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William I. Robinson (born March 28, 1959) is an American professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work focuses on political economy, globalization, Latin America and historical materialism. He is a member of the International Parliamentary and Civil Society Mission to Investigate the Political Transition in Iraq.
In the early 1980s Robinson worked as a journalist in war-torn Nicaragua. He was a member of Union of Nicaraguan Journalists (past member and officer 1984–1990).
He then went on to study for his BA in Journalism with the Friends World College in Nairobi (Kenya), Ibadan (Nigeria), and Costa Rica. Following this he received both his MA in Latin American Studies and his PhD in Sociology at the University of New Mexico.
Robinson wrote many academic journal articles and books, [1] and made several contributions to Al Jazeera. [2] Many of his works have been translated into Spanish. [3]
Entire symposiums and issues of scholarly journals have focused on discussing and debating Robinson's theories on global capitalism, class, and political economy. See for example the May 2012 issue of Critical Sociology , the April 2001 issue of Theory and Society, the debate between Robinson and noted Marxian theorist Ellen Meiksins Wood in issue 15 of the journal Historical Materialism, the debate between British political economist in the 2009 volume 1(2) of the journal of the contemporary science association.
In 2009 Robinson forwarded an e-mail to his "Sociology of Globalization" course, to spur class discussion, that had photos of the 2008-9 Israeli assault on Gaza paralleling photos of the German occupation of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War. The e-mail was widely circulated and became the subject of media controversy, after it was revealed that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group generally considered to be pro-Israel, [4] advised university administrators to punish him. A Jewish student in the class brought a complaint against Robinson, that she was intimidated by the e-mail. The ADL criticized Robinson, considering the matter a case of academic misconduct, while California Scholars for Academic Freedom considered it a case of academic freedom and the charges without merit. [5] [6] Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group of academics, said that the incident had raised "serious questions about his judgment and the value of his teaching," and that "Concern for academic freedom does not justify or erase what is clearly and profoundly flawed pedagogy." [7] Robinson stated that his critics had confused his criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism. "That's like saying if I condemn the U.S. government for the invasion of Iraq, I'm anti-American. It's the most absurd, baseless argument." [8]
University officials initiated an investigation of Robinson to probe the allegations that the email Robinson had forwarded to his class was inappropriate and in violation of the faculty code of ethics. The charges were dismissed in May 2009. [7]
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Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media. The group's name is inspired by Karl Popper's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies.
Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development of the general approach in sociology which led to the emergence of his world-systems approach. He was a Senior Research Scholar at Yale University from 2000 until his death in 2019, and published bimonthly syndicated commentaries through Agence Global on world affairs from October 1998 to July 2019.
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Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, and were strongly influenced by the writings of Harvard sociologist Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, then went into a deep eclipse. It made a comeback after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation on modernization theory and more generally of universal history. But the theory remains a controversial model.
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Giovanni Arrighi was an Italian economist, sociologist and world-systems analyst, from 1998 a Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His work has been translated into over fifteen languages.
Matthias Küntzel, is a German political scientist and historian. He was an external research associate at the Vidal Sasson Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 2004-2015. Currently, he is a member of the German Council on Foreign Relations DGAP, of the German Historical Association (VHD), of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa ASMEA and of the Advisory Board of UANI.
Antony Loewenstein is an Australian German freelance investigative journalist, author and film-maker.
Antisemitism in universities has taken place in many countries at various times. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish staff. In some instances, universities have supported antisemitic government or social policies and condoned the development of antisemitic cultures on campus. In many jurisdictions, especially since World War II, discriminatory practices, including within the context of a university, are in breach of anti-discrimination laws, though antisemitic cultural values still persists on many campuses.
Valentine Moghadam is a feminist scholar, sociologist, activist, and author whose work focuses on women in development, globalization, feminist networks, and female employment in the Middle East.
The Association for Asian American Studies was founded in 1979 as the Association for Asian/Pacific American Studies. The name was changed in 1982. The organization was established to promote teaching and research in Asian American studies. Its other goals including advocacy and representation on behalf of Asian-Americans and educating American society about the history and aspirations of Asian American ethnic minorities.
James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published on political issues with particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East, imperialism, globalization, and leftist social movements.
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Teivo Teivainen is professor of World Politics at the University of Helsinki. Having received his PhD in 2000 at the University of Helsinki, Teivainen became the founding director of the Program on Democracy and Global Transformation at the National University of San Marcos, in Lima, Peru in 2003.
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Mark McGann Blyth is a Scottish-American political scientist. He is currently the William R. Rhodes Professor of International Economics and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Brown University. At Brown, Blyth additionally directs the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
Racial capitalism is a concept reframing the history of capitalism as grounded in the extraction of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial identities, typically from Black people. It was described by Cedric J. Robinson in his book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, published in 1983, which, in contrast to both his predecessors and successors, theorized that all capitalism is inherently racial capitalism, and racialism is present in all layers of capitalism's socioeconomic stratification. Jodi Melamed has summarized the concept, explaining that capitalism "can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups", and therefore, for capitalism to survive, it must exploit and prey upon the "unequal differentiation of human value."
