When I was applying to college a few years ago, I was speaking to a bookstore owner and mentioned my interest in Binghamton University. Immediately, Immanuel Wallerstein’s name was thrown back at me with a tone of reverence. I had known nothing of BU and was surprised by someone I admired who not only had heard of the school but also encouraged me to go there. Three years have passed, and reading Wallerstein still provokes the most pride I have ever felt for our school.
As a longtime BU sociology professor and internationally renowned scholar, Wallerstein was the founder and head of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations (FBC). Wallerstein’s prolific career was dedicated to studying imperialism and the international division of labor, which led to the birth of his Modern World-System (MWS) theory, a model demonstrating how colonialism has maintained itself to the present. He borrowed from other Marxist theories, such as the Marxist strain of Dependency Theory and Arghiri Emmanuel’s theory of Unequal Exchange, culminating in his greatest achievement, “The Modern World-System” volumes one through four. Ensuing a need to better understand the rise of liberation movements in the Global South and social justice movements in the Global North, world-systems is a method of analyzing the world as a singular economic system, focusing on regions rather than states.
Founded in 1976, the FBC was created as a research center dedicated to the study of world-systems and class exploitation. Discussion of a world-economy may seem obvious now, but that was not the case when the center was founded.
“The [FBC] was a major intellectual institution and it put [BU] on the world intellectual map,” said Ravi Palat, a sociology professor and former student of Wallerstein’s. “We were then the only people talking about the world-economy — no one else.”
For a long time after its inception, the FBC was the hub of world-systems research in the United States — and possibly the world. Several other prolific voices and contributors to world-systems research have taught at BU, among them being Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins and William G. Martin. Following Wallerstein’s lead, they helped foster the FBC into an invaluable resource and community. With the exception of the Journal of World-Systems Research produced by Johns Hopkins University, the FBC’s Review was the most dedicated and internationally recognized journal of world-systems scholars.
The lineage of world-systems theorists continues to push forward our understanding of global exploitation. The extractive relationship between core countries (ones that export products with high rates of profit) and peripheral countries (ones that export raw materials with low rates of profit) still characterizes our global climate. Headline after headline paints a picture of the world in dire need of more world-systems studies, yet the University has kept it on the sidelines.
Major issues that occupy much of our media’s attention — the Russian-Ukrainian war, United States relations with China, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and the challenge of the petrodollar, climate change, etc. — along with those the media ignore, such as the systemic underdevelopment of the Global South, are much better understood through the world-systems analytical lens. New intellectual lineages, such as BU Professor Jason W. Moore’s discussion surrounding world-ecology, continue to arise to meet the world’s toughest adversities. Moore synthesizes traditional approaches toward world-economy with environmental history to make clear the ways in which “social reality — injustice, inequality and crisis — is fundamentally entwined with webs of life.” With such a rich history of world-systems academics, it’s a shame that the University relegates it to a part of Binghamton’s history rather than embracing it as its future.
It’s worth noting that the FBC that closed down in 2020 was a very different environment than the world-renowned FBC of previous decades. According to Professor Palat, the FBC once had a rich community of student-teacher collaboration that helped push global conversations forward. Intrinsic to the FBC were the research working groups (RWG) that partnered graduate students and faculty to foster new analytical approaches to global issues. In the days before laptops, the FBC’s headquarters was where everyone met to build off of each other’s ideas and become familiar with one another’s research. Get-togethers, including soccer games, were commonplace in the FBC, while the center produced an impressively profuse intellectual output.
That atmosphere changed following Wallerstein’s departure as the center’s director in the late 1990s. Successor Richard Lee was running both the FBC and editing the Review, but without the international notoriety of Wallerstein, and had a more difficult time recruiting contributors for the journal. As a result, the Review dwindled and the once-vibrant and social atmosphere that characterized the FBC ceased. The final issue before it turned off the lights was backlogged from years prior.
It is rare for Binghamton to be mentioned in the same breath as the words “internationally renowned” or “global hub,” but that is what the FBC captured. The University loves touting its academic achievements, and rightly so — Professor M. Stanley Whittingham’s 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is one recent example. But one must scour the University’s website to find any mention of Wallerstein or the FBC. It’s time for BU’s administration to bring back the FBC and resurrect its legacy.
If the FBC were a center for business administration instead of a center dedicated to left-wing global analysis, I doubt the University would let it fade into oblivion. The reality is that the Harvey Stenger administration has no sympathy for left-wing causes on campus, and with a mostly tranquilized student body, there is nobody for them to answer to. Sadly, few on campus are aware that an internationally acclaimed center was in the recent past located minutes from the Union. The FBC, however, was much bigger than just Binghamton.
“It’s demise is a tragedy,” Professor Moore said. “And not only, not even especially, for [BU].”
The world needs a revitalized FBC, and if BU is a serious academic institution, it would recognize the opportunity to return to international prominence.
Nathan Sommer is a junior majoring in history.