Wednesday, May 11, 2016

International scholars will gather at the University of North Carolina Wilmington this week to discuss translating cultures across global boundaries, concluding their conference on Saturday, May 14, with a spring festival that is free and open to the public.

“The New Global City: Presenting and Translating Cultures within a Worldwide Citizenry” is the first in a series of international conferences to be hosted by UNCW and the International Islamic University in Islamabad. The conference will explore how culture is translated, adapted and redefined as it appears in localized contexts across the globe.

Besides panel discussions and presentations about global politics, censorship, national identity and other topics, the conference will also feature the Festival of Basant, a Pakistani welcoming of spring. Participants will make and fly kites, learn native Pakistani dances, and celebrate spring with traditions from both Pakistan and the U.S. The free, public festival will be held May 14 from 1 to 4 p.m. on the lawn near McNeill Hall.

The IIUI-UNCW University Partnership is a three-year cooperative agreement sponsored by the U.S. Department of State that links humanists and social scientists at both institutions. The collaboration is funded by a $1 million grant through the State Department. UNCW was awarded the three-year grant in October 2014.

Under the Fulbright-Hays Act (officially known as the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961), the State Department initiated the grant program linking Pakistani universities with U.S. institutions in 2012 with the mission to promote mutual understanding through educational and cultural exchanges between American citizens and citizens of other countries.

-- Venita Jenkins

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