The Center for Historical Enquiry & the Social Sciences highlights the interplay between history and the present. Its work spurs new collective thinking about large-scale social transformations and solutions to seemingly intractable social crises and problems. Taking intellectual risks is actively encouraged.
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Study Groups
CHESS supports study groups at the intersection of social science and history. If you’re a Yale graduate student and have an idea for an interdisciplinary reading group in that vein, reach out to chess@yale.edu for more information about how CHESS can help you.
Current Graduate Reading Group
In a moment of heightened social, political, and environmental crises, the problems of state, class, and ideology have once again taken center stage in the critique of capitalism. The time is therefore ripe to critically revisit the original debates over structural Marxism, where these concepts were once advanced and fiercely contested more than half a century ago.
Beginning in February 2026, we meet once a week over the Spring semester to read Althusser’s Reading Capital (1965), For Marx (1965), and E.P. Thompson’s humanist critique of Althusser, The Poverty of Theory (1978). To get involved, please contact either Elliott Gruenhut (elliott.gruenhut@yale.edu) or Valentin Lehmbruck (valentin.lehmbruck@yale.edu).
International Exchanges
Yale CHESS maintains relationships with both University College London (UCL) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris.
