The global city is a contested site of economic innovation and cultural production, as well as profound inequalities of wealth and life chances. These cities, and large cities that aspire to ‘global’ status, are often the point of entry for new immigrants. Yet for political theorists (and indeed many scholars of global institutions), these critical sites of global influence and inequality have not been a significant focus of attention. This is curious. Theorists have wrestled with the nature and demands of (...) global justice, but have for the most part supposed that the debate is between statist and cosmopolitan formulations. Questions of redistribution, immigration, humanitarian obligations, coercion at borders, and territorial rights have correspondingly been cast as either the domain of sovereign territorial states, or of the nascent web of supranational institutions that might bind those states and peoples, morally and legally. Examining some of these issues and arguments through the lens of the global city casts them in a new and informative light, and buttresses an associative turn in thinking about global justice. (shrink)

South Korean educators and curriculum scholars have attempted to challenge Eurocentric points of view in history education. Despite these efforts, the dominant textbooks and teaching practices in South Korea continue to project colonial epistemologies. This article argues that postcolonial inquiry into knowledge production can help expand the debate. Grounded in a framework of postcolonial theories, we examine three Korean high school world history textbooks for the ways in which they reproduce Eurocentric colonial hegemony. To conduct our study, we developed four (...) analytical criteria: (a) constructions of Subject/Other, (b) discourses of inclusion/exclusion, (c) silencing of voices, and (d) narratives of re/colonization. Focusing on two major historical themes in the textbooks?the Discovery of New Trade Routes and the Industrial Revolution?we postulate the need to pluralize historical consciousness, reflect the contributions of the East to world history, and rethink curriculum and teaching practices. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis is a critical examination of Bryan Van Norden’s latest book, Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto. Van Norden’s call for more diversification in philosophical curricula points to an important problem, that is, the predominance of a Western perspective in global philosophy departments. However, the notion of multiculturalism advocated by Van Norden reveals certain limitations when it comes to addressing the structural preconditions that render possible the dominant position of the Western perspective. One possible alternative for the multiculturalist approach might (...) be a global perspective. The recent development of global history and its methodological frames might prove effective in weakening the Western bias in academic philosophy. (shrink)

This article develops a global fields approach for conceptualizing the global arena. The approach builds upon existing approaches to the world system and world society while articulating them with the field theory of Bourdieu and organizational sociology. It highlights particular structural configurations and the specific cultural content of global systems. The utility of the approach is demonstrated through an analysis of the different forms of the two hegemonic empires of the past centuries, Great Britain and the United States. The British (...) state tended toward formal imperialism in the 19th century, characterized by direct territorial rule, while the United States since WWII has tended toward informal imperialism. The essay shows that the difference can be best explained by considering the different historical global fields in which the two empires operated. (shrink)