Assistant Professor of Communication, Culture, and Media Richard Canevez has big plans for the summer of 2025, when he will take on what he has titled “The Big Ride Project.” Richard has received a seed grant from the university’s Research Excellence Fund, as well as funding from the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture with which he is both funding this project, and hopes to publish a book documenting his experiences.
From Richard:
The rise of American right-wing populism has been enabled in part by the politicization and targeting of institutions construed as left-leaning with harassment, hostile policy efforts, and in some cases outright violence. The range of institutions is broad, ranging from women’s healthcare to diversity-supporting organizations and even federal agencies tasked with environmental stewardship. This targeting has reduced these institutions to political footballs, exploiting an aggrieved and politically divided constituency for political gain.
But who are these institutions in reality? They reflect the people who are “where the rubber meets the road”: the professionals and volunteers. But what are their stories? How do their experiences and values shape these institutions and their mission? And how are they going to navigate the political divide in the upcoming years? And what can other institutions and their people learn from them?
In the summer of 2025, Rich Canevez (Asst. Professor of Communication, Culture, and Media at the Department of Humanities) will ride a bicycle from Houghton, MI to Chicago, IL and back on a route that covers over 900 miles by road, trail, and everything in between. In this time, he will gather the stories of professionals who staff these institutions, including libraries, institutions of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), reproductive rights, transgender affirming care, and environmental stewardship, dotted across one of the most politically divided and diverse sections of America. These stories and accounts will be layered with his own experiences, by covering the distance and connecting stories with notions of spatial divide and connection, as well as his own memories of being a ethnic minority raised in this curious section of America, with a personal relationship with many of the issues these institutions, and its people, face or continue to struggle with to this day.
You can visit the project’s website at thebigrideproject.carrd.co to follow along on his journey!
The Big Ride Project on Facebook | The Big Ride Project on Bluesky