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Title
COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF IDEAS FACT SHEET
Category
courses
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e0a8d9ae0bb4487f9ba803990a556202
Source URL
https://artsci.washington.edu/academics/humanities/comparative-history-ideas/fac...
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https://artsci.washington.edu/academics/arts/art-arthistory-design/fact-sheet
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2026-03-23T10:48:15+00:00
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COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF IDEAS FACT SHEET

Source: https://artsci.washington.edu/academics/humanities/comparative-history-ideas/fact-sheet Parent: https://artsci.washington.edu/academics/arts/art-arthistory-design/fact-sheet

Comparative History of Ideas (CHID) is an interdisciplinary department that integrates ideas from the arts, sciences, and humanities. We position our students to ask questions that matter, think critically about education, and creatively express their understanding through innovative coursework and independent thesis projects.

VISIT DEPARTMENT WEBSITE

HIGHLIGHTS

127

Undergraduate majors

EDUCATION

CHID offers a major and a minor in the Comparative History of Ideas and works to maintain its identity as an intimate learning community. As an interdisciplinary department, CHID encourages students to explore different academic disciplines to gain an understanding of how diverse styles of inquiry engage experience and knowledge. Similarly, the program’s international orientation emphasizes an understanding of different cultural, political, and social contexts. Additionally, CHID foregrounds an intersectional approach to learning, highlighting the convergences of class, environment, race, gender, sex, ability, and other vectors of difference.

CHID’s commitment to project-based learning culminates in the senior thesis, which helps students develop their own interests and increase the depth of their scholarly engagement. The processes of arriving at a research question, connecting with UW faculty on shared research interests, performing research, and writing are each integral parts of this capstone experience.

CHID students in Ecuador, bringing in the harvest with students from the Amawtay Wasi Intercultural University.

Students

Autumn 2025

Degrees Awarded

Autumn 2024 - Summer 2025

Selected Student Awards

Since 2015

FACULTY

CHID’s faculty represent a broad range of disciplines within the academy. CHID faculty come from the departments of English, History, Jackson School of International Studies, American Ethnic Studies, Program on the Environment, and Mathematics. CHID faculty have taught in the Summer Institute in the Arts and Humanities (SIAH) 10 times.

Faculty honors include:

STUDY ABROAD

CHID’s study abroad and study away programs are distinguished by their academic rigor, interdisciplinary scope, and emphasis on relationality. Students pursue complex intellectual questions through engagement with scholars, artists, political leaders, activists, and other community members. Students are encouraged to think about studying abroad/away as a reciprocal, collaborative experience, rather than as a consumptive act of tourism or extraction. Students in CHID’s study abroad programs are therefore asked to think critically and reflexively about the process and politics of studying abroad and away as a crucial part of the learning experience.

Since 2020, students have participated in CHID programs in the following countries:

Faculty, staff, and students in Mexico for CHID’s LGBTQ Communities, Public Health, and Migration in Mexico program.

COLLABORATIONS

A key component of the CHID Department is the cultivation of new connections both within the University and between the University and outside organizations, including nonprofits, schools, and businesses, both regionally and globally. Our core faculty hold shared appointments in History; the Jackson School of International Studies; Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies; English; the Program on the Environment; American Ethnic Studies; and Mathematics. They also have adjunct and affiliate appointments in American Indian Studies, Anthropology, and Geography. CHID housed the Disability Studies Program’s first classes on campus and continues to cross-list all Disability Studies permanent course offerings. We also currently co-sponsor the Critical Animal Studies Working Group, an innovative interdisciplinary campus project.

CHID students have also worked with a variety of local organizations in which they conduct independent and public-facing research. Many of our international programs incorporate an Engaged Community Learning component, in which students are required to work with local community groups, non-governmental organizations, or school groups that deal with the issues covered in the academic portion of the program.

CONTACT

Department of Comparative History of Ideas\ Box 354300\ University of Washington\ Seattle, WA 98195\ (206) 543-7333\ chid.washington.edu

last update: December 2025