Profile

Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Co-Chair of The Committee on Global Thought. Her research and writing focuses on globalization, immigration, global cities, new networked technologies, and changes within the liberal state that result from current transnational conditions. In her research she has focused on the unexpected and the counterintuitive as a way to cut through established “truths.” Her most recent publications include When Territory exits Existing Frameworks (Harvard University Press, upcoming), Cities in a World Economy (4th ed, Sage 2011), Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press 2008) and A Sociology of Globalization (W.W.Norton 2007), and The Global City (2001, 2nd ed). She recently edited Deciphering the Global (Routledge 2007), and Digital Formations: New Architectures for Global Order (Princeton University Press 2005). For UNESCO she has now completed a five-year project on sustainable human settlement with a network of researchers and activists in over 30 countries, now published as one of the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (Oxford, UK: EOLSS Publishers) [http://www.eolss.net ]. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages. She has received a doctor honoris causa from each Delft University (Netherlands), DePaul University (USA), and Universite de Poitiers (France), among other honors, and serves on several editorial boards, as well as acting as an advisor to several international bodies. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Cities, and chaired the Information Technology and International Cooperation Committee of the Social Science Research Council (USA). She has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Newsweek International, among others, and contributes regularly to www.OpenDemocracy.net and www.HuffingtonPost.com.