"The Farmer, the Gastronome, and the Chef: In Pursuit of the Ideal Meal," EnviroThursday lecturer for the Environmental Studies Program and Featured Spring Speaker for the Food, Agriculture, and Society concentration, Macalester College, 6 March 2025
"Contemporary Developments in the Environmental Humanities" (with Alexa Weik von Mossner), Transatlantic Conversations Series on "Science, Technology and Innovation for a Sustainable Future," University of California, Berkeley, Austrian Studies Program, 6 October 2021
"Sustainability in the Anthropocene," Energy Club, University of Minnesota, 28 April 2021
"Space, Land, and Environmental Humanities," CLA: Time Past, Time Present, Time Future, University of Minnesota, 12 October 2018
"Spirit of the Soil: The Agrarian Roots of Contemporary Food Politics," University of Erfurt, Germany, 24 May 2018
"Environmental Ethics and the Built Environment: Narratives, Histories, Futures," MnDOT Environmental Stewardship Conference, Rules and Tools for Changing Environments, St. Paul, Minn., 19 April 2017
"Writing from Plow to Plate: How Nonfiction Writing Shaped the Sustainable Food Movement," Eating, Reading & Living Well series, Merriam Park Library, St. Paul, Minn., 28 May 2015
"Humanities of Scale," Teaching Sustainability: Partnering across Disciplines for Place-Based Learning, Third Annual Sustainability Community of Practice, Indiana University, 11 May 2015
"The Nature of Slow Food," Boise State University, 12 March 2013
"Mapping Sustainable Food Discourse," University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 11 February 2011
"Our Neck of the Woods: Exploring Minnesota's Wild Places," Linnaeus Arboretum at Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn., 3 March 2010
"Telling Tales of Environmental Change," Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association Education Day, University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 21 March 2006
"Beyond Ideology: Why Stories Matter to Environmental Ethics," Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Ecological Services Division Annual Meeting, St. Cloud, Minn., 23 February 2006
"Rewilding A Sand County Almanac: What Literary History Can Tell Us about Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic," University of Virginia, 5 April 2004
"Wonderful Life: Religion and the Ethics of Conservation," Biology, Ethics and Belief: New Dialogues in Science and Religion, Luther Seminary, 25 March 2004
"How We Became 'Green': A Brief History of Environmentalism," Pennsylvania Alliance for Environmental Education Conference, Lancaster, Penn., 15 November 2002
"Rachel Carson's Legacy: Science, Writing, and Environmental Rhetoric," Forty Years after Silent Spring: Lessons Learned, Lessons Ignored, University of Minnesota, Rochester, 9 November 2002
Using the tools of the humanities to interpret and address environmental problems.