CEGU

Source: https://cegu.uchicago.edu/undergraduate-studies/cegu-major-minor/calumet-quarter/ Parent: https://cegu.uchicago.edu/undergraduate-studies/

MAJOR AND MINOR IN ENVIRONMENT, GEOGRAPHY AND URBANIZATION (CEGU)

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Calumet Quarter 2026: The Power of Place

The Calumet Quarter is a new thematic offering in the College’s Chicago Civilization Studies Core sequence (aka Chicago CIV) that will take place during Spring quarter 2026 as a collaboration between CEGU and Chicago Studies. The Calumet Quarter focuses on the dynamic region hugging the shores of Lake Michigan to south and east of Chicago whose natural and human history are inextricably bound up with the city’s. The Calumet Quarter features three integrated courses with associated projects, field trips, guest lectures and presentations and combines perspectives from ecology, humanities, and social sciences, replicating the intensive approach of UChicago’s study abroad CIV sequences right here in Chicagoland.

The thematic focus of the Calumet Quarter Chicago CIV sequence is “the power of place.” Through a concatenation of cultural practices, social relations and economic processes—all within the indomitable crucible of nature—people don’t just create places, they produce vastly different sorts of places: urban and rural, towns, cities, neighborhoods and villages and their myriad interconnections. This rich geographical tapestry is reason enough for the juggernaut of global tourism. The communities of the Calumet transformed rugged prairies and wetlands into spaces for production, residence, and community development, much of it in service to the rapacious needs of the industrial metropolis just to its north and of the people who profited from its control over resource and capital flows. Those communities, in turn, were changed again as a globalizing economy moved production elsewhere, leaving them to reinvent themselves and reinterpret their industrial and cultural heritage.

In the CIV Core, we study places because of their intrinsic interest but perhaps more importantly, we study places to learn what it means to be human. Through these three linked courses, students will take an immersive journey into the very specific historical geography of the Calumet region and, along the way, gain insights and analytical skills relevant to understanding other places: we develop an approach to place and learn its power.

The deadline to apply is February 20, 2026. The application can be found here.↗

2026 CALUMET QUARTER COURSES

Objects, Place and Power

Taught by Jessica Landau | CEGU 26367, ARTH 26367, CHST 10367, HIST 27314, PBPL 26367

Objects are not only formed and interpreted through ideas of place and power, but also shape place and identity. This course looks at how material culture has, in part, formed understandings of the Calumet. Through methods drawn from art history and museum studies, we will look closely at objects, collections, and institutions in the region to analyze the power and politics of representation in placemaking.

Environmental Transitions and Unnatural Histories

Taught by Mary Beth Pudup | CEGU 26368, ANTH 26368, CHST 10368, HIST 27315, PBPL 26368

The course considers changes wrought in the natural landscape of the greater Calumet region beginning with indigenous Potawatomi and their forced removal. Students will examine how the Calumet’s natural environment became collateral damage of the industrial capitalism that transformed the region into an economic powerhouse and explore efforts to rehabilitate the Calumet’s rich biodiversity, identifying the challenges and achievements of this most recent environmental transition.

Ecology and Land Management in the Calumet

Taught by Lauren Umek | CEGU 26369, CHST 10369

Ecology and Land Management in the Calumet is a project-based course that explores the ecology of the Calumet Region in the classroom and in the field. Students will engage with the complex ecological history of the region’s landscape, explore methods of determining their ecological value and how that influences land management decisions.

To learn more about the Calumet Quarter 2026, please join us Wednesday, January 14th at 4:30pm in the Urban Lounge at 1155 E. 60th Street for an information session.↗