Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

The Graduate Interdisciplinary program in Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory (SCCT) trains students in important twentieth-century theoretical traditions that have had an impact across multiple disciplines, such as historical materialism, feminism, postmodernism, phenomenology, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, critical legal studies, the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, and queer theory. SCCT encourages exploration of-and cultivates future contributors to-new movements and directions in social, cultural, and critical theory such as actor-network theory, affect theory, anthropocene studies, biopolitics, critical area studies, border theory, critical finance studies, critical science studies, mediated geographies, new materialisms, object-oriented ontology, posthumanism, post-secular theory, critical race studies, somatechnics, trans* theory, and game studies, among others.

Students pursuing the Graduate Certificate in SCCT will benefit from an interdisciplinary graduate curriculum based on theoretical synergies across knowledge projects in the humanities, social sciences, arts, professions, and natural sciences. The certificate will deepen student strengths in interdisciplinary and conceptually rigorous forms of research.

The SCCT Certificate is intended for and exclusively open to University of Arizona graduate students enrolled in MA, MFA, JD, MBA, and other non-Ph.D. programs. (PhD students should enroll in the SCCT Minor.) This is a 9-credit certificate with one required course and two electives. The required course is SCCT 500 (Introduction to Social, Cultural and Critical Theory), offered each year in the fall semester. Students must also take two elective courses, at least one of which is offered outside their home degree program. Elective options include our annual topics course, SCCT 510 (Problems in Social, Cultural and Critical Theory), typically offered in spring semester, as well as all courses that appear on the elective list for the Ph.D. minor (this list may be downloaded from the SCCT website). Students may petition to have a different course (i.e. not appearing on the list) count as one of their electives if it has a significant theoretical dimension and is relevant to their plan of study.