Institute for Advanced Study Launches Global Outreach Program in Social Science

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Alexandra Altman
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The Institute for Advanced Study, in collaboration with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala, is hosting the inaugural Summer Program in Social Science on August 30 through September 11. The global outreach program convenes junior scholars in sociology, anthropology, history, geography, economics, law, political science and literary studies from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

This innovative initiative, the first of its kind at the Institute, will continue over the next two years in France and Sweden. It aims to enrich and expand the realm of the social sciences through the confrontation of different intellectual traditions and perspectives, to facilitate and enhance the dialogue between various scientific disciplines and communities, and to strengthen international networks between and across the global South and global North.

“This outreach program allows participants to share their work in the social sciences with scholars from various parts of the world,” said Omar Dewachi, participant in the Summer Program for Social Science and Assistant Professor at American University of Beirut, Lebanon. “To have your research viewed from many different perspectives is an invaluable opportunity that can produce new research questions and ideas.”

The Summer Program in Social Science is led by Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science. The Scientific Committee is also composed of Ash Amin, Professor at the University of Cambridge, Denis Cogneau, Professor at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Nancy L. Green, Professor at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Kim Lane Scheppele, Professor at Princeton University, and Björn Wittrock, Professor at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. Additionally, lecturers include Joan W. Scott and Michael Walzer, both Professors Emeriti in the School of Social Science. The Summer Program in Social Science is supported by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfund, the Wolfensohn Family Foundation and the three participating institutions.

For more information visit www.sss.ias.edu/spss.

About the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

The EHESS is made up of over 47 research centres, 37 of which are shared with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique. It nevertheless does not constitute a research institute in the conventional sense of the word. Life at the school is centered on research training in which students work alongside experienced researchers, a perspective from which they gain privileged access to the mechanics of research in progress. The school can boast of an unparalleled range of research seminars, programs and publications, all of which embrace an interdisciplinary and multidimensional approach. It accordingly places a particular emphasis on area studies and it is a key aspect of school policy to actively promote conversation between the social sciences and other sciences, in particular the life sciences, as well as the arts.

About the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study

The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study is a national resource for universities and research institutions in the social and human sciences at large. However, it also maintains a long-term commitment in three broad areas where it seeks to contribute to the national academic landscape as well as international scholarly developments. Firstly, the Swedish Collegium’s ambition is to strengthen the historical and global orientation of the social and human sciences. Secondly, the Collegium is committed to the support of humanistic disciplines that are of crucial importance to an understanding of the cultural multiplicity of the world. Thirdly, the Collegium is involved in a long-term effort to promote cooperation between the economic and other human and social sciences. In this field, it works with scholars in the borderline area between philosophy, economics and analytical branches of the social, political and behavioural sciences but also with economic historians.