Georgetown Global Dialogues
Ways Forward in a Divided World. Georgetown Global Dialogues.
At a time of war, political breakdown, widening inequality, and climate crisis we need a more inclusive, international conversation about ways forward in a divided world. On the premise that only by engaging perspectives from the Global South can we address critical contemporary challenges, Georgetown convenes top scholars and creatives with youth to advance a global vision of human equality.
Upcoming Events
“Futures for Hope in a Broken World”
March 28-30, 2026 | Barcelona, Spain | Livestreamed
Our global future looks bleak. Without a change of direction we may face a future of environmental collapse, public health crises, technological dystopia, and cataclysmic war. Join us when we bring leading writers and thinkers together with university students and the public to discuss what changing our direction might look like, what to hope for, and how to shape the future. Sign up for the GGD mailing list to receive livestream details.
| Saturday, March 28, 2026 Futures for Hope in a Broken World 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. Doha | 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Barcelona |
Existential Threats: Real and Imagined
3:30 – 4:45 p.m. Online Doha | 1:30 – 2:45 p.m. Barcelona
Conversion as a Personal and Political Phenomenon
5:00 – 6:15 p.m. Online Doha | 3:00 – 4:15 p.m. Barcelona
Living Legacies of Imperialism
6:30 – 7:45 p.m. Online Doha | 4:30 – 5:45 p.m. Barcelona
| Monday, March 30, 2026 Arab Culture for Our Global Era 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. Online Doha | 9:30 – 10:45 a.m. Barcelona China’s Path to Modernity 1:00 – 2:45 p.m. Online Doha | 11:00 – 12:15 p.m. Barcelona The Resurgence of Political Evil 2:30 – 3:45 p.m. Online Doha | 12:30 – 1:45 p.m. Barcelona AI and Changing Understandings of Humanity 4:45 – 6:00 p.m. Online Doha | 2:45 – 4:00 p.m. Barcelona |
Youth Voices: GU‑Q Students in the Global Dialogue Forum
In short essays, GGD Student Fellows responded to prompts by the writers and scholars participating in the Global Dialogues, highlighting what gives them hope and keeps them striving for a better world. The essays of Nafisa Sagdullaeva and Honore Mugiraneza were selected among three winners of the 2025 Georgetown Global Dialogues student essay contest.
Confronting Powerlessness: Building Communities That Insist on Hope
“When the bombs fell in Doha, I realized that powerlessness is not the absence of power; it is the refusal to imagine how small acts bind us into larger possibilities…We need to practice, every day, the fragile but radical work of building communities that insist on hope when the air grows thick with despair.”
Fraternity and Solidarity: The Strength We Refuse
“Fraternity should be understood as necessity, not luxury. Cruelty breaks communities apart. Love binds them back together. It creates trust across lines of race, religion, and nation. It offers movements legitimacy… Even online spaces, often used to divide, can be reclaimed as digital commons where solidarity grows rather than erodes.”
More GU-Q Student Responses
“Resignation is exactly what oppressive systems count on…making people powerless.”
“We must love the hard work and effort put into building communities, as it is this love and connection that will save us.”
“The truth is, everyone is waiting for everyone else to act…Powerlessness ends when we stop waiting for someone else to be “the one.”
“If cruelty is socially produced, we can undo it where it is produced. This can happen by making compassion measurable and rewarded.”
“If cruelty has become a spectacle that the world applauds, then compassion should become our quiet revolution.”
“The Qur’an reminds us that cruelty often grows out of arrogance and transgression. True power is measured by the ability to act within restraint, humility, and empathy.”
Past Forums
GU‑Q’s Approach to Global Education, and Why it is Hosting the Next GGD
The third iteration of the GGD, held November 3-6 in partnership with the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, convened writers and critics to address a pressing question: Can recognition of shared human frailty become the basis for renewed solidarity in a fractured world?
Alongside celebrated authors Hisham Matar, Pankaj Misra, and Nesrine Malik, Georgetown’s Qatar campus contributed student voices and intellectual frameworks.
Solidarity of the Fragile: The Antidote to Enmity
“There is an ancient scene that captures how human frailty can dissolve enmity in an instant. In The Iliad, after years of brutal war, Achilles—the embittered warrior who has lost his dearest friend—meets Priam, the aged father of his fallen enemy. As Homer writes, “both men gave way to grief… Priam wept for man-killing Hector… as Achilles wept himself, now for his father, now for Patroclus … and their sobbing rose and fell.”
GU-Q Joins Global South Intellectuals in Georgetown Global Dialogues
Georgetown University hosted leading intellectuals from the Global South in a series of dialogues designed to generate a multi-sided, international conversation about the challenges facing global humanity. During the panel titled “Reviving Cosmopolitanism through a Cultural and Spiritual Turn,” Rhodes Scholar Asma Shakeel (GU-Q’24) shared insights from her honors research on Kashmir on the historical and contemporary significance of cosmopolitanism.
Dean Masri Shares Importance of Global South Voices at Major International Forum in Rome
To contemplate the intersection of its jesuit values and advancing global peace through education and knowledge production, GU-Q partnered with Georgetown University’s Berkely Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education to host leading authors and public thinkers in Rome for a major international forum titled “Human Fraternity in a Divided World: Writers Engage the Legacy of Pope Francis.”
About The Dialogues
The Georgetown Global Dialogues (GGD) are a multiyear conversation which began in Washington, DC (April 2024), continued in Rome (June 2025) and Barcelona (November 2025), and will next convene in Qatar (March 2026) and Indonesia (October 2026). We invite you to learn more about GGD events to date, the eight GGD fellows, and the ideas being explored in the GGD Forum.
GGD seeks to advance four interrelated goals: