practice and consider how integration of indigenous knowledge can expand our understanding of restoration from the biophysical to the biocultural. Reciprocal restoration includes not only healing the land, but our relationship to land. In healing the land, we are healing ourselves.
Registration is not required for in-person attendance. Registration is required for Zoom attendance.
7:15pm | Bethe House
Book Talk: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
This conversation will explore the dominant themes of Braiding Sweetgrass which include the cultivation of a reciprocal relationship with the living world. Attendees are invited to consider what we might learn if we understood plants as our teachers, from both a scientific and an indigenous perspective. This open discussion includes a look at the stories and experiences that shaped the author. Questions are encouraged.
Registration is required for in-person attendance.
Want to engage more on this topic? Join the virtual book club!
Interested in reading Braiding Sweetgrass before Robin’s visit on Wednesday, November 1? Sign up to join our virtual book club for the month of October. Limited free copies of the book are available, and the e-book is available for free through Cornell Library.
About the speaker:
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.
Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.
As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.
Co-sponsors:
Campus Sustainability OfficeCornell Environmental Collaborative (ECO)Department of Global DevelopmentAmerican Indian & Indigenous Studies ProgramCornell Botanic GardensEinhorn Center for Community EngagementNative American Indigenous Students at CornellCornell Atkinson Center for SustainabilityEngagement and Land Grant AffairsDepartment of AnthropologyNorth Campus Faculty ProgramsMasters of Public Health ProgramWest Campus HousesDepartment of Natural Resources & the EnvironmentHousing & Residential Life
