The Maya K. Peterson Explorations in History Seminar Series & Thom Gentle Lecture will take place on Thursday, May 2nd, 2024, at 3:00pm at the Cowell Provost House. This event will also be livestreamed and recorded: Maya K. Peterson Explorations in History Seminar Series Lecture.

This year’s guest speaker is Bathsheba Demuth, Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Environment and Society, Brown University. Professor Demuth’s lecture is titled “The Reindeer Herd in the Ruins.”

Climate change is often described in apocalyptic terms: as Armageddon, or the end of the world. Nowhere is this more true than in the Arctic, where the rates of warming are twice that of temperate regions, and have been visible for decades. This talk looks to the history of the Chukchi Peninsula on the far northeastern edge of Russia — a place that has experienced radical changes in the past, first with the founding of the Soviet Union and then with its dissolution — to explore what kinds of narratives suit the experience of radical change. Weaving a story of devoted Bolsheviks, Chukchi nomads, and herds of reindeer, it asks what is lost when we emphasize rupture, and what is gained by paying attention to the ruins left by past ways of living, as we face a transformed Arctic – and planet.

Bathsheba Demuth is a writer and environmental historian specializing in the lands and seas of the Russian and North American Arctic. Her interest in northern places and cultures began when she was 18 and moved to the village of Old Crow in the Yukon, where she trained huskies for several years. From the archive to the dog sled, she is interested in how the histories of people, ideas, and ecologies intersect. In addition to her prize-winning book Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait, her writing has appeared in publications from The American Historical Review to The New Yorker and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. She is currently the Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Environment and Society at Brown University.

The Maya K. Peterson Explorations in History Seminar Series at UCSC honors the life and spirit of a brilliant scholar, teacher, and mentor whose career was cut short by her untimely death in 2021. A specialist in Russian, Central Asian and environmental history, Maya was a valued member of UCSC’s faculty in the History Department and the Humanities Division. The Explorations in History Seminar Series celebrates Maya’s passions for the study of history, for dialogue between the humanities and the sciences, and for innovative scholarship across disciplines—passions that she shared generously with students, colleagues, and communities around the globe.

This year’s event is being sponsored by The Maya K. Peterson Memorial Endowment, the Thom Gentle Endowment in History, and the UCSC History Department.