Originally at George Mason University and later Temple University, in 2009 Distinguished Professor Carol Gould reestablished The Center for Global Ethics & Politics at the Ralph Bunche Institute. The Center explores the ethics of globalization and the development of more effective transnational understanding and cooperation to deal with vexing issues of poverty, ethnic and cultural conflicts, and environmental degradation. The center's research and colloquia seek to clarify key value questions that confront contemporary societies, including the requirements of global justice; the meaning and scope of human rights; new forms of cosmopolitan democracy; intercultural perspectives on ethics; strengthened institutions of global governance; and more effective transnational forms of democracy and solidarity. The Center's Director, Professor Carol C. Gould, is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College and in the PhD programs in Philosophy and Political Science at the Graduate Center of CUNY, as well as Editor ofThe Journal of Social Philosophy.
CGEP at the Ralph Bunche Institute
The Center for Global Ethics & Politics furthers CUNY’s focus on globally oriented research and education and on public outreach to the greater New York community. It attempts to bring needed attention to the values and norms that inevitably play a role in the search for knowledge and the devising of public policy. It is designed to help students and faculty to become aware of the social and personal benefits and costs of information and other technologies and the ethical issues that sometimes attend the practical applications of human knowledge, and will perhaps motivate them to include these considerations in their own theses and scholarly research where relevant. The emphasis on global human rights brings attention to human needs and to the way our knowledge and research can serve them or fail to do so. Questions of normative issues in global affairs also have practical effects in the development of new transnational linkages and democratic forms of cross-border communication. Finally, the emphasis on cross-cultural dialogue aims to contribute to CUNY’s leadership in the area of diversity and the appreciation of the contributions of different cultural traditions.
CGEP Collaborators
Director: Carol C. Gould, Distinguished Professor, Philosophy and Political Science, The Graduate Center & Hunter College, CUNY
Philosophy Program Executive Officer: Prof. Jonathan Gilmore, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Political Science Program Executive Officer: Prof. Jack Jacobs, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
CGEP Fellows
Emma Arvedon
Senior Fellow and Center Assistant; Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Emma is a doctoral student in philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her interests include feminist social and political philosophy, relational theories of harm, and social ontology. Her research is primarily concerned with feminist interventions into moral and political philosophy. Her previous work has considered democratic truth and poetic meaning.
Emma can be reached at earvedon(at)gradcenter(dot)cuny(dot)edu with any inquiries about the Center.
Patricia Elena Cipollitti Rodríguez
Senior Fellow; Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Patricia is formerly the CGEP Center Assistant. She studies social and political philosophy. Her recent research draws on feminist, critical, and decolonial theory to investigate the possibilities and limits of solidarity. Broadly, she is interested in understanding the current social order and what it means to prefigure alternatives within it. Patricia has a background in community organizing and retains a strong interest in labor and human rights, particularly in the context of global supply chains.
Jeremy Kane
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Jeremy works on the philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, with a focus on how each conceives of the relationship between reason and freedom. He brings this work into conversation with contemporary issues in social philosophy, such as the relationship between norms and markets, the normative foundations of critique, ideology, collective action, and moral progress. He is a teaching fellow at Queens College, CUNY.
Kamran Moshref
Doctoral Student, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Kamran is a doctoral student in Political Science, researching questions of collective subjectivity, constituent power, and globalization in both Political Theory and among social movements.
Maya von Ziegesar
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Maya is a third-year doctoral student in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her interests lie in social epistemology, structures of (in)justice, and post-colonial and feminist theories. She is also a sculptor, and interested in art and philosophy as transformative media.
Lara Shadde
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Lara (they/them) is a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Their interests lie in feminist and trans philosophy, philosophy of language, and ethics. Broadly, Lara works on issues concerning sex and the injustices the analytic sex/gender distinction perpetuates against trans people. Further, they are interested in issues in social ontology, especially concerning the nature of social structures and how they impact our ordinary language conceptions of sex and gender. Lara received their BA degree in Philosophy and History from the University of Zurich summa cum laude and studied Philosophy in the MA program at the Free University of Berlin.
Georgie MaloneDoctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Georgie is a doctoral student in philosophy at the Graduate Center interested in social and political philosophy, feminist interventions in philosophy of language and the philosophy of sex and sexuality. She has worked on theories of ideology and critique and questions surrounding how transformative politics is possible, as well as on pornography and sexual ethics.
Ellie JeromeDoctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Jake Sweet
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Jake's primary interests are in topics at the intersection of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE). His research focuses on freedom, feasibility, and socialist theory, with additional interests in ideology, social philosophy of language, and business ethics, particularly the moral status of profit-seeking. Beyond academia, he is also an activist who has served roles in economic and social justice groups.
Daniel West
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Daniel is a doctoral student studying environmental philosophy, with additional interests in social and political philosophy, moral philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophical logic. He helps run CUNY’s environmental philosophy reading group. He is also a contributor to the Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University and helps run CUNY’s Logic Reading Group.
Antaripa Bharali
Doctoral Student, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Antaripa is a second-year graduate student in political theory in the Department of Political Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research interests broadly include
traditions of 20th -century European and Indian ethical and political thinking. She is currently working on theories of freedom, as they relate to notions of spontaneity and purposiveness, focusing mainly on the works of Kant and Arendt.
Omri Shlomov Milson Doctoral Student, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Omri is a graduate student in the department of Political Science, specializing in political theory. He is interested in the philosophies of Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and Walter Benjamin, and more specifically, in questions concerning speech and action, natality, accordance, and dissonance.
Aaron Braun
Doctoral Student, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Aaron’s current research examines theories of economic and political justice, specifically as they relate to the societal division of labor (“who does what”). Aarons’ broader interests lie in political theoretical debates over workplace governance, automation, and the institutional status of customarily unpaid and underpaid labor. His work examines how competing political theories depend on competing philosophies and/or sociologies of labor. The labors of social reproduction are a paradigmatic example of the unpaid labor Aaron considers. His debt to feminist work on this topic is immeasurable.
Mary Kourpa
Doctoral Student, Political Science, Graduate Center, CUNY
Mary is interested in social movements and the concept of prefigurative politics and utopianism. Her current research focuses on the concept of capitalist alienation and how it affects political empowerment and disruptive, direct action. She draws from critical theory, mostly from anarchist thinkers and the Marxist tradition, in the intersection of political and social theory as well as philosophy and anthropology.
Isabel Holland
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Isabel is a doctoral student in philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is broadly interested in the formation and interactions of social and political communities, and pursues related questions through social epistemology, applied ethics, and the philosophy of language.
Juniper Asaro-Niederlitz
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Juniper (she/her/hers) is a doctoral student in Philosophy at the Graduate Center. She is interested in comparative philosophy, social and political philosophy, and the intersection of metaphysics and ethics. She has done work in Buddhist metaphysics, particularly on topics of the self and free will, and wants to continue exploring the relation between different theories of the self and questions of agency, responsibility, and interpersonal care. Juniper intends to situate her philosophical explorations within a consideration of contemporary moral issues, such as displacement, migration, and systemic oppression, looking to non-Western, feminist, and indigenous philosophies in doing so.
Carlos Corrochano Pérez
Doctoral Student, Political Theory, Graduate Center, CUNY
Carlos Corrochano Pérez (A Coruña, 1996) is a PhD student in political theory and international relations at the City University of New York (CUNY), supported by a postgraduate fellowship from the «la Caixa» Foundation. His research interests lie at the intersection of critical theory, intellectual history, and international politics. He previously worked as an advisor on international and European affairs in Spain’s Second Vice Presidency and Ministry of Labour and Social Economy, and as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State for Social Economy. He holds a double BA in Political Science and Law from Universidad Carlos III of Madrid and an MA in Critical Geopolitics from the same university. He also pursued further graduate studies in political philosophy at Universidad Complutense, alongside coursework in philosophy and study periods in Italy and Argentina.He is the editor of Claves de política global (Arpa, 2024), a volume featuring contributions from Lea Ypi, Adom Getachew, and Quinn Slobodian. His writing has appeared in outlets such as El País. He translated and wrote the preface to Fritz Bartel’s The Triumph of Broken Promises (Lengua de Trapo / Círculo de Bellas Artes), and his most recent book, Hacer mundo—a programmatic proposal for reforming the architecture of global governance—was published in May 2025. His translation of Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s Elite Capture is forthcoming with Siglo XXI. For three consecutive academic years, he taught Critical Theories of International Relations at Sciences Po Paris, and has presented his research at international conferences in London, Buenos Aires, Prague, Lisbon, and Reykjavik.
Andres Quezada
Doctoral Student, Political Theory, Graduate Center, CUNY
Andres is a doctoral student interested in the memory of radical ideas in Central America during the 1990s and their evolution into contemporary political praxis and discourse. His intellectual interests revolve around political theory, historical memory, and international solidarity.
Sebastian Brumfield Mejia
Doctoral Student, Philosophy, Graduate Center, CUNY
Sebastian is a Philosophy PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center. His interests include social and political philosophy, social ontology, Continental philosophy, and environmental philosophy. He is especially drawn to radical theory and praxis from Marx(ism), Nietzsche, Black Political Thought, philosophies of gender and sex, and other critical theories aimed at social transformation towards greater social and ecological wellbeing.
Mette Christiansen
Doctoral Student, Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center
Mette is a doctoral student in Political Theory. She draws on various traditions of Critical Theory, Black Political Thought, Marxist, and Aesthetic Theory to consider the school as a site of potential emancipation and as a locus of social reproduction, political contestation, and subject formation.
Christopher Cain-Olsen
Masters Student, Political Theory, Graduate Center, CUNY
Chris (he/they) is predominantly interested in Political, Social, and Legal Theory, State Violence, Theories of Punishment, Jurisprudence, and Critical Philosophy. Their recent research is focused on Foucault's concept of Illegalism seeking to expose the moral asymmetries in how law protects some actors and marginalizes others. They are also deeply interested in creative alternatives- frameworks of justice beyond punitive sovereignty, and possibilities for accountability that do not replicate patterns of domination.