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.
“Human Frailty and Global Solidarity,” Barcelona, Spain
Regular faculty exchange programs invite scholars to present their research or share pedagogical innovations across campuses.
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. The king kneels before him, begging for his son’s body, and implores Achilles to remember his own father’s mortality. Overcome by the memory of love and loss, 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.”
Upcoming Events
Georgetown Global Dialogues in Qatar
TBA, Spring 2026
Youth Voices: GU‑Q Students in the Global Dialogue Forum
In short essays, Student GD 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.
On 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.”
On 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.”
If They Can, Why Can’t We?
“Don’t we hold the power to reshape the concept of power itself? I sometimes catch myself thinking: maybe this is just how the world is, maybe the best I can do is adapt. But then I see climate strikers, women in Iran who risked everything to chant Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom), and I remember that resignation is exactly what oppressive systems count on. Systems are built on the basis of making people powerless.”
Communities That Save Us
“From educational institutions to churches, every community must exist as a transformative space that stands for justice and peace. We have to uphold these spaces knowing that community is our greatest source of strength. Coming together through this shared pain makes each tragedy easier to bear. We have to believe, no matter how hopeless we feel, because we live not just for ourselves but for each other. We must love the hard work and effort put into building communities, as it is this love and connection that will save us.”
Confidence in Many Hands
“When we say ‘I can’t do anything,’ maybe the real problem is the I. Alone, none of us can move mountains, but together, encouraged by each other, we can. Confidence grows when it’s shared, and change becomes possible when it’s carried by many hands and not just one. The truth is, everyone is waiting for everyone else to act…Powerlessness ends when we stop waiting for someone else to be “the one,” and start choosing to lead—together.”
On Calling out Cruelty
Politics of Numbness
“If cruelty is socially produced, we can undo it where it is produced. This can happen by making compassion measurable and rewarded. An example of this institutionalization is New Zealand’s decision to adopt a “Wellbeing Budget,” which shifts national priorities away from GDP growth alone toward mental health, child welfare, and environmental protection.”
The Quiet Revolution
“Humanity seems to celebrate division and justify brute force as a means to an end, normalizing the Social Darwinist belief that only the ruthless deserve to endure. If cruelty has become a spectacle that the world applauds, then compassion should become our quiet revolution.”
The Essence of Real Power
“The Qur’an reminds us that cruelty often grows out of arrogance and transgression; in other words, the illusion that strength and power makes one untouchable. To push back, one must first realize that cruelty is not strength, but rather a weakness in disguise. True power is measured by the ability to act within restraint, humility, and empathy.”
Past Forums
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, Georgetown University in Qatar (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.”
GU-Q Joins Global South Intellectuals in Georgetown Global Dialogues
Georgetown University hosted leading intellectuals from the Global South to engage with each other, prominent U.S.-based thinkers, and students, faculty, and a wider public 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.
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 (Spring 2026). We invite you to learn more about GGD events to date, the seven GGD fellows, and the ideas being explored in the GGD Forum.
GGD seeks to advance four interrelated goals: