Are you interested in hearing about how humanities scholars are linking COVID to pre-existing conditions like the global water crisis? If you are then join the second lecture in HRI’s “Out of Isolation” series, featuring Rachel Havrelock from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

An awardee of The Andrew W. Mellon-funded Humanities Without Walls project’s Grand Research Challenge grants and a professor of English, Professor Havrelock has dedicated the last several years to founding and directing the UIC Freshwater Lab, a humanities-based initiative focused on research, teaching, and public awareness about the Great Lakes.  The Lab’s Freshwater Stories digital storytelling site makes the latest research on Lake Michigan available and actionable for the general public.  The Freshwater Lab’s latest project traces the path of Chicago’s wastewater from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. Rachel has done all this while continuing to pursue her research on water in the Middle East via a book project about the world’s first transnational oil pipeline, which ran from Kirkuk to Haifa.

Rachel’s focus on the water crisis that preceded the pandemic is a vital part of local, national, and global conversations about the underlying conditions which COVID has exacerbated in ways that disproportionately impact the most vulnerable communities.

Register here:

https://calendars.illinois.edu/detail/6807/33385833