Daniel Lanza Rivers, an Associate Professor of American Studies and Literature, will share research from their forthcoming book, California Futures: Speculative Ecologies, Decolonial Relations (Duke University Press), including a discussion of the ways that colonial and ecological violence shaped grizzly eradication. Daniel's talk will end with an exploration of contemporary calls for reintroduction, including the intersections between the #LandBack movement and contemporary conservation and "rewilding" efforts. 

Daniel Lanza Rivers is a scholar and teacher in the areas of environmental humanities, American studies, queer studies, and U.S. literature. Daniel was named a 2024 Lambda Literary Fellow in Creative Nonfiction, and their writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, American Quarterly, Terrain.org, Women's Studies, and, most recently, in the collection Writing the Golden State: the New Literary Terrain of California. Daniel also directs the SJSU Center for Steinbeck Studies, a public humanities hub.