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OPENING LECTURE OF THE 2020 ACADEMIC YEAR
Tuesday
15
September
sassen3

Can Complexity Camouflage Violence?

Saskia Sassen
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Auditorium Ivan Pictet, Maison de la paix, Geneva

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Abuses of power are not always easily visible or evident: recognising abuse can be an elusive matter. In play are elements we almost automatically assume deserve our respect, and hence we tend to see them as trustworthy. Many of our systems in advanced economies, including importantly the world of electronic innovations, is still mostly presented as that: an innovation. Professor Sassen will focus her analysis on modes of power that we can think of as positive but should increasingly be recognised as acts of violence.


Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Member of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Her recent books are Cities at War (Columbia University Press 2020), and Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press-A Belknap Book 2014).

Professor Sassen will receive the Edgar de Picciotto International Prize after Joan Wallach Scott, Amartya Sen, Saul Friedländer, and Paul Krugman. This Prize awarded every two years was created as a tribute and token of thanks to the late Edgar de Picciotto whose generous donation enabled the Institute to finance a considerable part of the Edgar and Danièle de Picciotto Student House.

This lecture, delivered by video conference and streamed online, will be introduced and moderated by our new Director, Marie-Laure Salles, from the auditorium Ivan Pictet. Professor Sassen will answer questions from both the in-person and online audiences during the Q&A session that will follow her lecture.

To help protect our community from the spread of COVID-19, please note that face masks must be worn to all in-person events at the Graduate Institute. In addition, seating in our auditorium will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

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