Berkley Center

Fragmentation and polarization in today’s world are reinforced by claims and counterclaims of victimhood. Hatred and resentment, exacerbated by social media echo chambers, swamp efforts to understand and identify with the other. Any fresh vision for global solidarity must address structural inequalities in our societies and how to alleviate them. But it will also require a fuller recognition of an often-overlooked basis of our common humanity: a widely shared sense of frailty, the human experience of suffering, weakness and humiliation. 

The Promethean passions binding modern humanity—the desire for unbridled power and freedom, for unlimited self-fulfillment, acquisition of goods, and mastery of the natural world—have collided with political and environmental constraints, inflicting pain and a sense of powerlessness on multitudes across the world. Literature and the arts, with their innate virtues of ambiguity and irony and their openness to paradox and contradiction, can help us to understand our precariousness and extend imaginative sympathy across hardened boundaries.

The Georgetown Global Dialogues (GGD) and the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) brought together writers and critics to address the relationship between human frailty and global solidarity, with a focus on voices from the Global South. A formal program of panels was flanked by informal dialogues—online and in person—with university students.

Visit the GGD Barcelona website to learn more about and watch videos of the sessions. Sign up to receive GGD email updates.

The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs is organizing GGD as a whole with the support of campus partners including Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), the Walsh School of Foreign Service, the College of Arts & Sciences, the McDonough School of Business, the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics.

November 3

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | Building Solidarity in a Fragmented Culture
Featured Speakers: Marina Garcés, Hisham Matar, Pankaj Mishra, Ece Temelkuran

November 4

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | Calling Out Cruelty
Featured Speakers: Joseba Elola, Verónica Gago, Nesrine Malik, Edurne Portela

November 5

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | Paths of De-Americanization
Featured Speakers: Ben Ehrenreich, Mohsin Hamid, Nesrine Malik, Gemma Saura

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | The Turn to the Global South
Featured Speakers: Yásnaya Elena A. Gil, Verónica Gago, Ranjit Hoskote, Vladimir Safatle, Rafael Vilasanjuan

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | Europe after America?
Featured Speakers: Thomas Banchoff, Judit Carrera, José Casanova, Pankaj Mishra

November 6

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | A New Mode of Transcendence
Featured Speakers: José Casanova, Miriam Diez Bosch, Kohei Saito, Camil Ungureanu

6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Barcelona | The Passing of Generations
Featured Speakers: Paul Elie, Aina García Mestre, Carl Jambo (SFS'28), Emma Vonder Haar (C'26)