Lukas Rieppel
Biography
Lukas Rieppel is researching the deep history of Lakotan Treaty Lands. In addition to documenting the role played by the Earth sciences in colonizing the Missouri watershed, he is working with collaborators in the Pine Ridge Reservation to design an exhibit that re-interprets prehistoric fossils from Lakotan treaty lands. This exhibit will focus on the lands, philosophies, and citizens of a tribal nation whose ongoing presence is central to a fuller understanding of the fossilized bones of animals currently on display all over the world, the site where they had been for millions of years, and their journey to imperial museums of natural history.
Publications
“Earth Science and Extractive Capitalism in the Age of Empire.” In Handbook of the Historiography of the Earth and Environmental Sciences, edited by Elena Aronova, David Sepkoski, and Marco Tamborini, 1–24. Springer, 2023. [https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-92679-3_16-1]
“Locating the Central Asiatic Expedition: Epistemic Imperialism in Vertebrate Paleontology,” co- authored with Yu-chi Chang, Isis, vol. 14, no. 114, pp. 725-746. [https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/727563]
Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2019. [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674737587]