In looking at this gate to the world outside – a gate carrying the combined marks of distinct cultural spaces and spiritual traditions – one meditates on the potentialities beyond the gate, on the possibilities of encounters as anticipated by their cultural and mental horizon. This time the search is not solitary; it is pursued in the presence of others at home.
Intercultural encounters: need of the other
Looking at a window that only suggests the need to see beyond one’s own space; a suggestion of the need of the other, of the encounter outside one’s culture.
The beginning of a quest for answers to questions which cannot be answered at home.
What can you see out the window? Illustrate with a photo.
Intercultural encounters: the starting point
A personal contemplation of the necessity and potential significance of encountering the cultural other. Private, yet conducted in an open space. This is the place of departure, but also a place of return to meditate on the intercultural experience. Here is an example from the complex cultural environment of Northern Africa.
The place and time chosen, the items used and the rituals followed may differ from one culture to another, according to the societal and spiritual meaning of meditation.
Question: Which are, in your own cultural and spiritual environment, the habits of meditation? How do you prepare for the encounter with the other? Please illustrate the starting point with a photo.
April’s mind trip: spaces of passage
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?
Site interactions
RVP Iasi Center
This website serves as an online environment for our Re-Learning to Be Human project.
This is a site of intercultural encounters, meant to capture and document the textual, visual and auditory aspects of cultural interactions in their dynamism and multiplicity.
Online activities will include questions, topics for discussion, invitations to post photo, audio, video or text content and are open to suggestions.
Project members are invited to interact in the Forum section by leaving comments to posts, participating in conversation threads and posting material as invited.
New project
RVP Iasi Center
Our current project is entitled Re-Learning to be Human for Global Times: The Role of Intercultural Encounters.
Under the general theme of Re-Learning to Be Human offered by the CRVP, the project focuses on the possible role of encounters with foreign people and artifacts in providing a fresh understanding of humanity.
For more information, go to Projects.
Disclaimer
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of their home institutions or of any other agencies or organisations.
