Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis (CCA)

The Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture, founded in 1986 by Rutgers Professor of English George Levine, changed its name in 2005 to the Center for Cultural Analysis (CCA). In making this change, it announced that it has greatly enlarged the scope of its work and its role in the life of the Rutgers campus and beyond.

The CCA will continue to connect the local Rutgers community with international intellectual debates by exploring rich themes such as “The Everyday and the Ordinary,” “Literature and New Media ,” and “New Cosmopolitanisms.” It will pursue a broad mission to address problems that lie across the traditional disciplines of the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences, but the new Center will host a greater range of programs and seminars than it has in the past. Organized around a core of year-long CCA fellows studying selected themes, these events will be open to all Rutgers faculty and students. They will include working groups for faculty, public events connected to ongoing projects on different interdisciplinary topics, graduate seminars related to the Center’s themes, and undergraduate seminars.

Fellowships at the CCA are designed to be held by Rutgers faculty and graduate students, as well as by postdoctoral scholars from outside the university. Graduate fellows enjoy a year-long dissertation residency at the CCA, supported by a stipend. Faculty fellowships come in two forms: working group fellows and CCA graduate teaching fellows. The former run year-long working groups for Rutgers faculty and graduate students on themes they propose to the Center. The latter conduct graduate seminars relating to one of the Center’s projects. Working groups and classes will be held in the “smart” seminar room at the CCA, which is equipped for multimedia presentations.

Postdoctoral fellows pursue individual research projects relating to a CCA theme, as well as participate in working groups and seminars. Each postdoctoral fellow will teach an advanced undergraduate course during his or her year at Rutgers.

In addition to other programming, the Center will continue to explore new modes and venues for the publication of CCA research. Prior to 2007, it was the home of the journal Social Text.