From 'Dune' to Climate Change, UChicago Scholar Draws from Unique Experiences in New Course

Katherine Buse

University of Chicago undergraduate students will soon have a new opportunity to delve into the wondrous world of video games, guided by a game designer who consulted on one of the biggest films of the past year.

This spring, postdoctoral researcher Katherine Buse will help bring a creative blend of science and technology to the College curriculum. An expert on digital media, science fiction and environmental humanities, Buse’s scholarship draws from a range of theory and practice—including her recent work on “Dune,” the Oscar-nominated adaptation of the acclaimed novel.

What Does 'Drawing' Mean? Gray Center Exhibition Explores Interdisciplinary Possibilities

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Gray Center’s signature fellowship program, “On Drawing Drawing On” includes artworks such as handmade pencils and a chalkboard that invites visitors to add their own illustrations.

In 2016, artists Amber Ginsburg and Sara Black harvested a tanoak tree on the California coast that was dying from sudden oak death, a disease caused by an accidentally introduced pathogen. After drying the tree in a high-temperature kiln to remove any trace of the pathogen, they gave it new life by turning it into 7,000 handmade pencils: works of art that could be used to produce more art.

Those pencils are now part of “On Drawing Drawing On,” a new exhibition at the University of Chicago’s Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry. Running through March 13 in the Logan Center Gallery, the exhibition celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Gray Center’s signature initiative: the Mellon Collaborative Fellowship in Arts Practice and Scholarship.

“The show is a riff on the double meaning of drawing,” said Seth Brodsky, director of the Gray Center. “It obviously designates the act of creating art with pencil and paper. But it also involves pulling, dragging, drawing out, selecting too. It speaks to the way Gray Center fellows select each other, draw from and on each other, find things in each other’s work neither knew was there in the first place.”

Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity Established at the University of Chicago

UChicago Hyde Park campus

The University of Chicago’s Council of the University Senate approved a new Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity (RDI) at their meeting on Feb. 22. The new interdisciplinary department will be a home for ambitious scholarship on concepts that have helped shape the modern world and continue to reverberate in contemporary thought, culture, and policy.

“The approved plan emerged from a process among our faculty in which strongly differing points of view have been put forth, through which many people changed their minds as they listened and engaged, and by which the proposal itself evolved in response to ideas of colleagues,” said President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Ka Yee C. Lee in a message to the University community. “We look forward to working with the Division of Social Sciences, as well as faculty, students, alumni, and friends of the University as we build for the success of this new department.”

Humanities Doctoral Student's Creative Vent Turns into Career

Isabel Lachenauer

For several summers, Isabel Lachenauer had a secret. During her doctoral program at UChicago, she wrote a novel each summer, channeling her anxious energy to a healthy place. Her creative writing became a private world to immerse herself while forgetting the pressures of her academic work.

Now the novel Lachenauer wrote during the first year of the pandemic—The Hacienda—is scheduled for publication by Berkley (Penguin/Random House) on May 3, 2022. The book received multiple bids from publishers, providing Lachenauer with ample funds and the incentive to continue her career as a novelist after she graduates with a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) in June 2022.

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