Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture was established in 1996 under the direction of Professor Michael Dawson. From its inception, faculty, students, and staff who have been involved with the Center have been committed to establishing a new type of research institute devoted to the study of race and ethnicity, one that seeks to expand the study of race beyond the black/white paradigm while exploring social and identity cleavages within racialized communities. Scholars affiliated with the Center have also endeavored to make race and ethnicity central topics of intellectual investigation at the University of Chicago by fostering interdisciplinary research, teaching, and public debate among students and faculty. Fundamentally, the Center is committed to producing engaged scholarship that rejects the false dichotomy between rigorous intellectual work and community activism. We seek, instead, to contribute intellectually challenging and innovative scholarship that can help people transform their thinking and their lives. Towards those goals, the Center has provided funding and other types of support for a number of projects initiated by faculty affiliated with the Center, graduate students, and visiting fellows. Click here to see a few examples of those projects.