The Africa Institute, Global Studies University (GSU) is pleased to launch the second installment of its ongoing seminar series From Area Studies to Global Studies, following the successful first series in Fall 2025. This spring, the series continues with four sessions that bring together distinguished scholars working on Africa, Asia, and their diasporas, engaging with key questions in Global Studies.

The first session of the series, titled From Scale to Relation: Rethinking Global Studies, will be presented by Fouad Makki, Professor of Sociology and Social Theory at The Africa Institute, GSU, and Associate Professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. The discussion will be moderated by Ph.D. students Nasra Dahir Mohamed and Rebecca Wembabazi.

Date & Time: Thursday, March 5 (12:00 – 2:00 PM, UAE time)
Location: Online via Zoom (click here to join)

The session is free and open to the public.

Abstract

The reorganization of Area Studies within Global Studies is often described as an expansion of scale, with the “global” cast as a broader spatial and analytical frame that subsumes the regional. Yet the shift may entail more than an expansion of scope or perspective. Scale itself can operate as an epistemic hierarchy, structuring how theory, expertise, and intellectual authority are distributed across fields. Drawing on scholarship in African and Asian Studies as points of reference, the seminar moves from scalar thinking to epistemic relations, redirecting attention to the relational, transregional, and historically situated connections through which global knowledge is produced.

Speaker

Fouad Makki

Fouad Makki is Professor of Sociology and Social Theory at The Africa Institute, GSU. He currently serves as Director of the Polson Institute for Global Development (2019–present) and Associate Professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. He is a founding board member of Cornell’s Institute for Comparative Modernities and a Professor-at-Large at The Africa Institute, GSU. Read more.

Moderators

Nasra Dahir Mohamed

Nasra Dahir Mohamed is a Ph.D. student in Global Studies at Global Studies University, specializing in Cultural, Visual, and Literary Studies, from Somalia. Her research focuses on integrating Somali poetry into formal education, exploring its use not only as a subject of study but also as a pedagogical method across the curriculum. Through her doctoral work, Nasra aims to develop approaches that enrich teaching practices, strengthen cultural literacy, and promote the role of Somali literary traditions in contemporary educational contexts. Read more.

Rebecca Wembabazi

Rebecca Wembabazi is a Ph.D. student in Global Studies, specializing in Historical, Political, and Social Studies at Global Studies University. Her research focuses on the historical and structural inequalities shaping African women’s lives, with particular attention to the intersections of gender, labor, and the state. Read more.

This seminar, organized by Salah M. Hassan, Professor of African Art History and Visual Studies, and Binyam Sisay Mendisu, Professor of African Languages and Linguistics, is part of the Ph.D. in Global Studies curriculum at The Africa Institute, GSU. It forms a component of the 1-credit course GSSH 704: Seminar: From Area Studies to Global Studies II, which runs over two semesters, combining monthly presentations by invited scholars with required readings and assignments. The course introduces graduate students to major debates in area studies while critically reflecting on the historical and geopolitical roots of the field.