Roundtable Discussion: What Is the Global in All This?
Last week, a roundtable discussion, organized by Juliane Schiele, titled What Is the Global in All This? brought together students and invited scholars to reflect on how “the global” is conceptualized, debated, and mobilized across disciplines.
Building on contributions by students from the Global Studies MA, the roundtable featured responses by Lucile Dreidemy, Lena Foljanty, Borayin Larios, Anaïs Angelo, Alexis Rider, and Noémie Etienne.
The discussion was structured around conceptual questions developed in students’ essays and posters, which formed the backbone of the conversation. Rather than presenting finished positions, the roundtable invited critical engagement, with professors responding to student impulses by offering contextualization, comparative perspectives, and methodological reflections.
Moving from foundational questions – What do we mean by the global? – to thematic, regional, institutional, and planetary concerns, the discussion addressed topics ranging from the entanglement of local and global processes, the contested category of religion, and the construction of regions such as Southeast Asia, to questions of authority, voice, and responsibility in cultural heritage and the Anthropocene.
Our colleague Noémie Etienne participated as a respondent in the section on Institutions, Authority, and Cultural Heritage, engaging with questions of how heritage narratives are produced by institutions, how museums function as political spaces, and how knowledge, authority, and responsibility might be redistributed in global contexts. She also contributed to the concluding reflections on the role of scholars in addressing global and planetary challenges.
The roundtable concluded with an open plenary discussion, highlighting selected student posters and inviting broader exchange between students, faculty, and the audience, underscoring the event’s emphasis on dialogue, critical inquiry, and shared responsibility in thinking the global today.
