The Department of Global Studies' Colloquium Series is a lecture series, which has been made possible by the generosity of the Orfalea Endowment for the Master's Program in Global Studies.  The Colloquium Series strives to open and explore a wide range of interdisciplinary debates and their interaction and engagement with the global, hosting new guest speakers each quarter from UCSB and beyond.  The upcoming event will be hosted via Zoom on Wednesday, November 24th at 12:30pm. Zoom link is https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/84246564996 (Meeting ID: 842 4656 4996). Please see below for the featured talk:

Gerard Delanty, Sociological perspectives on the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has reached into almost every dimension of the social world. The pandemic is inextricably entwined in societal processes and intersects with other crises in society, as in democracy, the environment and capitalism. It raises major sociological questions; yet it is also not entirely clear what a sociological response might be. Covid-19 is rooted in the fundamental fact of social interaction and human mobility, which makes it of special interest to sociology. Lockdowns, mask-wearing, quarantine etc. challenge the fundamental existential fact that human beings are social beings as well as political animals. I look at the pandemic as relating to some of the great questions in modern sociology nd political philosophy. My talk is an attempt to answer the question of how should we assess the societal significance of the current pandemic in shaping contemporary societies. I will begin with some reflections based on a volume I recently edited, Pandemics, Society and Politics: Critical Reflections on the Covid-19 Pandemic (De Gruyter, Berlin, 2021).

Gerard Delanty is Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Social and Political Thought at Sussex University, Brighton. He was previously at University of Liverpool. He has been visiting professor at York University, Toronto; Doshisha University, Kyoto; Deakin University, Melbourne; Hamburg University; the Federal University of Brasilia; and University of Barcelona. His field is social and political theory as well as the history and philosophy of the social sciences. His most recent book is Critical Theory and Social Transformation (Routledge 2020). Other books include The Cosmopolitan Imagination (Cambridge 2009), Formations of European Modernity (Palgrave 2nd edition 2019), Community (Routledge 3rd edition 2018), The European Heritage: A critical re-interpretation (Routledge 2018). His most recent edited volume is Pandemics, Society and Politics: Critical Reflections on the Covid 19 Pandemic (De Gruyter 2021). He has been the chief editor of the European Journal of Social Theory since 1998.

For more information about the Colloquium Series, please contact Professor Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Global Studies Colloquium Director:
jnp@global.ucsb.edu