Dr. Vishakha Desai: “The World As Family”
Sunday, August 29th, 2021
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Hudson Hall, West Room
327 Warren Street
Portrait of Dr. Vishakha Desai
ABOUT THE DISCUSSION
In a world of seemingly insurmountable problems, we suffer from a lack of the truly broad thinking that is so urgently needed. The vast number of challenges facing our global society demand new approaches to thinking and call on us to act locally, nationally, and transnationally, sometimes sequentially but often simultaneously.
Using personal life experiences, Desai reframes the idea of what it means to be global, considering how to lead a life of multiple belongings without losing local and national affinities. From growing up in a Gandhian household in Ahmedabad, India and arriving in the United States as a seventeen-year-old exchange student, to her subsequent career as a dancer, curator, institutional leader, and teacher against the broad sweep of political and social changes in the two countries she calls home.
Dr. Vishakha N. Desai is Senior Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University, Senior Research Scholar in Global Studies at its School of International and Public Affairs, and incoming Chair of the Committee on Global Thought. From 1990 to 2012 Dr. Desai held a variety of positions at the Asia Society, initially as the Director of the Asia Society Museum and for the last eight years as President and CEO. Under her leadership as President of the Asia Society, she expanded the Society’s reach in Asia through innovative programs and through the establishment of new centers in the region.
Dr. Desai is a Trustee of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Chair of the Board of Trustees for AFS Intercultural Programs. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Teach For All, as well as the newly established KREA University, slated to be one of India’s top private Liberal Arts universities, and also serves on the Corporate Board of Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India’s largest global corporations. She has served as Vice Chair of the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Center, and as the President of the Association of Art Museum Directors and has been on numerous other boards and advisory committees of not-for-profit organizations nationally and internationally.
In addition to several publications, Dr. Desai is also a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines in both the US and Asia, and her forthcoming memoir, “World as Family: A story of Multi-rooted Belonging,” will be published by Columbia University press in early 2021.
Dr. Desai is the recipient of five honorary degrees and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Bombay University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian Art History from the University of Michigan.