Cross-Civilizational Meetings

ogólnouniwersyteckie

Basic knowledge of cultural studies

The purpose of the didactic process included in the cycle „Cross-Civilizational Meetings”. It is aim is to acquire the ability to transform information into knowledge and to translate acquired knowledge into intercultural dialogue. The prerequisite for every intercultural communication is the ability to go beyond one's own culture; and it is done in the context of a dialogue with a representative of another culture. The tool that enables this dialogue is deconstruction. The process of such communication, on the one hand, could help overcome the adaptive problems experienced by almost every student-foreigner at UW. On the other hand, it would open the way to create more innovative and interactive programs for foreigners at UW.

The course concerns the problem of the possibility of crossing the boundaries of culture (civilization) and is based on a model of cooperation with foreigners from other civilizations. Within the course, we propose a learning model, called DCL, Dialogue-Centered Learning. In different situations of cross-cultural communication in the classroom, participants are equal in the process of dialogue / deconstruction. Deconstructing is not just a criticism, but builds something new. It not only makes the actors go beyond the known circle of meanings, but also directs them towards a new context in which they can discover or build conditions for dialogue. In the DCL model, it seems important to add another dimension to the essential way of thinking based on similarity, using the principle of différance (Jacques Derrida), or variation. This means that, thanks to the presence of this elements in different civilizations, this relational model of communication can be a method that will help to better communicate East and West.

The adaptation and didactic program for foreign students takes into account primarily the contexts that create conditions for cross-civilizational communication. The cycle contains two blocks:

1. Intercultural communication. Anthropological approach to civilization issues.

2. The history of civilizational contacts.

Civilizations that we explore are included in the following contexts:

- society (context of social ties - politics, law, community, etc.)

- economy (context of economic ties - economy, economics),

- psychosomatic aspects of the individual (context of kinship relationships, psychosomatics, individual health - family, health),

- spiritual life (context of spiritual bonds: education, religion, philosophy,art,etc.),

- Virtual context: Virtual space has broken previous divisions (institutional, national) and has highlighted barriers (territorial, communication, interpersonal). The program envisages interactive teaching methods (creating, with students, interactive scientific compendia, educational web pages, student multimedia projects, student research and project activities, communication training etc.).

Collaboration in classes is characterized by the following features:

1) openness, understood in the polycentric aspect, which takes into account the perspectives of different civilizations.

2) interactivity, its mechanisms are: interdisciplinarity, deconstruction and dialogue. Interaction of actors is a meeting of representatives of different civilizations, so the participants are also Polish students. They, as the host, help the foreigner to adapt in Poland. At the same time, the acquisition of practical skills in intercultural communication enables Polish students and researchers to become active in international contacts. The program aims to expand the sphere of international scientific contacts and create an atmosphere of "open space" at the University of Warsaw.

3) interdisciplinarity, taking into account different ways of thinking, ie. cultures. The work on solving a scientific problem is taking into account interdisciplinarity: among scientists, research circles, in creating projects.

4) innovation, which means opening new perspectives for the quest of knowledge in the process of internationalization.

Block 1. Intercultural communication. Anthropological approach to civilization issues. (dr hab. Zoja Morochojewa)

A university falling on trans-civilizational crossroads is surely involved in the global dimension. The aim of the course is to try to determine this dimension with the principle of différance (according to Jacques Derrida), of variability which allows us to consider the diversity of civilizations. Globalization, in this way, is a process woven from the interrelations of civilizations, which combines ambiguous traits, divergent phenomena and trends. This process is devoid of unambiguity, arouses opposing judgments. Precisely because globalization is a trans-civilizational process, it is the Borderlands. The process is determined by how civilizations interact with each other. In this process there may be hidden equilibrium which has dialogical features and serves as a reference point. What is the process leading to? To the erasure of differences or, conversely, to enhance diversity? To consider the civilizational Borderland in the context of globalization, it is necessary to define reality as a whole. However, applying the principle of differentiation changes the mode of classical concepts, shaping them in another dimension. Each participant is expected to travel through the boundaries of cultures, states, customs, disciplinary and ethnic disciplines to enter their own experiences of multiplicity, ambivalence and contradiction.

The situation of a foreign student is, from the point of view of cultural anthropology, a situation of cultural contact and an intercultural situation. The aim of the course is to provide students with tools for description and analysis of two realities - the one from which they came and the Polish reality. Particular emphasis will be placed on the moment of transition from one reality to another.

The anthropological view allows us to grasp what is happening when we cross the border of our own culture and become an alien to others and ourselves facing strangeness. We will analyze reactions to cultural diversity and different stages of adaptation while living in a different culture. The goal is to realize that participation in a different culture can be a conscious process but requires specific competences.

A cultural look at the new reality - as a comprehensive system of other norms, values, behaviors and competences - is to help students cope with different levels of culture shock and adaptation problems, in easier (conscious) movement of illegitimate rules of foreign culture, including in relations with Poles. The final stage of the course will be the analysis of the change resulting from contact with another culture.

Program content:

Cultural contact / the moment of transition from one reality to another.

Person, community, collectivity in civilizations.

Adaptation - co-existence with foreign culture.

Change at the individual level: where are you at home? Where is your house?

Opening to cultural diversity.

Crosscivilizational Communication and Globalization.

Contemporary multicultural societies of East and West.

Defining identity in a cultural contact.

Group identity and the identity of the individual

The identity of the borderland.

Extending intercultural competences.

Exchange of intercultural competences.

Interpersonal communication in the era of globalization.

Intercivilization encounter and dialogue.

Block 2. History of cross-civilizational encounters:

(dr Matylda Urjasz-Raczko)

The purpose of this signature is to show that understanding of another civilization requires more than just a set of information. It is a matter of adopting certain attitude, a perspective that allows to see an Other, his different code of conduct and a system of values.

Those who experience differences between civilizations of West and East nowadays are not the first to deal with the problem of understanding the Other. This is a difficult situation that has been dealt differently over the centuries.

In the classes, we will discuss issues related to the attitude of Europeans towards the East and the possibility of inventing a mix of both civilization. The series of classes will consist of three parts: 1. Europeans towards the East in the pre-colonial era; 2. Europeans towards the East in the colonial era; 3. A man of the Borderland - between East and West.

We will look at various problems, circumstances of related to these meetings and reflect on the perspective of its participants. What systems of values, worldviews were they representing? How was the confrontation of their different worldviews going? Where were the key problems? Those question will also serve to reflect on your own system of values.

Classes are directed to students who like to read literary works and make their own reflections. Scientific literature will be very limited, we will base on literary works of Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling and some sources from the related period.

Program content (seminaries and workshops):

East-West encounters: Christianity in the East

Stationary societies in the West

Deconstruction of the eurocentrism

Orientalism

A Borderland: Al-Andalus

“Eurosarmatism” - I Rzeczpospolita

Bibliography:

Boxer Charles, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650, UK 1951.

Kipling Rudyard, Kim, London 2002.

Conrad Joseph, In the Heart of Darkness, NJ 1962.

David James (ed.), Early Islamic Spain : the "History" of Ibn al-Qūṭīya, London 2009.

A. OBLIGATORY LITERATURE:

Arjun Appadurai. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Peter L. Bergerand Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Doubleday, 1966.

Conrad Joseph, In the Heart of Darkness, NJ 1962.

Globalization and Social Change. Ed by J.D.Schmidt and J.Hersh. Routledge, 2002

Gandhi M.K., An Autobiography, India1927.

Hardt M., Negri A. Imperium, 2005

Edward T. Hall.The hidden dimension. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966

Edward T. Hall.The Silent Language. N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1966.

Boxer Charles, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650, UK 1951.

Kipling Rudyard, Kim, London 2002.

David James (ed.), Early Islamic Spain : the "History" of Ibn al-Qūṭīya, London 2009.

Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World ed.by Berger P. L. and Huntington S.P., Oxford Univ.Press,2002

Rushdie S., East, West: Stories, Jonathan Cape, 1994.

Wallerstein I. Koniec świata jaki znamy, Warszawa,2004

B. LITERATURE RECOMMENDED:

Abu-Lughod J., Before European hegemony the world system A. D. 1250-1350, NY 1991.

Elias N.,The Society of Individuals, edited by Robert van Krieken, Dublin: UCD Press, 2010.

Said E. W., Orientalism, Knopf Doubleday, 1979.

Cywilizacja europejska: eseje szkice z dziejów cywilizacji i dyplomacji, red. M. Koźmiński, Warszawa 2010.

Staniszkis J., The East-West Split in View of the History of Ideas, in "Horizons of Politics" 2016, Vol. 7, No 21.

Braudel F., Gramatyka cywilizacji, Warszawa 2006.

Kieniewicz J., Wprowadzenie do historii cywilizacji Wschodu i Zachodu, Warszawa 2003.

Grześkowiak-Krwawicz, A., Queen Liberty: the Concept of Freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Leiden, Brill, 2012.

Homi K. Bhabha. The Location of Culture. Routledge ,1994.

Bourdieu Pierre. Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action, Stanford University Press,1998

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997,1967.

Derrida Jacques, Monolingualism of the Other: Or, The Prosthesis of Origin, trans. Patrick Mensah. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.

Elias Norbert. The Society of Individuals, edited by Robert van Krieken, Dublin: UCD Press,2010

Bachtin Mikhail Toward a Philosophy of the Act. Ed. Vadim Liapunov and Michael Holquist, trans. Vadim Liapunov. Austin: University of Texas Press,1993

Bachtin Michaił, Dialog. Język. Literatura, red. E. Czaplejewicz, E. Kasperski, Warszawa. 1983

Jameson Fredric The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983-1998, Verso, London & New York,2009.

The program will contribute to:

1. overcome the adaptation problems of students-foreigners in the university,

2. to create a scientific community dealing with issues of the civilization Borderland,

3. to create such a social and didactic space in which civilizational dialogue would be possible thanks to the crossing of geographical, institutional and psycho-physical boundaries,

4. Develop innovative teaching techniques based on a comparative, multicultural approach using Internet communication tools,

5. Prepare innovative teaching techniques that take into account the DCL's intervening filters / contexts.

Participants gain knowledge of different cultural backgrounds and are familiar with their religious and ideological foundations. Students acquire cognitive and functional competence in adaptation of the relevant comparative methodology to the subject of the study. Students acquire the ability to identify research methods used in descriptions of diverse cultures and social forms with their institutions, values and patterns of behavior. Students gain an active attitude towards the challenges of intercultural reality.

Evaluation will be assigned according to the following criteria:

A knowledge scored by the grading system

B practical application of knowledge by entering into multicultural relationships and building relationships with other participants in the program.

Skills will be evaluated on four levels:

• management of knowledge gained in the didactic process; creative approach to the problem

• cross-civilizational communication

• organization of knowledge and group

• skills related to the coordination of psychophysical functions of the human body.