Archive for the ‘IE University’ Category

Las dos sedes acogerán del 14 al 22 de julio el XXXV Congreso del ITI-Unesco, el quinto Simposio Internacional de la Danza y el primer Festival Internacional de Teatro Universitario.

Hasta el último momento, Segovia y el Real Sitio de San Ildefonso compitieron con la ciudad de Hamburgo para acoger el XXXV Congreso Mundial del Instituto Internacional de Teatro-Unesco (ITI por sus siglas en inglés) de la Organización Mundial de las Artes Escénicas. En la votación los dos municipios segovianos se impusieron de forma casi unánime a la ciudad alemana, pues la candidatura solo tuvo en contra el voto alemán, según relató este jueves el director del centro español del ITI, Alberto García Castaño. Y no fue fácil obtener la sede del congreso, añadió, porque solo hace dos años que España regresó a la organización del ITI; fue determinante la visita que realizó a Segovia el pasado verano el presidente del instituto de la Unesco, Tobías Biancone, para asistir a la clausura del festival Segovia en Danza, y la posterior en diciembre (durante el puente de la Constitución y la Inmaculada) de una veintena de miembros de la ejecutiva del ITI.

La decisión la tomó el ITI-Unesco hace cuatro meses en Eslovenia, en la asamblea a la que asistieron los 91 países que lo forman. Segovia y el Real Sitio presentaron su candidatura a través de la Delegación española del ITI, que acoge a su vez el Instituto Universitario de Danza Alicia Alonso de la Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, que preside Alberto García Castaño. Y en la votación final el proyecto segoviano superó a los de Hamburgo, Estambul, El Cairo o La Habana.

La satisfacción y el orgullo de entonces de García Castaño es ahora compartida por la alcaldesa de Segovia, Clara Luquero, y el alcalde del Real Sitio, José Luis Vázquez, que han presentado este jueves el «acontecimiento» que se desarrollará en julio en el antiguo Salón de Plenos del Ayuntamiento de Segovia. En realidad serán tres eventos y muchas actividades las que acogerán la ciudad y el Real Sitio, que se transformarán entre el 14 y el 22 de julio en «capitales mundiales de las artes escénicas», declaró Luquero. Read more…

By Veena Venugopal

Last week I was shivering in the -12°C weather in a historic little town called Segovia in Spain. I was there on invitation from one of the big universities, IE University, to give their students an idea about contemporary India. What is India beyond the global headlines of the IT industry? What are the social, political and economic issues that India and Indians currently face?

On the panel with me was Eugenio Luján, who is the dean of philology at Complutense University of Madrid and a scholar on vedic history. He traced the strengths and problems of India from a historical context and my job was to inform them about their contemporary status. How does caste work, what are the gender norms for Indian women, why is it that there are communal clashes here; actually since people live so close to each other, how is it that there aren’t more communal clashes? How do the rich behave? How do the poor cope? How does inequality play out across various areas?

What was fascinating for me was not just the fact that a bunch of students braved the weather and turned up at 7pm — after a full day of class — because they were curious about issues in India but, more importantly, that they did this for something that has very little to do with their coursework or examinations. They don’t earn credit from this, they are not tested on their knowledge of this country. They merely wanted to get an idea of how things worked in other places. Last year, they listened to people from Russia. Next year, they’ll pick another nation and try and grapple with the ground realities there. It was impressive, this commitment to general awareness of the world around them. Read more…

Last Wednesday, the students from the Segovia Campus had the opportunity of enjoying the third event planned within the Cycle of Conferences, focusing this year on India, and organised by the IE Humanities Center. This session, entitled “India: Visions from Within” revolved around the self-perceptions of Indians about their country and traditional culture, and the future challenges for Indian society. We were honoured with the presence of Veena Venugopal, writer, journalist and editor of Blink and the Hindu Business Line, and of Prof. Eugenio Luján, Dean of Philology of the Universidad Complutense (Madrid) and Associate Professor of Humanities at IE Business School, and one the most renowned Spanish specialists in India’s religion and culture. Their conversation was moderated by Susana Torres, Professor of Humanities at IE University.

The conversation started by highlighting the vast diversity of languages, ethnic origins and religions of the peoples of India and how each of these factors serves as a personal and social identifier of Indians today. Veena Venugopal stressed the idea that conflict and riots are often used as a political weapon, particularly before elections, in order to gain votes, as well as the high degree of tolerance that is common in Indian society. We then talked about the cast system, and Eugenio Luján explained its origins, deeply linked to religious beliefs, going back to almost 3,000 years, and how is it related to social and economic development in India. It was agreed that the level of awareness of their own cast is more powerfully felt by Indians of lower classes and Ms. Venugopal explained the pros and cons of current policies of cast quotas and the social response to them.

One of the issues that also emerged in the talk was the situation of women in Indian society today, the tension between their traditional roles and their place in current society. There was time to discuss how they are portrayed in modern cinema and television, what the reaction of Indian society, and of women in particular, has been to attacks on women that have made international headlines recently, and how Indian women try to find their own place in modern Indian society and politics.

The floor was then opened to students, who asked about several social and political issues in modern India and gave their own first-hand impressions of some of the questions discussed.