Jan Nederveen Pieterse, is Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His work on globalization covers a wide range of topics, from political economy to cultural studies of global processes.

His most recent books include Is There Hope for Uncle Sam? Beyond the American Bubble (Zed Press, 2008), Ethnicities and Global Multiculture: Pants for an Octopus (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), and Globalization or Empire? (Routledge, 2004). Among his edited or co-edited books are Politics of Globalization (Sage, 2008), Globalization and Social Movements (Palgrave, 2001), and Global Futures: Shaping Globalization (Zed, 2000).

As a European-trained scholar who teaches in the United States and has held visiting professorships in India, Thailand, China, Sweden, Germany, South Africa, Finland, Poland, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, Jan Nederveen Pieterse brings a unique perspective to the problems of globalization. He has organized a number of international conferences, and wrote the book, White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture, which accompanied the major international exhibition of the same name.

He is involved in a number of interdisciplinary and administrative roles at the University of Illinois, chairing the Transnational Studies graduate specialization in Sociology, holding joint appointments with International Studies, the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, and in area studies (East Asia and the Pacific, South Asian and the Middle East, and African Studies), and serving on the advisory committee for Global Studies.

He has long-standing relations with Focus on the Global South and the Third World Network, organizations that propose alternative forms of globalization.