The Mountain Studies Lecture Series
The Mountain Studies Lecture Series was born out of the 2019 International Mountain Studies Symposium, hosted by the Center for Appalachian Studies. The one-day academic event brought together international scholars specializing in mountain studies across the globe to engage with students, faculty and the community at Appalachian State University's Boone campus.
Read more about the history of the Mountain Studies Lecture Series.
2026 Mountain Studies Lecture
Lecture: "Ninaistákis, Home of Thunder: Chief Mountain as a Blackfoot Chronotype" with Dr. María Nieves Zedeño
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2026
Time: 7–8 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Lecture begins at 7:00 p.m. Q&A to follow.)
Format: In-Person
Location: Plemmons Student Union 420 (Parkway Ballroom), Appalachian State University
Description: Across the world, mountain landscapes contain significant social, political, and spiritual values beyond unique ecologies and resources. Such significance evolves through time alongside the people who use them. The northern Rocky Mountain Front, headwaters of North America’s divides, figures prominently in the origins and cultural development of both Plains and Mountain aboriginal groups who traversed or inhabited it. Named Ninaistákis by the Blackfoot, Chief Mountain rises in striking contrast with surrounding peaks, providing a landmark for mobile bison hunters who not only traversed its base but ascended its cliffs to obtain knowledge and power. While archaeological remains on and around Chief Mountain attest to the antiquity of these interactions, the contemporary Blackfoot preserve oral traditions of the spiritual forces who inhabit it as well as ancient ceremonial practices that connect people to its power. Here, Zedeño proposes that Chief Mountain is a kind of chronotope where time and space fuse and thus stands as a monument to the community, its symbol, and a force that helps shape identity and belonging.
Details: This event is free and open to the public with no ticketing or registration required. For a disability accommodation, visit odr.appstate.edu.
Host: The Appalachian State University College of Arts and Sciences
Questions? Please contact the College of Arts and Sciences at cas@appstate.edu or (828) 262-3078.
About Dr. Zedeño
Dr. María Nieves Zedeño is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.
Since 1994, she has devoted her research to Applied Archaeology with Native Americans in several regions of the United States and Canada, and especially with member tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Her research focuses on landscape theory and method, mobile hunters and, most recently, the peopling of the Rocky Mountain West.
Zedeño co-directs the interdisciplinary Blackfoot Early Origins Program, which integrates oral tradition and science.