The temperature has been steadily climbing all week in Berlin, and I’d never thought I’d be ready for the rain that greeted us when we arrived, but here we are. In between peeling myself of seats and hiding from the sun, I have managed to get make some more progress with my research. We were given a lot of time this week to make headway on our projects independently. In my case, that meant attending the film studies class of Martin Klepper, a Humboldt professor in American Studies. Some very surprising connection came out of that class: a woman called Cilena heard about my project and invited me to attend Dr. Isensee’s digital media class, and a man named Michael offered Jasmine, Natalie, and me some interesting perspectives on our topics over dinner. Spending time with him was an amazing experience, and he was genuinely interested in helping out. Michael used to live around the Merringdam area as a student, and he had some interesting perspectives to share on the gentrification of the neighbourhood, which he says happened in the eight years he was a resident. We talked about movies, his view of Americans, and our perceptions of Berlin. It was interesting to have these impressions validated or questioned by someone equally interested in examining his own experiences. He also showed us some incredibly cheap-but-good Italian food, fantastic ice cream, and the most beautiful park in Kreuzberg. All in all, I feel like I’m in an awkward limbo stage where I have made the connections that I want to, I’m just waiting to hear back from said contacts. It’s both a hopeful and nerve-wracking place to be.
In our actual class time, we heard a lecture on “Trans-Atlantic Education” from Dr. Isensee, learned about the Young Islam Conference, and listened to Dr. Georgi’s work on diversity in education. The reading for the week that kind of tied these topics together was “Can Matthew Crawford Deliver us from Distraction,” an article by Michael Roth published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Drawing on one of the article’s themes, neoliberalism, and connecting it to narratives of refugees and migrants that we have been exposed to. In our discussion, Yi Shi and I talked extensively about responsibility and cause and effect. Going off Rhissa’s talk, we thought about how many European countries laid claim to many of the resources found in Africa, but refuse to harbor the refugees and migrants that are created by these old colonial attitudes. It seems as though colonial responsibility doesn’t extend to the recovery of human beings. Some of the stuff Rhissa said came back to me after this discussion, since he has lived the situation that Yi Shi and I only talked about in hypotheticals. His critical views on the Western narrative of poverty-stricken and developmentally delayed African nations stuck with me in particular, especially his “France is powered by Africa” comment. I know that I was never taught to think critically about responsibility in a globalization context, but after listening to Andre and Rhissa, I am struck with the discrepancies of neoliberalism. We can value the labour and resources that another country can provide, but we can’t value their people and differences. I’m excited to explore more about this immigrant narrative as it is portrayed through film as I continue to work on my research project.
In our actual class time, we heard a lecture on “Trans-Atlantic Education” from Dr. Isensee, learned about the Young Islam Conference, and listened to Dr. Georgi’s work on diversity in education. The reading for the week that kind of tied these topics together was “Can Matthew Crawford Deliver us from Distraction,” an article by Michael Roth published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Drawing on one of the article’s themes, neoliberalism, and connecting it to narratives of refugees and migrants that we have been exposed to. In our discussion, Yi Shi and I talked extensively about responsibility and cause and effect. Going off Rhissa’s talk, we thought about how many European countries laid claim to many of the resources found in Africa, but refuse to harbor the refugees and migrants that are created by these old colonial attitudes. It seems as though colonial responsibility doesn’t extend to the recovery of human beings. Some of the stuff Rhissa said came back to me after this discussion, since he has lived the situation that Yi Shi and I only talked about in hypotheticals. His critical views on the Western narrative of poverty-stricken and developmentally delayed African nations stuck with me in particular, especially his “France is powered by Africa” comment. I know that I was never taught to think critically about responsibility in a globalization context, but after listening to Andre and Rhissa, I am struck with the discrepancies of neoliberalism. We can value the labour and resources that another country can provide, but we can’t value their people and differences. I’m excited to explore more about this immigrant narrative as it is portrayed through film as I continue to work on my research project.