About the Program
The Ph.D. Program in Culture and Theory is dedicated to theory-driven research on race, gender, and sexuality. The Program is shared by the Departments of African American Studies and Asian American Studies, and works closely with faculty across the School of Humanities with expertise in critical theory. The Program is home to leading scholars of Africana thought, postcolonial theories from all geopolitical regions, Marxist and psychoanalytic criticism, and continental philosophy in the critical tradition. At the same time, our expanded course of study offers students freedom to take full advantage of the combined expertise of the internationally renown faculty at UCI whose work exemplifies the best in contemporary theory and criticism across the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Our program is designed for students to develop their own unique style of thinking as they assemble theoretical frameworks, objects of analysis, and social-historical practices into transdisciplinary projects that seek to transform the modern political imagination. Students with interests in the legacies of racial slavery and (settler) colonialism; diasporic and postcolonial cultural production; and the politics of identity formation will receive wide interdisciplinary engagement to create new ideas, arguments, and methods in order to lead ongoing conversations about what it means to do critical theory today.
Culture and Theory is participating in the Black Studies Cluster. Read more about the Black Studies Cluster.