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About the Global Platform

The future is global. The unprecedented flows of people, ideas, arts, finance and technology, the inescapable interdependence among people, businesses and states, and the responses to the altered structures of power are the defining forces shaping the world in the 21st century.  These processes are complex, non-linear, and often contradictory. They can offer human progress but also regress.

At The New School, faculty and students from across the university’s multiple programs and centers are engaging with these processes to understand the nature, drivers, consequences, and responses to globalization. Responses include scholarly research, creative practices, and teaching. They span the disciplines from economics and social sciences to design to management to media studies to the humanities. They take the forms of scholarly writings, media production, and artistic expression. They address diverse issues such as climate change, extreme inequalities, refugees, and the rise of authoritarianism.

The Global Platform at The New School connects these diverse works in global and international affairs, scattered across programs and centers in four of the university’s colleges: the Schools of Public Engagement, The New School for Social Research, Parsons School of Design, and Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts. It is led by a faculty committee comprised of members that reflect the diversity of the university’s programs and centers disciplinary and thematic interests.  

Despite the diversity of disciplines, genres, and topics explored, the Committee recognized from the outset strong shared interests. They build on The New School’s commitment to progressive social values, and a critical enquiry that is transdisciplinary, questions mainstream approaches, and seeks creative solutions.  

Topics of shared interest include:

  • Decolonizing Knowledges
  • Environmental Justice
  • Genders
  • Human Rights
  • Inequalities
  • Mobility and Migration

Through the Global Platform, the Committee aims to;

  • Foster collaboration among faculty and students from across the university on global and international affairs;
  • Articulate and assemble a unique body of scholarship and approach to understanding globalization.

Contributors to the Global Platform include:

Alexander Aleinikoff (New School for Social Research)
Diana Ayton-Shenker (Schools of Public Engagement)
Michael Cohen (Schools of Public Engagement/Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs) – Chair
Alexandra Delano Alonso (Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts/Schools of Public Engagement/Global Studies)
Burak Cakmak (Parsons School of Design/School of Fashion)
Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (Schools of Public Engagement/Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs)
Margarita Gutman (Schools of Public Engagement/Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs/Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students)
Ashok Gurung (India China Institute)
Victoria Hattam (New School for Social Research/Department of Politics)
Sean Jacobs (Schools of Public Engagement/Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs)
Carin Kuoni (Vera List for Art and Politics)
Lydia Matthews (Parsons School of Design/Curatorial Design Research Lab)
Anne McNevin (New School for Social Research/Department of Politics)
Timon McPhearson (Eugene Lang College/Schools of Public Engagement/Environmental Studies)
Sheba Tejani (Schools of Public Engagement/Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs)
Joel Towers (Parsons/Tishman Environment and Design Center)

Support for the Global Platform at The New School is provided by the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs and the Executive Dean’s Office of the Schools of Public Engagement. Global at The New School is not intended to be a coordination mechanism nor an inventory, but rather an intellectual project with convening power.

The Global Platform at The New School will be updated quarterly (twice per academic semester) in order to reflect the most recent scholarship, courses, events, and projects related to the global at that moment in time.

To inquire about the Global Platform at The New School, or to submit content for consideration, please write to globalplatform@newschool.edu.