20th in the series
The Religious-Secular Divide: The U.S. Case
March 5-6, 2009

The conference explored the tension between religion and secularity in the United States, which is long-standing, widespread, and increasingly intense. These issues were addressed from the perspectives of religious studies, legal studies, political science, sociology, and philosophy.

Funding: Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation and Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts

Proceedings will be published in Social Research Volume 76, Number 4 (Winter 2009). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

19th in the series
Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times, Part II
February 19-20, 2009

A second conference on Free Inquiry was held at the American Academy in Berlin and an Honorary Degree was presented to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Funding: Carnegie Corporation of New York and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Proceedings will be published in Social Research Volume 76, Number 3 (Fall 2009).

18th in the series
Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times
October 29-31, 2008

This conference examined the role of free inquiry and academic freedom in higher education institutions around the workd and considered how to maintain and protect these core values on the 75th anniversary of the University in Exile.

The University in Exile was created by Alvin Johnson, the first president of The New School, as a haven for the scholars he rescued from the horrors of Hitler. The University in Exile became the Graduate Faculty of The New School for Social Research and gave birth to our journal, Social Research.

Funding: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation and Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts

Proceedings will be published in Social Research Volume 76, Number 2 (Summer 2009). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

17th conference in the series
Disasters: Recipes and Remedies
November 1-2, 2007

This conference explored the commonalities of all disasters. The participants examined the unequal protection and treatment of populations made vulnerable by their location and or socioeconomic status; the impact of disasters on the economy and overall human development; how hazards develop into disasters; and how design factors either mitigate or amplify their effects.

Funding: The New School for Social Research

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 75, Number 3 (Fall 2008). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

16th conference in the series
Punishment: The U.S. Record
November 30-December 1, 2006

This Social Research conference examined the foundations of our ideas of punishment, explored the social effects of current practices and searched for viable alternatives to our carceral state. The conference was organized in response to the staggering increase in the number of people incarcerated in the United States since the 1970s (the US now has the highest incarceration rate in the world) and the well-known fact that the US, unlike other Western democracies, reaffirms its dubious claim to exceptionalism by continuing to mandate capital punishment in many states of the union.

Funding: Ford Foundation, The JM Kaplan Fund, Open Society Institute and Russell Sage Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 74, Number 2 (Summer 2007). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

15th conference in the series
Politics and Science: How Their Interplay Results in Public Policy
February 9-10, 2006

The increasing politicization of science can lead to policy decisions that run counter to accepted scientific consensus and risk endangering our health and well-being. Scientists and policy-makers from across the political spectrum will assess the current tension between politics and science and discuss how to increase the likelihood that the best science becomes the basis for future public policy. Special presentation on global warming by James E. Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Funding: The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 73, Number 3 (Fall 2006). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

14th conference in the series
Fairness: Its Role in Our Lives
April 14-15, 2005

Equality, justice, and social change all have their roots in our perceptions of fairness. What drives these perceptions? At the Social Research conference, renowned experts examined issues of fairness in current events and throughout history. Keynote speaker: John Edwards, 2004 Vice Presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator from North Carolina.

Funding: Russell Sage Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 73, Number 2 (Summer 2006). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

13th conference in the series
Their America: The United States in the Eyes of the Rest of the World
October 18-19, 2004

Since 9/11, there has been a sharp increase in anti-American feelings worldwide. At the same time, there continues to be, in many places around the globe, a dynamic tension between responses to the United States' aggressive military interventions and, for lack of a better shorthand term, what American culture has to offer. Given the increasing tendency of the United States to act unilaterally on the world stage, it is crucial that we understand how the rest of the world views us, our administration, and our actions, so that we may comprehend why our actions succeed or fail, and how best to formulate future plans. Our intention at this conference was to foster discussion between speakers from across the globe, and between speakers and audience, on how the United States is and has been viewed in various countries over approximately the past 75 years. To that end, we invited speakers from the Balkans, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Pakistan, Palestine, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

Funding: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation and an anonymous donor

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 72, Number 4 (Winter 2005). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

12th conference in the series
Fear: Its Political Uses and Abuses
February 5-7, 2004

Since September 11, 2001, fear has been woven into the fabric of daily life in the United States. Our vulnerability and the fear it engendered has become the justification for so much that our government has done since in the name of protecting us: two wars and the "slashing away"of our constitutional protections, all in the name of fighting terrorism. The media thrives on this fear, and even exacerbates it. This conference placed our current heightened state of collective fear in cultural and historical perspective, examining the psychological roots of fear and its manipulation by those who hold or seek power. Speakers explore the complexities and consequences of fear from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, including Vice President Al Gore's keynote address and papers by Joe Ledoux, Steve Heller, John Hollander, Corey Robin, Cass Sunstein, Aryeh Neier, Andrew Arato, Eric Alterman, Jacek Debeic, Barry Glassner, Stanley Hoffnan, Leonie Huddy, E. Valentine Daniel, George Kateb, Kenneth Prewitt, Tom Pyszczynski, and Aristide Zolberg.

Funding: Russell Sage Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 71, Number 4 (Winter 2004). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

11th conference in the series
Privacy in Islam: The Public and Private Spheres, Part III
December 5-7, 2003

This conference brought together 22 speakers over three days to explore the spectrum of Islamic societies worldwide and their varying understandings those societies have of the boundary between private and public. The boundary between public and private is a contested issue in any society, no less so in the Islamic world. Now more than ever, it is critical that we move beyond stereotypes toward a more nuanced understanding of Islam. The conference took a familiar issue, that of privacy, to illuminate how Islamic societies resemble and differ from each other, as well as from our own. Speakers included Roy Mottahedeh, Mehrangiz Kar, Orhan Pamuk, Nilufer Gole, Baber Johansen, Azar Nafisi, and others.

Funding: Open Society Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation and an anonymous donor

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 70, Number 3 (Fall 2003). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

10th conference in the series
International Justice, War Crimes and Terrorism: The U.S. Record
April 25-27, 2002

Dedicated to advancing the possibility of global justice and the protection of human rights, this conference addressed events in New York, Vietnam, Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and other locations, discussing how the national and international community, including the United States, responded to the devastating events in their own and other countries, through legal, political, military, and other means. It examined the U.S. response to war crimes and acts of terrorism, the training of its military, and its role in the evolution of new forms of international criminal jurisdiction. Speakers included Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Justice Richard Goldstone, Justice Patricia Wald, Justice Theodor Meron, Michael Ignatieff., Michael Walzer, and many distinguished others.

Funding: Open Society Institute, Russell Sage Foundation and anonymous donors

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 69, Number 4 (Winter 2002). Audio of the complete conference and Q&A is available (in MP3 files). (To order the journal and/or the audio, complete and return the order form.)

9th conference in the series
Privacy in Post Communist Europe, Part II
March 23-34, 2001

Eastern Europe emerges from a communist past where everything was officially "public," privacy was unprotected, and the public sphere was etatized. The highly problematic public/private dichotomy of post-modernity is particularly complicated under conditions of post-communism. Distortions of the public sphere (lack of transparency, skewed or monopolized public discourse, etc.) are aggravated by attempts at penetrating into privacy in the name of public community values (e.g. in the case of abortion). Transparency is denied in the name of privacy ("personality rights" of former secret police informants prevail in some countries against public interest and the rights of victims). Further, in part because of historical traditions, in many East European societies there is no genuine sense of privacy.

These features are not systematically discussed in Eastern Europe. The Social Research Privacy conference at Central European University on March 23-24, 2001, helped to clarify certain crucial policy relevant issues, for example, civic education toward the development of a more responsive citizenry; data protection and access to information; the limits and responsibilities of journalism; reproductive policies. More broadly, the conference offered a valuable point of reference and helped to put the East European issues into a global context, in terms of both prevailing influences and intellectual context.

Funding: Open Society Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 69, Number 1 (Spring 2002).

8th conference in the series
Altered States of Consciousness
February 22-24, 2001

Drugs, meditation, hypnosis, ecstasy, dreaming, hallucination, mass hysteria: there are countless ways of achieving altered states of consciousness. What distinguishes those that are valued from those that are deemed dangerous and consequently feared? How do rules and attitudes toward mind-altering activities change through history and across cultures? This conference attempted to place the current debate about mind-altering substances and the "war on drugs" in their proper historical and cultural frameworks. We examined religious, psychiatric, recreational, and inspirational practices of altering consciousness, looking back at the historical roots of our current views and policies, and forward to more rational, less harmful solutions to what some perceive a a national epidemic.

Funding: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Russell Sage Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 68, Number 3 (Fall 2001).

7th conference in the series
Privacy in the U.S. and Europe, Part I
October 5-7, 2000

The distinction between what is public and what is private is becoming more and more blurred with the increasing intrusiveness of the media and advances in electronic technology. While this distinction is always the outcome of cultural negotiation, it continues to be critical, for where nothing is private, democracy becomes impossible. How much of what is currently considered private are we willing to make public in the name of openness and convenience? This comference looked backward at the hostorical foundations of privacy and forward to what the future may have in store.

Funding: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 68, Number 1 (Spring 2001).

6th conference in the series
Food: Nature and Culture
November 5-7, 1998

What we eat, how we provision ourselves, the ceremonies and observances with which we surround food and eating, the power and joy of plenty and the fear and misery of famine and deprivation are occasions for reflection about the human condition. So, to understand food is to understand ourselves. Why is the production and distribution of food so starkly out of joint with its consumption? What roles do power, science and ideology play in this heart-rending dilemma? What is the role of historically determined cultural food preferences? And most important, what can science and technology or economic and political initiatives do to address these tragic occurrences?

Funding: Continental Grain Foundation, Earth Pledge Foundation, Ford Foundation, Organic Commodity Project and The Rockefeller Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 66, Number 1 (Spring 1999).

5th conference in the series
Technology and the Rest of Culture
January 16-18, 1997

We consider that technology is not something separate and apart from the rest of our culture with a life of its own. And as long as we fail to acknowledge this we will continue to endow it with agency and autonomy, which in turn will have profound, often unintended, moral, and political consequences.

Funding: The Engineering Foundation, The Howard Gilman Foundation, Interval Research Corporation and The Rockefeller Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 64, Number 3 (Fall 1997).

4th conference in the series
In the Company of Animals
April 6-8, 1995

Animals have been hunted and domesticated, befriended and eaten, worshiped and feared, romanticized and demonized, studied and mythologized. Reflections upon our relationships with them have been continuous and are expressed in our traditions, arts, literature, religions, and sciences. How have our relationships with animals evolved over time and place, and how do they reflect different understandings of what it means to be human? The delineation of human/animal relationships occurs in all cultures, and in all cultures this boundary is a matter of great significance.

Funding: Caroline Williams, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Esther A. & and Joseph Klingenstein Fund, Inc. and National Endowment for the Humanities

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 62, Number 3 (Fall 1995).

3rd conference in the series
Rescue: The Paradoxes of Virtue
November 17-18, 1994

Confronted with the suffering of another person or group of persons, whether because of a natural disaster-an earthquake or flood- or because of the intentionally harmful actions of another or a group of others, our moral obligation seems self-evident. We must make an effort to rescue the imperiled. However, today, it is not the actions of a single individual whose conscience is stirred that is likely to make a difference. Rather, large-scale humanitarian assistance programs and military interventions are called for and feelings of compassion and stirrings of conscience are simply not enough. Furthermore, if our voices are heard and large-scale actions are undertaken, those of us who are likely to give voice to our moral outrage are least likely to be the ones whose lives will be placed at risk. And so, the question of intervening becomes more difficult, and the questions that arise can no longer be answered in terms of moral imperatives, but demand political responses. Who then has the responsibility to intervene and the power to do so effectively? What are the limits of this responsibility, and who enforces it? The closer one looks, the harder these questions become, which may be part of the reason why so little is done and so many continue to suffer at the hands of others. These questions are our subject, and, given what goes on in the world, there could hardly be a more important one.

Funding: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, German Information Center and The Rockefeller Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 62, Number 1 (Spring 1995).

2nd conference in the series
Home: A Place in the World
October 25-27, 1990

We live at a time when the idea of home has become problematic.  We are confronted each day with painful images and stories about the growing numbers of homeless people, about criminal violence toward children, and about the plights of those exiled from their homelands.  And all of this coexists with the persistent images of home as a place of comfort, safety, and refuge.

The conference was a central part of the Home Project, was held at the New School in October 1990, designed to explore the ideology of home, its meaning as a cnetral human idea as well as the crises engendered by its loss suffered in alienation. 

Funding: Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and The Rockefeller Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 58, Number 1 (Spring 1991).

1st conference in the series
In Time of Plague: The History and Social Consequences of Lethal Epidemic Disease
January 15-16, 1988

The conference was organized with the expectation that an open discussion among scientists and scholars might help to place the current alarming outbreak of AIDS in perspective by considering it in the context of the social history of past lethal epidemics.  We thought that focusing attention on the many ways in which diseases, particularly catastrophic infectious and contagious diseases, are and have been both biologically and socially defined might help lead the way to a calmer and more effective public response to the problem.

Funding: The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation

Proceedings are published in Social Research Volume 55, Number 3 (Fall 1988).