The Global Studies Group brings together Stony Brook faculty and graduate students in a loosely structured network to exchange ideas and collaborate in the study of socio-cultural globalization and the impacts of globalization on localities, organizations and identitities. The group was proposed by Andrew Collver early in 1997, as a way to mobilize resources to carry out the Sociology Department's intention, under the new Chair, Diane Barthel-Bouchier, to focus on the theme, "Organizations and Identities in Global Perspective." Three evening seminars at faculty homes during fall semester 1996 had helped to clarify and focus the theme, but had left open the question of how to build teamwork for its implementation.
Formation of the group was preceded by a series of brown bag lunch discussions of relevant research and teaching by department members. The topics and their presenters were "Stony Brook's Asian American Cultural Center," by Collver; "Family Enterprises in Global Perspective," by Nilufer Isvan; "Researching Global Culture," by Diane Barthel; "Privacy and the World Wide Web," by James Rule; "Globalizing the Ph.D. Program," by Ian Roxborough and Melissa Bolyard; "The Auto Industry in Global Perspective," by Michael Schwartz; "Globalization and Undergraduate Teaching," by Erich Goode and Collver.
Additional food for thought was served by guest speakers at department colloquia: Robert Wade of Brown University, Wolf Schafer of the History Department, Jackie Smith, visiting from Notre Dame, and Ramon Grosfoguel from Binghamton University.
At the first organizational meeting in September, 1997, three people agreed to serve with Prof. Collver as a steering committee. They are Hermann Kurthen, Jackie Smith and Richard Korzenko. While the group has its nucleus in the Sociology Department, it is hoped that others will join from a variety of related disciplines.
It is our intention that this web site will exemplify and demonstrate what we are doing and what we hope to accomplish. We hope that those who visit the site will find here much useful information, stimulation and inspiration and that it will become a regular stopping point for Internet travelers in an expanding global network.