- Advanced Materials by Design: Theory and Computation
- African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle
- Agroecology
- American Indian Studies
- Bioethics
- Biomedical Engineering
- Biophotonics
- Chemical Biology
- Chemistry
- Cognitive Sciences
- Communication Technologies Research
- Comparative Political Economy
- Comparative U.S. Studies
- Computational Sciences
- Computational Systems Biology
- Computer Engineering
- Computer Sciences
- Cultural Studies in a Global Context
- Disability Studies
- Energy Sources and Policy
- Expressive Culture and Diversity in the Upper Midwest
- Food Pathogens and Toxins
- Functional Brain Imaging
- Functional Organic Materials
- Genomics
- Global Governance and International Finance
- Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship
- Interdisciplinary Arts Residency Program
- International Environmental Affairs and Global Security
- International Public Affairs
- Land Use
- Law, Society and Justice
- Mathematical Physics - String Theory
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Molecular Biometry
- Nanophase Inorganic Materials and Devices
- Political Economy
- Poverty Studies
- Religious Studies
- Science and Technology Studies
- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
- Structural Biology
- Symbiosis
- Translational Research - Neurodegenerative Diseases
- Very High Energy Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Visual Culture
- Vitamin D
- Women's Health Research/Biology of Sex and Gender Differences
- Zebrafish Biology
Cluster focus
The Cultural Studies in a Global Context Cluster fosters cross-disciplinary research and teaching among social sciences and humanities scholars, focusing on the complexities of increasing globalization and intercultural contact. The cluster has stimulated both formal and informal dialogues and collaborations among faculty and graduate students from more than 25 departments and programs. Recent cluster work has focused on environmental issues in postcolonial contexts; empire, masculinity and gender; ethnic and religious violence; migration and diaspora as it currently occurs in the face of accelerating globalization and from a historical perspective; theories of cultural hybridity and interculturality in the context of asymmetrical power relations; and geopolitical and other kinds of borders where differences of all kinds cause peoples to clash and intermingle.
Cluster accomplishments
- The cluster has created a hub for students interested in interdisciplinary cultural globalization research. An annual interdisciplinary graduate seminar has been offered by a cluster steering committee member that centers on a particular focus for the year. The cluster is considering developing a PhD minor in cultural studies in a global context.
- Cluster faculty and graduate students infuse interdisciplinary research and content into the undergraduate classes they teach, providing students a broader perspective on globalization issues.
- The cluster, through the Border and Transcultural Studies Research Circle, has sponsored seven conferences during the past decade involving presentations by outside scholars and UW-Madison faculty from more than 25 departments and programs. The cluster has also organized many events, such as presentations, panels and study groups, to connect and advance related research of faculty and graduate students from across the campus. A special issue of the journal Interventions was guest edited by a graduate student on the steering committee, based on the Global Diasporas conference. Dozens of journal articles and a number of dissertations have come out of the cluster program.
- Cluster faculty have helped create a more interdisciplinary culture in their tenure home departments, and in fact, one faculty member hired for the cluster is now chair of the Department of Anthropology. The cluster coordinator chaired her department from 2001-2004 and hired many faculty engaged in interdisciplinary work.
- Cluster faculty have published several books (i.e., Showing Signs of Violence, awarded the 1998 Harry J. Benda Prize in Southeast Asian Studies; Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood: South African Culture and World Beyond; Dreambirds; Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter, winner of the 1998 Perkins Prize for best book in narrative studies and a recently completed manuscript (Caribbean Bodies and Colonial Power). Dozens of research articles and other articles in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Village Voice, The Nation, and The New York Times were also published.
- Awards received by cluster faculty include an Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and an Institute for Research in the Humanities Fellowship.
Cluster structure
The cluster was initiated by a senior fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities and faculty member in English and Women’s Studies, with the backing of seven departments and programs. The Border and Transcultural Studies Research Circle Steering Committee, affiliated with the International Institute and the Institute for Research in the Humanities, serves as the hub and programming committee for the cluster. Cluster faculty, along with other faculty and graduate students, serve as the core of the steering committee and help to plan and coordinate cluster teaching, research and outreach activities. The cluster also sponsors conferences that bring together faculty from throughout campus, and it is closely involved with many activities sponsored by other clusters, such as the Visual Culture Cluster and the African Diaspora Cluster.
Cluster coordinator, faculty and lead dean
Cluster Coordinator
- Susan Stanford Friedman, Professor, English and Women’s Studies
Cluster Faculty
- Kenneth George, Professor, Anthropology
- Anne McClintock, Professor, English and Women’s Studies
- Rob Nixon, Professor, English
- Guillermina De Ferrari, Assistant Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Lead Dean
- Gary Sandefur, Dean, College of Letters and Science