José Ramos and Sohail Inayatullah Introduction For eight decades, the global order has been defined by the architecture of the post-WWII Bretton Woods system and the presiding influence of American hegemony. Today, that foundation is fracturing under the weight of profound contradictions. From the rise of internal authoritarianism and economic isolationism to the genocide in Gaza, the invasion of Ukraine and escalating tensions with Iran, Venezuela and NATO, the United States is in a deepening crisis of legitimacy that will reverberate across the globe. This symposium, published in JFS Perspectives, seeks to situate these contemporary dynamics within a grander…
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José Ramos and Sohail Inayatullah This symposium brings together rigorous analyses of state power, including the state of Israel’s creation of the humanitarian crises in Gaza and the trajectory of United States domestic and foreign policy. We recognize that in the current political climate, such critiques are often met with labels of “antisemitism” or “anti-Americanism”. However, we state unequivocally that these contributions are rooted in a commitment to human rights and the accountability of nations, not in prejudice or a lack of patriotism. The Distinction Between State Critique and Bigotry Regarding the critique of the State of Israel, we affirm…
Ivana Milojević Genocidal Histories, Presents, and Futures: A Gendered Reading To ask whether genocide has a gender may, at first glance, appear to be a category error. One is an act of annihilation; the other, a map of identity. Perhaps the connection has been slow to emerge because both genocide and gender are relatively recent arrivals in public discourse. The term genocide was coined only in 1944 by Raphäel Lemkin. Likewise, the current conceptualisation of gender has its origins in the work of Simone de Beauvoir, particularly her seminal text The Second Sex (1949), in which she famously asserted,…
Jim Dator The challenge The call for papers for this symposium was extremely daunting—multidimensional, multidisciplinary, multicultural, multitemporal—to be written in barely more than a very linear month after the call. With that in mind, I decided to focus on only one of the three areas of substance in the title of the call—US hegemony, pasts, presents and futures. Where should I commence my story? When did the US become a global hegemon—if it ever really was one in anyone’s mind but its own? Before the US existed, proto-Americans from Europe were brutally—genocidally–hegemonic in their interactions with the diverse and…
by Lonny Avi Brooks Introduction For African-descended peoples, collapse is not a looming prospect but an ancestral memory—already survived and continually reinterpreted. The Middle Passage, enslavement, colonialism, and systemic racism each mark cataclysms from which Black communities have reimagined themselves and their futures. Afrofuturism arises precisely from this condition (Feukeu, 2024; Eshun, 2003): the cultural and speculative practice of imagining liberated Black futures in the wake of historical apocalypse. Collapse, in this tradition, functions as liberation technology—a generative force that strips away the veneer of permanence from oppressive systems and opens imaginative space for alternatives. Jim Dator’s recent provocation, Welcoming…
by Sohail Inayatullah This essay explores the need for a new world system, focusing on the transformation of the United Nations (UN). It discusses the limitations of the current UN structure, particularly the Security Council, and proposes various models for a more inclusive and effective global governance system. These models include the creation of multiple houses representing different interests, such as nation-states, commerce, non-governmental organizations, and citizens. Drawing from macrohistorical thinkers like P.R. Sarkar and Sima Quan, the essay also emphasizes the importance of inner change and the role of ethical and wise leaders in achieving a just and…
William E. Halal, PhD One of the most striking challenges of our time is that climate change, autocrats, polarization, wars, and a morass of other threats have shattered our faith in the future. The UN warned, “Societal collapse is likely unless a major decline in carbon emissions is made soon” (UN, 2022) and a PEW poll finds only 17 percent of people in other nations see the US as a role model of democracy (Timsit, 2021). A global survey found that a majority thinks “humanity is doomed” (Galer, 2021). Collective Intelligence Needed for a More Complex World This article…
Craig Runde Our values affect our reality and right now that reality is not very positive. Earth and its inhabitants are currently experiencing great strains. Climate change and global warming contribute to weather disasters and conditions that are forcing expensive environmental adaptations and large-scale human migrations. Scientists warn we are in the midst of a sixth extinction, where large scale species loss is caused by human activities. Our global political and economic systems are under considerable stress. Conflicts in various parts of the world are causing enormous suffering, particularly among civilian populations. Striking economic inequality creates disruptions among and within…
Martin Calnan & Thomas Mofolo “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters” – Antonio Gramsci Introduction – A decolonial metaphysics of U.S. hegemony The invitation of the symposium is to examine futures beyond U.S. hegemony. It is a powerful and necessary call in the face of the demons of war, genocide, violence and injustice that have invaded our geopolitical and geophysical landscape. However, we suggest that focusing on U.S. hegemony without addressing its deeper nature, treats the symptom, at best, while potentially contributing to its development. In the…
Steven Lichty, Adnan Arif, Barbara Bok, Carol Mei Mei Lim, Jose Ramos, Kateryna Ostrovska, Keil Eggers, Pierce Othlhogile-Gordon, Ramya Kumaran Abstract This article revisits Johan Galtung’s prediction of U.S. imperial decline by 2020–2025, analyzing it through the lens of the current “polycrisis” and a second Trump presidency. Drawing on workshops convened by the Participatory Futures Global Swarm in late 2024 and mid-2025, the authors argue that Galtung’s original fifteen contradictions have intensified and been joined by three new transversal fault lines: planetary limits versus imperial growth, digital surveillance versus the commons, and universalist versus pluriversal knowledge systems. The study maps…