Does Intercultural Dialogue matter?

Today i stayed at home and work from here. The temperature of the weather was above 32 degree. I actually was satisfied with the progress of my work. I have finished chapter 2 for now and started chapter 3. Resizing chapter 3 is going to be tough. 69 pages have to be shorten to 35 pages. I have also a crisis situation. I decided to move a subchapter of chapter 2 to 3. Thus I have to deal with the argument and analysis of 3 according to the new structure. But actually I am happy now with the chapter 2 and 3. I thought I will work intensively to finish my chapter 2, and then I go to chapter 3. But then I decided to go one time through whole the book and shorten it; and then return to the first point and deeply work on the chapters.  Chapter 3 goes to foreign cultural policy of Iran and Germany. Who is familiar with this term? Who knows the difference between cultural policy and foreign cultural policy and foreign policy? Well then you should definitely read my book. Foreig...

The timer of the weblog shows that I have 93 days to the date of publication. Today I continued to work on chapter 2. I was actually satisfied because I gave thoughts to it and I decided to move a part of it to the third chapter. It makes more sense to discuss the role of culture in foreign policy of Iran ad Germany in a chapter which focuses on foreign cultural policy. It includes some historic points. But still it belongs to the discussion of foreign cultural policy.  So what I am preparing as a book is something like this: 1.introduction 2.historic points of German-Iranian relationship 3.foreign cultural policy and actors (of both countries) 4.intercultural dialogue, actors and activities 5.analysis:why does intercultural dialogue matter? Today I got a very nice photo from an amazing friend, Mrs. Fatemeh Sadr, the director of Center for Dialogue in Iran. you can see it here. It written “ Čerā Goftogu mikonim?” which means in English: “why do we have dia...

Yesterday I have continued to work on chapter 2. It comes to my mind to uses the main points of the history of the German-Iranian relationship more effectively for the final analysis. The book actually departs from the hypothesis that intercultural dialogue has to have a relevant function in the foreign cultural policy of Iran and Germany. That is why cultural activities under discourses of “European-Islamic cultural dialogue” (by the German government), “interfaith dialogue” and “dialogue among civilizations” (by the Iranian government) received support. If it was not useful, it would not have been undertaken.  Though these cultural activities in their modern form are not implemented suddenly and out of the blue. They have origin in the past. Both countries got to know each other under different circumstances since middle Ages, since time when even they did not have the current political boarders. And then in different political systems and social conditions they contin...

Today i worked on the second chapter which is on the history of the German-Iranian relationship. I remember I was crying when I was writing this chapter in 2016. My supervisor suggested me to add this topic to my dissertation: “I think it makes sense if you write why exactly Iran and Germany are your case studies? What is historically important in their relationship?”  Yes it is nice and important; but adding a sub-topic after finishing the analysis of the dissertation is hard for almost any writer. I remember how I terribly felt when I was reading history books. Where should I start? How should I form this chapter? I was keeping telling J that I never can finish this chapter: “… I am not an expert of history”! But at the end when I sent off three chapters of the dissertation, including this chapter, to my supervisor, he replied that he specifically liked my discussion on the German-Iranian historic relationship. I really was relieved after hearing that. Ok in my curre...