The Interdisciplinary Program in Cultural, Social and Political Thought (CSPT) gives the brightest students in the Humanities and Social Sciences the opportunity to grapple with the big thinkers and big issues of our time, in a context that puts aside disciplinary boundaries, encourages intellectual exploration and critique, and ultimately puts everyone’s dogmas at issue.

At present, the full program is only available to students who have been accepted into a graduate program in English, History, Political Science, or Sociology and who also have satisfied the admissions requirements of the CSPT Program itself. In any case, CSPT seminars are open to other graduate students at the University of Victoria with permission of the instructors concerned.

Students applying for admission should understand that CSPT is a theory program, which demands a high level of theoretical interest and sophistication. Although there are no specific course requirements for entry into CSPT, previous courses in philosophy, literary theory, intellectual history, political theory, cultural studies, and anthropological or sociological theory are likely to be of assistance to incoming students. A new student is expected to have good grounding in the theory relevant to his or her own discipline, to show aptitude for difficult theoretical work, and to display an interest in exploring theoretical issues that go beyond disciplinary boundaries into the wider field of cultural, social and political thought. Although some students do applied research within the framework of CSPT, the work is always motivated in part by theoretical concerns.

That said, CSPT is particularly relevant for students who are deeply engaged with the issues of our time, and wish to do work that is relevant practically as well as theoretically. Our aim is to open the boundaries, and enable students to do the critical work that they think is most necessary at this time. We think that this means putting established theories into question and encouraging interdisciplinary work.