The recently announced Certificate in Social, Cultural and Critical Theory (SCCT) has generated a lot of conversation on campus, including enthusiasm from professors who want to be involved and uncertainty from students about what precisely a certificate in theory will involve. The SCCT has a more ambiguous name than other certificates, like Environmental Studies or International Relations, but it has a very clear objective: to allow students to find theory classes across many departments while making the Center for the Humanities (CHUM) more visible on campus.

“For the first time ever, a certificate will link the intellectual vitality of the Center for the Humanities, which has always been a part of campus, to the curriculum,” said Sociology Professor Jonathan Cutler, who was appointed Director of the Certificate. “Unlike other free-floating certificates at the University, this has a clear link to an institution that has been around for fifty years.”
The Certificate will be housed in CHUM and governed by its advisory board, which Cutler said will provide better visibility for the speakers and events that the Center brings to campus—particularly the classes taught by CHUM Fellows.

“Almost all the time, the Fellows who arrive offer classes that would be relevant, but they are often invisible to the campus,” he said. “Those courses will be flagged in a particular way now.”

According to the certificate website, the SCCT “aims to facilitate a coordinated program of study that encourages students to seek out theory-intensive courses on offer in a wide range of disciplines and departments at Wesleyan and to become proficient in the study of theory.”

College of Letters (COL) Professor Kari Weil, who is teaching Paris, 19th Century, a class listed under the SCCT next fall, said that the certificate is designed to teach new ways of thinking, rather than to explain theory.

“What is important to me is not that students understand what ‘theory’ is but rather that they can begin to recognize questions or problematics that transcend specific disciplines and that they assemble an array of tools and texts to help them answer those questions,” Weil wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “Theory should be helpful, but it can also be enjoyed for its own sake as a game of thought.”

Students who want to obtain the certificate must take a minimum of six of the offered courses. By the time students make their preliminary application for the certificate in fall of their junior year, they are required to have taken two introductory courses and two advanced courses. Of the two introductory courses, one must be in Cultural Theory and the other in Social Theory.

Additional requirements must be fulfilled by the time that the final application is made in the senior year. Students must take at least one course in the Philosophical Origins of Theory category. Each of the three total advanced courses the certificate requires must be in a different department. Furthermore, no more than one of the advanced courses can be a lecture class.

While the certificate did not create any new classes, it will host complementary co-curricular activities such as student and student-faculty conferences, seminars, symposiums, and social events. SCCT professors say another benefit is that it will give students recognition for the focus of their studies.

“The certificate will be helpful for some students who plan to go to graduate school in the humanities or social sciences,” wrote Professor of English Mathew Garrett in an e-mail to The Argus. “Admissions committees can now easily see that a student has studied theory in a coherent fashion—and that is a plus for any humanities or social science grad-school application, regardless of what field the student ultimately works in.”

The proposal for the Certificate was drafted by Cutler and History Professor Ethan Kleinberg, who were joined in their efforts by Director of the Center for Humanities Jill Morawski. Other professors involved in the planning process included FGSS and Religion Professor Mary-Jane Rubenstein, COL and English Professor Khachig Tololyan, German Studies Professor Ulrich Plass, and Anthropology Professor Margot Weiss.

“As faculty from diverse groups came together there was a shared realization that all of us had students with great interest in this type of theory but who did not know where to go to find courses other than the ones we each were teaching,” Kleinberg wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “Indeed, we as faculty did not know who else was teaching this stuff!”

Already, 45 courses are already listed under the certificate program, with seven being offered next fall, and 50 professors have indicated interest in it.

“There is a clear canon that has never been visible, and this certificate flags an amazing coherency across our curriculum that has never been noticed,” Cutler said. “The potential for a community of faculty and students is greater here than any other curricular innovation in a while.”

There will be an open meeting for interested students on Wednesday, May 5 at 4:15 p.m. at the Center for the Humanities.