Off to Sharjah and Doha for two conferences

by Salman Hameed

I'm currently at Boston Logan airport to board for Dubai. I will be at two fantastic conferences next week, one in Sharjah and the other one in Doha. The Sharjah conference is organized by Nidhal - and so obviously I'm looking forward to meeting him again. The conference is part of the Belief in Dialogue program launched by the British Council. The theme of this particular conference is Science, Culture, and Modernity, and it is co-sponsored with the American University of Sharjah and The International Society of Science & Religion (ISSR).

Nidhal already had a post that described some of the details of the conference. There is a fantastic line-up of speakers both for the plenary and the topical sessions, and this promises to be fun. I will send updates from there. I have a topical presentation on Muslims, Modernity and Science: Lessons from Contemporary Debates over Evolution on Tuesday. I'm also participating in a plenary session on Ethical Values and Human Responsibility on Wednesday, and the title of the talk over there is Should We Bring Back the Neanderthals? Uh-oh - I may now have to come up with an answer before Wednesday.

But to be honest, I'm really looking forward to the first plenary session: Science & Religion: Two Cultures? The speakers in the session include John Hedley Brooke, Paul Davies, and Nidhal Guessoum. This should be fantastic!

After the Sharjah conference, I'm headed to Doha for The World Conference of Science Journalists 2011.This meeting was originally scheduled for Cairo, but due to the political instability over there, the organizers moved it to Doha, Qatar. This is exciting as it is the first time that the conference is taking place in the Arab world. The line-up of speakers and participants is again spectacular! Just take a look at the program. Apart from the science communication sessions, I'm really curious about sessions that deal with media and science coverage in the Arab and the larger Muslim world. In fact, the opening plenary session on June 27th is titled Unveiling Arab Science. There is perhaps no better time to address this than now. Looking forward to it. I scheduled for the afternoon plenary session on Evolution in the Evolving World of Journalism, organized by Valeria Roman.

So yes, the posts have been slow the last couple of days, but I hope to make it up by providing updates from these two fascinating conferences. 

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