From 1966, Sassen spent a year each at the Sapienza University of Rome for studies in philosophy and political science.
Gallery of Saskia Sassen
From 1966, Sassen spent a year each at the University of Buenos Aires, for studies in philosophy and political science.
Gallery of Saskia Sassen
From 1966, Sassen spent a year each at the University of Poitiers, France for studies in philosophy and political science.
Gallery of Saskia Sassen
From 1969, Sassen studied sociology and economics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where she obtained a Master of Arts in 1971 and a Ph.D. degree in 1974.
From 1969, Sassen studied sociology and economics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where she obtained a Master of Arts in 1971 and a Ph.D. degree in 1974.
(This classic work chronicles how New York, London, and To...)
This classic work chronicles how New York, London, and Tokyo became command centers for the global economy and in the process underwent a series of massive and parallel changes. What distinguishes Sassen's theoretical framework is the emphasis on the formation of cross-border dynamics through which these cities and the growing number of other global cities begin to form strategic transnational networks.
("Guests and Aliens" presents a comprehensive analysis of ...)
"Guests and Aliens" presents a comprehensive analysis of worldwide immigration by one of the world’s leading experts on globalization. Putting the current “crisis” of immigration into a historical context for the first time, Sassen suggests that the American experience represents only one phase in a history of global border crossing. She describes the mass migrations of Italians and Eastern European Jews during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the international dislocations - particularly after the end of World War II - that have engendered the “refugee” concept. Using these examples, Sassen explores the causes of immigration that have resulted in nations’ welcoming incomers as “guests” or disparaging them as “aliens,” and outlines an “enlightened approach” to improving US and European immigration policies.
Digital Formations: IT and New Architectures in the Global Realm
(Computer-centered networks and technologies are reshaping...)
Computer-centered networks and technologies are reshaping social relations and constituting new social domains on a global scale, from virtually borderless electronic markets and Internet-based large-scale conversations to worldwide open source software development communities, transnational corporate production systems, and the global knowledge-arenas associated with NGO networks. This book explores how such "digital formations" emerge from the ever-changing intersection of computer-centered technologies and the broad range of social contexts that underlie much of what happens in cyberspace. While viewing technologies fundamentally in social rather than technical terms, "Digital Formations" nonetheless emphasizes the importance of recognizing the specific technical capacities of digital technologies.
("Cities in a World Economy" shows how certain characteris...)
"Cities in a World Economy" shows how certain characteristics of flows of money, information, and people have led to the emergence of a new social formation: global cities, new types of migrations, financial crises, environmental catastrophes, and the multiplication of communication technologies. These developments give new meaning to such fixtures of urban sociology as the centrality of place and the importance of geography in our social world.
Saskia Sassen is a Dutch-American urban planner, educator and sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She coined the term "global city".
Background
Saskia Sassen was born on January 5, 1949 in the Hague, the Netherlands. In 1948 her parents, Willem Sassen and Miep van der Voort, moved to Argentina and the family lived in Buenos Aires. Her father was a Dutch collaborator with the Nazis, a Nazi journalist and a member of the Waffen-SS. In the 1950s Willem Sassen was close to Adolf Eichmann, who visited Saskia's childhood home, when the family was living in Argentina. Saskia Sassen also spent part of her youth in Italy and was brought up in five languages.
Education
From 1966, Sassen spent each year at the University of Poitiers, France, the Sapienza University of Rome, and the University of Buenos Aires, for studies in philosophy and political science. From 1969, Sassen studied sociology and economics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where she obtained a Master of Arts in 1971 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1974. She also received a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Poitiers in 1974.
In 1974-1975 Sassen was a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.
In January 2004, Sassen received the honoris causa degree in urbanism at Delft University of Technology. In 2014, she received the honoris causa degree at Universidad de Murcia, Spain, and Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. On November 13, 2017 the Honorable Consejo General Universitario from the Universidad de Guadalajara, México approved to confer she "Honoris causa" degree.
Saskia Sassen came to the United States in 1970. Since then she held various academic positions in and outside the USA, such as an assistant professor at Queens College of the City University of New York from 1976 to 1980, as an associate professor from 1980 to 1985 and as a professor from 1985. She was also a professor of urban planning department from 1985 at Columbia University, New York City, and a department head during 1987-1991. She was also the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Sassen is currently Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial Visiting Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Sassen emerged as a prolific author in urban sociology. She studied the impacts of globalisation such as economic restructuring, and how the movements of labour and capital influence urban life. She also studied the influence of communication technology on governance. Sassen observed how nation states begin to lose power to control these developments, and she studied increasing general transnationalism, including transnational human migration. She identified and described the phenomenon of the "global city". Her 1991 book bearing this title made her a widely quoted author on globalisation. An updated edition of "The Global City" was published in 2001. In the early 2000s, Sassen focused on immigration and globalization, with her "denationalization" and "transnationalism" projects.
Her recent books are "Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages" (Princeton University Press 2008), "A Sociology of Globalization" (W.W.Norton 2007), and the 4th fully updated edition of "Cities in a World Economy" (Sage 2011). Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages.
She is also currently working on Unstable Territories, based on the Storss Lectures she delivered at the Yale University Law School. For UNESCO, she organized a five-year project on sustainable human settlement with a network of researchers and activists in over thirty countries; it is published as one of the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (2006).
Saskia Sassen was a member faculty of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and a past member of non-governmental international planning committee on year of shelter for homeless of the United Nations. She is also a former member of Queens Borough President Claire Shulman's Blue Ribbon Panel on Government, New York, State Industrial Corporation Council.
From 1985 to 1990 Sassen was a member of Social Science Research Council working group on New York City Russell Sage Foundation, and a member of immigration and economic sociology project. In 1987-1991 she was a member of Social Science Research Council committee of Hispanic public policy Ford Foundation.
Sassen was a member of economic restructuring in the United States and Japan United Nations Center on Regional Development and Massachusetts Institute of Technology during 1988-1990.
Besides, she was a member of New York-London comparative study of the Economic Social Research Council of United Kingdom and a member of comparative urban studies project of Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington. In addition, she was a member group of Lisbon Science Program of European Commission and Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal.
Social Science Research Council committee
1987 - 1991
Social Science Research Council working group
1985 - 1990
Interests
Music, art, politics
Connections
Sassen married Daniel J. Koob on August 30, 1973, but the couple divorced in 1982. Artist Hilary Koob-Sassen is her son from her first marriage. On October 23, 1987 she married a sociologist Richard Sennett.