The Research Center for Urban Cultural History (RCUCH) premises its work on the multi-disciplinary study of cities as dynamic sites where cultures are generated, renegotiated and transmitted. Housed within an institution of higher learning with a commitment to an urban mission and an exceptionally diverse student body, and located in a city richly endowed with intellectual resources, the RCUCH initiates and facilitates scholarly and teaching projects that explore a wide array of possible links between studies of cities in the U.S. and throughout the world, encompassing both contemporary and historical topics. The Center's educational, scholarly, and outreach activities are directed toward achieving a flexible, comprehensive and innovative approach to urban cultural history in a global context.

The Center's principal focus is on interdisciplinary and collaborative research and teaching in urban cultural history. This field focuses on: the specificity of the urban setting and its environs; spatial definition; demographic and economic shifts; temporal change; cultural exchange and cultural transformation; and discursive and signifying networks created by the production of meaning between groups and populations.