The Other – Friend or Enemy?

The Other – the Friend or the Enemy?   

      International Conference        
      Cracow, 16-17 January 2007
      Wyższa Szkoła Europejska im. ks. Józefa Tischnera
      (Tischner European University)
      ul. Westerplatte 11

The notion of otherness has a long history.  Particular chapters were written by ancient Greeks, who called others,  non-Greeks, Barbarians, and the Chinese, who separated from  others by the Great Wall, as well as Africans, who unlike the Europeans did not want to leave their own continent. Separate and outrageous chapter was written in the 20th century, when the plans of total extermination of  some groups of others were formulated and applied.

The participants of the conference tried to name, describe and understand the sense and some aspects of the otherness.

Session I   “Discovering the other”:

the main topic of the session were various general problems: discovering and  defining  the notion in the European philosophy, in what way political doctrines use the notion, holocaust which was  the most tragic chapter of the history of  otherness.

Session II  “Models of transgressing the otherness”:

this session, through analysis, dealt with various ways of exceeding the borders between “us” and “others”. The speakers refered to the revival of the Stoic concept of Cosmopolitanism, European integration, the idea of otherness in the view of economy and  the way the new Muslim elite define the concept of citizenship.

Session III “Multiple identities: hybrids, cultural merger, borderland”.

This served as an opportunity to present more or less detailed examples of the contact with “otherness” . The speakers were talking about Lower Silesia after World War II as the place where various cultures met, about the culture which was totally strange to  newcomers from the displaced regions of the Eastern Borderlands formerly belonging to the Republic of Poland. They were also speaking about Galicia ruled by the Habsburg dynasty and the literature written there as a testimony of the meeting of cultures and peoples. There were also the presentations about  the formation of  the American  identity awareness. A few speakers presented and analysed their own experience coming from the encounters with the Muslim culture as well as the culture of other countries they  either emigrated to or were planning to emigrate.

Patronage:

French Embassy

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