Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative
Graduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences are encouraged to participate in the Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative, a program designed to help graduate students during their academic career at Northwestern by fostering connections with students and faculty in other programs with whom they might have natural intellectual affinities.
Interdisciplinary clusters in different areas of intellectual inquiry have been developed by faculty across schools and programs and provide a second intellectual home for incoming and current graduate students. Clusters offer their own set of courses as well as sponsor a number of activities and events.
At the time of application to Northwestern, students who wish to participate in the cluster initiative may indicate their interest on the application. Once a cluster has been selected, the option to attach a cluster statement becomes available. While students may elect to participate and affiliate with a cluster at any point in their graduate career, select students will be named Mellon Interdisciplinary Cluster Fellows at the time of admission. This designation indicates the student’s strong fit for the cluster and carries additional benefits. This cluster initiative is not a requirement for admission to the CLS program.
For more information, please visit the Interdisciplinary Cluster and Certificate Initiative from The Graduate School.
Current interdisciplinary clusters are:
- African American and Diaspora Studies
- African Studies
- Asian Studies
- British Studies
- Classics
- Comparative and Historical Social Science
- Comparative Race and Diaspora
- Critical Studies in Theatre and Performance
- Critical Theory
- Gender and Sexuality Studies
- Global Avant-Garde and Modernist Studies
- Jewish Studies
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies
- Medieval Studies
- Middle East and North African Studies (MENA)
- Poetry and Poetics
- Rhetoric and Public Culture
- Science Studies