About the Ideas Forum
A project of the OSUN Hannah Arendt Humanities Network, the Ideas Forum brings together students, faculty, and staff from across the OSUN community to engage in thoughtful conversation about some of the most important and controversial topics of the modern day. Throughout each forum, students have the opportunity to engage in rigorous, intellectual dialogues, attend lectures, and participate in break-out sessions with speakers and other students.
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The Future of American Leadership on the World Stage
(Washington D.C, May 6-7)
The 2023 Ideas Forum was co-hosted by the Bard High School Early College. Read more about the forum on our Medium page here.
The American-led world order that was created in the aftermath of World War II is being challenged by a variety of forces – by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China, the persistent long-term threats posed by climate change, as well as by a series of technological and economic disruptions that have helped undermine America’s trust in its core institutions. As the average citizen struggles to adapt to these tumultuous developments, many have begun to question America’s role in world affairs. The objective of this forum will be to better understand competing positions on this topic, with a particular focus on democracy and human rights in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. -
A space to dive deep into contemporary issues
Our past forums have included Nationalism (taking place at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan) and Antisemitism (Bard College, New York).
The forum "Nationalism Around the World" brought together 18 scholars, experts, and OSUN students at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, during November, 2022. The Forum featured robust conversations on two subjects: 2) a comparison between Nationalism as it is understood in Europe and Nationalism as it is understood in Asia, and 2) Nationalism in the Chinese-Taiwanese context specifically.
Our forum "Why Antisemitism Now?" brought together 12 OSUN scholars and two outside experts, Professor Susie Linfield of NYU and Dr. Shadi Hamid of Brookings Institution, to discuss antisemitism from a variety of angles. Bard College President Leon Botstein, Bard’s Jewish Chaplain Rabbi Joshua Boettiger and Ken Stern, Director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, also joined as field experts during the forum sessions. In addition to panel discussions and class visits, forum participants read excerpts from Professor Walter Mead's recently published book The Arc of a Covenant.
