Period.
The 2025/26 Taft Research Center theme Period. invites us to think about time, perspective, punctuation, rhythm, and speed. While periods can signal the end of something—a definitive statement, break, full stop, end of discussion—they also suggest cycles, intervals, and return. With the 2025/26 theme Period. we will explore how humanities and social science scholars punctuate time, history, and our ideas for audiences within and beyond the academy. What is the point of humanities and social science research? What do we include and what do we leave out in our work and writing? In exploring both the public-facing and backstage of humanistic inquiry, we will examine how the humanities and social sciences connect us to the fleshy rhythms of life. Read the full theme description here.
Worldbuilding and Radical Worldmaking
Join the Taft Research Center for our 2024/25 thematic programming series where we host distinguished visiting scholars, artists, activists, and makers, alongside our own faculty and students, to develop techniques to anchor, imagine, and speculate about new worlds while transforming our own. What are the horizons of radical worldmaking? How can we use methods, practices, and ways of knowing from the humanities and social sciences to extend them?
April 11
April 14
April 28
May 1 (Application Review Begins)