Mediterranean | Baraza

NYU_AbuDhabi_04_sm — A mural representing the relationship between NYU and NYUAD. http://new.pentagram.com/2011/04/paula-scher-nyu-abu-dhabi-mura/

There is a de facto 21st century gold rush among elite universities in the United States. In the age of globalized capital, privatization of the state, and commodified education, top-ranked, private universities and colleges are expanding beyond U.S. borders and building proxy campuses in locations fundamental to American economic and military interests. Of the U.S. universities engaged in this project, the pioneer has been New York University (NYU), the first university ever to clone its flagship campus into a standalone campus abroad. In doing so, NYU president John Sexton — infamous for declaring that he’d turn NYU into a leader in the “ICE sector (1)” — upped the ante in the race for such capital by building a new campus in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.). New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) built itself its own private island in the Persian Gulf with a name fit for the neoliberal ideal it was trying to embody: the Island of Happiness (Saadiyat Island). Beyond happiness, a third of the world’s oil reserves lie beneath and around this little island — and Iran is right across the gulf.

There is hardly a project in the Persian Gulf that is not met with controversy. This one is no exception. The construction of NYUAD is murky business for many reasons, particularly NYU’s contracting of Nardello & Co. — an investigating firm that prides itself on getting high-profile corporations out of wrongdoing allegations — to perform a fact finding mission regardings its labor practices in the construction of the Saadiyat Island campus. In addition to the major ethical questions posed by the abuse of labor used to construct NYUAD’s campus, the project represents a marriage of the university with oil capital and U.S. military and economic strategic interests to create the “global university.”

Continue reading Game-Changer: The Rise and Expansion of the Global University →

Marseille’s designation as “European Capital of Culture” in 2013 has certainly improved the city’s image. From the New York Times to National Geographic, Marseille has received long-awaited attention for its urban and cultural transformation: after decades of violence, poverty, and social malaise, it is emerging as the new capital of the Mediterranean, a raffish, “rough but refined” port city and tourist destination. “Marseille is Paris’ messy, mad other—the New Orleans of France,” writes Shirine Saad for Ralph Lauren Magazine. “It is the city of sailors and prostitutes, Marcel Pagnol and bouillabaise. But it’s also a thriving hub of street and contemporary culture.”

Yet another facet of this Mediterranean multiculturalist representation of the city relates to questions of gender and feminism, which have figured prominently in the Marseille 2013 public relations campaign. At the Bazaar of Gender: Feminine-Masculine in the Mediterranean, one of the first exhibitions at the newly minted Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations, explored gender relations in the Mediterranean world. This exhibition focused on topics such as reproductive rights, the Muslim headscarf, and gay and lesbian rights, intended to unify women of the Mediterranean behind a common feminist agenda. Underlying this Mediterranean feminist discourse, however, is the belief that women of the sea’s southern shores lag behind their more progressive northern Mediterranean sisters.

Continue reading Marseille and the Mediterranean Feminism of Massalia Blues →