World-renowned sociologist Saskia Sassen to lecture on ‘The Global City’ at architecture symposium

World-renowned sociologist Saskia Sassen to lecture on ‘The Global City’ at architecture symposiumOctober 31, 2007Mary Kate O’Brienmcobrien@syr.edu

Renowned sociologist Saskia Sassen of Columbia University will speak at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 4:30 p.m. in the main auditorium of the school’s home, The Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St. A noted scholar of the effects of globalization on the world economy, Sassen will speak on “The Global City: a New Frontier.” This will be the keynote address for the school’s “UPSTATE: Writing the City” symposium being held on Nov. 15. It is free and open to the public. For information on parking at The Warehouse, call (315) 443-8238.

Sassen’s research and writing focus on social, economic and political dimensions of globalization; immigration; global cities (including cities and terrorism); new networked technologies; and changes within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. Sassen’s vast contributions to the study of globalization challenge shorthand notions of “the global economy” that have captured the popular imagination. She conceptualizes the global economy as a network of some 40 “global cities,” characterized by world-market orientations and significant concentrations of company headquarters, specialized corporate services and asset-management institutions. Much of Sassen’s work draws attention to the harmful effects of the cultural split between the well-off, educated workers running the global firms in these areas and the poorer, less educated workers servicing them.

Born in the Netherlands, Sassen grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and earned a joint Ph.D. in sociology and economics at the University of Notre Dame. She is now the Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University after a decade at the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. She recently completed a five-year project for UNESCO on sustainable human settlement for which she set up a network of researchers and activists in more than 30 countries; the work is published as one of the volumes of the “Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems” (Oxford, UK: EOLSS Publishers).

Her recent books are “Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages” (Princeton University Press 2006) and “A Sociology of Globalization” (Norton, 2007). Her books are translated into 16 languages. She has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International and the Financial Times, among other publications.

She serves on several editorial boards and is an advisor to several international bodies. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Cities, and was chair of the Information Technology and International Cooperation Committee of the Social Science Research Council (USA).