At the beginning of my Digital Studio Summer Fellowship, I felt a bit lost. My dissertation—an animal history of Chicago centered on the ways human-animal relationships drove urbanization at the turn of the century—seemed clear enough. Then COVID-19 threw a major pathogenic wrench into my research plans, as I was to have spent the springContinue reading “…Eight Weeks Later…”

During his presentation to our class, the Studio’s GIS Specialist (as well as my wonderful Point of Contact) Jay Bowen suggested we think of our Summer Studio Fellowship as a sandbox. A playground staple, sandboxes offer children spaces to manipulate finely ground rocks and minerals. Sandboxes have boundaries. Wooden planks prevent too much sand fromContinue reading “Consider the Sandbox”