Seminar Series
Work in Progress in the Social Studies (WIPSS): 2018/9
22nd Year
Tuesday 2 April: Michael Grech and Peter Mayo,
Engaging the popular communal imagination -
Engaging the Holy Week culture in a Southern European community
This seminar focuses on a project that is an integral part of community education - as part of community development, based on cultural manifestations (the holy week period) that capture popular communal imagination, more exactly neighbouring communities’ popular imagination, in a particular region of Malta, the EU’s smallest state and an island state. The project aims to provide a political education on those lines. There is a focus on themes from the passion narrative and its representation in the various commemorations. This enables project participants to address those issues concerning colonialism, gender, militarisation and regeneration which have their basis in the narrative and various representations of it, but which are still relevant for the communities in question today. For this reason, the paper provides further suggestions regarding themes in this project of university-community engagement. It is intended as a contribution to community development in this part of the island.
Michael Grech is Lecturer in Philosophy at Junior College. He writes sporadically in the local media. His interests include the grey areas between culture, religion and politics. Peter Mayo is Professor in the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education, Faculty of Education. His recent books include Echoes from Freire for a Critically Engaged Pedagogy (Bloomsbury, 2013), and Hegemony and Education under Neoliberalism: Insights from Gramsci (Routledge, 2015).
Tuesday 2 April, 18:00 to 19:00, followed by discussion. In the Faculty of Arts Library, on the third floor of Old Humanities Building, at the end of the corridor next to Room 301. Students are encouraged to attend. The public is cordially welcome.
Convenors: Prof. Paul Clough (Anthropology), Prof. Peter Mayo (Education), Dr. Michael Briguglio (Sociology)