Counterpoint is turning the spotlight on the interplay of culture and class today. In Culture and Class John Holden argues that it is essential we forge a new relationship between the two, asserting the central role of culture in the creation of a more egalitarian society. Free download of the pamphlet after the jump.
The travails of ethnic Uzbeks in Southern Kyrgyzstan may have (briefly) brought Uzbekistan into the media spotlight recently, but Uzbekistan, from the outside, is not a place we know all that well. Uzbekness: from otherness to ideology, a paper by Hamid Ismailov - emigre poet, novelist and Writer in Residence at the BBC World Service - provides an insider's view.
Tzvetan Todorov gave the keynote address at Counterpoint's The Inner Lives of Cultures conference in Brussels, 25 February 2010. This is a complete recording of the address, entitled Unity of civilization, plurality of cultures.
Benjamin Barber, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Director of CivWorld and Senior Fellow at Demos US spoke to Catherine Fieschi of Counterpoint in this two part interview. In the first section of the interview he talks about the role of the arts in a capitalist society.
In part two, Benjamin Barber discusses the impact of Barack Obama since being elected US President over a year ago.
Cultural relations is about conversations between people. There was no lack of this at Counterpoint's recent The Inner Lives of Cultures conference in Brussels. For two days Counterpoint brought together keynote speaker Tzvetan Todorov, leading lights from the academy, authors, filmmakers, scientists and cultural relations practitioners from around the world. They were there to decipher the whispered, or tacit, discourses of individual cultures, so the dialogue between us all can become deeper, more informed, and more productive. Speakers from Mexico, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Russia, Romania, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, and Iran dug up and thought through cultural secrets.
Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, talks here at Counterpoint's the Inner lives of Cultures conference, about the realities lying behind Russia's layered soviet-era social paradoxes.
Video streaming after the jump.
Counterpoint's The Inner Lives of Cultures conference, February 25-6 2010, Brussels, brought together keynote speaker Tzvetan Todorov, leading lights from the academy in all its many shades, filmmakers, authors, translators, and cultural relations practitioners from around the world. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President of the Center for Policy Research New Delhi, made his contribution a call to shift the debate away from descriptions of cultural identity to analysis of how these identities are mobilised.
In recent years Tibet has been caught in conflicting flows of international media exposure. High profile pop-cultural and civic movements in support of Tibet have by no means stopped a surfeit of stereotypes being levelled at its cultural universe. Sun Shuyun, author, filmmaker, and a participant at Counterpoint’s recent The Inner Lives of Cultures conference is interviewed here on Bloomberg television about the 12 months she spent in a remote Tibetan village resulting in the television series A Year in Tibet, and book of the same name.
Sun Shuyun’s insightful impressions of Tibet cover: the intermingling of tradition and technology; the everyday interdependence of science and faith; liberal attitudes towards private life, polyandry and polygamy; the ongoing battle between government control and community life, and the encroachment of a particular cultural modernity into the monasteries.
Counterpoint held a two day conference in Brussels, Febraury 25-26 2010, as part of its Inner Lives of Cultures project. You can find the full biographies of the contributing speakers here.
