We are most interested in students who will not simply master a given formula but who will challenge us to move in directions we might not have envisioned before their participation. We would not have predicted in advance that our students would shape conferences on the ways in which cannibalism and consumption intersect, or the ways in which cultural violence is represented, perpetuated, or resisted across a range of disciplines. We are able to predict, however, that our students will—through unexpected combinations and clusters of concerns emanating from their engagement with various disciplines—ask provocative questions that have the potential to redirect scholarly conversations.

The typical Human Sciences student had a strong commitment to interdisciplinary study prior to coming to GW, and sought out our program precisely because it seemed best able to meet her/his research needs. Our program, by its very nature, attracts a diverse group of students. About two-thirds of the students entering the program have either M.A. degrees or have already completed a number of graduate courses in a particular discipline. A number of students are entering the program with interdisciplinary Masters degrees (e.g., Women’s Studies, Cultural Studies). About one third of the students enter the program with B.A.s and come to us within a year or so after completing college.

Students in the Human Sciences self-identify as social scientists, as scholars in the humanities, and as interdisciplinary scholars. They employ both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, including standard social science methods such as interviews, observations, surveys, or video recordings and standard humanities approaches such as textual analysis or hermeneutical inquiry. Some Human Sciences students locate themselves primarily in relation to an interdisciplinary field or mode of inquiry: for instance, queer studies, Jewish studies, feminism, or postcolonial studies. These interdisciplinary fields provide students with a theoretical foundation for their larger projects. Students in the Human Sciences additionally cite psychoanalysis, psychosocial models of identity formation, deconstruction, multicultural theory, film theory, Marxist theory, theories of the body, ideological analysis, and rhetorical theory as among the methodologies and theories that inform or ground their work.