The next Wednesday Forum will discuss Humanism, Human Development and Cosmopolitalism. The speakers will be Caroline Suransky and Henk Manschot. Both of them are from Utrecht University. The Forum will be held on:
Date : Friday, 21 November 2008
Time : 1 pm to 3 pm (free lunch)
Venue : Room 306, UGM Graduate School Jln. Teknika Utara, Pogung. Yogyakarta
Speaker : Dr. Caroline Suransky and Prof. Dr. Henk Manschot
Dr.Caroline Suransky is Chair of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme, University for Humanist Studies, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Prof. Dr. Henk Manschot is Director of Kosmopolis, Utrecht, the Netherlands. They both currently coordinate the International Summer School on Human Development and Human Rights, a joint initiative by the University for Humanistics, Kosmopolis and Hivos.
Below is short description of abstract of paper which will be presented on the forum.
Humanism, Human Development and Cosmopolitalism
By Henk Manschot and Caroline Suransky
Our current era of globalisation presents new challenges for human
beings. We are confronted with three salient questions: exponential
population growth, interculturalisation of all societies and a growing
dissonance between human life and the biosphere. In our presentation
we address these challenges from a Human Development – and Humanist
perspective. Humanism as it developed in the West, has its roots in
different strands of Greek and Roman philosophy. The combination of
these strands have produced conceptual tensions in Cosmopolitanism as
a moral and political vision. Throughout history this tension has
manifested itself in different ways.
How do the current global issues challenge humanity and how can we
draw inspiration from different religions and worldviews to address
them? We will present some insights that Humanism offers in this
regard.