Universidade de Coimbra – Center for Intercultural Dialogue

On May 7, 2012 I presented a talk entitled “From Generation to Generation: Maintaining Cultural Identity Over Time” to Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) da Universidade de Coimbra, in Coimbra, Portugal. One of the uncommon aspects of CES is the way it combines multiple disciplines, including sociology, economics, law, anthropology, history, literature, international relations, geography, architecture, geographers, engineering, biology and medicine. Of course not all of these were represented in my audience, but I was delighted to discover two architects in the group.

The University of Coimbra is one of the oldest universities in the world. Visitors are not allowed to take photographs in the library, but it alone is worth the trip. Here is the main square, and the tower, visible from nearly anywhere in the city.

My thanks to Dr. Nancy Duxbury, a Canadian scholar currently based at CES, for the invitation, and for organizing the talk as well as dinner afterwards. I met Nancy several years ago at a UNESCO meeting in Paris, and it was a pleasure to connect again. Nancy’s recent research has focused on cultural sustainability and approaches to linking culture and sustainability in community planning initiatives.