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More Like ThisProf. Writes ‘Washington Post’ Op-Ed on Shinzo Abe’s Death
Graduate Center Professor Michael Orlando Sharpe (GC/York, Political Science/Behavioral Sciences) published a timely op-ed in The Washington Post, “Shinzo Abe’s death reveals complex story of discrimination and xenophobia.” Sharpe, a 2008 graduate of the Ph.D. Program in Political Science, offers an analysis of the assassination of the former prime minister, linking the killing to his ultranationalist agenda and Japan’s long record of xenophobia.
Sharpe is currently working his second book, The Politics of Racism and Antiracism in Japan.
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Feb 3, 2023
Critical Preparations for Faculty and Staff Email Migration on February 9, 2023
Dear GC Faculty and Staff: On February 9th, the Graduate Center email will go live in CUNY's M365 cloud environment. What to Do Now: Print...
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Feb 2, 2023
Two Professors and an Alumna Named Russell Sage Foundation Scholars
The prestigious fellowship supports research to improve social and living conditions in the U.S.
Feb 1, 2023
Celebrating Our Scholars During Black History Month
From a book on Black-owned bookstores to the first CUNY Kennedy Center honoree, Graduate Center scholars are writing and changing Black history.
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Jan 31, 2023
Charles Tien on Congress and the Contested Speaker Election
The U.S. politics expert joins The Thought Project to discuss the 118th Congress and the bruising election of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
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Recent Books
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Humanitarianism Contested
Where Angels Fear to Tread
This book provides a succinct but sophisticated understanding of humanitarianism and insight into the on-going dilemmas and tensions that have accompanied it since its origins in the early nineteenth century. An accessible and engaging work by two of the leading scholars in the field, Humanitarianism Contested is essential reading for all those concerned with the future of human rights and international relations.
Published November 2022
Routledge

Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities
Co-edited by James Cuno
A pathbreaking call to halt the intertwined crises of cultural heritage attacks and mass atrocities and mobilize international efforts to protect people and cultures.
Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has a long history. Contemporary examples include the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, mosques in Xinjiang, mausoleums in Timbuktu, and Greco-Roman remains in Syria. Cultural heritage destruction invariably accompanies assaults on civilians, making heritage attacks impossible to disentangle from the mass atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Both seek to eliminate people and the heritage with which they identify.
Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities assembles essays by thirty-eight experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities. Focusing on immovable cultural heritage vulnerable to attack, the volume's guiding framework is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a United Nations resolution adopted unanimously in 2005 to permit international intervention against crimes of war or genocide. Based on the three pillars of prevent, react, and rebuild, R2P offers today's policymakers a set of existing laws and international norms that can and—as this book argues—must be extended to the protection of cultural heritage. Contributions consider the global value of cultural heritage and document recent attacks on people and sites in China, Guatemala, Iraq, Mali, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Comprehensive sections on vulnerable populations as well as the role of international law and the military offer readers critical insights and point toward research, policy, and action agendas to protect both people and cultural heritage. A concise abstract of each chapter is offered online in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish to facilitate robust, global dissemination of the strategies and tactics offered in this pathbreaking call to action.
Published September 2022
Getty Publications

Sex Is as Sex Does
Governing Transgender Identity
What the evolving fight for transgender rights reveals about government power, regulations, and the law
Every government agency in the United States, from Homeland Security to Departments of Motor Vehicles, has the authority to make its own rules for sex classification. Many transgender people find themselves in the bizarre situation of having different sex classifications on different documents. Whether you can change your legal sex to “F” or “M” (or more recently “X”) depends on what state you live in, what jurisdiction you were born in, and what government agency you’re dealing with. In Sex Is as Sex Does, noted transgender advocate and scholar Paisley Currah explores this deeply flawed system, showing why it fails transgender and non-binary people.
Published May 2022
NYU Press