Yudhishthir Raj Isar spoke at a ‘VIP debate’ organized at the European Parliament in Brussels on February 2 at the international launch of Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture.  The other speakers were Prof. Nilufer Göle of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales; Mr. Egemen Bagisa, Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs; the British Member of the European Parliament Richard Howitt; and Jonny Dymond (Moderator), Brussels Correspondent for BBC News. On February 18, he took part in a breakfast debate organized in the Paris premises of the European Parliament on the topic ‘UE: quel élargissement pour quel avenir’ organized by EurActiv.fr, the French member of the network of EurActiv, an independent media portal fully dedicated to EU affairs.  Isar’s article ‘Cultural Diplomacy: An Overplayed Hand?’ appeared in Issue # 3, Winter 2010 of Public Diplomacy (magazine of the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at the University of Southern California).

Former Director of Cultural Policies and of the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture at UNESCO, he was also Executive Secretary of the World Commission on Culture and Development (1994-95). In 1986-87 he was Executive Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Maître de Conférences at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) and a visiting professor at a number of other universities in Europe and the United States. President of the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage (EFAH). Member of the Board of the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA), London; of the International Board of the Forum Cultural Mundial, Rio de Janeiro, and of the Advisory Board of the Fitzcarraldo Foundation, Turin. Special Advisor to the World Monuments Fund (New York) and the Sanskriti Foundation (New Delhi); International Advisor to Aid to Artisans (ATA) and to the World Bank’s Development Gateway. Consultant to the European Commission, the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Cultural Foundation. Member of the International Council of Museums, the International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD), CIRCLE and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).

The Cultures and Globalization Series, Volume 1 (2007) & Volume 2 (2008), Helmut Anheier and Yudhishthir Raj Isar, Editors (Sage Publications, London): http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book230745 http://www.sagepub.co.uk/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book230746

'Tropes of the "Intercultural": Multiple Perspectives', in N. Aalto and E. Reuter, eds., Aspects of Intercultural Dialogue. Theory. Research. Applications, Cologne, SAXA Verlag, 2006.

'Sustainability Needs Cultural Learning' in Museums & Social Issues, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 2006 ('A Culture of Sustainability').

Metropolises of Europe. Diversity in Urban Cultural Life (ed., with Dorota Ilczuk), Warsaw, CIRCLE, 2006. '

Cultural diversity', in special issue entitled Problematizing Global Knowledge of the journal Theory, Culture & Society 23(2-3) March-May 2006.

"Una 'deontologia interculturale': utopia o realismo utopico?", in S. Bodo e M. R. Cifarelli, eds., Quando la cultura fa la differenza. Patrimonio, arti e media nella società multiculturale, Rome, Meltemi, 2006.

Inclusive Europe. Horizon 2020. Conference Reader prepared for the Annual Conference of the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage (EFAH), Budapest, November 2005. Budapest, Kultúrpont.

'Cultural learning: some issues and horizons'. Argument Paper commissioned by the Catalyst Conference, Liverpool and Manchester, September 2005. www.catalystconference.co.uk/cultural-selfhood-and-othernes/

'Tangible and Intangible Heritage: Are They Really Castor and Pollux?' In INTACH Vision 2020 (Proceedings of the conference INTACH 2020 organized by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, INTACH, November 2004), New Delhi, INTACH, 2005.

'The mobilization of cultural identity and difference: some conceptual perspectives', paper presented at workshop entitled From the Politics of Culture to Cultural Policies, Sixth Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (16-20 March, 2005).

'Diversity policies need rethinking…' in the proceedings of a conference entitled Social and Cultural Diversity in Central and Eastern Europe: Old Factors and new, published by the Multicultural Centre Prague, 2005.