Georgetown Global Dialogues Student Essay Contest
How do we move forward in a divided world? Since its launch in April 2025 the Georgetown Global Dialogues (GGD) has brought leading intellectuals from the Global South into conversation with Georgetown faculty and students around this core question.
In the run-up to the third GGD convening in Barcelona this November, Georgetown students are invited to join the conversation by submitting short essays (300-500 words) on one of three topics: (1) confronting powerlessness, (2) calling out cruelty, and (3) fraternity and solidarity. The topics are listed in full below.
Essay contest submissions must be between 300-500 words and Georgetown University students at all levels are welcome to participate. The submission window opens on Friday, August 29 and closes at 10pm Friday, September 12.
A faculty committee will award $500 prizes for the three top essays and recommend others for publication on the GGD Forum.
Essays must be turned in via this submission form before the deadline (maximum one submission per student). Please direct any questions you may have to globaldialogues@georgetown.edu. We look forward to receiving your essay!
Topic 1: Confronting Powerlessness
The sense that things are spinning out of control—that democracy and solidarity are failing as wars proliferate while the climate crisis and the artificial intelligence revolution take over—has generated a widespread feeling of powerlessness. Writers and thinkers who insist on alternatives to our current path need to find new ways to work, think, and be together. How can communities that are both international and inclusive of younger generations be created and sustained?
Topic 2: Calling Out Cruelty
The adoration of brute force and exercise of crude power have become hallmarks of governance in both democratic and autocratic settings. A hyper-masculine culture invested in spectacular displays of strength threatens social progress and peace everywhere. What are the insidious ways in which our tolerance for cruelty and Social-Darwinist thinking has increased, and what can we do to foster alternative values such as love and compassion?
Topic 3: Fraternity and Solidarity
In his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis made the case for human fraternity and even for "political love"—a radically counter-cultural idea. Can we bring together religious thinking about fraternity and the more secular discourse of solidarity to make the case for the transformational possibilities of love in politics?