Centers and Institutes

The Center for Disciplinary Innovation (CDI) sponsors upper-level undergraduate, mixed-enrollment undergraduate/graduate, and graduate exploratory courses designed to incubate new initiatives and programs—including undergraduate minors, Core sequences, graduate tracks, and research centers.

For over 65 years, the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEAS) has served as an interdisciplinary nexus and clearinghouse for East Asian Studies. It is an important resource for faculty, students, and scholars across the University and around the world. CEAS supports academic activities, research, outreach, and public events to promote greater understanding of China, Japan, and Korea.

Founded in 1965, the Center for East European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies supports interdisciplinary teaching and research on the CEERES region at the University of Chicago. We have over fifty faculty affiliates who research topics ranging from indigenous languages in the Russian Arctic, to national identity in the Balkans, to law and economics. We also support conferences, classes, and research grants that benefit students and prepare them for careers as scholars, diplomats, journalists, and businesspeople.

The Center for Hellenic Studies at the University of Chicago is a forum for research, pedagogy, and engagement with the many aspects of the Hellenic civilization from antiquity to the modern day. We are an interdisciplinary center aiming to cross-fertilize academic research across paradigms, fields, and frameworks, while also being committed to building strong ties with the (second largest in the nation) Hellenic community of Chicago and the greater Midwest.

The Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) is an eclectic intellectual community devoted to nourishing empirical, international research across the social sciences. We seek to spark and sustain critical discussions that traverse disciplinary, methodological, and geographic boundaries. CISSR supports work that informs and transforms debates on global issues within the academy and beyond.

Established in 1968, the University of Chicago Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), brings together faculty and students across the University in interdisciplinary and interdivisional research, teaching, scholarly events, and public engagement related to this vital region of the world. We seek to nurture research and scholarship on Latin America and the Caribbean across the University.

The study of the region extending from Morocco to Kazakhstan is coordinated, encouraged, and stimulated at the University of Chicago by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Established in 1965, CMES has been supported by the Division of the Arts & Humanities and the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, and by grants from the U.S. Department of Education and the Mellon Foundation for more than forty years.

Established in 2003 by the Department of Art History and the Division of the Arts & Humanities, and directed by Wu Hung, the Center for the Art of East Asia (CAEA) at the University of Chicago has become an internationally renowned academic center dedicated to the study of East Asian art and visual culture.

The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality integrates the study of women, gender, and sexuality into the core research and teaching mission of the University of Chicago by supporting scholarship with the capacity to connect academic learning to lived experience and to present-day issues and contexts. We serve as an intellectual, pedagogical, and professional resource to the University of Chicago community about issues pertaining to gender and sexuality, and we seek to bridge research and academic coursework with student development, leadership, and coalition building, and with the interests and concerns of the broader campus and south side communities.

For almost 30 years, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture (CSRPC) at the University of Chicago has led conversations about the impact of race and racism on our campus and in our city, nation, and world.

The focus of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies (COSAS), which is supported through a University endowment, is to support and implement faculty and student academic and research projects that broadly encompass the study of South and Southeast Asia. Countries in which we have scholarly expertise in South Asia include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka; and in Southeast Asia, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Tibet (as an autonomous region), and Vietnam.

The Creel Center for Chinese Paleography is an academic research center at the University of Chicago. Established in 2006 to honor the centennial of pioneering sinologist Herrlee G. Creel, it focuses on the study of early Chinese textual materials, specifically excavated oracle bones, bamboo, and silk manuscripts.

The France Chicago Center is a University of Chicago-based interdisciplinary organization that facilitates, promotes, and fosters stronger ties between University of Chicago students and researchers and their colleagues in France and the Francophone world, while increasing awareness within the University of Chicago community of French and Francophone culture, art, and thought.

The Franke supports the research of individual scholars; collaborative projects and events across the disciplines; teaching at multiple levels; and community engagement. It is committed to the ideas that advanced research goes hand in hand with pedagogy, and that humanistic learning is integral to the public good.

The Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is dedicated to removing barriers that separate intellectual and artistic exploration. Through support, programming, publications, and other outlets, we provide a space for reimagining the relationship between these two modes of creativity, investigation, and expression.

The Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, was created in 2009 as an inter-divisional center in the Divisions of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Divinity School whose aim is to nurture dialogue among the many disciplines, scholars, and students engaged in Jewish Studies at the University. The Center aims to raise new questions and catalyze unexplored connections that will reconfigure the boundaries of Jewish Studies both within and beyond the walls of the University.

The Scherer Center helps coordinate the University’s rich and diverse scholarly interest in the study of American culture by sponsoring courses, seminars, and lunch-time discussions of new work; by bringing distinguished visitors to campus for lectures, symposia, and conferences; and by developing forums for meaningful interactions among scholars of different disciplines and the public. 

The Katz Center for Mexican Studies promotes original research and informed international and interdisciplinary discussion on Mexican culture, history, arts, and politics. Its work seeks to engage and bring together the academic community of the University, the Mexican-origin populations in the city of Chicago, and our fellow scholars in Mexico and beyond.

The Neubauer Collegium cultivates new communities of inquiry at the University of Chicago. Our faculty-led research projects bring together scholars and practitioners whose collaboration is required to address complex questions on any topic. Our Visiting Fellows program brings the most creative thinkers from around the world for collaboration, animating the intellectual and creative environment on campus. Our gallery presents art exhibitions in the context of academic research, and our public events invite broad engagement with the scholarly inquiries we support. The aim of these activities is to deepen knowledge about the world and our place in it.

The University of Chicago’s hub for the interdisciplinary study of Britain, the Nicholson Center for British Studies has as its mission supporting and sustaining innovative new work in this broad and ever-changing field. We program events, support faculty and student research, and facilitate collaborations with scholars across the world.

The Open Practice Committee in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago explores the atmospheres and attitudes that make art contemporary. By inviting artists, critics, and curators of contemporary art to address our community, the OPC fosters a genuinely experimental, yet conceptually rigorous environmental space in which strategies of production and description are challenged and renewed. From the conventional departmental presentation to the unconventional institutional event, the OPC aims to advance our collective understanding of theory and practice within the visual arts.

Place Lab is a team of professionals from the diverse fields of law, urban planning, architecture, design, social work, arts administration, and gender and cultural studies. A partnership between Arts + Public Life, an initiative of UChicago Arts, and the Harris School of Public Policy, Place Lab is a catalyst for mindful urban transformation and creative redevelopment.

The Pozen Center for Human Rights is an interdisciplinary research and teaching institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to advancing the understanding and protection of human rights worldwide. It fosters critical scholarship, public dialogue, and educational programs on a wide range of human rights issues.

The Center in Beijing enhances the University's traditionally strong ties to Chinese thought and culture. Located in the bustling, university-rich Haidian District, the Center is a home for UChicago faculty, researchers, and students as well as the local community.

The John W. Boyer Center in Paris is the University of Chicago’s teaching and research hub in Europe, supporting an intellectual community of students, faculty, alumni, and partners from around the world. Since 2003, the Center has been home to a growing array of the College’s hallmark Study Abroad programs and has facilitated faculty research across disciplines. Through its many programs and partnerships, the Center has represented our traditionally strong ties to European thought and culture while serving as a gateway to the University’s networks throughout Africa and the Middle East.

The University of Chicago Language Center is a hub of professional development and services for the hundreds of instructors and graduate students that teach the 50+ languages spread across various departments within the university. We also promote language study and increase the visibility of our language offerings, helping students navigate and go beyond the university’s language requirements.