Swati Chattopadhyay is a professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, and an affiliated faculty in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California–Santa Barbara. An architect and architectural historian, she specializes in modern architecture and urbanism, and the cultural landscape of the British empire.

She is the author of Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism, and the Colonial Uncanny (2005); Unlearning the City: Infrastructure in a New Optical Field (2012); and the coeditor with Jeremy White of City Halls and Civic Materialism: Towards a Global History of Urban Public Space (2014), and Routledge Companion to Critical Approaches to Contemporary Architecture (2019). Her current work includes two digital humanities projects, Mapping the Ephemeral, and Bookscapes. Her forthcoming book is titled, A Geography of Small Spaces.

Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, J. Paul Getty Foundation, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, National Science Foundation, and a distinguished visiting fellowship from Queen Mary University of London. She has served as a director of the Subaltern-Popular Workshop, a University of California Multicampus Research Group, and as the editor of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. In 2018 she was named a fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians for a lifetime of significant contribution to the field. She is a founding editor of PLATFORM.

Introduction by Esra Akcan
Please register here for the lecture.

Nobel prize–winning economist Amartya Sen joins Cornell’s Kaushik Basu for the 2021 Bartels World Affairs Lecture, hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

At the turn of the millennium, many would have said that understanding the need for democracy was the most important change in the world over the preceding century. Yet in the past 20 years, democracy has been treated with contempt and hostility in many parts of the world—including countries in the West (such as Hungary, Poland, and others), but also elsewhere.

It is important to ask why this is happening and how we should deal with it, Sen advises.

“Some countries seem to be undergoing a big transition in this respect, and my own country, India, may be a significant example—despite its being often described as the largest democracy in the world, which in some sense it still is,” Sen said. “As someone who is dismayed by recent developments, I would like to discuss the nature of the problems we may be facing and what can be done about them.”

Sen’s talk, “Attacks on Democracy,” will kick off a discussion with Cornell faculty and students moderated by Basu. Three faculty commentators and audience members, including several students, will join Sen for conversation and Q&A on democratic challenges—and ways forward. The event is part of the Einaudi Center’s democratic resilience global research theme.

Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard University. He has served as president of the Econometric Society, American Economic Association, Indian Economic Association, and International Economic Association. Translated into more than 40 languages, Sen’s books include Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970, 2017), Development as Freedom (1999), Identity and Violence (2006), and The Idea of Justice (2009). Sen’s awards include the Bharat Ratna (India); Commandeur de la Legion d'Honneur (France); National Humanities Medal, George Marshall Award, and Eisenhower Medal (USA); Bodley Medal and Edinburgh Medal (UK); Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Brazil); Aztec Eagle (Mexico); and the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Moderator:
Kaushik Basu is the Carl Marks Professor of International Studies, professor of economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, and former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank.

Faculty Commentators:
Robert Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law, Cornell University

Marco Battaglini, Edward H. Meyer Professor of Economics, Cornell University

Rachana Kamtekar, Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University

The Bartels World Affairs Lecture was established in 1984 to foster a broadened worldview among Cornell students, especially undergraduates. The lecture and related events are made possible by the generosity of Henry E. Bartels ’48 and Nancy Horton Bartels ’48.

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