Barbara A. Barnes is a Senior Lecturer of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches classes on settler colonialism and meanings of nature in the United States. She has also written about representation of natural landscapes as so-called empty background for human adventure, what it takes to show land as empty, and the effects of this.

Although she has relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, she was born and raised in northern Utah and is the descendent of Mormon settler colonists who claimed land in Salt Lake City, St. George, Kanab, and the Arizona Strip.

She has had a life-long relationship with Utah’s public lands, and her interests, friendships, family, and politics have all been shaped by the influence of this land.

She lives with her partner, Eric Chesmar and her cat Emma. In her spare time, she likes to travel (to Utah whenever possible!), read, watch films, bicycle, swim, kayak, and learn about craft beer.