Kitija Balcare receives the UL Award for Excellence “PhD of the Year 2025"

Marking the 90th anniversary of the Great Hall of the University of Latvia (UL), on Friday, 30 January, the UL Great Hall hosted a formal ceremony at which the UL Award for Excellence was presented for the first time, honoring the most outstanding members of the University community across ten nominations in studies, research, innovation, and collaboration.

In the research categories, awards were granted to an author of an original study, a young researcher, a doctoral degree recipient, and the founder of a scientific school. The UL Award for Excellence “PhD of the Year 2025” was presented to Kitija Balcare, a researcher at the UL Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, a newly awarded Doctor of Humanities and Arts, for her doctoral dissertation “Performing Arts in the Discourse of Ecocriticism: Ecotheatre in Latvia in the 21st Century”, defended on 25 November 2025 at the University of Latvia.

The dissertation is not only the first systematic study to analyze theatre productions within the discourse of ecocriticism in the context of environmental conflicts and the sustainability of the performing arts, but also a purposeful interdisciplinary study that draws attention to the role of art in strengthening ecological awareness and promoting environmental activism in the context of the climate crisis. The interdisciplinary nature of the work is evident in its alignment with the emerging field of environmental humanities, revealing a significant interaction between the humanities and the natural sciences within a single doctoral dissertation: it brings together theatre studies and environmental science, while also engaging with posthumanist philosophical theories and approaches from climate psychology.

In the photo: UL Vice-Rector for Research Guntars Kitenbergs and UL ILFA researcher Kitija Balcare.
Photo: Toms Grīnbergs, University of Latvia.