Comparative & Historical Initiatives

Yale Center for Historical Enquiry & The Social Sciences (CHESS)

YaleCHESS highlights the interplay between history and the present. Its work spurs new collective thinking about solutions to seemingly intractable social problems. This cross-disciplinary Center seeks to transcend the Humanities and Social Sciences divide, bringing together a diverse complement of scholars to answer large questions that help us better understand the world we live in.

 

The Comparative Research Workshop (CRW)

The Comparative Research Workshop (CRW) is a weekly seminar in which work-in-progress by visiting scholars, Yale graduate students, and Yale faculty from Sociology and other disciplines is discussed. Papers are distributed a week ahead of time. Students who take the course for a letter grade present a paper during the term in which they are enrolled for credit. (Course listing: SOCY 560/PLSC 734)

 

Critical Realism Network

The goal of the Critical Realism Network is to create a community of scholars and educators with the aim of fostering a dialogue about the direction of contemporary social theory and research and the potential impact of critical realism.

 

The Initiative on Religion, Politics & Society

The MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, and Society brings philosophical, comparative and historical analysis to bear on contemporary political problems to stimulate new research agendas that in turn yield exciting insights into connections between religion and politics. The Initiative aims to harness Yale’s strengths in the fields of sociology, history, religious studies and political science, together with critical perspectives from outside the United States, to contribute thicker apprehensions of religion to scholarly and policy debates.

Political Violence and its Legacies Workshop

The MacMillan Political Violence and its Legacies (PVL) workshop is an interdisciplinary forum for work in progress by Yale faculty and graduate students, as well as scholars from other universities. PVL is designed to foster a wide-ranging conversation at Yale and beyond about political violence and its effects that transcends narrow disciplinary and methodological divisions. The workshop’s interdisciplinary nature attracts faculty and graduate students from Sociology, Anthropology, African-American Studies, American Studies, History, and Political Science, among others.