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March 2023
Chicago’s 2023 Mayoral Race: Reclaiming Harold Washington’s Multiracial Coalition
In 1983, Harold Washington forged a multiracial, progressive coalition that propelled him to victory as Chicago’s first Black mayor. Washington’s triumph marked a turning point in U.S. urban politics, one cut short by his tragic death in 1987. Forty years after his stunning victory, a new Chicago mayoral contest raises the question: what can we learn from the Washington era?
Find out more »City / Cité Chicago x Paris: Re/Inventing City Planning to Address Contemporary Issues
Please join Great Cities Institute for an event titled Chicago and Paris on the importance of Mobility and Logistics. The event will be moderated by Great Cities Institute Director Teresa Córdova and include the following guests: Jeffrey Sriver, Marion Albertelli, Thorsten Johann, Dr. Matthieu Schorung, Dr. Amanda Stathopoulos, and José Acosta-Córdova.
Find out more »April 2023
Equicity: On the Origins, Development and Future Prospects of the Urban Commonwealth
Please join Great Cities Institute for a lecture with Simon Park on Tuesday April 11, 2023 from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM. In this lecture, Parker explores the struggle for housing and basic income in the Global South, and argues that the re-discovery and re-assertion of the urban commonwealth as a space and vehicle for social justice is the best guarantee our highly urbanized world has to meet the multiple challenges of the climate catastrophe, structural inequality, racism, misogyny and forced migration and displacement in order to generate more equitable, tolerant and sustainable societies.
Find out more »September 2023
Launching the Latino Research Initiative at Great Cities Institute
Great Cities Institute is launching the Latino Research Initiative (LRI) and would like to invite all who are interested to come to join us on September 12 to hear about some of the work of the initiative and to network among yourselves. Juan González, Senior Fellow at GCI and the co-host of Democracy Now, is our keynote speaker and will discuss Chicagoland Latinos in the larger context of national and international issues.
Find out more »October 2023
At Home with the Collective: A Summit on Communal Housing
This 2-day summit will gather speakers from around the world, local stakeholders and activists, as well as city officials who have radically rethought established norms of living, models of homeownership, and the formal, programmatic, material, and legal parameters of housing.
Find out more »November 2023
Talk: “City of Dignity: Catholic Social Justice Activism in Postwar Los Angeles”
This talk charts the development of distinctly Catholic social justice activism in Los Angeles in the decades after WWII until the 1990s. This was at a time of tumultuous change in both the city and the Church, as Los Angeles witnessed the uprisings of 1965 and 1992, welcomed millions of new immigrants from Central America and Asia, and grappled with the effects of globalization. In this ever-shifting context, Catholics committed to the Church’s social teaching and the reforms of Vatican II sought to adapt their faith to address a wide range of urban issues, with a view toward making Los Angeles a “city of dignity.”
Find out more »Latino Environmental Justice Leadership Along Industrial Waterways
The Freshwater Lab and the Great Cities Institute are co-hosting the Latino Environmental Justice Leadership Along Industrial Waterways event, featuring several prominent environmental justice leaders from Chicago and Joliet as event speakers. We would like to invite all who are interested to join us on November 7 to hear more from these speakers about environmental justice issues/actions in Chicago and the Greater Chicagoland Area.
Find out more »Book Talk with Helen Shiller, the Author of “Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win”
Helen Shiller will be coming to the Great Cities Institute to talk about her new autobiography book, “Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win.”
Find out more »February 2024
Mother Earth Meets the Anthropocene (“The Age of Man”): An Ecofeminist/Environmental Justice Assessment Talk Event
“The Anthropocene,” or “Age of Man,” is a proposed name for the current geological age, one, its proponents claim to be a new era where “humans” have become a vast force capable of overwhelming the vast forces of “Nature.” This illustrated talk considers the sexed, gendered, racialized and otherwise political concept of “The Anthropocene” in dialogue with concept with the ancient reality of “Mother Nature” or Mother Earth, common to indigenous ecological knowledge as well as contemporary ecofeminist and environmental justice perspectives. This talk event will be held in the afternoon (from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM CST) of February 20, 2024, at Student Center East at UIC (750 S. Halsted) in the Cardinal Room.
Find out more »Spring 2024 Political Science Distinguished Speaker Series: “Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point”
Steven Levitsky, David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University, will speak by Zoom (click here to access Zoom on the day of the talk) next Wednesday, Feb. 21, from 11 AM to 12 PM CST on his new book with Daniel Ziblatt, Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, as part of the political science department's speaker series. Professor Stephen Engelmann, UIC, will serve as a discussant. The Speaker Series is organized and moderated by Professor Alba Alexander and sponsored by UIC's Department of Political Science.
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