Profs. Rachel Havrelock and Lisa Freeman Honored with Awards for Creative Activity
The winners of the 2019 UIC Awards for Creative Activity have been announced, and UIC English professor and Director of the Freshwater Lab Rachel Havrelock and professor and Head of the Department Lisa Freeman are among the honorees.
Out of 79 applications from humanities, arts, and social sciences faculty for funding of special creative projects, 45 were chosen. All proposals were reviewed by at least three UIC faculty and subsequently by a panel comprised of the Awards for Creative Activity Review Committee.
Profs. Freeman and Havrelock's project descriptions are below.
Project Descriptions Heading link
R/18: Re-Activating the Repertoire, A Performance Research Collective for Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama (Lisa Freeman)
R/18 is a multi-year international partnership between theatre practitioners, companies, and scholars of performance devoted to opening new horizons for theatrical research and the production of plays from the long eighteenth century (1660-1850). Our objectives are threefold: to deepen and diversify the repertoire of plays currently being produced; to engage theatre-going publics in the project of restoring vital scripts to life; and to act as drivers of performance research and performance pedagogy in the field. In addition to exploring collaborative work with various theatres, directors, and producers, the award will support both a graduate workshop and a scholarly and artistic symposium to be held respectively in Spring 2021 and Fall 2021under the auspices of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library.
Chicago River Campus (Rachel Havrelock)
In 1900 the Chicago River was reversed to flow backward, away from the city and toward storied American rivers that empty into the Gulf of Mexico. A watercourse that had meandered through wetlands and emptied into Lake Michigan became the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a name born of its dual purpose. For one hundred and twenty years, the canal has moved human waste and industrial refuse southward and circulated raw materials and commodities by barge. More than a retrospective, our research documents a contemporary moment in which the canal has been rebranded as the Chicago River. Our multidisciplinary study of real estate patterns, urban communities, legacy pollution, and water ecosystems will result in five field stations along the river. At the field stations, UIC faculty and students in conjunction with community members will reflect and reimagine the waterway through artistic and public humanities events.