Adrian Parr, PhD
Distinguished Honorary Fellow
About Arian
Adrian Parr is an internationally recognized environmental, political, and cultural thinker and activist. She is the Dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. She is a UNESCO water chair and a founding signatory of the Geneva Actions on Human Water Security. She is affiliated with the Global Centre for Advanced Studies as a GCAS faculty member and a honorary research fellow.
Experience
Previously she served as the Director of the Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati. In 2011 Parr received the UC Rieveschl Award for Scholarly and Creative Work.
She is the founding director of Louder Than A Bomb Cincy, a citywide youth spoken word competition in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is the producer of three public humanities projects. These consist of the multi-award winning film series (with Sean and Jon Hughes), The Intimate Realities of Water Project, and two online series of short and engaging interviews with prominent activists and eminent scholars – TAFTtalks and H2Otalks – on topics ranging from violence, to migration, water rights, and climate change.
She is a writer, public speaker, community organizer, and filmmaker. She has published numerous books and articles and has been interviewed for her views on social and environmental justice by The New York Times, public radio and television. She has published op-eds in The LA Review of Books, Al Jazeera, The World Financial Review, and The European Magazine.
Research Interests
The driving force behind all her work is the question of how to overcome ecological and economic scarcity. She asserts that environmental devastation and climate change are crimes against humanity.
Parr works at the intersection of environmental politics, water access, sustainable development, and the built environment, advocating for what she calls ‘bastard solidarities’ between reform-based politics and confrontational political strategies.
As governments, policy makers, and the courts worldwide struggle to redress environmental degradation and the harms experienced by vulnerable communities, Parr looks to themes of equity, friendship, and generosity as starting points for change.
She argues in favor of creating social models premised upon open-minded, ecologically conscious, non-violent, and participatory ways of living. She maintains an inclusive emancipatory political imagination will help get us there.
