Intercultural Encounters Projects
Take a look at the program of our Workshop on Artifacts in Intercultural Encounters and join us for the presentation and poster sessions!
Later edit:
As everyone present wanted to contribute to the intercultural conversation, here is the final, supplemented program:
Join us for a round table discussion in Bucharest on Perspectives on Intercultural Encounters in Romanian Thinking, co-organised with the University of Bucharest
The participants and their contributions:
Here is one example for our Workshop on Artifacts in Intercultural Encounters:
The National Pastime of America: Baseball. Why is a slow, plodding game, derived from Cricket, the favorite sport of a nation of frenetic activity and constant change?
by John Farina
Feel free to bring any artifact you consider relevant or its image/sound recording, accompanied by a one-page commentary.
Project Workshop, Iași, June 30-July 1
As part of our investigation into how intercultural encounters have been shaping the global world and may contribute to re-learning to be human for present and future times, this workshop will focus on artifacts and their role in the meetings between cultures. Artifacts are understood here as any objects, handmade or mass produced, that reflect a society or culture.
Culture, as an assembly of customs and habits regulating the behaviour and relations of a group of invididuals, materializes in objects; such objects may be works produced and displayed to illustrate a set of civic, artistic or spiritual values, or they may be goods manufactured with the local resources and skills. Be they traditional or modern, functional or decorative, religious or mundane, these objects re-present the culture to itself and to others.
Over time, cultures have communicated through the exchange and trade of such characteristic artifacts. In fact, the farther such objects came from, the more value they carried. That is because, beyond their material worth, the foreign items we buy and sell, from the spices of ancient times to the gadgets of present day, also carry a historical, social and cultural value.
On this background, the workshop aims to explore the role of artifacts as vehicles of culture and mediators or intercultural encounters. We are equally interested in approaching traditional and modern artifacts, from any cultural area, with a focus on their value in contemporary times.
To this aim, we invite all project members to submit contributions in the form of:
1) papers, 5-7 pages, to be presented in person during paper sessions
or
2) posters, size A4 or larger, to be presented in person or displayed during poster sessions
or
3) image and voice recordings, 10-20 minutes, to be presented in person or shown during video sessions
Participants coming to Iasi are also invited to bring, where possible, an artifact they consider relevant for a workshop exhibition.
Please send an email specifying the type and title of your contribution by June 1 to roleofinterculturalencounters@gmail.com and dan811@yahoo.com. Contributions should be submitted by June 15 at roleofinterculturalencounters@gmail.com and dan811@yahoo.com.
Join us for a round table in Iasi on Intercultural Encounters Through Language, co-organised with the Romanian Academy
Participants:
Having looked at intermediate spaces of passage like windows, doors and hallways and at the keys to unlock them, let us step into the light.
Light is this month’s theme and we invite you to illustrate and discuss it in the context of intercultural encounters. Can such encounters be enlightening? Does meeting the other put culture(s) in a new light?
Join us this month in a meditation on intermedial spaces in intercultural encounters: doors and windows, hallways and passages.
What is their function, how do they prepare us for meeting the other?
