The Ph.D. programs in Comparative Literature, Culture & Theory, English, and Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine are committed to the movement for Black lives. We believe that researching, critiquing and redressing the legacies of slavery and anti-blackness that continue to shape our society, here in the United States and the world over, are crucial to the ongoing struggle for racial justice and Black thriving.
Our coalition of humanities doctoral programs, anchored by the School of Humanities’ Critical Theory Emphasis, provides additional funding and resources to support students interested in Black thought, literature, and media; histories of Black resistance movements and freedom struggle, domestic and international; comparative histories of race and racialization; and critical theories of anti-Blackness, colonialism, and violence. We are particularly interested in fostering Black studies scholarship that creatively mobilizes the resources of critical theory to reveal the entanglement of modern political and aesthetic traditions with anti-Blackness and that forges truly new political imaginaries, activist strategies, and cultural narratives.
Learn more about the Black Studies Cluster Admissions Initiative here: https://www.humanities.uci.edu/graduate/black-studies-cluster