The Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society has announced 10 new research collaborations for 2026–2027. The projects range broadly in scope and methodology, though all adopt a multi-disciplinary, humanistic perspective to address complex questions.
Now entering its second decade, the Collegium has supported more than 150 projects with faculty representing all divisions and schools at the University. Many of these initiatives, including those launching this summer, draw in scholars, practitioners, artists and members of the public from around the world as research partners.
“The projects our faculty advisory board selected this year represent an astonishing range of scholarly interests and approaches, from ancient poetic traditions to the current housing crisis in U.S. cities,” said David J. Levin, interim director of the Neubauer Collegium for the 2025-2026 academic year. “What unites them is a shared conviction that rigorous collaborative work, grounded in evidence and guided by curiosity, is a compelling way to pursue knowledge. I am excited to see what new insights these projects will generate.”
The following projects launch on July 1:
Beyond the Colonial Divide: Middle Eastern Poetry and Poetics in the Longue Durée
Pamela Klasova (Middle Eastern Studies) and Jana Matuszak (Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures; Middle Eastern Studies)
This project will demonstrate the value of considering ancient and medieval Middle Eastern poetry as one continuous poetic tradition rather than two separate fields. The research team will convene an interdisciplinary group of scholars to challenge existing boundaries between historical periods and geographic regions.
Boundaries of Benevolence: Exploring the Limits of Compassion
Baddr Shakhsheer (Surgery), Fan Yang (Psychology), Asim Farooq (Ophthalmology), Jade Pagkas-Bather (Infectious Diseases), Anton Ford (Philosophy), Ania Aizman (Slavic Languages and Literature), John Schneider (Medicine and Epidemiology)
This seed-stage project will focus on community healthcare settings to explore the dynamics of compassion, ethical obligations, and pathways for fostering empathy across regional and social divides.
Egypt, the Levant, and the Rise of the Alphabet
Aren Wilson-Wright (Middle Eastern Studies) and Anna-Latifa Mourad-Cizek (Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures)
Integrating methods from linguistics, archaeology, anthropology and digital humanities, this project will explore the circumstances that led to the rise of the alphabet. The research team will produce a digital edition of the earliest alphabetic inscriptions and create a database to trace the transmission of this new system of writing.
Housing Imaginaries
Robin Bartram (Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice) and Adrienne Brown (English Language and Literature; Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity)
What is the role of imagination in addressing the contemporary housing crisis? Through a combination of archival research, field interviews, and collaborative workshops, the research team will integrate creative and humanistic modes of thinking into social scientific research on Chicago housing. The aim is to inform both academic and public discourse on a crucial policy issue.
Love/Music: Problematics of a Relationship
Martha Feldman (Music), Martin Stokes (Kings College London), Dafni Tragaki (University of Thessaly)
This global collaboration queries the presumed relationship between love and music. Through a series of international workshops, artistic exhibitions and publications, the team will advance understanding of an undertheorized but significant cultural nexus.
Nonrelation, Noncomparison, and Dissensus
Na’ama Rokem (Comparative Literature), Dima Ayoub (Middlebury College)
This project will build a digital platform on the translation networks of modern Hebrew and Arabic literature that will make points of divergence, asymmetry and refusal more legible. The aim is to develop a new methodological framework that will be useful for scholars thinking about histories of conflict and political crisis.
Revolutionary Disappointment and Recalibration
Daragh Grant (Social Sciences Collegiate Division), Ghenwa Hayek (Middle Eastern Studies), Jennifer Pitts (Political Science; Committee on Social Thought), David Scott (Columbia University), Lisa Wedeen (Political Science)
Is radical social transformation still possible without a belief in guaranteed progress? This collaboration between political and social theorists and historians of modern revolutionary movements will investigate the forms that political hope might take.
Scholasticide in and Beyond Palestine
Jodi Byrd (Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity), Alireza Doostdar (Divinity School), Eve Ewing (Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity), Darryl Li (Anthropology)
Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this project will use a mixed-methods approach in undertaking empirical research and comparative analysis to investigate “scholasticide” as a critical category for political and historical analysis. In addition to the resident research team, the project will involve a sequence of virtual visiting fellows.
What Was Theatre in 1609?
Ellen MacKay (English Language and Literature; Committee on Theatre and Performance Studies), Katherine Williams (University of Toronto), Siri Lee (Museum of Modern Art)
Beginning with the Harrington corpus, an idiosyncratic list of early modern drama compiled by a single person in 1609, this project will build a digital resource that identifies discrete units of theatrical activity beyond the play text. The research team will pilot a new methodology to make these patterns of expression discoverable and broadly available. The project will afford rare insight into everyday experiences of theatre in the early 17th century.
Which Side are You On? The Labor Movement Between Theory and Practice
Ben Laurence (Philosophy), Gabriel Winant (History), Steven Klein (King’s College London), Alex Gourevitch (Brown University), Mie Inouye (Bard College)
How can experimental encounters between labor scholars and organizers influence the exchange of knowledge about the labor movement? Building on research questions catalyzed during the What Force on Earth project at the Collegium, a group of political theorists, philosophers, historians and labor organizers will pilot a new technique for facilitating dialogue between labor theory and practice.
—This story was first published by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.
