Press room
The President of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC), Imma Tubella, and Academic Director of the new international master’s degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, Mustapha Cherif, are to present the UOC International Graduate Institute’s new range of courses this Tuesday. The presentation has been organised with the support of the Association of Arab Women in the Press and Media (AFACOM) and is to take place at the Foreign Correspondents’ Centre in the French capital.
The launch of this new master’s degree, to be taught in French, in the academic year 2009-2010 provides students with basic knowledge of the Islamic world the elements and criteria needed to understand, interpret and see the realities from a political, social and economic point of view. The master’s degree, which is worth sixty credits, lasts two years and ends with a final research project.
Learning is oriented towards getting to know and interpreting the main sources for the Islamic
religion and its values; understanding the transformations and diversity of the Islamic world;
analysing the evolution of Muslim thought, and the political events linked to the presence of Islam
in the Mediterranean and its interaction with Europe; learning the basics of intercultural and
inter-religious dialogue; finding out about the regulatory bases of Islamic law and economy, and
learning the basics of the Arabic language, among other aspects.
Mustapha Chérif, the Academic Director of the master’s degree, is Docteur
d’état des lettres from the University of Toulouse and Doctor in Sociology from the Sorbonne
in Paris. He is a renowned expert in the field of dialogue between cultures. He was founder and
Rector of Algeria’s Lifelong Learning University and is former Algerian Minister of Higher
Education and Ambassador to Cairo.
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