No-Turkey Thanksgivings

No, this blog post is not about trendy non-turkey Thanksgiving dinners. Many of us may automatically associate turkey with American Thanksgiving. But there are many other countries around the world that celebrate the season of harvest with their own traditions and without that particular bird. Although celebrations differ in many ways, one of the key concepts of all of the holidays introduced below is giving thanks. Read the rest.

Moving About: A Taste of International Dance

To dance is to move with awareness, with harmony in relationship to music, with other people’s movements or with emotions. It is moving by embodying and enacting traditions, rituals, and ways of thought, while allowing these traditions to evolve each time the dance is practiced and performed. But dancing is also making statements, sharing memories, challenging one’s own and others’ assumptions. Read the rest.

Cultural Heritage As Symbols of Global Peace in Times of Conflict

Since the early twentieth century, “heritage” has consistently emerged as a cultural specific response to international politics, and as a practice of memory. Heritage studies scholar Rodney Harrison, in Understanding the Politics of Heritage, describes heritage as an idea that emerges from the recognition of a potential or real threat to an object. Read the rest.