Coffee With the Curator - The Columbian Exchange

Join us on Thursday, March 20, 2025, at 9:00 AM for Coffee With the Curator at the Museum of World Treasures!

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Attending Information

• Open to all ages
• No need to register; simply walk in!
• Light refreshments provided.

Cost

• Museum Members: Free
• Non-Members: $4 per person plus tax -- Become a Museum Member

Talk Summary

After 1492, the Columbian Exchange changed the planet – its cultures, ecology, disease patterns, and history – as the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere came into (wide-spread) contact for the first time in many thousands of years. We will explore some of these ripples that altered the world by looking at the ways the Columbian Exchange changed the foods we eat, the animals we tend, and the diseases we catch, as well as the changes wrought on cultures all over the world.

Speaker Bio - Dr. Deborah Hann

Dr. Deborah Hann is an Assistant Professor of Geography at Emporia State University’s Social Science Department, where she teaches courses on world regional geography, cultural and human geography, GIS applications, and cartography. She earned her Ph.D. from Texas State University and previously taught at Texas State and Kansas State. Her research explores the geography embedded in everyday material culture—such as cookbooks, literature, and films—to examine how mental maps and perceptions shape our understanding of the world. She also studies how these ideas influence landscapes, with current projects on flood memorialization and the creation of place in food truck culture.