The Visiting Artists Program resource guides contain upcoming speakers' biographies, articles, video and audio content, related publications in the Flaxman Library, and additional online resources. These guides may be used in the classroom in preparation for the event, research, or post-lecture discussion.
Robin Wall Kimmerer: Tuesday, March 10, 6:00–7:15 p.m. CT
Zoom Webinar
This event will be live captioned by Communication Access Realtime Translation services.
Join us for a virtual conversation between author Robin Wall Kimmerer and Sekile Nzinga followed by an audience Q&A.
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. Kimmerer’s newest book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, is a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
Kimmerer 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 The State University of New York College (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 bachelor of science in Botany from SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry, a master of science and doctorate 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.
This Q&A is presented in partnership with SAIC’s Visiting Artists Program and Office of Campus Enrichment on the occasion of SAIC’s Shared Read, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants. Each year SAIC designates a Shared Read, an annual, School-wide reading of a text to create a foundational and integrative learning experience for all members of the School community. Vice President of the Office of Campus Enrichment Sekile Nzinga will engage in conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer about the motivations and ideas behind her work.
Image Credit: Robin Wall Kimmerer. Photo credit: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Reciprocity: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Natural World
Mary Evelyn Tucker | Yale Environment 360 | February 18, 2025
Weaving Indigenous and Western science: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s vision for healing our relationship with nature
Lindsey Jean Schueman | One Earth | January 21, 2025
Robin Wall Kimmerer, The 100 Most Influential People of 2025
Elizabeth Gilbert | Time | April 16, 2025
Expressions of Gratitude: Two Indigenous Scholars Share Their Experiences with the Work of Robin Wall Kimmerer
Danielle Ignace, Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles | Bulletin Ecological Society of America | May 9, 2024
Hearing the Language of Trees
Robin Wall Kimmerer | Yes! | October 29, 2021
Robin Wall Kimmerer: 'People can’t understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how'
James Yeh | The Guardian | May 23, 2020
Robin Wall Kimmerer and Deep Listening: Practicing an Ecology of Communication
William Homestead | About Place Journal, vol. 7 (4) | October 2023
A walk through a 'wild place' with Robin Wall Kimmerer [Podcast Episode]
Talk of Iowa | Charity Nebbe, Dani Gehr, Neve Kelley | September 12, 2025 | Please note this podcast does not provide transcripts
Revisiting Plants, Moss And Indigenous Roots: Robin Wall Kimmerer On Access Utah [Podcast Episode]
Tom Williams | Access Utah | Utah Public Radio | March 25, 2025 | Please note this podcast does not provide transcripts
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
by
Gathering Moss
by
Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a commonbut largely unnoticed element of the natural world. GatheringMoss is a beautifully written mix of science and personalreflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantlysimple lives of mosses.
The Serviceberry
by
An Instant New York Times Bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world. As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry's relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth--its abundance of sweet, juicy berries--to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, "Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency." As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is "a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world." The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that "hoarding won't save us, all flourishing is mutual." Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.
Plant, Baby, Plant
New endeavor to create a grassroots movement to save the earth from the "Drill, Baby, Drill" mindset.
Center for Native Peoples and the Environment
Dr. Kimmerer is the founding director of the CNPE whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.
SAIC's Braiding Sweetgrass Resource Guide
Visiting Artists Program Lecture Recordings from the Archive
SAIC Visiting Artists Program video and audio lecture recordings (1977–present.) Available with SAIC login credentials.
SAIC Digital Collections: Visiting Artists Program
SAIC Visiting Artists Program publicity archive and audio recordings (1977–98).