Embodiment and the Human Experience: New Approaches to Biogeography and History

About This Event

This day-long symposium will bring historians and scientists together to explore the deep relationship between geography, mobility, and the human body across time. Moving beyond abstract ideas of “shaping” the body, we focus on biogeography—real movements of people, animals, and plants—and how those shifts left biological and cultural legacies. Our approach places the early modern world in dialogue with contemporary genetics, opening a conversation about how human variation has been explained, measured, and imagined across disciplines.

Featured Guests

• Benjamin Peter — Biology, University of Rochester
• Nerissa Russell — Archaeology and Anthropology, Cornell University
• Karl Offen — Geography, Syracuse University
• Mackenzie Cooley — History, Hamilton College
• Shoshana Keller — History, Hamilton College
• Eric Tagliacozzo — History, Cornell University
• Junko Takeda — History, Syracuse University
• Ivan Bochkov — Biology, Hamilton College
• Rebecca Gruskin — History, Hamilton College
• Suman Seth — History of Science, Cornell University
• Elise Burton — Keynote Lecturer, History, University of Toronto