CAIRO: A five-seminar program is due to be held at the Humanities Center of the Jesuit Cultural Center in Cairo from Nov. 22 to Dec. 31.
The program includes several discussion panels and workshops, which are promising to raise controversial issues. Each seminar is composed of four sessions to be given as one per week. Workshops will then be held to conclude the activities conducted over the prior four weeks.
“The Confused Human Amidst Myth, Science and Religion, to be given by journalist and researcher Youssif Ramez, attempts to reach a deeper meaning of life around us.
For Ramez, the common culture has been frozen since the 19th century.
“I’m talking here about the ordinary people not the cultured or the Egyptian cultural production as a whole, he explained.
The role of such seminars, Ramez said, is far away from information provision. “We rather brainstorm, figure out concepts and teach the participants how to acquire knowledge themselves, Ramez told Daily News Egypt.
Young people, according to Ramez, are being intrigued by questions the world had already answered many years ago like the relation between science and religion.
Journalist and researcher Sameh Samy introduces through his seminar “Identity and Alienation ideas like the aspects of the Egyptian personality, the difference between identity and national trends and what leads to alienation. All this, based on the seminar description, has something to do with people’s sanity.
Every oppressor is an oppressed person in some way or another, according to the seminar entitled “The Psychology of the Suppressed Human Being. Seminar moderator Ahmed Bahaa Eddin, a political activist, is expected to explore the motives behind the oppressor’s acts and how the suppressed respond to them. The seminar also raises the question why people no longer react to suppression as if they got used to it.
“The Art of Communication is another seminar to be conducted by journalist and researcher Suliman Shafiq. The seminar intends to present the communication skills enabling people to live a better life and reach a common understanding with others.
A controversial seminar entitled “The Concept of Femininity and Masculinity explores the relationship between men and women, their constant struggle and how each fears the other in a different way.
“Women fear men based on what the society dictated (about the masculine authoritative figure), while men fear women as being a source of disgrace, argued seminar moderator Yosry Moustafa. “I’m planning to explore the issue through books, free discussions and films as it’s not a traditional seminar on women’s rights.
Moustafa, who is a human rights activist, told Daily News Egypt that at similar seminars held earlier, some male participants maintained the same deeply rooted social beliefs about women; others rejected the whole argument and quit the seminar. The rest remained till either eventually considering changing their views.
The Jesuit Association was founded in 1998 upon an initiative made by the Jesuit Fathers and Brothers (Jesuites) in addition to members of Muslim and Christian groups.
The association provides children and youth, especially those belonging to lower social brackets, with the opportunity to learn, express themselves and be exposed to a diversity of art and cultural forms and ideologies.
Information on the seminars could be obtained through +225920909 or at [email protected].
