HX Course Showcases
Each spring, our HumanitiesX cohort teaches the inaugural versions of the new, project-based community-engaged courses that they've collaboratively designed. These showcase pages share a closer look at each course and some reflections from the fellows on lessons learned.
2024-2025: HumanitiesX Cohort
Team Lumpen Radio
From FM Waves to Activism: Latinx Empowerment through Community Radio
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professor Yoalli partnered with Lumpen Radio to explores the relationship between community radio and Latino migrant communities in Chicago, focusing on how radio serves as a vital platform for social justice. Students engaged in activities including scripting, recording, and producing radio segments. The culminating community audio portraits were presented as part of a live broadcast event at Lumpen Radio Station.</p></div>
Team Women for Economic Justice
Solidarity Economy: Creating Change Through Feminist Filmmaking
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Sanjukta Mukherjee and Anuradha Rana worked with community partner Women for Economic Justice to examine how global economic shifts, migration, and social and political crises disproportionally impact working-class immigrant women of color. Students collaboratively produced short, advocacy-focused documentaries highlighting programs and practitioners at the WEJ community center for public screening.</p></div>
Team Women for Green Spaces
Environmental Placemaking: Building Community for Environmental Justice
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professor Win Curran partnered with Women for Green Spaces to explore the process of environmental placemaking and how organizations and community members are advocating for more and better green space in Pilsen. Students created learning materials and activities that advocate for more and better green space in Pilsen and educate about the neighborhood’s history of environmental injustice.</p></div>
Team Sanctuary Working Group
Immigration, Asylum, and Hospitality: Creating Interactive Stories of Migration Journeys to a Home in Chicago
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Lien Tran and Ramya Ramanath partnered with Sanctuar Working Group to examine the lived experiences of migrants seeking asylum and navigating housing options in the United States through the lens of oral history interviews and interactive storytelling. Students worked collaboratively to create interactive stories that archive of how a diverse group of migrants find and make home in Chicago.</p></div>
2023-2024: Democracy & Rights
Team CRLN on Latin America
Historical Memory Project: Ni Olvido, Ni Perdón
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Lydia Saravia and Susana Martínez worked with community partner Chicago Religious Leadership Network to examine the ways organized communities in Central America have worked with human rights groups in the US to document and understand past injustices. Students explored how local activists/artists participate in political movements and preserve historic memory, putting these lessons to work in a culminating and interactive public art event.</p></div>
Team Gerber/Hart Library
DO SAY GAY: Banned Books and LGBTQ+ Freedoms
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Barrie Borich and Heather Montes Ireland partnered with Gerber/Hart LGBTQ+ Library and Archives to explore the role of LGBTQ+ libraries in preserving queer history and community. Students studied theory about censorship, LGBTQ+ rights, and democracy while reading banned books about LGBTQ+ lives and working towards a final, collaborative exhibition.</p></div>
Team Alliance Française de Chicago
Experiencing Democracy in America
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors David Lay Williams and Matt Maguire partnered with Alliance Française de Chicago to examine the role of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America today. Students participated in civic activities across the quarter while conducting a close reading of Tocqueville’s text and working towards an end-of-quarter public panel with Tocqueville scholars and community archivists.</p></div>
2022-2023: Environmental Crisis & Action
Team Sophia's Choice
China's Environmental Voices
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Li Jin and Phillip Stalley worked with community partner Sophia's Choice, to explore how Chinese artists, writers, and scholars have interpreted, portrayed, and confronted environmental degradation in China. Students hosted a public film-screening event and poster session, followed by a Q&A with the film's editor.</p></div>
Team Friends of the Chicago River
Rivers of Life: Chicago's South Side and Its Waterways in Words and Images
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Steve Harp and Miles Harvey partnered Friends of the Chicago River to explore how people interact with the Calumet River System. Students made visits to the area, interviewed people who live and work there, and shot documentary photographs. The students hosted a gallery exhibit and opening event. </p></div>
Team Active Transportation Alliance
Community-Centered Environmental Advocacy
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Tim Elliott and Danielle Vance-McMullen worked with the Active Transportation Alliance (ATA) and student teams to research, design, and pilot tactics to engage young people in advocacy for Big Marsh Park. Student teams presented their findings to ATA.</p></div>
2021-2022: Immigration & Migration
Team Brighton Park Neighborhood Council
Sharing Their Stories: Latinx Immigrant Activist' Oral Histories
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Amy Tyson and Chris Solis Green worked with the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC) to conduct a series of oral histories with community organizers and Latinx immigrant activists. Students then edited these oral histories into a digital and print anthology.</p></div>
Team Japanese Arts Foundation
Geographies of Displacement: Migration and Immigration in Atomic-Age Art
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Yuki Miyamoto and Kerry Ross worked with the Japanese Arts Foundation (JAF) to create a student-driven art exhibit featuring handmade floating lanterns. The exhibit and subsequent floating lantern ceremony investigated the ways art has been used to negotiate identity in the Atomic Age.</p></div>
Team Midwest Human Rights Consortium
Children Seeking Asylum: Creating Digital Media to Support Human Rights
<div class="ck-content"><p>Professors Maria Ferrera and Chi-Jang Yin worked with the Midwest Human Rights Consortium (MHRC) to create videos explaining MHRC's work conducting forensic analyses for the benefit of asylum-seekers in the U.S.</p></div>