The model project Tell me Your Story for the participation of refugees and civic engagement is based on the "children's fairy tales" by the Brothers Grimm. In an innovative approach to cultural mediation, which focuses on mutual storytelling instead of the one-sided "learning" of a culture, the model project Tell me Your Story, initiated and developed by the author, conceived and implemented a variety of didactic and artistic working materials. These enable a dialogue across linguistic and cultural barriers across the common memory horizon of the fairy tales. Nothing else in the diverse and generational work of the Brothers Grimm has such international distribution and artistic, literary, media and scientific resonance as their fairy tale collection. There are fairy tales and stories all over the world. This also makes them a suitable starting point for communication in integration, inclusion and participation projects and opens a fruitful field of research for cultural heritage studies as well as for cultural education – both rather young scientific disciplines. The project Tell me Your Story is a model for further moderated contact and communication projects between refugees and citizens in Germany and the research on it reaches out to related spheres in education as well as politics. Thematic fields of integration and participation are analyzed as well as the chances and possibilities of world heritage and world documentary heritage in the field of impact of cultural identity and its integrative potential.

This book deals with the thorny issue of human rights in different cultures and religions, especially in the light of bioethical issues. In this book, experts from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and Confucianism discuss the tension between their religious traditions and the claim of universality of human rights. The East-West contrast is particularly evident with regards to human rights. Some writers find the human rights language too individualistic and it is foreign to major religions where the self does not exist in isolation, but is normally immersed in a web of relations and duties towards family, friends, religion community, and society. Is the human rights discourse a predominantly Western liberal ideal, which in bioethics is translated to mean autonomy and free choice? In today’s democratic societies, laws have been drafted to protect individuals and communities against slavery, discrimination, torture or genocide. Yet, it appears unclear at what moment universal rights supersede respect for cultural diversity and pluralism. This collection of articles demonstrates a rich spectrum of positions among different religions, as they confront the ever more pressing issues of bioethics and human rights in the modern world. This book is intended for those interested in the contemporary debates on religious ethics, human rights, bioethics, cultural diversity and multiculturalism.