VOYAGER LECTURE SERIES

Seeking the Wildest West:
Histories of Wilderness Experiences and Challenges To Their Future

Dr. Brenden Rensink

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Social Hour at 6:30p // Presentation at 7:30p

What does it mean to experience the West as truly wild—and what will it take to keep it that way?
Join historian Dr. Brenden Rensink for an engaging exploration of the American West and our evolving relationship with wilderness. Drawing on histories of outdoor experience, recreation, conservation, and the landscapes themselves, Dr. Rensink examines how generations have sought out, understood, and shaped the idea of the “wild” West.

Looking to the future, the conversation will consider the growing challenges facing these treasured places and ask what the history of wilderness can teach us about preserving meaningful encounters with wild landscapes for generations to come.

Brenden W. Rensink is Professor of History at Brigham Young University and Associate Director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. A historian of the American West, borderlands, Indigenous peoples, environment, genocide studies, and religion, his recent books include the award-winning Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands (2018) and Essays on American Indian and Mormon History (2019), and The North American West in the Twenty-First Century (2022). He is Project Manager and General Editor of the Intermountain Histories digital public history project, Host and Producer of the Writing Westward Podcast, and editor of the University of New Mexico Press “The West in Context” series. Rensink is currently researching environmental and cultural histories of “wilderness” adventuring and experience in the West.

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