From January 16 – 20, 2023, Harvard Law School’s IGLP collaborated with Stellenbosch University to convene the Global Scholars Academy in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
About the Academy
The Global Scholars Academy is an intensive residential experience designed to enable junior faculty and post-doctoral scholars to engage in sustained, interdisciplinary, peer-to-peer collaboration under the close mentorship of research faculty drawn from the world’s top universities. The Academy is open by application to junior scholars working to understand and map the levers of political, economic, and legal authority in the world today. We particularly welcome applications from scholars from the Global South and those working on policy challenges of particular concern to communities in the Global South.
Building on the IGLP’s decade of successful workshops and Stellenbosch’s dedication to high-level interdisciplinary research, the Global Scholars Academy will engage a growing community of scholars developing new thinking about the world’s most pressing policy challenges. While in residence, participants will workshop their ongoing research, review current scholarship developments, reconsider canonical texts, and network with colleagues from across the world.
The Format
The 2023 Academy offered a unique interdisciplinary curriculum and included thematic minicourses, plenary lectures, and writing workshops. Writing workshops offered participants the opportunity to receive detailed, valuable feedback on their research from their peers and senior colleagues in small group settings.
The Themes
Authoritarianism, Populism, and Constitutional Authority
The Global Corporation
Critical Geographies
Transnational Public and Private Reimagined
Science and Technology Studies
Labor, Justice, and the Future of Work
Law and Development
Legal Thought in Critical Theory
International Economic Law in Global Political Economy
Formality and Informality in the Law of Property
Clinical Education and Access to Justice
Gender, Poverty, and Social Inclusion
Foregrounding Race in the Post-Colonial
Critical Thinking: International Law
The Faculty
Rabiat Akande (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Helena Alviar (Sciences Po Law School)
Diamond Ashiagabor (Kent Law School)
Saptarishi Bandopadhyay (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Arnulf Becker (Harvard Law School)
Zsa-Zsa Boggenpoel (Stellenbosch University)
Henk Botha (Stellenbosch University)
Theo Broodryk (Stellenbosch University)
Madelaine Chiam (La Trobe Law School)
Richard Clements (Tilburg Law School)
Dan Danielsen (Northeastern Law School)
Dennis Davis (High Court of Cape Town)
Guenter Frankenberg (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
Yugank Goyal (FLAME University)
John Haskell (University of Manchester)
Ben Hurlbut (Arizona State University)
Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard Kennedy School of Government)
Nkatha Kabira (University of Nairobi)
Martti Koskenniemi (University of Helsinki)
Vidya Kumar (University of Leicester)
Ralf Michaels (Max Planck Institute/Queen Mary University London)
Horatia Muir Watt (Sciences Po Law School)
Scott Newton (SOAS, University of London)
Rose Parfitt (Kent Law School)
James Parker (Melbourne Law School)
Jeremy Perelman (Sciences Po Law School)
Juanita Pienaar (Stellenbosch University)
Geo Quinot (Stellenbosch University)
Nik Rajkovic (Tilburg Law School)
Kerry Rittich (University of Toronto Faculty of Law)
Hani Sayed (The American University in Cairo)
Bradley Slade (Stellenbosch University)
Leo Specht (Specht & Partner)
Svitlana Starsovit (Harvard Law School)
Cait Storr (Melbourne Law School)
Chantal Thomas (Cornell University)
Robert Wai (Osgoode Hall Law School)
Dina Waked (Sciences Po Law School)
Lucie White (Harvard Law School)
Mikhail Xifaras (Sciences Po Law School)
…and More!
The Application
Preference will be given to scholars who hold postdoctoral junior faculty positions. Students completing their doctoral work are also encouraged to apply. All accepted participants will be expected to submit an 8000-word piece, draft, or work in progress of academic writing in advance of the Academy to be discussed with colleagues in our intensive Writing Workshops.
The Collaboration
The collaboration will encourage scholarship exploring such pressing issues as the structural reproduction of poverty and inequality; the policy challenges and benefits of new technologies; links between local and global security; environmental sustainability and the impact of environmental change on communities across the global South, women’s empowerment, SDG’s; as well as the management of cultural difference, exclusion, and intolerance in a world of ever-increasing movement and communication.
Stellenbosch University (SU) is home to an academic community of 29,000 students (including 4,000 foreign students from 100 countries) as well as 3,000 permanent staff members (including 1,000 academics) on five campuses. The historical oak-lined university town amongst the Boland Mountains in the winelands of the Western Cape creates a unique campus atmosphere. On the main campus, paved walkways wind between campus buildings – some dating from previous centuries; others just a few years old. Architecture from various eras attests to the sound academic foundation and establishment of an institution of excellence. This, together with the scenic beauty of the area; state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly facilities and technology, as well as visionary thinking about the creation of a sustainable 21st-century institution, makes for the unique character of SU. The Faculty of Law, which commemorated its centenary in 2021, as well as the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences are both situated on the main campus. At SU, this project underwrites our commitment to promote the global SDG 2030 agenda as well as our commitment to the continent in supporting the Africa Agenda 2063. The Academy aims to stimulate rigorous academic conversation contributing specifically to Agenda 2063 theme 4 “A Peaceful and Secure Africa” and theme 5 “Good Governance, Democracy, Human Rights, Justice and Rule of Law”.