Casa Árabe has announced the broad outlines of the intense and varied cultural programme it will be carrying out until the end of the year 2023.
These days it is time to get back to classes, and Casa Árabe is opening its enrolment period for courses at the Arabic Language Centre. They offer face-to-face and distance classes, for adults and children, in Modern Standard Arabic and dialects (Moroccan Dariya, Egyptian, Levantine and, as a novelty, Tunisian and Algerian). The registration period will be open until 22 September. All the information can be found at this link.
On 13 September, a tribute will be paid, together with his family, to the leading figure in contemporary Spanish Arabism, Professor Martínez Montávez, who passed away last February, with three round tables with the participation of leading figures in Spanish Arabism, friends and family members.
On the educational side, a new edition of the Aula Árabe Universitaria lecture series will be held this year, the fifth. Starting on 27 September, Casa Árabe will be organising 12 sessions in which 23 university programmes from Madrid, Cordoba, Segovia and Seville will be taking part, as a novelty. The topics to be covered include the situation in Iraq 20 years after the US-led invasion, digital spaces and social movements, immigration in the Gulf countries, the situation in Sudan, Arab literature, cinema and comics, Islamic art and women in Andalusian Cordoba, among other issues. All the information here.
Al-Andalus revisited by its researchers returns to the Cordoba headquarters on Tuesday 19 September with the fourth session, dedicated to the geographers and travellers of the classical world, given by Professor Fátima Roldán Castro, from the University of Seville. The series will continue on 4 October, 23 November and 13 December with sessions dedicated to historians, the languages of al-Andalus, its thinkers and the Arab imaginary of today.
The series Mosques of the Mediterranean will resume on Wednesday, 20 September, with a talk by Maribel Fierro (CSIC) on The Ulema of al-Andalus in the mosques: doctrines and social practices. This series will have three more sessions, on 27 September, 11 and 26 October. Consult the full programme here.
You can continue to learn about the history and archaeology of the region, but in a playful way and through craftsmanship, in the Workshops with History. On 21 September they will be talking about ‘albarelos’, and the sessions in October, November and December will be dedicated to decorative elements such as mucarnas, tezhip with plant designs and chests.
For flamenco lovers, Casa Árabe has prepared a very special programme. As part of its film programme, the documentary series Arqueología de lo Jondo will be shown, a cultural project to reflect on the Muslim, Jewish, gypsy, black and mixed-race traces of flamenco. It will start on 12 September and the whole calendar can be found at this link.
And if you want to get to know all the nooks and crannies, stories and secrets of the Casa Mudéjar – Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Cordoba – as told by one of the families who lived there, don’t miss the dramatised visits. The next ones will be on Fridays 29th September, 27th October and 24th November.
As for the geopolitical issues that have made the headlines this summer: 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, an issue to which this diplomatic cultural house has dedicated various activities during the first half of the year, with visits by historian Rachid Khalidi, writer Lina Meruane and filmmaker Darin Sallam. From September onwards, discussions on Palestine will continue with the presentation of the exhibition Tadafuq. Palestinian artists in action, in which the work of fifteen young artists from Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem will be on display. It will be open to the public from September at the Madrid and Cordoba venues.
Another issue of concern at Casa Árabe is climate change and global warming. The exhibition Arenas movedizas (Shifting Sands) presents projects by five young creators committed to the sustainable use of land, biodiversity, the supply of clean water, respect for traditional ways of life and the link with the natural environment. It will be open until 24 September in Madrid, and from October, the exhibition will travel to the Córdoba headquarters, where it will remain on display until the beginning of 2024.
In the same context, from 30 November to 12 December, Dubai will host COP28, the most important international conference on climate change on a global scale. In order to analyse what measures are being carried out in the Arab world, the most promising initiatives and future prospects, Casa Árabe will be offering a cross-cutting programme which will include conferences, performances, concerts…
