Harpur College Dean’s Distinguished Lecture:
"Piece by Piece: Solving the Puzzle of Rapa Nui"
- Presenter: Carl Lipo, Associate Dean for Research, and Professor of Anthropology
- Date: Thursday, April 16, 2026
- Time: 4:00 p.m.
- Location: Anderson Center, President’s Reception Room
Reception to follow
Abstract:
Rapa Nui (Easter Island) has long captivated the public imagination as one of archaeology's great mysteries. But mysteries imply secrets that resist explanation. Rapa Nui is better understood as a puzzle: a problem with a solution, assembled one piece at a time through careful empirical research. Each piece, when placed correctly, reveals a picture that is strikingly different from the conventional narrative of collapse. The results are counterintuitive: a story not of reckless self-destruction but of a population that found remarkably effective solutions to life on a small, remote island. The final piece of this puzzle led Professor Lipo far from Rapa Nui itself, to Ontong Java, in search of the origins of the moai tradition. This lecture traces that journey of discovery, piece by piece.
Â鶹Éç the Lecture Series
The Harpur College Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series, established in 1998, showcases outstanding faculty research and creative work across disciplines. Open to the public, it offers faculty a platform to engage with peers, students, and the local community.
- Past Harpur College Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series
2025
Neha Khanna, Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies
Race, Place, and Pollution: Redlining, Kinship, and Environmental Justice
2024
Jonathan Karp, Judaic Studies and History
"Everybody’s Doin’ It Now": The Peculiar Place of Jews in Early Jazz
2023
Tom McDonough, Art History
Black Monument: Ed Wilson Shapes African American History into Public Art, 1972-1984
2022
Olga Shvetsova, Political Science
What We Learned about our Governments during this Pandemic
2021
Jaimee Wriston Colbert, English and Creative Writing
Flight of the Palila - From Passion to Eco-Fiction, One Writer's Process
2020
Matt Johnson, Psychology
Predicting Marital Discord & Divorce
2019
Anne Bailey, History
The Weeping Time and Divided America
2018
Max Pensky, Philosophy and Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention
Is the Battle Against Impunity Worth Winning?
2017
Subal Kumbhakar, Economics
Performance, Productivity and Profit: A Primer
2016
Tim Lowenstein, Geological Sciences
Predicting future climate change from study of Earth's past
2015
Nancy Um, Art History
A Mosque, a Tomb, and the Arabian Legacy of Coffee
2014
Benjamin Fordham, Political Science
Protectionist Empire: Trade, Tariffs, and United States Foreign Policy, 1890–1914
2013
Karin Sauer, Biological Sciences
Disarming Biofilms - How to Turn a Microbe Against Itself
2012
Maria Mazziotti Gillan, English
William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, and Paterson: Poets of the City
2011
Donald Quataert, History
Views from Below and the Writing of Ottoman History
2010
Marilynn Desmond, English and Comparative Literature
Transitional Feminism and the Middle Ages
2009
J. Koji Lum, Anthropology and Biological Sciences
Human Settlement and Malaria of the Pacific
2008
Thomas Dublin, History
The Face of Decline - Deindustrialization in Pennsylvania Anthracite Religion