About Us

The Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry (formerly known as the Consortium for Interdisciplinary Research) supports and develops interdisciplinary research and programming on the Berkeley campus and beyond. Established in 2013 by UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Sciences: Division of Arts and Humanities, CICI produces research and academic activities across disciplinary, departmental and divisional lines within campus and to a global audience. CICI currently hosts The Program in Critical Theory, the Mellon-funded International Consortium for Critical Theory Programs, The Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the Luce-funded Democracy and Public Theology Program and Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative, Digital Humanities, and the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative. We produce 30-40 events a year, manage millions in grants funding, and coordinate academic, outreach, and publishing activities that bring together a diverse community of faculty and graduate students from nearly 30 campus departments and schools.

CICI fosters cross-divisional collaborations in order to address key political, social, religious, and cultural issues of our time — the global forms of critical theory, theology and democracy, borders and migration, racism, pandemics, authoritarianism, and climate change. In addition to coordinating collaborative projects and events across disciplinary, divisional and regional lines, CICI identifies emerging fields of inquiry (e.g. Environmental Arts and Humanities, Psychedelics and Humanities). We are committed to thinking creatively across an array of fields to develop a capacious vision of the arts, humanities and sciences in relation to critical thought, justice and ethics.