The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Associate Professor, Media Studies

What does it mean to be a responsible citizen of the world today? As scholar, teacher, program chair and curriculum builder, I am deeply committed to fostering a more nuanced understanding of our global culture, and to identifying the power and potentialities of media for human development.

Sean Jacobs, a native of Cape Town, South Africa, holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of London and a M.A. in Political Science from Northwestern University.

He is working on a book on the intersection of mass media, globalization and liberal democracy in postapartheid South Africa. He is co-editor of Thabo Mbeki's World: The Politics and Ideology of the South African President (Zed Books, 2002) and two other books. His most recent scholarly articles have appeared in Politique Africaine (2006) and Media, Culture, and Society (2007). He has contributed to the Guardian's Comment is Free site. He founded Africa is a Country. 

Previously he taught African Studies as well as communication studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

He worked as a political researcher for the Institute for Democracy in South Africa

Tony Karon is a New York-based South African journalist, currently a senior editor for the online edition of TIME magazine, where he has worked since 1997. Besides his editing duties, he writes regular analytical commentary on the Middle East and the wider 'arc of instability' at TIME.com and also for The National in Abu Dhabi, and more occasionally for Haaretz in Israel, the Sunday Times in South Africa and other outlets. He also maintains his own commentary site, Rootless Cosmopolitan. He has also done extensive TV punditry on CNN, MSNBC and Press TV (Iran).

Born and raised in Cape Town, he graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BA (Honours) degree in 1982, worked in anti-apartheid activist media in South Africa, and later for the Mail & Guardian Weekly and the Cape Times. Arriving in New York late in 1993, he worked variously for such magazines as Spin and George, as well as four Britain's Channel Four TV network -- and even briefly at Fox News. He is currently at work on a book project on nationalism and Jewish identity.

Annie K. Kwon is an architect who researches and practices through large-scale building and island typologies, performance and teaching. She holds a Bachelors of Architecture and Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MS in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. Her international portfolio includes the comprehensive master plan of Bahrain Bay, an artificial island off the coast of Manama as a designer with Skidmore Owings and Merrill New York, and designer for EMBT's award-winning entry for the Central European Bank Competition in Frankfurt. She has worked with James Turrell on the Roden Crater project and most recently, completed design and construction of his studio in New York City. Her interdisciplinary work includes collaborating with Benedetta Tagliabue in the scenography design for the Merce Cunningham Dance Companys internationally touring performance, Nearly 90, that premiered in April 2009 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in collaboration with Sonic Youth, John Paul Jones of Led Zepplin. She is a professor of architectural design and theory at Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design. Her work has been featured in A+U: Tall Buildings, Abstract of Columbia University and The New Premises of the European Central Bank released by Birkhauser Boston. Annies multi-media collaboration with Paul D. Miller, The Nauru Elegies: A Portrait in Sound and Hypsographic Architecture recently opened at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and the Experimenta Biennial 2010 in Melbourne. Annie is the founder of Kwonix, an architectural design group based in New York City.

 http://www.kwonix.com/

L.H.M. Ling (PhD, MIT) is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA), Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, The New School in New York City.  Her research focuses on developing a post-Westphalian approach to world politics through the notion of "multiple worlds" or worldism.  Dr. Ling is the author of three books: Postcolonial International Relations: Conquest and Desire between Asia and the West (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), Transforming World Politics: From Empire to Multiple Worlds (Routledge, 2009), co-authored with Anna M. Agathangelou (York University), and The Dao of World Politics: A Post-Westphalian Approach (Routledge, forthcoming).  Additionally, Dr. Ling is developing a textbook, Learning World Politics: People, Power, Perspective, Volume I: Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, to introduce Other worlds in IR/world politics, and a book of experimental pedagogy titled, Play on Worlds: A Performative Pedagogy for International Relations.  Both are for advanced undergraduates and entry-level graduate students. From 2008-2010, Dr. Ling was a Faculty Fellow with the India China Institute (ICI) at The New School.  She is working on a manuscript with other ICI Fellows titled, Rethinking Borders and Security, India and China: New Connections for Ancient Geographies.  Dr. Ling's articles have appeared in various journals and anthologies.

Peter Lucas has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and The New School. His research and teaching focuses on international studies in human rights, human rights and photography, human rights and media, the poetics of witnessing, peace education, human rights education, and documentary practice. His current projects include a study of seven photojournalists for the Rio-based web portal, Viva Favela. His book, Viva Favela: Photojournalism, Visual Inclusion, and Human Rights in Brazil is forthcoming.

Lucas was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for 2011 for his feature-length documentary The Last Hour of Summer, about pre-dictatorship Ipanema in the early 1960s.