Rachel Havrelock

Rachel Havrelock — Photo: Jenny Fontaine

Rachel Havrelock’s interest in water sharing as an approach to Middle East peacemaking was reinforced while completing her book “River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line,” which considers the Jordan River as a border in the Bible, Judaism, Christianity and Jewish and Palestinian national movements.

Her current research is on the role of oil extraction and infrastructure in the militarization of the Middle East and examines how regional water management could transform the landscape.

Havrelock addresses local matters as co-founder and principal investigator for the Freshwater Lab, a UIC-based consortium for humanities and social science research that examines issues related to water, energy and natural resources in the Great Lakes region.

Other scholarly interests include biblical literature, energy and culture, and cultural geography.

Havrelock blogs for The Huffington Post and is the writer and director of the hip-hop play “From Tel Aviv to Ramallah,” which portrays the daily lives of young people in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She co-hosted the Discovery Channel series “Who Was Jesus?” and appears in a History Channel program about the biblical book of Joshua.

Subject areas:

• Water policy and diplomacy
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Middle East peacemaking
• Biblical studies and folklore