[Reader-list] [Announcements] Fwd: An Invitation to the Seminar Series on World Social Forum at University of Delhi

[diya]

August 12 2003

Are Other Worlds Possible ?
Cultures of Politics and the World Social Forum

Dear friends
	We are very pleased to invite you to THE OPEN SPACE Seminar Series on the
 above theme, at the University of Delhi, starting this coming August 19 and
 continuing through more or less every ten days till December. The World
 Social Forum, initiated in Brazil in January 2001 as a challenge to the
 World Economic Forum, is now widely seen as being a highly significant
 initiative towards democratising economics and politics on a world scale.
 The motto the WSF has coined for itself is, 'Another World Is Possible'. The
 next world meeting of the Forum-protest, celebration, the positing of
 alternative ways of living and being-is scheduled to be held in Mumbai
 between January 16-21, 2004. The Forum is as yet hardly known in India,
 especially the interesting culture of politics it promises to offer, the
 culture of 'open space'. THE OPEN SPACE SERIES is being organised in two
 inter-weaving streams, one 'Exploring the Forum and its politics' and the
 other 'Confronting Empires : The World Social Forum'. The first stream,
 alternating with the second will attempt to explore the relationship of the
 Forum with the Empires that attempt to bind us, the Empires that the Forum
 has decided to confront, while grappling simultaneously with the evolving
 culture of politics and the 'other worlds' that the WSF promises to offer.
 The second stream will deal with the structural issues the WSF has been
 concerned with-economic globalisation and militarisation and war-as also
 with new themes that are being added to this vocabulary-religious
 fundamentalism and communalism, caste, race and patriarchy. This SERIES is
 being organised by The History Society Ramjas College. The effort will be to
 hold each seminar in the series in different colleges of Delhi University
 and begin each discussion around 12 noon. Plays, music, book displays and
 poetry may be woven into the 'Open Space' once the 'Series' is on the roll.
 A reader on the issues concerning the Forum is planned and towards the end a
 booklet may emerge. Lets see. We give below the proposed programme for the
 series.  The dates are fixed, the locations for the first two seminars are
 now finalised, and the list of panellists for all the sessions is being
 finalised. We hope you will definitely make it a point to join us. Please
 feel free to circulate this message widely and to encourage your associates
 and friends to also come. With warm greetings in welcome,

Mukul Mangalik 		Jai Sen 			Madhuresh Kumar

For further information on the World Social Forum:
World Social Forum
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/home.asp
World Social Forum India
www.wsfindia.org
WSF India Secretariat
wsfindia at vsnl.net
European Social Forum (Paris, November 12-16 2003)
www.fse-esf.org
_____________________________________________________________________________
OPEN SPACE SERIES : PROPOSED SCHEDULE
August 19, Tuesday : Cultures of Politics : The Idea of the World Social
 Forum Venue : Seminar Room, Ramjas College, University of Delhi (North
 Campus), Delhi 110 007 panellists :
Veena Das, Professor, University of Delhi and The Johns Hopkins University,
 Baltimore, USA Nivedita Menon, Department of Political Science, University
 of Delhi Jai Sen, independent researcher and civil actor, New Delhi

August 29, Friday : Empire 1 : Globalisation - Questions of Capital, Labour,
 and Sustainability Venue : Seminar Room, Ramjas College, University of Delhi
 (North Campus), Delhi 110 007 Expected panellists :
Praful Bidwai, journalist and commentator, New Delhi
Jean Drèze, Delhi School of Economics
Jayati Ghosh, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
 University Mahesh Rangarajan, Fellow, Jawaharlal Nehru Museum and Library

September 9, Tuesday : The WSF and Old vs New Politics : Parties, social
 movements, and civil groups September 19, Friday : Empire 2 :
 Authoritarianism, Militarisation, & Nuclearisation : Questions of War,
 Peace, and Terror September 26 or 30, Friday/Tuesday : Contested Space ? The
 Forum as Space, the Forum as Movement [DUSSEHRA BREAK]

October 21, Tuesday : Empire 3 : Caste and Race : Questions of Identity and
 Exclusion

October 31, Friday : The Politics of Boundary : The Question of
 the WSF and (Non)Violence

 November 11, Tuesday : Empire 4 : Fundamentalism,
 Communalism, and Nationalism

November 25, Tuesday : The WSF and New
 Internationalisms : The Culture and politics of  Cyberspace

December 2, Tuesday : Empire 5 : Patriarchy, Sexuality, and Questions of
Openness

 December 12, Friday : How Open ? Is Socialism the Only Possible Other World
 ?


 December 19, Friday : Cultures of Politics : The University as Open Space

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