Events

The Other Global University: Against Educational Apartheids: Forum on the Past, Present, and Future

General Programming

Cosponsors
  • Weatherhead East Asian Institute
  • Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation
  • Institute of Comparative Literature & Society

This forum brings together educators to rethink relationships between institutions of higher education, their local communities, and their global milieu. In response to current, hegemonic trends of globalizing higher education, we will explore alternative histories and theories of education, asking how local and global concerns in fact pertain to all educational institutions, and how educational inequalities pertaining to class, race, gender, and geography might be either exacerbated or redressed through new institutional, interdisciplinary, and pedagogic strategies. Rather than reject outright a concept of global education, this forum instead asks participants to consider what it would mean to truly make higher education globally accessible and what aims such an education would need to address. What hypothetical curricula, exchanges, funding structures, and institutional relations would respect societies’ and individuals’ rights to intellectual self-determination without, however, positing a priori assumptions of differing educational needs based on cultural or class distinctions?

Keeping in mind that free, compulsory, “universal” education (i.e., for children within a state’s boundaries) was inaugurated just over a century ago, we might take as a starting point the conundrum faced at the onset of universal primary education: How to impart both practical and theoretical knowledge? Or, put another way, how to establish fundaments of knowledge that somehow lend themselves to the pursuit of diverse vocations and professions, ranging from the agrarian to the academic, and can certain disciplines and forms of knowledge be justified as essential whether or not they prepare students for future occupations? Presentations will offer alternative visions of higher education, touching on issues of disciplinarity, class, geography, institutional structures, and new educational media.

Organized by Ginger Nolan, INTERACT post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, and Jamyung Choi, INTERACT post-doctoral fellow at the Weatherhead Institute Columbia University. Co-sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities, Institute of Comparative Literature & Society, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation.

Free and open to the public; no registration required.

Program

November 6, 2015  Friday

9:30am - 10:15am EDT

Coffee / Breakfast

10:15am - 10:30am EDT

Introductory Remarks

10:30am - 12:30pm EDT

Liberal Arts / Vocational Arts
Autonomy?

Mark Taylor

Professor

Columbia University

Assimilating Vocational Schools: Tokyo Imperial University and State-Led Merit Politics in Late Developer Japan

Jamyung Choi

Jamyung Choi

Visiting Assistant Professor, College of the Holy Cross

Critical Zones: Working Knowledge and the Duke Campus Farm

Saskia Cornes

Farm and Program Manager

Duke Campus Farm

Respondent

Mark Wigley

Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

GSAPP, Columbia Universty

12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT

Break

1:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

Cities (and Non-Cities)
The Ivory Tower is Dead! Rethinking Town and Gown in Today's Cities

Davarian Baldwin

Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies

Trinity College

The Politics of Race and University Service Learning Initiatives in the Second Gilded Age

Noliwe Rooks

Associate Professor in Africana Studies and Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies

Cornell University

On Giving Back: Knowledge Transfer through Spatial Practice

Stephen Zacks

Journalist

Respondent

Laura Kurgan

Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation

GSAPP, Columbia University

3:30pm - 3:45pm EDT

Break

3:45pm - 5:30am EDT

States (and Non-States)

Noëleen Murray

Director of the Wits City Institute and the A.W. Mellon Foundation Chair of Critical Architecture and Urbanism

University of the Witwatersrand

What Role for States in Higher Education of the Future?

Susan Gillespie

Vice President, Founding Director of Institute for International Liberal Education

Bard College

Respondent

Felicity Scott

Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

Columbia University

November 7, 2015  Saturday

9:30am - 10:00am EDT

Coffee / Breakfast

10:00am - 12:00pm EDT

Epistemologies of the Global

Denise Ferreira Da Silva

Director of Centre for Ethics & Politics

School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London

The Global Influence of China’s Universities: From Periphery to Centre or a Dialogue among Civilizations?

Ruth Hayhoe

Professor of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education

University of Toronto.

Exit Stage Left: the Social Arts College on the Global Horizon

Ajay Singh Chaudhary

Director

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

Respondent

Lydia Liu

W.T. Tam Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature

Columbia University

12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT

Break

1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT

The Fungibility of Knowledge
End of Translation

Jacques Lezra

Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature

New York University

Interference: Some Historical Notes on Universities, Universals, and Hardware

Reinhold Martin

Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

Columbia University

Respondent

Bruce Robbins

Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities

Columbia University

2:30pm - 2:45pm EDT

Break

2:45pm - 4:00pm EDT

Plenary Panel: Instruments of another Univers(al)ity

Hidetaka Hirota

Visiting Assistant Professor

The City College of New York

Dan-el Padilla Peralta

Assistant Professor in Classics

Princeton University

Grant Wythoff

Fellow

Society of Fellows in the Humanities

4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT

Concluding Remarks / Refreshments
Participants
  • Mark Taylor Professor Columbia University
  • Jamyung Choi Jamyung Choi Visiting Assistant Professor, College of the Holy Cross
  • Saskia Cornes Farm and Program Manager Duke Campus Farm
  • Mark Wigley Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation GSAPP, Columbia University
  • Davarian Baldwin Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies Trinity College
  • Noliwe Rooks Associate Professor in Africana Studies and Feminist, Gender, Sexuality Studies Cornell University
  • Stephen Zacks Journalist
  • Laura Kurgan Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation GSAPP, Columbia University
  • Noëleen Murray Director of the Wits City Institute and the A.W. Mellon Foundation Chair of Critical Architecture and Urbanism University of the Witwatersrand
  • Susan Gillespie Vice President, Founding Director of Institute for International Liberal Education Bard College
  • Felicity Scott Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University
  • Denise Ferreira Da Silva Director of Centre for Ethics & Politics School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London
  • Ruth Hayhoe Professor of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education University of Toronto
  • Ajay Singh Chaudhary Director Brooklyn Institute for Social Research
  • Lydia Liu W.T. Tam Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature Columbia University
  • Jacques Lezra Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature New York University
  • Reinhold Martin Associate Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University
  • Bruce Robbins Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities Columbia University
  • Hidetaka Hirota Visiting Assistant Professor The City College of New York
  • Dan-el Padilla Peralta Assistant Professor in Classics Princeton University
  • Grant Wythoff Fellow Society of Fellows in the Humanities