Current Projects
Current Grand Research Challenge Projects
Read the news release announcing the current group of Grand Research Challenge Projects.
“Environmental Justice Worldmaking: Redistribution and Reciprocity for a Just Transition”
PI: Rose Brewer, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
“Environmental Justice Worldmaking” (EJW) centers ways that the humanities and humanistic social sciences can affect the just transformation of democracy. This project is a collaboration with Environmental Justice Health Alliance and Spelman College in Atlanta, and the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. It aims to bring those communities most affected by climate crises in those cities into conversations about local solutions.
“Black Trans in the Americas”
PI: Aymar Jéan Christian, Northwestern University
“Black Trans in the Americas” is a community-based and community-led research partnership that aims to document and celebrate the myriad of ways that Black Trans people create community, build programming, and lead movements with local and global communities in the Americas. This project is a collaboration between Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the community-based organization Open Television.
“Reclaiming Stories: (Re)connecting Indigenous Painted Hides to Communities through Collaborative Conversations”
PI: Robert Morrissey, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
“Reclaiming Stories” reconnects tribal knowledge-makers to culturally significant objects/beings that have long been inaccessible owing to location and to institutional attitudes in the museum and academic worlds that historically often ignored Indigenous voices. This project is a collaboration between the University of Illinois, the Myaamia Center at Miami University, and The Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, with the consultation of the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.
“Amplifying Mothers of Police Violence Survivors”
PI: Nadine Naber, University of Illinois Chicago
“Amplifying Mothers of Police Violence Survivors” seeks to overcome the problem whereby current prison reform and abolitionist frameworks do not value the trauma experienced by mothers of incarcerated individuals or realize the potential of mothers to create political change through advocacy and activism. This project is a collaboration between the University of Illinois Chicago and the Chicago-based organization “Mothers Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity" (MAMAS).
“The Latinx Obstetric Violence Project: Art and Literature as Tools of Reciprocal and Redistributive Knowledge”
PI: Vania Smith-Oka, Notre Dame University
“The Latinx Obstetric Violence Project” addresses the overlooked reality of obstetric violence through art and literature workshops, which bring together women, scholars, and artists who have portrayed violence against women in childbirth. This project is a collaboration between the University of Notre Dame, and La Casa de Amistad, a non-profit educational organization working with the South Bend Latinx community.