The flagship of the CASBS enterprise has been and remains its fellows program.
In addition, several projects, programs, and working groups are increasingly integral to CASBS activities, and in fact produce valuable research and complementarities with the fellows program. The CASBS relationship with the Berggruen Institute features both.
CASBS is pleased to be associated with the Berggruen Institute and its recently-launched Philosophy and Culture Center, directed by former CASBS fellow and current research affiliate Daniel Bell. The new center’s core mission – clarifying consensus and divergence as well as stimulating new developments and ideas across different philosophical traditions – dovetails nicely with a CASBS goal of serving as a locus for exploring cross-cutting ideas and facilitating interdisciplinary synergies among the social sciences, cognate disciplines, and practitioners.
The Institute is supporting six Berggruen Fellows at CASBS during 2015-16 (including Jin Li, pictured at right) and five more during the 2016-17 academic year.
CASBS hosted the Philosophy and Culture Center's inaugural gathering in September 2015, and in March 2016 hosted a series of Philosophy and Culture Center workshops over a five-day period. The workshops revolved around the themes of “Hierarchy and Equality,” “Freedom and Harmony,” and “Humanity and Technology.” The Philosophy and Culture Center has compiled a summary of the workshops at CASBS and a list of attendees here, as well as a photo gallery from the workshops here.
Notably, an April 16, 2016 New York Times profile of Nicolas Berggruen, namesake of the Berggruen Institute, prominently refers to the March meetings of the Philosophy and Culture Center at CASBS. Berggruen is also the subject of an April 30, 2016 Los Angeles Times profile.