East meets West in Scotland

Wow, it's been a while - again! I'm back in the village, back writing my thesis, and actually quite happy about it. Stressed, but happy. This weekend a group of us are hosting a conference on the cultural exchange that happens, has been happening AND will always be happening between the different continents. This conference however, is focusing on Asia (including the Middle East) and the West (Europe AND America). Hopefully it should go ahead without any hitches as it has already had its down turns. Beginning of this week we had to move venue due to silly university conference services being out of touch with maintenance unit. We've had a few cancellations too, but most of them don't matter that much to us or the programme. The conference theme itself is kinda worn out today, yet our spin on it is that the key words are 'cross-cultural encounters'. And with that we mean not only the 'classical' or traditional view of Asian influence on European art/culture, but the influence of the West on Eastern artists and institutions. Furthermore it is supposed to be interdisciplinary, which kinda means different aspects of the Arts, but we have at least two Sociologists giving papers, so it might yet turn out to be inter-ish. It will be interesting to see what the roundtable discussion will produce when the title is something as broad as 'Art and Culture in the Age of Globalisation'. I might blog about it, if its good!