Music as a Force for Peace
July 2004
Banner photo: ©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO
Public Lectures
At Villa Sachsen
Professor Emeritus Ho Peng Yoke, emeritus director of the Needham Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in England, delivered a lecture on "A Personal Encounter--Islamic Links with Chinese Studies" at the Soka Gakkai Malaysia (SGM) Grand Culture Center in Kuala Lumpur on April 25. The event was organized by the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies, the University of Malaya's Chinese Studies Alumni and SGM, and was attended by some 150 people. Professor Ho discussed the spread of Islamic knowledge to China and the subsequent cross-fertilization of ideas in the ancient world. The lecture also examined the influence of famous Islamic scholars, including Al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Al-Birubni, on Chinese science and other contributions to science by the Islamic world in the past.
On April 24, the Institute of Oriental Philosophy (IOP) hosted a lecture on German writer, poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) at the SGI-Germany Villa Sachsen Grand Culture Center in Bingen. Dr. Manfred Osten, former general secretary of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, spoke about Goethe's view on time as portrayed in his work Faust. He pointed to the negative effects of giving priority to speed and efficiency over quality in today's world and stressed that Faust shows us a way of transforming such negative effects.
