Mission Statement
Center for the Study of Humanities, Culture, and Society (CHCS)
The CHCS seeks to showcase the broad range of scholarly work under the banner of the humanities by facilitating programs and conversations that bring together faculty and students across the university. The humanities offer distinct methods and perspectives for understanding the world through critical analysis, foregrounding narrative, history, philosophy, and aesthetics. The humanities enable us to address essential and enduring questions about culture and society as well as to contemplate more urgent issues confronting individuals and communities right now.
The CHCS organizes a range of events and conversations on campus each year that invite scholars, artists, writers, and activists to share emerging critical and creative work focused around an annual theme. We see these events as opportunities to bring students and faculty at UMass Boston-- as well as in the greater Boston area-- into dialogue with emergent scholarly research and to generate possibilities for interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration. In keeping with the unique composition and mission of UMass Boston, as well as ongoing directions in humanities scholarship, the CHCS is committed to creating a program that represents a diverse range of voices, perspectives, and positionalities.
Beyond these events, the CHCS seeks to cultivate intellectual and professional solidarity across humanities departments and programs on campus. We aim to make visible the vital work of humanities scholars toward solving pressing problems and confronting enduring social realities. The CHCS recognizes the foundational role of humanistic inquiry to a liberal arts education, yet it also aims to highlight how humanities methods offer an indispensable resource for scholars in other disciplines and for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts more broadly.
The CHCS was founded in 2006 as the Research Center for Urban Cultural History. The Center was renamed with a broader mandate in 2013.
History of CHCS
The CHCS was founded in 2006 as the Research Center for Urban Cultural History. The center was renamed with a broader mandate in 2013.
Center for the Humanities, Culture, and Society
Wheatley Hall
Boston, MA 02125 USA
617.287.3130
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Giving to UMass Boston
Expand understanding of the humanities through a gift to the Center for the Humanities, Culture, and Society.