Dr. Kim TallBear, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, will speak on The Indian’s Death to Make Settler "Indigenous" Life: Genetics, Ancestry, and Self-Indigenization in the USA and Canada

Join us for a book talk with Dr. Teresa Mares, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Vermont and '02 alum of the CSU [...]

Scientific models play a crucial role in many policymaking decisions. Underlying the use of these models for policymaking purposes is the extensive use of idealization and values. This interdisciplinary workshop seeks to investigate the roles that idealization, values, and models play in scientific policymaking and how their contributions are assessed and managed. The workshop will bring together philosophers and scientists working at the intersections of these areas in the hopes of bridging gaps between the scientific modeling literature, literatures surrounding the role of values in science, and discussions of science-based policy construction.  

Scientific models play a crucial role in many policymaking decisions. Underlying the use of these models for policymaking purposes is the extensive use of idealization and values. This interdisciplinary workshop seeks to investigate the roles that idealization, values, and models play in scientific policymaking and how their contributions are assessed and managed. The workshop will bring together philosophers and scientists working at the intersections of these areas in the hopes of bridging gaps between the scientific modeling literature, literatures surrounding the role of values in science, and discussions of science-based policy construction.  

Please join the Blake Center in April 2026 for our first Humanities Research Day! This event builds on our past end of the year events [...]

This paper aims to contribute to developing fruitful connections between animal ethics and feminist philosophy by way of a discussion of ‘worlds’ in the work of philosopher Maria Lugones and biologist Jakob von Uexküll. Lugones’s understanding of worlds and Uexküll’s zoosemiotic approach to an animal’s environment (Umwelt) both elaborate worlds in ways complementary to each other, as constructed and plural frameworks of meaning, sense, and practice. Dr. Lopez argues that we can draw important insights for traveling to the worlds of animals from both Lugones and Uexküll. The former can help us more fully, openly, and lovingly understand animals as subjects of worlds who participate in their construction, while the latter can help us reinterpret ethological research to understand how animals construct worlds, how we are constructed in them, and what kinds of alternative constructions and worlds are possible between humans and animals.