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Established in 1989, the Center for Ideas and Society is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research support center dedicated to advancing humanistic studies, intellectual exchange, and creativity at UC Riverside. Our fellowships, research workshops and public events strengthen the academic, social, and creative life of the university. We are committed to disseminating the results of these projects to the Riverside and desert communities, and beyond.

To learn more about our mission and methods, click the + links below.

The Center supports the development of insights, critical perspectives, and creative activities that result from collaboration across departmental and disciplinary boundaries. It encourages collaboration between university-based scholars and artists and other thoughtful forms of engagement with intellectuals, thought leaders, and cultural innovators who are based in communities and institutions beyond the university.

We attempt to nourish transdisciplinary forms of scholarship and creativity that have been marginalized or excluded from the established academic disciplines.

The Center supports projects that both reflect and actively redefine interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary thought, art, and knowledge production.

The humanities, arts, and humanistically-oriented social sciences as well as related interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary fields illuminate the ways in which humans create, contest, and enact different ways of being, from the ontological to the institutional, the “individual” to the transgenerational, the abstract to the visceral.

Humanities scholars and practitioners develop concepts, frameworks, and imaginaries that are indispensable for comprehending and addressing the social and cultural problems that define us as humans in history and in today’s world. The humanities raise and critically evaluate questions that motivate and give context to technological, medical and scientific innovations: Who are we? How did we get here? What do we value? What will the future hold?

Through the study of human cultures, texts, archives, languages, images, and belief systems, humanistically-oriented researchers examine practices, activities and attempts at meaning-making that try to better understand who and what humans are, and what they might become.

We translate our mission and values into action through a wide variety of programs, projects, events and initiatives. For example, we fund interdisciplinary scholars collectively and individually through our annual research grants program. We help shoulder administrative burdens for rising scholars and new projects with responsive and responsible support for grants and events. Our public programming builds bridges with the surrounding communities and puts academics, activists, artists and local participants in conversation with one another. In all this, we aim to work collaboratively through coalitions with programs and organizations within and outside the university.

The Center for Ideas & Society partners with the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences’ Dean’s office, college departments, and other university colleges and programs to create collaborative, innovative projects with strong humanities components. We are funded through the college, the UC Humanities Network, grants, and private donations.

The Center is also part of the larger community of centers in California and across the US. Within the UC system, the UC Humanities Network supports excellence in humanities research through an interdisciplinary network of scholars, humanities centers, and multi-campus research groups across the University of California. Click the links below to learn more about centers on other UC campuses as well as other local and international programs.

► UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI)
► UC Davis Humanities Institute
► UC San Diego Institute for Humanities Research
► UC Irvine Humanities Commons
► UC Merced Center for the Humanities
► UC Santa Barbara Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
► UC Los Angeles Digital Humanities
► UC Berkeley Townsend Center for the Humanities
► UC San Diego Center for the Humanities
► Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes
► Western Humanities Alliance
► Cal Humanities

Your participation matters.

We welcome you to join us at an upcoming event! You can keep up to date with our programming by subscribing to our weekly emails and/or liking us on Facebook. We’d love to hear your feedback or ideas for a program or research initiative.

Collaborate with us! Your financial gift supports innovative and academically rigorous programming that serves the Riverside campus and community.

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