KU News Release

Internationally known sociologist, economist to speak at KU

LAWRENCE — One of the world’s leading authorities on globalization will deliver the annual Clark Lecture sponsored by the Department of Sociology at the University of Kansas.

Saskia Sassen, who recently completed a five-year project on sustainable human settlement for UNESCO, will speak on “Deciphering the Global: Its Spaces, Scales and Subjects” at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, at the Malott Room in the Kansas Union. The event is co-sponsored by the Hall Center for the Humanities and the Institute for Policy & Social Research.

Sassen, a professor of sociology at Columbia University and at the London School of Economics, is internationally known for her classic work on global cities and for articulating the social implications of the global economy. In her 2006 book “Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages” she theorizes the relationship between the nation states of the past and the new global organizations of the present and future. Her many books have been translated into 16 languages.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and 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). She has written for the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Newsweek International and Financial Times.

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