
When she learned that a group of mysterious middlemen were persuading island nations like the Comoros, St. Kitts, and Antigua to turn to selling citizenship as a new source of revenue after the 2008 financial crisis, she decided to follow the money trail to the Middle East. There, she found that the customers of passports-in-bulk programs were the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, oil-rich countries that don’t want to confer their own citizenship on their bidoon people, or stateless minorities who have no documentation.
In her timely and eye-opening first book, Abrahamian travels the globe to meet these willing and unwitting “cosmopolites,” or citizens of the world, who inhabit a new, borderless realm where things can go very well, or very badly." />
Columbia Global Reports and the Committee On Global Thought welcome Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, acclaimed novelist Joseph O’Neill (The Dog, Netherland), and Columbia University Professor of
The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen
A Discussion with Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
November 17, 2015 · 6-7:15PM
World Room, Pulitzer Hall, Columbia University
- Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, author of “The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen,” opinion editor at Al Jazeera America, a longtime editor and contributor at The New Inquiry, and a contributing editor to Dissent magazine.
- Nicholas Lemann, Director of Columbia Global Reports, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Journalism, Columbia Journalism School, Staff writer for The New Yorker.
- Rosalind C. Morris, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University, and Member of the Committee on Global Thought.
- Joseph O’Neill, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Written Arts, Bard College, writer, and journalist.
Columbia Global Reports and the Committee On Global Thought welcome Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, acclaimed novelist Joseph O’Neill (The Dog, Netherland), and Columbia University Professor of Anthropology Rosalind C. Morris. Nicholas Lemann, director of Columbia Global Reports, will moderate a panel discussion on global citizenship, statelessness, and Abrahamian’s debut book The Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen.
Photo Gallery
- The audience at the Cosmopolites Book Talk
- Books sold by Book Culture
- Nicholas Lemann moderating the discussion
- From left to right: Rosalind C. Morris, Joseph O’Neill, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, Nicholas Lemann
- The discussion took place at the World Room at the Columbia Journalism School
- Columbia Global Report’s editor, Jimmy S. asks a question
- An audience member asks a question to the panel
- Joseph O’Neill speaks with interested audience members
- Atossa Araxia Abrahamian signs books