Concept by Adania Shibli in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt
Kindly supported by Goethe Institute

“Interpreting Revolutions: Comments on the Spiritual History and Future of Contemporary Uprisings” is a two-day workshop that brings together theorists, artists and activists to engage in commenting on, interpreting and questioning the histories and futures of the revolts that erupted in several Arab countries, and other parts of the world, over the past two years. Edward Said’s various writings provide a formidably prosperous field for investigating these revolts. Of the many paths that can be mapped out in this Saidian field of ideas, several are most useful for understanding the forces that pushed their major actors and key agents to take upon these uprisings; for analysing their circumstances and pre-conditions, and for scavenging their own ‘spiritual history’, as Said calls, as well as their future political, cultural and social potentials. The workshop embarks on two parallel paths within this Saidian field of ideas, which possibly would be leading us to other, yet to be explored fields of ideas and practices.

The workshop “Interpreting Revolutions”, comes as a continuation of the conversations and discussions that started in the earlier workshop “Translating Revolutions”, held at HKW in January 2012.

In this first workshop, the aim was to interrogate the transformational shifts and the role of cultural practice and production in the Arab region following the revolts, as well as to identify a shared structure for reflection and to develop new tools of understanding and communication. The second workshop, however, hopes to go beyond this framework and put the current political circumstances of the Arab revolutions in a broader context of inter-national and inter-cultural relations and to realise a critical debate on basis of articulated common interests, using and referring to critical methods as established in Edward Said’s corpus of work.

To achieve this goal, the workshop “Interpreting Revolutions” on the one hand aims to continue, renew, and expand the discussions initiated in Berlin earlier this year. On the other hand it seeks to deliberately constitute a different perspective, prepared by the transfer of the venue to Tunis, which implies a different audience and reception, and the inclusion of international participants.

The workshop should provide a space for altering experiences, ideas and discourses that not only go beyond the Arab context but also beyond the connotations of “East” and “West”, “us” and “them”.

Moreover, the workshop should assemble and arrange questions, problems, and topics for the symposium “In Dialogue with Edward Said” that will be held at HKW in Berlin from October 31 to November 2, 2013.

This symposium will not only occur in memory of Edward Said –marking the tenth anniversary of his death next year – but take on new readings of Said’s body of work and put his thought into current political, cultural, and social contexts in the Arab world and beyond.

www.elteatro.net/