Cedar City, UT — Southern Utah University anthropology professor Crystal Riley Koenig will be presenting “From Bedtime for Bonzo to Chimp Crazy: Primates in Entertainment Media” as the 2025 Grace Adams Tanner Distinguished Faculty Lecture. Her lecture will take place on Feb. 13 at 11:30 in the Gilbert Great Hall of the Hunter Alumni Center. All campus and community members are invited to attend.
There has been little systematic research into how primates are portrayed in film despite them having been appearing in entertainment media for more than 100 years. In her lecture, Koenig will discuss her nine years of research, which has attempted to fill this gap, and summarize the vast differences between media’s portrayal and reality. She will also address the real-world significance of her research, including how the skewed representation of primates impacts conservation attitudes and behaviors.
Koenig earned her PhD and MA in biological anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis and an MA in social psychology from New Mexico State University. Her research has focused on the portrayal of primates in media and the overlap of humans and macaques in Singapore. Koenig’s research has been published in American Anthropologist, Biological Conservation, Primates and numerous other journals. For her contributions to her students and her field, she has been honored with several awards, including the SUU Distinguished Educator Award, the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Innovative Pedagogy Award and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Early Career Award.
The Grace A. Tanner Center for Human Values seeks to promote access to scholarly and scientific learning in all areas of human values which embrace moral, artistic, intellectual, and spiritual concepts. For more information about the Grace A. Tanner Center Lecture in Human Values and the center as a whole, visit suu.edu/tanner. Eccles A.P.E.X. has been bringing experts from across various disciplines since 1983. Always free and open to the public, the event series encourages attendees to be passionate about a broad spectrum of thoughts, ideas, disciplines, backgrounds and cultural themes. More information about Eccles A.P.E.X. can be found on their website at suu.edu/apex.