In an age in which global and the local define the outer boundaries of sociability, cities challenge this dichotomy and bind together extremes. Certain twenty-first century cities—Shanghai, New York, London, Tokyo—can be properly called “global” in a dual sense: not only are they linked by continent-spanning communications networks, but they have also spawned what the sociologist Saskia Sassen has called a new “sub-national political arena.” In realm after realm, these arenas have become a primary field for the production and exchange of the local knowledge that has shaped business, politics, and public life even as it has nurtured a regionalism that competes not only with globalization, but also with the nation-state. Globalization of course is nothing new. Yet its current phase does have certain distinctive characteristics. Prominent among them is the large and growing influence on business, politics, and public life of digital media, mobile telephony, and the real-time global feedback loops that urban geographer Manual Castells terms the “space of flows.” Cities are essential nodes in this networked environment, an environment in which self-aware urbanites cultivate a cosmopolitan identity that can sometimes transcend not only locality and ethnicity, but also nationality. The rise of today’s global cities has not gone unchallenged. On the contrary, it has stimulated an explosion of local knowledge that is shifting the boundaries between the global and the local. Design elements distinctive to a specific city—its architecture, its streetscape, and its public space—can foster a sense of collective identity that is distinct from, and sometimes in tension with, the cultural worldview that is traditionally associated with the “imagined community” of the nation. Local knowledge can inspire campaigns to preserve cultural heritage that slow the wholesale transformation of the built environment, while channeling economic development into paths that respect the collective memory of the local population. Local knowledge, paradoxically, is often sustained by media innovations. This is true despite the common presumption that these innovations are rapidly hastening its demise. The goal of this conference is to explore the tension between the global and the local through a series of analytical case studies. Possible topics include protest movements, urban planning, crisis journalism, infrastructure projects, entrepreneurial networks, and media events. The global city is not only hastening new departures in business, politics, and public life, but is also fostering the emergence of new forms of cultural identity—global, national, local, and regional. Taken together, the papers we have solicited will explore the myriad ways in which local knowledge is shaping and being shaped by the global city. Extended abstracts of 1500 words or above must be sent as a word file to cics@fudan.edu.cn by March 10, 2016. All submissions will be blindly peer-reviewed and acceptance notifications will be sent out on March 31, 2016. Conference registration opens on 5 June, 2016. The conference welcomes scholars from different disciplines. Authors of accepted abstracts are expected to attend the conference and present their work. For invited presenters, travel fare and boarding expenses during their stay in Shanghai will be fully covered by the organizers.