Craig Calhoun: Cosmopolitanism and
Belonging
This event has been rescheduled for
the spring semester. Details TBA.
About Professor
Craig Calhoun: Craig Calhoun, one of the world’s leading sociologists,
is president of the Social Science Research Council and University
Professor of the Social Sciences at New York University. He has authored a
number of books, including Neither Gods Nor Emperors: Students and the
Struggle for Democracy in China (1994), Nationalism (1995),
and Critical Social Theory (1995). Among his edited collections
are Habermas and the Public Sphere (1992), Hannah Arendt and
the Meaning of Politics (1997), Understanding September 11th
(2002), Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (1994) and
Lessons of Empire (2005). Calhoun has long reflected on questions
of identity and difference, most recently in relation to
globalization.
About the lecture: Calhoun will address the neglect of ethnic and cultural identity in the way we frequently speak about globalization. According to Calhoun, we too often assume that our social solidarities—in the sense of belonging to an ethnic group, nation or religion—will get swept away in the new global currents. Calhoun’s lecture will challenge this assumption with the argument that “thick” attachments to particular communities still matter.