New Frontiers in Global Justice is a conference, and UCSD 50th Anniversary event that explores the subject of global justice, perhaps the most important and vexing subject of our time. The conference will unite UCSD researchers with some of the most innovative scholars in the world today, across disciplines, thinking about global justice and related themes.
Our gathering is prompted by the publication of Professor Amartya Sen’s monumental book, The Idea of Justice (Harvard 2009). Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his work on welfare economics. He is among the most beloved public intellectuals of our time. John Gray in the Literary Review calls the book a “major advance in contemporary thinking” -- and Alex Danchev in the Times Higher “a work of rare distinction, a lesson in acuity, humanity and sagacity.” David Aaronovich in The Times noted: “If a public intellectual is defined by his or her capacity to bridge the worlds of pure ideas and the most far-reaching policies, Sen has few rivals…”
Our conference will commence with a Helen Edison Lecture by Professor Sen on Thursday March 31, 2011, 7:00pm. We are setting up for an audience of 1000 in Price Center Ballroom. A reception for conferees, sponsors and their guests, will follow Sen’s lecture.
The two-day conference (April 1-2), will take place at Estancia La Jolla. The 25 participants are excellent and diverse, including both very senior and very junior scholars, men and women from across the social sciences and humanities, and from a variety of backgrounds and orientations. Panel discussants are drawn primarily from UCSD faculty. The conference room will accommodate an audience of 60, and we intend to invite sponsors and their guests to the sessions, and to various receptions and meals throughout. We are also collaborating with Eleanor Roosevelt and Thurgood Marshall Colleges, organizing sessions in which small groups of highly-motivated students can meet with Professor Sen and other distinguished participants.
Our conference will conclude on Saturday, April 2 with a dinner, featuring a moderated discussion between Professor Sen and Professor Elinor Ostrom, recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on common pool resources.
Convening a distinguished and highly-publicized international research group on global justice at UCSD during its 50th anniversary year, in conjunction with the establishment of a new Center on Global Justice in the Division of Social Sciences, is an opportunity to showcase UCSD’s strengths in the areas of global health, humanitarian engineering, global environmentalism, immigration studies, human rights, political and economic development in developing countries, and research on global justice across the social sciences and humanities.