Call for Proposals
The Center welcomes proposals for new faculty-led working groups for Fall 2026.
Each year, CSSD funds and supports working groups chosen from an open call that bring together faculty in the humanities, social sciences, law, sciences and arts, as well as artists and practitioners in the New York area and beyond, to investigate problems of social, economic, and cultural inequality. Working groups probe how historical and contemporary categories of social difference and identity shape institutions and policies, lived experiences, global relations, and art and activism. CSSD working groups create the conditions for researchers to work collaboratively and internationally on problems of common interest and to set intellectual agendas for the future.
Application deadline: March 25th, 2026 at 5:00 pm.
Working groups are faculty-led seminars that meet over two years to think in slow and sustained ways about a particular social difference-related topic. Groups are typically led by two co-directors and include 5-8 core members who meet in closed sessions every one to two months to read, discuss, and share. Working groups have been conceived by CSSD to foster critical thinking and analysis, without the pressure to produce outcomes; they are not intended as a way to fund projects that involve preexisting group research or data collection. Rooted in accountable, extra-university resource-sharing and collaboration, CSSD requires working groups to engage wider publics at least once a year, either through a public event or a public-facing scholarly contribution (i.e. not an academic publication). CSSD is particularly interested in working groups that propose out-of-the-box formats for public events or scholarly contributions that meaningfully engage under-recognized communities outside the university. Formats to consider include site-specific conversations, field trips, exhibitions, walks, radio or podcast shows, reading circles, online documentary projects, mapping initiatives, and pamphlet publications.
Every year, CSSD’s open call for working groups focuses on a new theme. This year’s theme is "Renaissance." On the occasion of myriad anniversaries that present occasions for taking stock - from the 250th anniversary of the United States’ Independence and the 50th of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life to the recent 100th of the Harlem Renaissance and the upcoming 25th of Robin Kelley’s Freedom Dreams, we invite incoming faculty working groups to think anew about the narratives that surround the past as well as inherited common-sense values like freedom, democracy, and liberalism. Which aspects of the past require caretaking and reinvigoration, and which require abandonment in order to develop ways to move forward - to be reborn - in our present?
Q&A for interested applicants: February 18th, 2:00 pm.
Funding is in the amount of $40,000 over two years. CSSD funding may be used by project directors at their discretion. However, funds are typically used in the following ways:
Course relief for a project director (one course per year for two years, alternating in the case of co-directors; specific terms to be negotiated by the individual project director with the director’s home department and/or center/institute)
Stipend for one graduate student assistant responsible for working group support
Research materials
Working group meeting meals
Public programming costs
Honoraria and/or travel for external speakers