Launch of interdisciplinary projects embody ‘creativity and resilience’ of UChicago faculty
The University of Chicago has long championed collaborative research as a promising strategy for addressing complex questions. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year, it was not clear how this form of inquiry might need to adapt. What new strategies would humanistic scholars adopt to share, develop and test new ideas online? What empirical data would social scientists be able to gather, and what insights could they glean from fieldwork dramatically constrained by new public health guidelines preventing close physical contact?
The challenges for scholars pursuing humanistic research collaborations at this moment are significant. But the 2021–22 cycle of research projects at the Neubauer Collegium are a clear sign that UChicago faculty remain committed to collaborative modes of inquiry and creative in their approach to pursuing excellence in research.
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As someone with a three-story pink Barbie Dream House in the middle of her living room, I can tell you that I pay closer attention to gendered children’s toys these days than is normal for a woman my age.
I have noticed, for instance, that the profusion of Barbies sprawled across my floor are not always light-complexioned and blond, with impossibly attenuated torsos, as they were when I was little. My 10-year-old niece’s dolls have a range of skin colors and body sizes; some Barbies, you might even say, are
thicc, current slang for a full-figured curvy body. This is a fantastic development, and if I need to explain why, you have not been paying attention.
Scientists are rethinking how to leverage games in a way to address some of the world’s biggest issues.
Professor Patrick Jagoda and Associate Professor Kristen Schilt, both of the University of Chicago, are designing alternate reality games that allow players to become active participants not just as players, but as designers.
By using these games to educate users about climate change, marginalization, and public health, these scholars and players are investigating how the process of crafting alternate realities can help reshape the real world in which we live.
“I see games as some of the most important social and cultural technologies that we have in the 21st century,” says Jagoda. “For both of us and our other collaborators, game design is a powerful mode of reshaping norms and the rules that we live by.”