“Looking around, confronting our prejudices, and finding intercultural threads”
We will talk about a simple intercultural awareness task in which you sit in a public place, the more diversity the better, and compare with a friend what you imagine about the cultural backgrounds of the people we observe.
In doing this we will try to focus on:
- Where our thoughts originate and what prejudices we bring to them
- The distinction between ‘blocks’ (which pull us apart) and ‘threads’ (which bring us together)
- The possibility that there is always something to recognise (threads) in the cultural appearance and behaviour of others
- How beginning with the small can help with this
- The possibility of a seamless ocean of cultural diversity – a varicultural flow – which is the basic material from which all cultures, from family to nation, are constructed – in ways that we can all recognise
- How our best intercultural resource is the everyday process of small culture formation on the go what we all experience from childhood.
Important Information:
- Location: This is an online Event via Zoom, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84586889828?pwd=LarrGfFKcmD44krbaKo52SHsz79KeU.1
- Date and Time : 12th November 2026, 18:00-19:30h
- Language: English
Speaker:
Emeritus Adrian Holliday is Professor at the Canterbury Christ Church University in the UK. He is the author of Intercultural Communication, Routledge, 5th edition in press. In the 1970s and 80s he worked in Iran, Syria and Egypt, and has had broad experience of international students, colleagues and locations since. He is known for his work on native-speakerism and creative qualitative modes of investigation.