A Seattle Tradition for 50 Years
In 1975, newly retired professor of history, Giovanni Costigan, held the first History Lecture Series. Costigan, a very well-known part of the UW community, began the series as a way to bring history to the wider community and to spark dialogue around important topics. We are proud to continue this legacy thanks to generous support from our alumni and friends. Show your support by making a donation!
2025 History Lecture Series: River Histories
The 50th History Lecture Series ran from January 22 through February 12, 2025. We are grateful for all of our series attendees and the donors who help us sustain this beloved tradition. Click on the links below to watch the lecture recording. We look forward to seeing you in 2026!
January 22 - River of the Gods: The Nile and Ancient Egypt
Joel Walker
Flowing more than 4,000 miles from the highland lakes of East Africa to the Mediterranean, the Nile is Africa’s longest river. Ancient Egyptians honored the river as a god, building temples along its banks and revering the animals nourished by its waters. This lecture examines how the Nile’s geography and ecology underpinned the development of Ancient Egypt; it will also show how the river’s association with divinity has endured beyond antiquity.
January 29 - Ganges: The Many Lives of an Indian River
Anand Yang
No river communicates a more compelling history of South Asia than the Ganges. Stretching from the majestic Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the river has long been revered as a goddess, its sacred waters promising salvation to its millions of devotees. Over the centuries, the Ganges and its tributaries have also been a major natural resource for the highly developed states and societies that emerged in their basins, in recent times supporting a significant proportion of India’s huge population. A source of sustenance—and irrigation, transportation, and power—the Ganges story is about the fascinating and complex dynamics between its waters and religion, culture, economy, politics, and environment.
February 5 - Rio Grande: Boundaries and Borderlands
Raymond Jonas
Rivers are natural entities. Yet while they occupy a more or less fixed pathway on the land, they inhabit a more fluid space in the imagination. From the early days of the American republic, the Rio Grande was a place of speculation, ripe for debate among individuals who had never seen it and never would. Well-known figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John Quincy Adams all found the river a fertile place, but less well-known figures anchored their thoughts there, too. The power of the Rio Grande derived from its capacity to inspire reflection on the proper boundaries between peoples, nations, and races—boundaries negotiated in words but also through violence. Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans all found in the Rio a place to envision the outline of a new global order.
February 12 - The Columbia: Where the Internet Lives
Margaret O'Mara
This final talk in the series brings us back to the Pacific Northwest and the intertwined human and natural histories of the Columbia River. An artery of indigenous commerce, a nexus of the fur trade, a power source for war work, and a water source for industrial-scale agriculture, the mighty Columbia is now home to one of the world’s most notable concentrations of data centers. These enormous facilities, owned and operated by the world’s largest technology companies, are the physical backbone that make cloud computing, social networking, and AI possible. Rooting the story of these centers in a longer history of the river and its human uses not only shows the material and political dynamics of today’s digital economy but also illuminates the connective tissue linking one era of American capitalism to the next.
Resources
Looking for more information on the topics presented in this series? Check out our History Lecture Series Resources page.
Past Series
Check out the Past History Lecture Series page to enjoy over a decade of our renowned HLS lectures on a wide range of themes.
Other Lectures
View other Department of History lectures such as the annual Stephanie M.A. Camp Memorial Lecture on Race and Gender, our Sports History Series, and more.