the Center for Transcultural Studies
Latest events
October 16–17, 2025
The New Faces of Authoritarianism
LOS NUEVOS ROSTROS DEL AUTORITARISMO
Ecology, Capitalism, Democracy
July 14–19, 2025
Summer University, CEU, Budapest, Hungary
Directors
Dilip Gaonkar, Rhetoric, and Public Culture, Northwestern University
Shalini Randeria, President and Rector of Central European University
Liam Mayes, Politics, Law and Social Thought, Rice University
Faculty
Prathama Banerjee, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India
Miguel de Beistegui, Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Craig Calhoun, Social Sciences, Arizona State University
Sonja Dümpelmann, Environmental Humanities, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilians University
Harris Feinsod, Department of English, Johns Hopkins University
Robert Meister, Department of the History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz
Lars Tønder, Political Science, University of Copenhagen
Peter Wagner, Department of Sociological Theory, University of Barcelona
Featured Projects
Questioning the Present
The Questioning the Present project was launched in 2020 as a response to the contemporary political, economic, and social conditions in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
Democratic Agendas Network
In 2017, the CTS launched a new network-building project titled Democratic Agendas Network as a framework for integrating projects and dialogues related to the career of democracy and its futures.
Summer School
This program at the Central European University is co-funded by the Open Society Foundations, the Center for Transcultural Studies, the Center for Global Culture and Communication, and the Buffett Institute of Global Affairs (Northwestern University, Evanston, USA).
Publications
Public Works
Public Works is the CTS's international publications project. It includes the contemporary paperback series Public Planet Books (a collaboration with Duke University Press) and CTS-sponsored books. Benjamin Lee is Public Works' executive director.
Working Papers
Dig into the CTS’s intellectual history by checking out the working papers that CTS-affiliated scholars wrote between 1986 and 1992.