Images in Islam: from Quran to actual conflicts

A new series of conferences of the MEM Freethinking Platform will kick off on March 15. The lectures will tackle cultural, political, social, and religious issues in the Middle East Mediterranean region. Experts hailing from Swiss and international universities will bring new elements to the table thus enriching the offer of the programme proposed by Gilles Kepel in his lectures.

The first lecture of the Inside the MEM new series, titled “Images in Islam: from Quran to actual conflicts”, will be given by Silvia Naef, full professor in the Department of Arabic Studies, University of Geneva, on Thursday 15 March (6:30 pm, room A-11, Lugano campus). Figural representation in Islamic cultures, though banned from religious space, has taken different forms and evolved over the centuries. Nowadays, with the spread of media, images dominate Arab and Muslim societies as much as they do Western ones. This is an age-old and controversial question, as Prof. Naef will illustrate in her lecture.

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 6:30PM, room A-11
Prof. Silvia Naef, Université de Genève
L'immagine nell'Islam: dal Corano ai conflitti attuali

Thursday, March 22, 2018, 6:30PM, room A-11
Prof. Alessandro Ferrari, Università dell’Insubria
La libertà religiosa tra le due sponde del Mediterraneo: per un percorso comune

Thursday, April 19, 2018, 6:30PM, room A-11
Prof. Martino Diez, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano
Gli ulema sunniti: crisi e rinnovamento

Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 6:30PM, room A-11
Prof. Reinhard Schulze, Universität Bern
Saudi Wahhabism and the Dawn of a post-Wahhabi Order

Monday, May 14, 2018, 6:30PM, room A-11
Prof. Riccardo Bocco, Graduate Institute Geneva
La questione dei rifugiati palestinesi in Medio Oriente 

Thursday, May 17, 2018, 6:30PM, room A-11
Amb. Cosimo Risi
La Russia di Putin in Medio Oriente e nel Golfo

For further information and a complete list of the MEM Freethinking Platform conferences www.usi.ch/en/node/6809