JLF Los Angeles: What is the New World Order?

Join us for a special sneak peek of 2027 JLF Los Angeles, a weeklong international edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival

Tuesday, September 15, 2026
6:30 PM (Pacific Time)
ASU California Center Broadway
1111 South Broadway
Los Angeles, CA 90015

ABOUT THE EVENT

The United States has had an epic run on the world stage. Two-hundred fifty years of independence and imperial aspirations. Eighty years of hosting the U.N. headquarters. But today the country has abdicated many of its leadership roles, from champion of free trade, global health, and climate regulation to defender of democracy and keeper of peace. As the U.S. marks its semiquincentennial, how should Americans understand their country’s place in the world, and calibrate a nation’s aims? Does a less-dominant U.S. offer new opportunities? For whom? What can we learn from past empires? And what do other world powers, like India, have to say about it?

Join us for a special sneak peek of 2027 JLF Los Angeles, a weeklong international edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival. This preview program will feature two urgent conversations about the shifts redrawing old maps and forging new ambitions for the U.S., India, and the wider world.

First, a keynote discussion between best-selling author, politician, and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor and UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations director Kal Raustiala, then, a panel moderated by foreign policy columnist Seema Sirohi including Harvard historian and Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire author Caroline Elkins, former ambassador Nina Hachigian, and Viet Thanh Nguyen, a novelist exploring empire, memory, and American identity.

After the program, stick around for a reception with world food vendors, entertainment, and, as always, the opportunity to connect with new people.

AGENDA

06:30 PM - 07:00 PM
Check-in and opening reception

07:00 PM - 07:40 PM
Keynote Discussion

07:40 PM - 08:40 PM
Panel Conversation

08:40 PM - 09:30 PM
Reception with Food and Music

ABOUT THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Kal Raustiala is the Promise Institute Distinguished Professor of Comparative and International Law at UCLA Law School and Professor at the UCLA International Institute. He currently serves as Director of the UCLA Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and Director of the International and Comparative Law Program. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Council for International Policy.

Dr Shashi Tharoor, a fourth-term Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram, is the bestselling author of twenty-eight books, both fiction and non-fiction, besides being a former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and a former Minister of State for Human Resource Development and for External Affairs in the Government of India. He has won numerous awards, including the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Crossword Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, Dr. Tharoor was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in the category of ‘English Non-Fiction’ for his book An Era of Darkness. He is the Chairperson of the Parliament’s Standing Committee on External Affairs. He previously chaired the Parliament’s Standing Committees on Chemicals and Fertilisers, as well as Information Technology. He has also been awarded the Encomienda de la Real Order Española de Carlos III, Spain’s highest civilian honor, by The King of Spain and the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the Government of France, their highest civilian distinction.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Caroline Elkins is a professor at Harvard University and the 2006 Pulitzer-prize winning author of Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. Her most recent book, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, was short-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize and was also a New York Times Notable Book for 2022.

Ambassador Nina Hachigian (ret) is the founder and CEO of the Alliance for Local Leaders International, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to supporting mayors and advancing democracy. From 2022 to 2025, she was the first U.S. Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State. Before that, she served as the first Deputy Mayor for International Affairs for the City of Los Angeles and the second U.S. Ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Ambassador Hachigian served on the staff of the National Security Council in the Clinton White House from 1998-1999.

Viet Thanh Nguyen is Writer in Residence at USC. He is the author of the novels The Sympathizer, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the basis for an HBO TV series, and its sequel The Committed, as well as nonfiction books To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial, and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. He writes often for The Nation, Time, Zeteo, the Washington Post, and many other US and international publications. (Photo credit: Hopper Stone SMPSP)

Seema Sirohi is a Washington-based columnist for The Economic Times, India’s largest business daily. She writes on foreign policy and India’s place in the world. She has covered India-US relations for more than three decades, tracking their progress through different administrations. Her critically acclaimed book, Friends With Benefits: The India-US Story, gives an account of the growth and complexities of what has been called one of the most “consequential” partnerships of the 21st century.

She has also reported from Rome, Vienna, Jerusalem, Bratislava, Islamabad and New Delhi. She has published opinion pieces in The Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Baltimore Sun and appeared on BBC, NDTV, India Today TV, CNN and NPR as a commentator. Her first book Sita’s Curse: Stories of Dowry Victims was published in 2003.