The Program in Critical Theory

The Program in Critical Theory

The Program in Critical Theory enables enrolled PhD students from across the social sciences, arts, and humanities to obtain certification of a Designated-Emphasis specialization in Critical Theory. 

Recent Stories

Fascism: An Eternal Recurrence Event on February 01, 2024

February 29, 2024

On Thursday, February 1, 2024, the Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Program in Critical Theory co-presented Fascism: An Eternal Recurrence?, a panel conversation centered on the question: "What is fascism today?". Panelists included Dylan Riley (Sociology, UC Berkeley), Alexei Yurchak (Anthropology, UC Berkeley), Blanca Missé (French, SFSU), and Ilya Budraitskis (Critical Theory, UCB), with moderation by Aglaya Glebova, (European Modern Art, UC Berkeley). The four panelists discussed modern expressions of...

Rescuing dissent: Inside the year-long mission to bring prominent Putin critics to UC Berkeley

October 25, 2023

Russian social science professors Ilya Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis, renowned for their expertise on authoritarianism, fled their country after Russia invaded Ukraine. A faculty and staff coalition helped give them a safe harbor at UC Berkeley.

Read more here about the tireless work and collaboration that went into welcoming Budraitskis and Matveev to the Program in Critical Theory as faculty members.

The Program in Critical Theory Welcomes Scholar in Residence, Nivedita Menon

October 13, 2023

The Program in Critical Theory is pleased to announce that Nivedita Menon will visit UC Berkeley during the fall 2023 semester. Please join us the week of November 12 to hear Menon speak at a variety of events on Berkeley’s campus.

Nivedita Menon
, Professor at Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, is the author of Seeing like a Feminist (2012). Her new book, Secularism as Misdirection: Critical Thought from the Global South...

UC Berkeley’s Designated Emphasis (“DE”) in Critical Theory offers courses on foundational nineteenth-century theories and discourses of critique; on the Frankfurt School; and on other modern and contemporary forms of critical theory, including critical race theory, postcolonial theory, feminism, gender studies, queer theory, critical legal theory, and modes of critique arising from structuralism and poststructuralism.