Humanities Without Walls Funded Projects 2014-2016
Academic administration: Institute for the Humanities / Financial administration: OSSR___________
The Institute for the Humanities is excited to participate in the Humanities Without Walls
consortium. This initiative aims to create new avenues for collaborative research, teaching, and the
production of scholarship in the humanities, forging and sustaining areas of inquiry that cannot be
created or maintained without cross-institutional cooperation. The Humanities Without Walls
consortium will be the first of its kind to experiment at this large scale with cross-institutional
collaboration. The Humanities Without Walls consortium is based at the Illinois Program for Research
in the Humanities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and funded by a grant from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
HWW projects fall 2014 and spring 2015
A Diet of Globalization: The History and Possible Futures of Mexican Foodways
Organized by Christopher Boyer, UIC History and Latin American and Latino Studies Departments
Conference Date: December 4-5, 2014
For the past half-millennium, Mexican foodways have been thoroughly trans-nationalized. Historians are
well aware of what Alfred Crosby dubbed the “Columbian Exchange” in which the massive transfer of
biota between Old and New Worlds brought not only microbes – and hence disease and death to
Amerindian populations – but also new sources of food and environmental change to the Americas. The
face of the Americas, and Mexico in Particular, was transformed by the importation of foodstuffs in the
form of cattle, pigs, and other animals, along with wheat, sugar cane, grapes, weeds, and other plants.
Four hundred years later, a lesser-known but no less epochal transformation of Mexican agriculture,
ecology, and food has radically changed how Mexico produces and eats food. More than a mere shift in
agricultural policy, the globalization of Mexico’s diet has profound consequences for how food is grown,
prepared, and consumed. It is as much a revolution in taste as one of agroecology, and much of it is the
direct result of deliberate policies and market campaigns emanating from the United States.
Despite the pioneering work of historians, scholars have only recently started to study this
transformation in a sustained way. “A Diet of Globalization” explores various aspects of the history of
foodways in modern Mexico. The goal here is not to produce an encyclopedic overview of the
transformation in the production and consumption of food in Mexico (although the guest editor’s
introduction will of course touch on these issues). Rather, we seek to explore various dimensions of the
transnationalization – or rather, Americanization – of Mexican production and consumption of food,
with special emphasis in the green revolution and changing patterns of taste. In particular, we seek to
explore the link between the two.
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Humanities Without Walls Funded Projects 2014-2016
Academic administration: Institute for the Humanities / Financial administration: OSSR___________
Collaborative Collection of Chicago's Community Histories (CCCCH)
Organized by Jennifer Brier, UIC Gender and Women's Studies and History and Elena Gutierrez, UIC
Gender and Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies
“Collaborative Collecting of Chicago’s Community Histories” (CCCCH) seeks to create models
for local community-engaged humanities projects that are globally accessible through digital
technologies. We envision new methods for producing “humanities without walls” that serve to
recast the Midwest as global.
The goal of CCCCH is to convene a group of humanist scholars who work in both the digital
realm and on questions of community-engagement to rethink the historical construction of the
Midwest as a global activist space, and to develop best practices for research and curatorial
process that are participatory and useable in the digital age. We will use the Chicana Chicago
Oral History Project to pilot and develop the methods, practices and resources central to the
vision and goals of History Moves.
Our commitment to collect and share historical materials collected within local Chicago
communities and make those materials accessible online, allows the project to bring global
attention to local organizing of Chicanas in the Midwest. Beyond including these missing voices
in the city's history, oral histories of Chicana in the Midwest fundamentally disrupts paradigms
that shape Chicana/o Studies. While most scholarship is based on Southwestern experiences, our
focus will shift to Chicago, theoretically challenging central paradigms of "the border," Aztlan
and locations of Chicano activism. The project will also demonstrate that activism as it existed
during the 1970s and 1980s was not as U.S.-based as current scholarship purports, but partially
drawn from their involvement in movements and organizing in Mexico. This will add new and
important to evidence of global activism in the city.
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The Great Lakes: Global Water and International Boundaries
Organized by Rachel Havrelock, UIC English
Conference Date: April 23-24, 2015.
Conference Title: “Water After Borders: Global Stakes and Local Politics”
The Great Lakes contain one of the world’s most significant shares of fresh water, a resource necessary
to almost every human endeavor and one that is fast disappearing. Is the water in the Great Lakes a
global resource? Should its use be restricted to the populations on its shores and connected
watersheds? What limits should be placed on the extraction rates of private companies? What role
should private companies take in updating antiquated water infrastructure? How can local governments
and citizen groups balance investment needs and resource protection? Are new local systems of
management necessary to safeguard a water system that, however abundant, is shrinking? The way in
which one approaches these questions has obvious implications for those whose lives and livelihoods
depend on the Great Lakes, but it also matters a great deal on the global scale where eyes are focused
on the interstate and international frameworks that govern extraction and management of the Great
Lakes. What happens with the fresh water of the Midwest matters not only to those in the region, but
also to other parties desirous of access to its waters or looking to this still vital water system as a model.
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Humanities Without Walls Funded Projects 2014-2016
Academic administration: Institute for the Humanities / Financial administration: OSSR___________
The April conference will address transborder legal and political frameworks, as well as the ways in
which class, culture, and gender influence environmental health and access. Topics include water
sharing, toxins, privatization, energy systems, and regionalist approaches.
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"Trans-displacements: Migration, Gentrification and Citizenship"
Organized by Amalia Pallares, UIC Latin American and Latino Studies, and Political Science
Ralph Cintron, UIC English, and Latino and Latin American Studies
Maria de los Angeles Torres, UIC Latin and Latino American Studies
Teresa Cordova, Great Cities Institute
John Betancur, UIC Urban Planning and Policy
November 21, 2014 Workshop with Rodolfo Torres, University of California
May 5-6, 2015 Trans-Displacements Workshop
This project seeks to explore the relationship between migration, gentrification and citizenship.
“Displacement” has become a generalized term for linking issues of migration. However there has been
no systematic analysis of the relationship between the displacement of migration and the displacement
of gentrification. We seek to focus on displacement of people and communities and also on resistances
to displacement. Programs will combine conversations and presentations of efforts of scholars and
practitioners.
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HWW Projects Fall 2015 and spring 2016
The UIC Freshwater Lab
Organized by Rachel Havrelock, UIC English
The planning, management, and conservation of the Great Lakes coalesce as a complex project, vital to
the health and economy of the Midwest at large. Addressing pressing questions such as balancing the
region’s water and energy needs, financing infrastructure improvements, the right to water vs. its
privatization, and the uneven social impacts of toxins requires a multi-disciplinary approach that at once
engages stakeholders in local communities, governmental agencies, the public and private sector. I
propose the first research initiative on the Great Lakes rooted in the Humanities and Social
Sciences. Academic centers supporting Great Lakes research and policy based in Science and
Engineering proliferate across Midwest campuses, but no existing initiative interacts with the scientific
research while endeavoring to address the social, economic, and political dimensions of water
distribution and management. With algae blooms compromising Lake Erie, Detroit residents at risk of
losing water service, Tar Sand and Fracked Gas pipelines surrounding the shores of the lakes, and
drought stricken regions near and far looking to Midwestern water stores, it is a necessary moment for a
humanistic and social-science based approach to water issues.
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Humanities Without Walls Funded Projects 2014-2016
Academic administration: Institute for the Humanities / Financial administration: OSSR___________
Building on the momentum of the Water after Borders: Global Stakes, Local Politics conference, enabled
by the Mellon Foundation, I propose to establish an enduring “lab” for humanistic approaches to Great
Lakes issues. Driven by current and historical problems and triumphs, the Freshwater Lab will convene
conferences, working groups, and courses that explore solutions and creative approaches to pressing
issues. The Freshwater Lab will promote innovative research on the history, policy, and politics of
resource distribution and prepare students in the Humanities for work in public policy and public life.
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Alt-Ac Workshops summer 2015 and 2016
The HWW supported fellowships for pre-doctoral students to participate in a three-week intensive,
residential summer workshop for individuals who are working towards but have not yet received a PhD
in a humanities discipline, and who are considering careers outside the academy and/or the tenuretrack university system. The summer workshops will instruct students in the various ways they can
leverage their pre-existing and developing skill sets towards the pursuit of careers in the public
humanities and the private sector (also sometimes referred to as “alt-ac” careers). Familiarity with the
vital connections between academic and public worlds can also enrich traditional scholarly endeavors.
UIC held competitions for the summer 2015 and 2015 workshops. OSSR managed stipends for selected
graduate students.
Contact: Linda Vavra, 312-996-6354, LVavra@uic.edu
Institute for the Humanities
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