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Global Connections, Global Responsibilities

The Humanities Center Lectures, 2009-2010
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics and Political Philosophy

In the 2009-2010 academic year the Humanities Center and the Center for
the Advancement of Applied Ethics and Political Philosophy will sponsor a
university-wide series of courses, symposia, and workshops under the
general rubric of  "Global Connections, Global Responsibilities." The
program will focus on diverse ways in which comparatively affluent members
of high-income countries and members of low and middle-income countries
connect and influence one another. Central themes include climate change,
global economic conditions, health, state sovereignty, human rights, the
transmission and interaction of various literary and cultural traditions,
and the responsibilities and obligations accompanying these various
connections.

All lectures will be held 4:30-6:00 PM on the Carnegie Mellon campus
in Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)


Thomas Pogge, Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University
World Poverty: Explanations and Responsibilities
Monday, September 14 - 4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)
Abstract: While world income has grown at an impressive rate, the share
of the poorest half has sunk below 1.8% percent of world income. Read more...

James Ferguson, Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Declarations of Dependence: Labor, Personhood, and Welfare in South
Africa and Beyond
Monday, October 5 - 4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)
Abstract: South Africa has in recent decades gone through a wrenching
transformation from a labor-scarce society to a labor-surplus one. Read more...

Karen Piper, Professor, Department of English, University of Missouri-Columbia
Is Water 'The New Oil'?:  The New Water Monopolies and the World's Poor
Monday, November 9 - 4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)
Abstract: The world's water supplies are gradually being bought up by a
handful of multinational companies, including Suez, Vivendi, and Bechtel. 
Read more...

Maha Abdel-Rahman, University Lecturer in Development Studies at the Centre of International
Studies, University of Cambridge
NGOs, Civil Society, and Human Rights in Egypt and the Middle East
Thursday, March 25 - 4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)

Solomon R. Benatar, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Director Bioethics Centre,
University of Cape Town
Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Global Health and the Global Economic Crisis
Thursday, April 8 -4:30 PM
Gregg Hall (Porter Hall 100)
Abstract: The evolving global financial crisis reveals both the fragile
state of the global economy and the major long-term implications of an
increasingly unfair global economy for global health and human
flourishing. Read more...

March 25-April 10, 2010: Faces of Globalization, International Film Festival
Details forthcoming.

Global Connections, Global Responsibilities - Abstracts

Thomas Pogge
World Poverty: Explanations and Responsibilities
Abstract: While world income has grown at an impressive rate, the share
of the poorest half has sunk below 1.8% percent of world income. Severe
poverty persists in many poorer countries, causing about one third of all
human deaths (some 18 million annually) and blighting billions of lives
with hunger and disease. What role do global institutional arrangements,
such as the rules of the WTO Treaty, play in the persistence of severe
poverty? And how does the causation of poverty affect the responsibility
of citizens in affluent countries to work for its eradication?

James Ferguson
Declarations of Dependence: Labor, Personhood, and Welfare in South
Africa and Beyond
Abstract: South Africa has in recent decades gone through a wrenching
transformation from a labor-scarce society to a labor-surplus one. Labor
scarcity through most of the 19th and 20th centuries led to forms of social
solidarity and social personhood that had significant continuities with the pre-colonial
past (continuities that are obscured by conventional narratives that
emphasize the rise of capitalism as a complete and comprehensive break
with the past).  In recent decades, however, economic restructuring has
radically reduced demand for low-skilled, manual labor, and mass
unemployment has become a durable structural feature of South African
society.  This new situation is more radically different from the past
than is generally recognized, and calls for new ways of thinking about
social membership, work, "dependency", and social assistance.  It is
suggested that the South African experience reveals, in an extreme and
clarifying form, a set of processes that are occurring in many other parts
of the world.  Better understanding such processes may help us to find our
way past some of the current impasses in progressive politics.

Karen Piper
Is Water 'The New Oil'?:  The New Water Monopolies and the World's Poor
Abstract: The world's water supplies are gradually being bought up by a
handful of multinational companies, including Suez, Vivendi, and Bechtel. 
These companies, in turn, are supported by World Bank policies that force
poorer countries to privatize their water supplies. Piper will look at the
consequences of water privatization today, sharing her research in India
and South Africa and exploring the stark disparity between World Bank
rhetoric and conditions on the ground, or what cartographers call "ground truth."
Facing either water cut-offs or being flooded out, local people have taken
drastic measures to gain access to the media or to simply continue their
water supply and survive, including attempted mass drowning, extended fasts,
monkey-wrenching, and riots. Piper will look at the way in which these forms
of resistance are changing the shape of development discourse today and
shedding light on the gap between "development" and "disaster."

Dale Jamieson
The Moral and Political Challenges of Climate Change
Abstract: In order to see anthropogenic climate change as clearly
involving moral wrongs and global injustices, we will have to revise some
central concepts in these domains. Moreover, climate change threatens
another value ("respect for nature") that cannot easily be taken up by
concerns of global justice or moral responsibility.

Solomon R. Benatar
Global Health and the Global Economic Crisis
Abstract: The evolving global financial crisis reveals both the fragile
state of the global economy and the major long-term implications of an
increasingly unfair global economy for global health and human
flourishing. We are also at a critical juncture in world history in
relation to understanding and endeavoring to counteract the adverse
effects of modern life on climate change and our natural environment,
which also has major implications for health. If the growing world-wide
interest and apparent commitment to global health and environmental
security are to have a significantly constructive impact it will be
necessary for us become more deeply introspective about our value system
and reconsider what needs to be done to ensure long-term and secure human
flourishing in an interdependent world.  It is proposed that belief in
endless economic growth and emphasis on an entirely medicalized approach
to health needs to be replaced by a vision of healthy human life that is
achievable and sustainable for a greater proportion of the world's
population.

View our past events.

The Humanities Center is now accepting applications for a 2010-2011 Residential Fellowship.

The Humanities Center welcomes Karen Piper, 2009-10 Fellow.

2009-10 Lecture Series:
Global Connections, Global Responsibilities

Spring Film Festival:
Faces of Globalization
(details forthcoming)

Links

Humanities Departments:

   English
   History
   Philosophy
   Modern Languages

College of Humanities and
Social Sciences

Center for the Arts in Society

The Center for the Advancement of Applied Ethics and Political Philosophy