Students and teachers in Fordham’s Urban Studies Graduate Program have always approached urban issues on a global scale.
Now they have an easy way to extend their research beyond the confines of New York City. “The World in the City: Metropolitanism and Globalization from the Nineteenth Century to the Present,” connects researchers at universities in Berlin, New York and Toronto.
The International Graduate College (IGK) is a collaboration between the Freie Universität, Humboldt Universität, and the Technische Universitat in Berlin, Fordham University, Columbia University, New York University, and the City University Graduate Center in New York, and the University of Toronto and York University in Toronto.
It is being sponsored by the German Research Foundation with a grant of $3.75 million and runs from May 2012 to September of 2016, with an option for renewal.
The partnership in New York is being led by Fordham professor Rosemary Wakeman, Ph.D., director of the Fordham Urban Studies Program, with the participation of Annika Hinze, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology, and Aseel Sawalha Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology.
“The global dimension is essential in studying the urban realm and thinking creatively about the future of cities and urban regions, Wakeman said.
“The IGK partnership allows Fordham to connect with urban experts in Toronto and Berlin- two cities that share the diversity and challenges we find in New York.”
The IGK has recruited a select group of twelve international doctoral students and two post-doctoral researchers who are investigating the historical and contemporary global interdependences of metropolitan areas, and how they influenced, built, lived, and imagined metropolitan spaces. In New York, they students will take part in graduate seminars at Fordham and work with faculty on their research.
They are supervised and supported by an international group of expert scholars based at each of the participating institutions. The program of study will allow the fellows to focus on their dissertation research, and prepare for the challenges of the international academic market.
The program launched with an international workshop for incoming students in Berlin over the summer. The Berlin conference and subsequent annual conferences in Toronto (2013) and New York (2014) will provide the framework for collaborative research projects among faculty, and academic exchanges between the professors and doctoral students from the three cities.
