Saskia Sassen

Saskia Sassen (born January 5, 1947) is a Dutch-American sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is a professor of sociology at Columbia University in New York City, and the London School of Economics. The term global city was coined and popularized by Sassen in her 1991 work, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Sassen was born in The Hague, Netherlands in 1947. In 1948, Sassen's parents, Willem Sassen and Miep van der Voort, moved to Argentina and the family lived in Buenos Aires. Her father was a Dutch collaborator with the Nazis, a Nazi journalist, and a member of the Waffen-SS. In the 1950s, Willem Sassen was close to Adolf Eichmann when both were living in Argentina, and she recalls him visiting her childhood home. This association caused her and her mother to leave Argentina while she was still a child. Saskia Sassen spent part of her youth in Italy and says she was "brought up in five languages." She is married to sociologist Richard Sennett. Artist Hilary Koob-Sassen is her son from her first marriage. From 1966, Sassen spent a year each at the Université de Poitiers, France, the Università degli Studi di Roma, and the University of Buenos Aires, for studies in philosophy and political science. From 1969, Sassen studied sociology and economics at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, where she obtained a M.A. in 1971 and a Ph.D. degree in 1974, under the direction of Fabio Dasilva. She also received a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Poitiers in 1974. After being a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, Sassen held various academic positions in and outside the US, such as the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. She is currently Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial Visiting Professor of Political Economy in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics. During the 1980s and 1990s, Sassen emerged as a prolific author in urban sociology.