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Friday, November 7th through Friday, November 14, GMU joins many others across the Americas for the Next System Teach-Ins. Together we will ask critical questions:
- How well do we understand the crises of our time?
- What do we need to know about alternative designs to our current system?
- What can we learn from movements for system change?
Together, we will challenge a system locked in a downward spiral and learn from social movements working for a better world. We will study and foster emerging alternatives, asking how much of a workable next system is already here and how we might weave it together.
Another world is possible. A next system is necessary. This work is in your hands.
all times listed below are Eastern time, U.S.
FRIDAY, November 7th
- Students Rise Up: National Student Day of Action - Frontline for Freedom
- Say No to the Compact Organizing Drive - Hosted by AAUP-GMU
MONDAY, November 10th
12:30PM, On Zoom - Crisiswork: Activist Lifeworlds and Bounded Futures in Lebanon Book Launch
Professor Yasemin Ipek’s new book, Crisiswork: Activist Lifeworlds and Bounded Futures in Lebanon, will be published by Stanford University Press. Crisiswork presents a story of Lebanon through the lens of activist lifeworlds, showing how, amid crisis, both political structures and everyday life become a terrain of generative possibility. Through an ethnographic investigation into the relationship between crisis and political imagination, Yasemin Ipek examines activism as an open-ended process, looking at the diversity of experiences that lead to ambivalent political engagements.
Dr. Yasemin Ipek is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Global Affairs Program. Her research is situated at the intersection of the anthropology of politics, activism, and inequality; critical studies of humanitarianism and refugees; decoloniality studies; and studies of Islam, sectarianism, and nationalism in the modern Middle East.
As a political anthropologist interested in emergent political formations against globally and locally hegemonic forms of power, her interdisciplinary research trajectory draws upon ethnography, political theory, sociology, and critical area studies.
TUESDAY, November 11th
2:00-2:45PM, Lecture Hall 3 and on Zoom - A Democratic University in a Democratic Society
Dr. Richard Flacks, co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society and eminent social movement scholar, speaks to the legacy of the long 1960s in working for "A democratic university in a democracy society.
Dr. Richard Flacks is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of Cultural Politics and Social Movements (co-editor, 1995); Beyond the Barricades: The ’60s Generation Grows Up(1989); Making History: The American Left and the American Mind (1988), and many articles on social movements, left culture and strategy.
THURSDAY, November 13th
12:00-1:15PM, Merten Hall Room #1201 - Taking the System Crisis Seriously
As the world collapses around us: Can we build the next system?
If we take our social, political, economic, and ecological crises seriously enough, can we build a world that is democratic, sustainable, and just? Maybe we can, if we ask: How well do we understand the crises of our time? What do we need to know about alternative designs to our current system? What can we learn from movements for system change?
Featuring Dr. Yasemin Ipek (Global, GMU), Dr. Ben Manski (Sociology, GMU), Dr. Nara Roberta Silva (Brooklyn Institute for Social Research), Dr. Richard Rubenstein (Carter School, GMU)
Dr. Yasemin Ipek is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Global Affairs Program. Her research is situated at the intersection of the anthropology of politics, activism, and inequality; critical studies of humanitarianism and refugees; decoloniality studies; and studies of Islam, sectarianism, and nationalism in the modern Middle East. As a political anthropologist interested in emergent political formations against globally and locally hegemonic forms of power, her interdisciplinary research trajectory draws upon ethnography, political theory, sociology, and critical area studies.
Dr. Ben Manski is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Sociology and Director of Next System Studies at GMU He studies the participation of ordinary people in the deliberate constitution of their societies. His work takes in social movements, law, politics, climate and ecology, technology, and the corporation, focusing on democracy, constitutionalism, and system change, and he has published widely on these themes. In the past, Manski practiced public interest law for eight years and managed national non-profit organizations, direct action campaigns, and political campaigns and parties for twenty five years.
Dr. Nara Roberta Silva is Core Faculty and Praxis Program Head at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, where she also earned her B.A. and M.A. Her research and teaching center on the intersections of social and political theory, racial capitalism, social movements, political economy, and participatory democracy, with a sustained commitment to public scholarship and social justice.
Dr. Richard Rubenstein was educated at Harvard College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar) and Harvard Law School. Before coming to teach at George Mason University in 1987, he was a practicing lawyer in Washington DC, a political science professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and a law professor at Antioch School of Law in Washington DC. At George Mason he joined the faculty of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and served as its director from 1988-1991. He retired from full-time teaching in 2023 and is now University Professor Emeritus at the Institute's successor, the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
1:30-2:45PM, Merten Hall Room #1201 - The Next GMU
As the world collapses around us: Can we build the next George Mason University?
In this time of cascading system crises, what are our responsibilities as GMU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members? Who and what should our university serve? And how can we deliver that kind of university? This panel and audience discussion will address these questions and more. Join us.
Featuring Alyssa Cazier (Public Sociology Association), Hanaan Kazia (Young Democratic Socialists of America), Dr. Bethany Letiecq (President, AAUP-AFT Local 6741 at GMU), facilitated by Dr. Ben Manski.
Alyssa Cazier is a doctoral student in the Public and Applied Sociology program and a Graduate Professional Assistant for Data and Educational Pathways in the Honors College at George Mason University. She received her B.A. in Sociology from George Mason University in 2024, where she engaged in undergraduate research with Sociology faculty and as an Honors College student. Her current research interests include exploring theoretical limitations of the gender binary on confronting institutional instances of inequality, including the workplace and higher education.
Hanaan Kazia is a government & sociology student from Ashburn, Virginia. She is a member of Democratic Socialists of America and researching how campaign finance reform can help build a more democratic society. She looks forward to learning how to create a truly equitable society for us all.
Dr. Bethany Letiecq is a professor in the College of Education and Human Development, specializing in the utilization of family-centered, community-based participatory action research approaches, anti-racist research methods (see https://cehd.gmu.edu/faculty-and-research/anti-racist-research-methods/), and mixed method designs (e.g., qualitative and quantiative methods) in partnership with minoritized and marginalized families. In her work, she documents the structural forces (law, policies, practices) that cause stressors, erode family health, and hinder family functioning
FRIDAY, November 14th
10:30AM-12:00PM, Fuse at Mason Square Room #6302 and on Zoom - Revisiting the 2010s Protest Movements: Organization and Strategy in Post-Horizontalism
Dr. Nara Roberta Silva reexamines the protest wave of the 2010s — Occupy Wall Street and its global counterparts — in light of the shifting political terrain of the last decade. Through dialogue with recent scholarship and activist reflections, the talk revisits the period’s key challenges — organizational fatigue, fragmentation, and the absence of shared horizons — and argues that contemporary organizing inherits the 2010s’ unresolved tensions.
Dr. Nara Roberta Silva is Core Faculty and Praxis Program Head at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, where she also earned her B.A. and M.A. Her research and teaching center on the intersections of social and political theory, racial capitalism, social movements, political economy, and participatory democracy, with a sustained commitment to public scholarship and social justice.
12:30-2:00PM, Horizon Hall, Room 6325 and on Zoom - Building Next Systems as a Path to Well-Being
This session explores building new societal systems with human well-being as the ultimate goal. Using frameworks like Gallup's Well-Being 5, Laura Buckwald can identify the essential elements—from physical health to financial stability—that next systems must prioritize. By examining the world's happiest nations and the role of healthy democracies, she charts a path to a future designed explicitly for human flourishing.
Featuring Dr. Laura Buckwald from GMU's School of Integrative Studies.
Laura Buckwald studies the development of resilience and well-being across the life span, including the physiology and neuroscience of resilience and well-being and positive psychology for individuals, leaders, and organizations. Her work examines the benefits of meditation, mindfulness, nature, and music on human resilience and happiness. She also studies the influence of culture and trauma healing on resilience and well-being. She is currently exploring how to "scale up" well-being through public policy and the well-being economy.
5:30PM , Center for the Arts, Monson Grand Tier (third floor) - Telling Our Stories: A Conversation with Mason Artist-in-Residence La Santa Cecilia
This event is apart of a larger series in the Mason Artist-in-Residence La Santa Cecilia
Mason Artist-in-Residence and Grammy Award-winning band La Santa Cecilia, known for its creative hybrid of Latin culture, rock, and world music, will participate in a discussion with student leaders from UndocuMason, followed by an audience Q&A. With a captivating voice that sings about love, loss, and everyday struggles, the ensemble has become the voice of a new bicultural generation in the United States, fully immersed in modern music, but always close to their Latin American influences and Mexican heritage. UndocuMason works both internally at George Mason University and externally to institutionalize support for undocumented students, advocate for resources on and off campus, and to build community amongst all students who wish to support this mission. This discussion is offered in conjunction with La Santa Cecilia’s residency, including its November 15 performance at the Center for the Arts at George Mason University.
Register Today
November 01, 2025