The Clowes Center strives to build linkages across and between local and global contexts. Calling attention to the interconnections that link research, teaching, and activism, the Center selects key themes that bring scholars, students, and activists together at the University of Washington. The current “contact zones” explored through speaker series, conferences, and community engagement, include collaborative initiatives on the critical study of borderlands and human-animal interactions.

• Borderlands Working Group
  This collaborative program seeks to create a sustained dialogue among scholars, students, policy makers, and community activists about the multiple dimensions of border dynamics especially as they relate to issues of immigration, human security, identity politics, and social justice. The project includes two separate but related components. In the short term, this project brings scholars from several institutions in the Southwest and Northwest together with policy makers and community leaders through a series of lectures and workshops held, initially, at the University of Washington, though this series may and should expand to other campuses as the project develops and grows. The long-term component involves the creation of a collaborative research network and summer program for under-represented students from both the Northwest and Southwest borderlands. More Info
• Animal Studies Working Group
  Building on the recent efforts of faculty, students, and staff, a newly created working group interrogates the places of animals in human societies, cultures, and histories. With members from the humanities and social sciences, this group will coordinate speaker series, film screenings, and faculty-graduate student workshops. More Info