Previous Events
Port Cities, Creative Cities
February 2025
Brian T. Edwards and Driss Ksikes co-authored an article in Public Culture advancing three claims about the distinctiveness and potentialities of port cities.
Global Port Cities Symposium: Saigon-New Orleans Connections
Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 12-2 pm
Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University
The symposium highlights connections between Vietnamese and American artists, including a conversation with exhibiting artist Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trân. This program is developed in partnership with the School of Liberal Arts Global Port Cities initiative. There will be two panels: one with artist Arlette Quỳnh-Anh Trân in conversation with museum curator Laura Blereau – second panel will be with Brian Edwards, Nic Brierre Aziz, John Sabo, and Linh Do regarding the Saigon-New Orleans connections. The exhibition at the museum is in conjunction with Prospect.6.
“Port Cities, Creative Cities!” Panel
September 2024
Brian Edwards, Driss Ksikes, Fatima Bintou Rassoul Sy, Hady Ba, and Hicham Bouzid will be participating together in a panel at the Art Explora Festival in Tangier, organized by Laila Hida.
Global Port Cities: Logics, Challenges, Creativity
February 2024
Brian T. Edwards, in conversation with Patrick McGuinness, discusses his new multisited project on Global Port Cities. The project—a collaboration with Moroccan author Driss Ksikes and a multinational network of partners—brings together scholars, curators, artists and activists based in port cities on five continents
The magic of port cities
May 2023
On Good Authority, EPISODE 46 - Brian Edwards, dean of Tulane University’s School of Liberal Arts, is leading a new initiative exploring the idea that there’s something about port cities that set them apart — making them natural centers for creativity, culture, and vibrancy. What can we learn from the connections between New Orleans, Naples, and Tangier?
Global Port Cities 2022
December 2022
The Global Port Cities project is an initiative led by Dean Brian Edwards (School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University) alongside his longtime collaborator, Moroccan playwright, novelist, and journalist Driss Ksikes (Director of Economia, HEM Research Center, Morocco).
Port Cities with Brian Edwards and Iñaki Alday
October 2019
School of Architecture Dean Iñaki Alday and School of Liberal Arts Dean Brian Edwards emphasize cross-disciplinary research and education as a means to reveal and support societal and cultural evolutions.
Globalizing American Studies
April 2019
This symposium featured a global network of scholars responding to the publication Globalizing American Studies, co-edited by Brian Edwards and Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar (U of Chicago Press, 2010). The book’s introduction argued that we had come to a time when “American exceptionalism has to stand alone in the multilateral world of the global.” Participants addressed some of the blindness of the original project, broadly engaging native and indigenous studies, as well as environmental history and climate change, which variously impact the idea of what was called the “specter of America” differently.