São Paulo – Arab cinema, Middle Eastern history, tapestry and literature will be some of the topics in discussion in the Cycle of Conversations on Arab and Islamic Culture, organized by the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe), with lectures scheduled from May through July. The first panel, featuring the International Law professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas and former Icarabe president Salem Nasser, is slated for next Friday (13th). All meetings will take place at the auditorium of bookstore Livraria Martins Fontes on São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue.
Nasser will speak on the Sykes – Picot Agreement and its repercussions today. The treaty, signed on to by France and the United Kingdom in 1916, partitioned the Middle East into British and French zones of influence, and defined the region’s borders at that time. The writer Plinio Freire will make two presentations: one on Persian tapestry and another on women in Islam.
The writer Milton Hatoum will discuss “Fiction, memory , history” in literature, and Universidade de São Paulo (USP) Arabic Language and Literature professor Safa Jubran will deliver the lecture “Arabic literature and its translations in Brazil.” Arab World Film Festival curator Geraldo Adriano Godoy de Campos will cover contemporary Arab cinema.
According to Icarabe’s secretary general and courses coordinator Heloisa Abreu Dib Julien, the meetings are intended to introduce the public to the particularities of Arab and Islamic culture. “We want to try and make this an informal, warm cycle by keeping our guests and the public close to one another, like a conversation. The meetings will also address Islamic culture, because we are going to cover Persian tapestry,” Heloisa said.
The meetings were a request from Icarabe patrons. Besides, Heloisa recalls, the idea came up at a meeting she had with Martins Fontes bookstore owner Alexandre Martins Fontes, who offered the shop’s auditorium for Icarabe to hold the meetings in.
Cycle of Conversations on Arab and Islamic Culture
May 13th to July 26th
Livraria Martins Fontes bookstore auditorium
Paulista Avenue, 509, Jardim Paulista, São Paulo – SP
Free admission
Find out more: http://www.icarabe.org/notcias/icarabe-promove-ciclo-de-conversas-sobre-cultura-arabe-e-islamica
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
