Thematic Foci 1973 - Present

2023-24 Platform
2022-23 Climate Crisis Politics
2021-22 Political Mobilizations and Social Movements
2020-21 Science and the State
2019-20 Economy and Society
2018-19 Crisis and Critique
2017-18 The Social Sciences in a Changing World
2016-17 Law and the Social Sciences
2015-16 Borders and Boundaries
2014-15 Egalitarianisms
2013-14 The Environmental Turn and the Human Sciences
2012-13 Economics and Politics
2011-12 Morals and Moralities
2010-11

Secularism

2009-10 The Dewey Seminar: Education, Schools and the State
2008-09 Social Norms and Cooperation
2007-08 The Rule of Law Under Pressure
2006-07 The 'Third World' Now
2005-06 Psychology and Economics
2004-05 Interdisciplinarity and Its Objects
2001-04 Ethics and the Social Sciences: Present Directions
  2003-04 The Social Implications of Bioethics
2002-03 Politics and Ethics: The Case of Corruption
2001-02 Economics and Business Questions
2000-01 Information Technology
1997-00 Globalization and the Different Kinds of Local Resistance to It: A Three-Year Program
  1999-00 Universalism of Human Rights
1998-99 Political Economy
1997-98 Cultural Globalization
1993-97 Transitions: A Four-Year Program
  1996-97 Development of “Interpretive Social Science”
1995-96 Modernization and Its Discontents
1994-95 Traveling Reform Movements: Feminism and Environmentalism
1993-94 Politics
1990-93 New Perspectives on Social Science and Humanities Scholarship: A Three-Year Program
  1992-93 Philosophy and Sociology of Science
1991-92 Ethics, Politics and Law
1990-91 Philosophy of History
1987-90 Group Identities: A Three-Year Program
  1989-90 National Identity in Post-Colonial Third World States
1988-89 Political Revival of Ethnicity and Religion
1987-88 Gender
1984-87 Interpretive Social Science: A Three-Year Program
  1986-87 Research Methods in Interpretive Social Science
1985-86 Social Experience of Equality and Inequality
1984-85 The Life History of the Individual
1983-84 Toward a Broader Economics
1982-83 Social and Cognitive Psychology
1979-82 Self-Perception, Mutual Perception and Historical Development (This 3-year focus, jointly organized by the SSS and SHS, and funded by the Mellon Foundation, ran concurrently with the individual theme years.)
1981-82 Problems in Political Philosophy
1980-81 The Comparative Impact of Colonial Regimes on the Newly Independent Countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America
1979-80 The Sociology of Art
1978-79 New Trends in Economic Thought
1977-78 Problems of Advanced Capitalist Societies
1976-77 The Sociology of Science
1975-76 The Analysis of Symbolic Structures
1974-75 The Social, Economic and Political Development of Latin America
1973-74 Islamic Societies