Based on its indirect relationship with the elite, educators and students through book publishing, Armanshahr/OPEN ASIA has been endeavouring to establish direct contact and dialogue with the young generation by organising a series of book reading sessions in Kabul and Herat since 2009.
These sessions initially started in the form of Women’s Studies in Kabul. A number of male and female students from the Kateb and Goharshad universities met on Wednesdays to discuss a specific book. A number of books including the Second Sex (Simone de Beauvoir), Totalitarianism (Hanna Arendt), the Status of Family and Women: According to the Shari’a Law and Customary Practices in Afghanistan (Mr Moballegh), and Discrimination and Political Participation of Women were studied and discussed in these meetings.
After that, a three-month series of reading sessions were organised to analyse and critique history and historiography in Afghanistan. During these sessions, a comparative analysis of works of five great contemporary historians of Afghanistan was undertaken: Afghanistan in the course of history (Mir Gholam Ghobar), Afghanistan in the past five centuries (Sadigh Farhang), Afghanistan in the 20th century (Zaher Tanin), Afghanistan in the 19th century (Sayed Qassem Rashtia) and History of Afghanistan after Islam (Abdulhay Habibi).
Subsequently, it was decided to organise more academic sessions within the Kabul University, in cooperation with the Afghanistan Centre. The new series of book reading sessions under the heading of Fictional Literature take place on Wednesdays, where a large number of students from various schools of the University take part. Mr Kaveh Jobran is the moderator of the sessions. The following books have been read and discussed in this series up to now: A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf), Cacau (Jorge Amado), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Douglas Bradbury), Animal Farm (George Orwell), the Plague (Albert Camus), the Black Whirlpool (Siamak Herawi) and the Upheaval Organised by Humans and Animals (Rahnavard Zaryab).
Simultaneously, a series of book reading sessions were held in Herat under the heading of Simorgh Critique. As the heading suggests, the sessions were initially concerned only with discussion and critique of the poetry of contemporary poets. However, it was decided after a while to study and discuss works of a number of renowned western and Persian-language writers. The works that were read in this series on Mondays included: Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury), 1984 and Animal Farm (George Orwell), works by Albert Camus (the Plague, the Outsider, the Fall, the Myth of Sisyphus), works of Anton Chekhov, works of Sadeq Hedayat, Cacau, A Room of One’s Own and others.
The Women’s Studies reading sessions are still under way at the premises of Armanshahr/OPEN ASIA, where students from different universities take part.
