Campus hosts global political economy conference
Scholars from more than 30 universities and colleges in the U.S., Europe, Canada and South America are scheduled to attend the 29th annual gathering of the Political Economy of the World System (PEWS) section of the American Sociological Association being held on campus April 14-17.
Organized by the Sociology Department, this year’s conference is entitled “World-Systemic Crisis and Contending Political Scenarios.” Conference speakers and panels will focus on the changing political dynamics of a current global order in the throes of crisis. Though this crisis has produced widespread violence, imperial wars and volatile economies, it may also create opportunities for new forms of collective agency toward social change. Participants in the PEWS conference will address topics such as the crisis of U.S. hegemony; the politics of global institutions; the proliferation of religious, racial and ethnic strife; and the emergence of movements for systemic social transformation.
The conference opens April 14 with a plenary address by Immanuel Wallerstein, the founder of the school of world systems analysis, at 8 p.m. in 101 Campus Center. Wallerstein is a member of the sociology department at Yale University and director of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University in New York..
Other plenary speakers during the conference will include Saskia Sassen of the University of Chicago and Centennial Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics; Enrique Dussel Ambrosini, of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico; and Anibal Quijano, of Binghamton University and the Centro de Investigaciones Sociales in Lima, Peru.
A tribute to the late Gloria Anzaldua, Chicana feminist and author of “La Frontera/Borderlands,” will be held on April 16 at 8 p.m. in 101 Campus Center. The event will feature performances by members of the New World Theater and Project 2050.
Faculty scheduled to participate include Joya Misra, Randall Stokes, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Dan Clawson, Heinz Sonntag, Agustin Lao-Montes and Millie Thayer of the Sociology Department; Nerissa Balce, Comparative Literature; Srirupa Roy, Political Science; David Mednicoff, Legal Studies; and John Bracey, Afro-American Studies. Political Science doctoral student Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas and Erika Marquez Montano, a graduate student in Sociology, are also slated to participate in a panel.
All presentations, except those noted above, will be held in 302 Gordon Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
The PEWS Conference is co-sponsored by the Center for Public Policy and Administration, Five Colleges, Inc., the Global Migrations Program at Hampshire College, Modern European Studies, the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), and the Social and Demographic Research Institute (SADRI).
Additional contributors include the Black Student Union, Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies; the departments of English and Economics; ALANA Affairs, Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC), Spanish and Portuguese, Women’s Studies; global studies and the Weissman Center at Mount Holyoke College; and the women's studies department at Smith College.
More Information
PEWS conference details
April 12, 2005.
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