blog posts

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  CGS Faculty Affiliate Antoinette Burton Wins 2025 Campus Award for Public Engagement

  by carruth3@illinois.eduSep 8, 2025 9:15 am

  Individuals and teams from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences who have visibly impacted society were recently recognized with the 2025 Campus Awards for Excellence in Public Engagement. Faculty, staff, students, and community members who engage the public to address critical civic and community issues at the local, state, national, and global levels were honored at an awards ceremony last month.

  This year's LAS recipients include faculty member Antoinette Burton, graduate student Ananya Yammanuru, and the Entomology Graduate Student Association team.

  Burton, a history professor and director of the Humanities Research Institute at Illinois, received the Distinguished Award for Excellence in Public Engagement.

  Published initially by the Illinois News Bureau. 

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  Multilateralism’s Collapse Under Trump and the Call for Global South Pluriverse

  by Shoutao WuJul 31, 2025 3:15 pm

  Multilateralism, in brief, refers to multiple countries working together to achieve a common goal through diverse membership in international institutions. As Charvet and Mota argue, multilateralism and international cooperation exist, as no nation can be shielded from global threats, regardless of the framing of altruism or geopolitical interests. They require reconciling short-term national interests with long-term global prosperity for mankind. Such reconciliation, however, is at odds with the sweeping “America First” agenda, as multilateralism takes time, compromises self-interests, and requires subsidies from wealthier and more powerful states. Donald Trump and his administration do not want that.

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  Bringing Them Home: CGS Affiliate Dr. Scott Althaus Helps Recover WWII Airmen Lost for Decades

  by Associated PressMay 27, 2025 12:15 pm

  This Memorial Day, CGS recognizes the contributions of faculty affiliate Dr. Scott Althaus and his involvement with Project Recover, which helps bring home World War II service members.

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  From Exploitation to Empowerment: Rethinking Carbon Markets and Offsetting Mechanisms

  by Shoutao Wu (Vincent)May 21, 2025 2:45 pm

  Key Points

  1. Despite claims of a "triple win" for environmental conservation, economic growth, and equity, carbon markets and offsetting mechanisms often perpetuate structural exploitation and neocolonialism at the global, local, and procedural levels.
  2. Globally, countries in the Global North benefit disproportionately from carbon markets, outsourcing environmental responsibilities to countries in the Global South, which have unevenly distributed market power and an unjust territorialization of southern lands.
  3. Locally, carbon offsetting projects often result in the exploitation of indigenous and local communities in terms of land and carbon sovereignty, as well as fundamental human rights and a share of project benefits.
  4. Procedurally, the neglect of local knowledge and place-based environmental stewardship excludes indigenous communities from project initiation, negotiation, and decision-making processes.
  5. To circumvent these pitfalls, this brief provides recommendations to mobilize all stakeholders engaged in carbon markets and offsetting mechanisms, and together adopt rigorous, just, and equitable strategies to ensure the rights of the South and Indigenous peoples.
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  Illini Engaged: Envisioning Education at CIES 2025

  by Donna C. Tonini, MBA, Ed.DMay 16, 2025 7:15 pm

  The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) met in Chicago, Illinois, for its 69^th annual conference. Held at the historic Palmer Hotel, the conference brought together educators and practitioners who focus on educational issues worldwide to explore the theme of Envisioning Education in a Digital Society. The conference had strong representation from the College of Education at Illinois, broaching topics such as the relationship between education and cultural processes, democratization, globalization, economic development, and political conflict. This blog post highlights a few key aspects of the excellent scholarship presented by Illinois students, staff, faculty, and affiliates.

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  Academia Meets Policy: Partnering with Think Tanks to Improve Student Experiences

  by Donna C. Tonini, MBA, Ed.DApr 23, 2025 11:00 am

  This past February, I had the privilege and pleasure of being invited to Spain to attend the School For Thinktankers 2025, sponsored by the organization On Think Tanks (OTT) at Fundació Bofill in Barcelona. The weeklong training seminar started with an inspiring welcome session, setting the stage for an exciting week of learning, collaboration, and growth. As the Center for Global Studies (CGS) is launching a new Master of Science in Global Studies (MSGS) with 3 tracks including Global Governance, Global Security, and Gender and Public Policy, partnering with think tanks to collaborate, create student internships, and develop opportunities for students to present work and publish is a strategic focus of the center. Through the new master’s degree, CGS can offer avenues for networking, increased exposure to, and engagement with think tanks across the world.

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  CGS Faculty Affiliates Recognized in LAS Faculty Awards Announcement

  by Donna C. Tonini, MBA, Ed.DApr 3, 2025 4:00 pm

  We are proud to celebrate the achievements of two Center for Global Studies (CGS) faculty affiliates who have recently been honored through the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) faculty awards and announcements.

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  Arts and Education without Borders: The 9th Annual Globalizing the Community College Curricula Conference 2025

  by Dr. Zach PetreaFeb 12, 2025 2:45 pm

  The 9th Annual Globalizing the Community College Curricula Conference 2025: Arts and Education without Borders conference was an immensely successful conference that will positively impact the Global Studies Program at Heartland Community College (HCC) in Normal, Illinois. The conference featured “innovative strategies and best practices for integrating global perspectives into community college curricula through the arts” and followed through with a diverse speaker lineup that provided multiple subject examples ranging from philosophy, art, composition, anthropology, and political science.  

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  Scholarly Publishing in the Globalization Context: A Glimpse into the Relationship Between Global Market and Global Welfare

  by Yanling LiuDec 19, 2024 4:30 pm

  In 2022, when I was in the process of applying to the MSLIS program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I attended the KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) PubFactory Virtual Series, which had a session about the impact of globalization on scholarly publishing presented by KGL’s Director of Consulting, Kevin Lomangino. Lomangino pointed out that the western countries used to have absolute dominance in the scholarly publishing industry, which went hand in hand with the dominance of English-speaking countries, but due to globalization, this dominance was challenged. China was gaining more power in scholarly publishing as it strived to collaborate with researchers from all over the world, especially those coming from the Middle East and Asia, and publish quality research in the world's highest impact journals. Globalization was not a new trend, but journal publishers were increasingly noticing the impact of globalization on the scholarly publishing industry, and whoever ignored the global trend would potentially miss out on revenue opportunities. Scholars in regions such as Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East were seizing the opportunities to expand their research output and global outreach, which increasingly diversified scholarly communication.

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  Care Work and Climate Change, Feminist Perspectives under the Neoliberal Economic Malestream

  by Shoutao Wu (Vincent)Dec 16, 2024 1:45 pm

  I once heard a story about an ordinary rural woman. Born in a small village in southeast China in the 1970s, she had four siblings, two older sisters, one younger sister, and one youngest brother. Her family was not rich. At that time, a small household in a small village in that area relied mostly on small-scale farming, rice, sugarcane, tea, and cattle breeding. Children were a promising source of labor that could translate into economic growth for the family in the future. Therefore, before China's one-child policy, it was not uncommon to see a household with five, six, seven or more children.