Centers and Institutes
Advanced Research Collaborative
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/advanced-research-collaborative
The Advanced Research Collaborative is the focal point of the collaborative research activities of The Graduate Center. ARC promotes interdisciplinary research; partners with Graduate Center research centers, institutes, and interdisciplinary committees; connects the research activities of CUNY faculty at the colleges to Graduate Center research programs and seminars; and provides a home for outstanding visiting scholars to collaborate with faculty and students in its Distinguished Visiting Fellows Program. Through its Research Praxis seminar, ARC offers support to Graduate Center doctoral students pursuing research and provides a platform for students to independently share and debate their research interests and practices through a student research web page.
American Social History Project/Center For Media and Learning (ASHP/CML)
http://ashp.cuny.edu
Founded in 1981 by the distinguished labor historian Herbert Gutman and Stephen Brier and directed since 1998 by Joshua Brown, ASHP/CML has gained an international reputation in the fields of public history and history education. As one of the few history organizations with a full-time staff composed of scholars, artists, media producers, and educators, ASHP/CML’s Who Built America? books and documentaries, digital and online projects (including our new blog and podcasts), and seminars combine rigorous humanities content with innovative methods of presentation. Cited as a model for public humanities programming, ASHP/CML’s projects and programs have received numerous grants and awards.
In 1990, the American Social History Project became an official research center at The City University of New York. Known as the Center for Media and Learning, it has been affiliated with The Graduate Center since 1996. The organization is now most commonly known as ASHP/ CML, combining its public and university identities. In 1998, ASHP/CML assumed stewardship of the New Media Lab, The Graduate Center’s state-of-the-art facility for the development of doctoral digital media projects.
The New Media Lab (NML) assists Graduate Center faculty and doctoral students from a variety of academic disciplines to create digital projects based on their own scholarly research. Often, the NML provides a stipend to support student work done at the lab.
Bildner Center For Western Hemisphere Studies
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/bildnercenter
The Bildner Center brings together scholars, policymakers, civil society leaders, and other stakeholders to further understanding of and foster policy-oriented research concerning the governance, security, and economic well-being of peoples in the Americas. Founded in 1982 with the support of businessman and philanthropist Albert Bildner, the center has been directed by sociologist Mauricio Font since 2000.
Barry S. Brook Center For Music Research and Documentation (CMRD)
http://brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu
The Brook Center is a scholarly facility associated with the doctoral program in music at the CUNY Graduate Center. Founded in 1989 by the renowned musicologist Barry S. Brook and renamed in his memory after his death in 1997, the center’s objectives are to promote and provide a setting for wide-ranging research and documentation activities in music; to offer professional training to students, music researchers, editors, iconographers, and archivists; to serve as a resource center for CUNY, for New York City, and for the nation; and to disseminate the results of its activities to the scholarly community and to the world at large through publications, conferences, and exhibitions. Faculty members at The Graduate Center are often involved in the Brook Center’s activities, and there are employment opportunities for graduate students, independent scholars, and editors.
The Brook Center also houses a number of valuable archives, in addition to those associated with the current projects described here, including papers and sound recordings of Barry S. Brook, Gustave Reese, and Emanuel Winternitz. Units of the center include:
Center for the Study of Free-Reed Instruments
18th-Century Symphony Archive (1720–1840)
Foundation for Iberian Music
French Opera in the 17th and 18th Centuries, A Facsimile Series
Music in Gotham: The New York Scene (1863–1875)
Pergolesi Research Center
Research Center for Music Iconography
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Xenakis Project of the Americas
The Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies
http://www.ralphbuncheinstitute.org
The Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies engages in research, graduate training, and public education about international affairs and contemporary global problem solving with a focus on multilateralism and international institutions. Founded in 1973 as the Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations, it was renamed in 2001 and given a broader interdisciplinary scope with the mandate to support and further strengthen international studies at The Graduate Center.
Units of the center include:
Center for Global Ethics and Politics
European Union Studies Center
Future of the United Nations Development System
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
PassBlue Project
United Nations Intellectual Project
Universal Rights Group
Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE)
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/case
The Center for Advanced Study in Education conducts basic and applied research concerned with improving and upgrading the quality of education in urban areas. CASE serves as a forum for consideration of policy issues, as a center for interdisciplinary approaches to educational problems, and as a clearinghouse in areas of educational research.
CASE draws its researchers from among the faculty of the colleges of The City University of New York as well as from students and faculty of The Graduate Center, and maintains a close affiliation with The Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in Educational Psychology.
Funding for CASE projects originates with private industry, foundations, and city, state, and federal agencies. While some of CASE’s work is national in scope, much of it is focused on New York City and New York State.
Center for Human Environments (CHE)
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/che
The Center for Human Environments brings together psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, earth and environmental scientists, and public health experts whose research addresses the relationship between people and their physical settings. By providing a forum where the social sciences meet environmental research, CHE seeks to produce deeper understanding of, and potential solutions to, the problems faced by schools, neighborhoods, and larger communities; nonprofit organizations; community-based groups, and advocacy movements; and government agencies.
Center for the Humanities
https://centerforthehumanities.org
The Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY, was founded in 1993 as a public forum for people who take ideas seriously inside and outside the academy. By bringing together CUNY students and faculty with prominent journalists, artists, and civic leaders, the center seeks to promote the humanities and humanistic perspectives in the social sciences. In the tradition of CUNY and The Graduate Center’s commitment to ensuring access to the highest levels of educational opportunity for all New Yorkers, all events are free and open to the public.
Center for Jewish Studies
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/centerforjewishstudies
The Center for Jewish Studies is committed to fostering research and special projects in the many disciplines comprising Jewish studies. It aims to serve the more than 80 faculty scholars across CUNY who are in the field of Jewish studies or working in areas related to Jewish studies by providing opportunities for communication, gatherings, and cooperative programs and projects. The Center for Jewish Studies sponsors publications, public lectures, teacher training seminars, research, and oral history projects that explore a wide range of historical and contemporary Jewish issues. From time to time, the Center for Jewish Studies also hosts scholarly gatherings that are conducted in cooperation with national and international cultural and academic institutions. The center offers fellowships and traveling fellowships for graduate students pursuing research in Jewish studies.
Units of the center include:
Institute for Sephardic Studies
The Institute for Sephardic Studies is devoted to research, special projects, and curriculum development on the civilization of the Jews of Spain and the Middle East. It offers public lectures and teacher training workshops and encourages the study of the Sephardic experience in the doctoral programs at The Graduate Center. Its oral history collection explores the experience of Sephardic Jewish immigrants to the United States. Among its ongoing projects is the development of education modules to integrate the Sephardic experience in teaching Jewish history.
Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies
The Rosenthal Institute pursues interrelated research, publications, and educational programs on the Holocaust. The institute also coordinates occasional in-service courses for teachers, offers special as well as scheduled public lectures, videotapes survivor testimonies, sponsors a limited number of fellowships to young scholars, responds to public inquiries about Holocaust-related matters, and publishes monographs in its Holocaust Studies Series.
Center for Latin American, Caribbean & Latino Studies (CLACLS)
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/clacls
The Center for Latin American, Caribbean & Latino Studies was established at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2001. CLACLS has worked to promote the study and understanding of Latin American and Caribbean cultures and the communities established in the United States by peoples from this vast and extraordinarily diverse region with a special focus on the New York City metropolitan area. CLACLS has organized numerous public forums, lectures, symposia, academic conferences, and public presentations of art, music, dance, and photography with colleagues from Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, CLACLS organized and helps administer an interdisciplinary M.A. concentration in Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies in the M.A. Program in Liberal Studies.
Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS)
http://www.clags.org
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies provides intellectual leadership toward understanding and addressing the issues that affect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and the members of other sexual and gender minorities. As the first university-based LGBT research center in the United States, CLAGS nurtures cutting-edge scholarship; organizes colloquia for examining and affirming LGBT lives; and fosters network-building among academics, artists, activists, policymakers, and community members. CLAGS stands committed to maintaining a broad program of public events, online projects, and fellowships that promote reflection on queer pasts, presents, and futures.
Center for Place, Culture and Politics
http://pcp.gc.cuny.edu
The Center for Place, Culture and Politics is an interdisciplinary center providing an intellectual forum for the discussion of a wide range of vital contemporary topics at the CUNY Graduate Center. As the name suggests, most of the pressing political and economic issues of today occur at the nexus of place and culture. Since its inception, the center has become an eminent intellectual and public nucleus for these kinds of issues. The center runs a weekly seminar, hosts distinguished lecture series, and organizes conferences following a theme that changes each year.
Center for the Study of Women and Society
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/womencenter
Since 1977, the Center for the Study of Women and Society has promoted interdisciplinary feminist scholarship. The focus of the center’s research agenda is the study of the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and nation in societies around the world.
The center co-sponsors with the Women’s Studies Certificate Program intellectual exchange symposia and lectures—among scholars within CUNY as well as with visiting scholars. The center also collaborates with grassroots and professional organizations.
Center for Urban Research (CUR)
http://www.urbanresearch.org
The Center for Urban Research organizes research on the critical issues that face New York and other large cities in the United States and abroad; collaborates with public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other partners; and holds forums for the media, foundations, community organizations, and others about urban research at The Graduate Center. Its website provides access to dynamic maps, data sets, and research findings about New York City and other metropolitan centers.
Units of the center include:
CUNY Data Service
The CUNY Data Service maintains an extensive archive of data sets from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources and provides customized analysis of these data sets on a fee-for- service basis for academic researchers, public and nonprofit agencies, community organizations, the media, and business organizations. In addition, it provides specialized services to support the research efforts of the CUNY community.
CUNY Mapping Service
The CUNY Mapping Service at CUR engages with foundations, government agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and other CUNY researchers to use spatial information and analysis techniques to develop and execute applied research projects.
New York City Labor Market Information Service
The New York City Labor Market Information Service (NYCLMIS) provides labor market analysis for the public workforce system. The NYCLMIS was formed in 2008 and is a joint endeavor of the NYC Workforce Investment Board (WIB), The City University of New York at the Center for Urban Research, the Center for Economic Transformation at the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), and the Deputy Mayors’ Cabinet for Workforce Development.
Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (CPCS)
http://www.philanthropy.org
The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society is committed to strengthening civil society through education, research, and leadership training and focuses on giving, volunteerism, and nonprofit entrepreneurship by individual donors, foundations, and corporations in the United States and around the world. Since its inception, CPCS has worked to highlight the philanthropic activities of different institutions and groups, with a particular emphasis on international civil society and the role of women in giving and associational life.
Through seminars and sponsored research projects that focus on women, social justice, cultural traditions of giving, and global civil society, the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society provides opportunities for CUNY faculty and doctoral students to explore common themes comparatively across disciplines. The center’s Leaders in Philanthropy series provides a forum where CUNY faculty and representatives of local foundations and nonprofit organizations come together to discuss key issues and trends in the philanthropic and voluntary sectors. The center’s signature International Fellows Program brings nonprofit practitioners and scholars to The Graduate Center from around the globe to conduct research and to meet with leaders from the global Third Sector.
CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development (CISDD)
http://www.cisdd.org
The CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development promotes economic development in New York City and encourages the growth of the New York software industry. Specifically, CISDD pairs CUNY’s experienced faculty members with software industry professionals and governmental institutions to sponsor and develop the research and creation of new and marketable software technologies, provides specialized professional development courses, creates job opportunities, and continues to build CUNY’s reputation as a software center in New York.
European Union Studies Center (EUSC)
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/european-union-studies-center
The EUSC is dedicated to promoting research and debate on the diverse issues and challenges facing the European Union. The approach to the research and analysis is interdisciplinary; it includes political, economic, legal, social, and cultural aspects of the Union as a whole, as well as relations between European Union member states, and the European Union’s relationship to the rest of the world. The emphasis of the studies reflects the recent developments in the EU. In addition, the center explores the challenges of the Union’s enlargement through the accession of central and eastern European countries, and, finally, the grand visions of a future for Europe.
Gotham Center For New York City History
http://www.gothamcenter.org
The Gotham Center’s mission is to examine and explore the city’s rich history, and to make it more accessible to citizens and scholars, teachers and students, locals and out-of-towners. The center brings together an array of talented scholars and buffs, curators and archivists, librarians and teachers, and filmmakers and preservationists, all of whom study, preserve, and present New York City’s rich and fascinating past.
Henri Peyre French Institute
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/hpfi
The Henri Peyre French Institute sponsors a variety of conferences, seminars, and lectures that relate to the arts and humanities in French and Francophone culture, including exhibits, poetry readings, and artistic performances. The institute also supports visiting scholars and encourages programs and projects of an interdisciplinary nature. A number of publications appear under its auspices.
Human Ecodynamics Research Center (HERC)
http://herc.ws.gc.cuny.edu
The Human Ecodynamics Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY, is coordinating the effort of scholars in a formal research collaborative addressing crucial issues of sustainability, resilience, and the future of humans on earth. HERC focuses on the past and present global interactions of humans and the natural world, using fields of inquiry and methods of investigation from anthropology, archaeology, sociology, geosciences, climatology, biological sciences, art, history, and political science.
Following initiatives by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the study of human ecodynamics is used to emphasize collective and cross-disciplinary ways of understanding:
constant and often discontinuous change
the ubiquity of human impact past and present
the potential for rapid threshold-crossing climate change
complex conjuncture of “fast” and “slow” variables in time and space
the increased role of geospatial perspectives and newly dynamic modeling in driving interdisciplinary investigations and synthesis
The team at the Human Ecodynamics Research Center has been specifically tasked by the NSF Office of Polar Programs to develop an international and interdisciplinary research forum called the Global Human Ecodynamics Alliance (GHEA, www.gheahome.org).
Institute For Language Education In Transcultural Context (ILETC)
http://iletc.commons.gc.cuny.edu
The CUNY Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context was founded in 2012 with the broad mandate of researching, supporting, coordinating, and advocating for language learning across the University. ILETC is supported through university-wide funding, as well as through the individual support of Hunter College, Queens College, and The Graduate Center.
Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean (IRADAC)
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/iradac
The Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean was founded to address the African presence on the African continent, in the Americas, and elsewhere, through scholarly research and public programs for the betterment of the lay public as well as the academic community. Its central mission is to foster understanding and critical interpretation of the history, development, conditions, status, and cultures of the diverse peoples of African descent. The institute’s scope extends to any region of the African diaspora. It encourages and supports multidisciplinary scholarship and public programming and works to serve the needs and interests of students, faculty researchers, and members of the general community.
Saul Kripke Center
http://kripkecenter.commons.gc.cuny.edu
Established in 2007, the Saul Kripke Center houses the archives of Professor Saul A. Kripke, one of The Graduate Center’s most distinguished philosophers and logicians, who has made significant and wide-ranging contributions to both mathematical logic and philosophy.
The center is currently creating a digital archive to preserve Professor Kripke’s works, including recordings of lectures and seminars dating back to 1970, and lecture notes, manuscripts, and philosophical and mathematical correspondence dating back to the 1950s. The center sponsors graduate fellowships for students enrolled in The Graduate Center’s Ph.D. Program in Philosophy. The center also makes its archive available for visiting scholars and hosts regular “brown-bag lunch” talks as well as colloquia by distinguished Kripke scholars.
The Latin/Greek Institute
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/latin-greek-institute
The Latin/Greek Institute of the City University of New York, founded in 1973, is a collaborative effort of the City University Graduate Center and Brooklyn College. The Institute offers intensive, total-immersion programs in ancient languages during the summer that enable serious, highly motivated undergraduate and graduate students to cover the material normally included in several semesters of conventional work in a single summer. All programs are team-taught by experienced instructors.
Leon Levy Center For Biography
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/llcb
Established by a generous gift from the Leon Levy Foundation and envisioned as a hub for writers, scholars, students, and readers of biography, the Leon Levy Center for Biography seeks to build connections between independent and university-affiliated biographers across the disciplines and cultivate lively discussions about the art and craft of biography historically and in our time.
The center sponsors such events as the Annual Biography Lecture (in the fall), the Annual Conference on Biography (spring), and a number of public presentations and programs throughout the year to provide a forum for the public to appreciate the breadth and variety of biographical narratives and the intellectual issues fueling them. The center also offers four resident fellowships annually to fund the research and writing of outstanding biographies and two fellowships to CUNY dissertation students writing biography.
Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center (MEMEAC)
http://memeac.gc.cuny.edu
MEMEAC’s mission is to promote the study of the Middle East and Middle Eastern Americans. Established in 2001, MEMEAC is the only center in the country that incorporates the Middle Eastern American experience into Middle East Studies.
Research Institute For The Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS)
http://rislus.gc.cuny.edu
The institute conducts basic and applied research on the structure and use of language by social groups in New York and other urban settings, as well as on human, social, and educational issues associated with the language of urban groups.
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC)
http://thesegalcenter.org
The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center is a nonprofit center for theatre, dance, and film affiliated with CUNY’s Ph.D. Program in Theatre and Performance. The center’s mission is to bridge the gap between academia and the professional performing arts communities both within the United States and internationally. By providing an open environment for the development of educational, community-driven, and professional projects in the performing arts, MESTC is a home to theatre scholars, students, playwrights, actors, dancers, directors, dramaturgs, and performing arts managers from the local and international theatre communities. Through diverse programming—staged readings, theatre events, panel discussions, lectures, conferences, film screenings, and dance—and a number of publications, MESTC enables artists, academics, visiting scholars, and performing arts professionals to participate actively in the advancement and appreciation of the entire range of the theatrical experience. The center presents staged readings to further the development of new and classic plays; lecture series; televised seminars featuring professional and academic luminaries; and arts in education programs, and maintains its long-standing visiting-scholars-from-abroad program. In addition, the center publishes a series of highly regarded academic journals as well as books, including plays in translation, written, translated, and edited by leading scholars.
Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality/Luxembourg Income Study Center
http://www.gc.cuny.edu/liscenter
The Luxembourg Income Study Center, also known as the LIS Center, brings the resources of LIS to The Graduate Center. LIS, located in Luxembourg, is a nonprofit microdata archive, research institute, and center for training in cross-national comparative research.
The LIS Center aims to collaborate with other university centers; encourage and provide supervision to students and faculty using the LIS microdata to research income, wealth, or employment; and provide a learning platform for comparative research using the LIS and Luxembourg Wealth Study microdata in the form of periodic seminars, symposia, and courses devoted to research using the microdata.