'Thinking Aloud': Seminar One
Cultural Innovation and Social Challenges
The first Zamyn seminar, 'Cultural Innovation and Social Challenges', was held on 16th-17th June 2005 at The London School of Economics. Participants were asked to offer contributions to debate centred around the following themes and contexts:
Themes:
- Does cultural diversity inevitably lead to conflict?
- Are notions of common humanity impossible given the culturally variable nature of any definition of 'universality'?
- What is the role of business and trans-national corporations in enhancing and/or developing community values and cultural difference?
- Can new forms of cooperation based on cultural innovation help us to develop new solutions to the major global challenges of the 21st century: HIV/Aids, environmental crisis, poverty, social inequality?
Contexts:
Seminar Participants and Contributions:
Doreen Baingana, Writer
Dr. Alja Brglez, Director of the Institute for Civilisation and Culture in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dr. Wan Yan Hai, Director Beijing AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education; AIDS activist
Stuart Hall, Cultural Theorist
Dr Kriti Kapila, University of Cambridge, Department of Social Anthropology
Cho Khong, Chief Political Analyst, Shell
Darian Leader, Founder of the Centre of Freudian Analysis & Research, psychoanalyst
Malini Mehra, Founder and Director of Centre for Social Markets
Ibrahim Musawi, Head of Political Programmes – Almanar Channel
The Most Reverend Njongonkulu Winston Hugh Ndungane, Archbishop of Capetown
Jean-François Rischard, Former Vice President for World Bank for Europe
Jacqueline Rose, Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London; Writer
Phyllis Rosenblum, Senior Vice President, Community Development Dept, HSBC Bank USA
Abdul Karim Soroush, Academic lawyer and theologian
Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Vice President of External Affairs at Merck & Co
- Funded by Shell International Ltd.
- Summary
- Seminar One
- Seminar Two