Archive for August, 2007

Buzzing around before settling down. (For a while.)

Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

Last week, I moved most of my everyday stuff to Oslo, where I will be a guest researcher at the University until the end of this year. The last days I was in Berlin, most of the time cleaning the apartment and packing the rest of my belongings. But I also took the time to participate in the performance festival Abwehr, organized by Svenja Moor and Shahram Entekhabi (officially as a discussant but in truth more as a photographer – which suited me fine). The locations of this festival Wachturm and Kunstfabrik were excellent and I think the whole thing worked out really fine. You can read more about this festival in Stralau-Blog (in German). You can also see more about this festival. In my ipernity album.
Tomorrow, I will buzz off again. This time going to the annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society in London. I’ve been there last year and enjoyed it quite a bit. This year, Katie Walsh and I will host a session, to which I am looking forward very much. Except for the fact that we have been put into the last time slot of the conference: Friday 16:50–18:30. I wonder how many people will make it through a whole week of dense and stimulating sessions, beverage-laden evening programmes and then still attend some session late Friday afternoon, when they shcould be heading home to tea and biscuit…
On Saturday, though, I will finally enter port: Oslo. *sigh* And there I will stay with only one interruption until the end of the year. That’s what I call a welcome prospect!

The Simpsons Movie – Entertainment also for non-insiders.

Saturday, August 18th, 2007

Watching the credits of this movie roll through, I was seriously surprised how many people work on a 2-D animated major motion picture these days. The credits were not as long as those of The Lord of the Rings, but they were still l o n g. The result of this big enterprise is worthy: I found the trailers nice and I was not disappointed by the movie. As far as I can judge, all the common characters appear and have something entertaining to show or do, some really funny ideas have entered both picture- and dialog-wise. I went to see this film with two other non-Simpsons freaks, and we had several series’ of serious amusement. Nevertheless, neither the eco part of the story nor the personal part was overly great – criticism, shock and grief were hinted at but not performed in a way that would make this movie more than amusing or entertaining. However, I will soon take a look into one of the books that I got as birthday presents: The Simpsons and Philosophy : The D’oh! Of Homer and let myself be enlightened about this side of The Simpsons.
IMDb entry | Trailer

Terrorizing critical sociology.

Friday, August 17th, 2007

You may already have heard about the affair in which four persons were searched by the police and one of them arrested on 32st July. One of them, Andrej Holm, is a fellow urban sociologist who is working the the Department for Sociology, Humboldt University Berlin. He writes on gentrification and participates in public meetings in which urban policy is discussed and critized. In short, he is involved in what a public intellectual should do: go out into society and discuss potentially or actually harmful or otherwise relevant political and societal developments. So why did they arrest him? Because he uses words and concepts (like the commonly used term gentrification), that are also used in writings of the militante gruppe, and because he has met these people on occasion – being a public and critical scholar – he is linked to them. And now he is in jail under very strict conditions.
This is a very serious affair and we should make sure that critical and engaged scholars do not get into a situation in which they will be afraid to utter criticism because they might sooner or later be labeled terrorist and thrown into jail. This is exactly what I and many others feared would happen when the so-called war against terrorism seeps into everyday life deeper and deeper.
Express your opposition to a process which would lead to people keeping their mouths shout when they should not and sign the open letter to the Generalbundesanwaltschaft: in English, auf Deutsch. The open letter has been organized and published by colleagues abroad, in particular Manuel Aalbers and other members of the comurb_r21 mailing list along with participants of the ASA meeting, which just took place in the United States. I am impressed by and happy about the many important and very highly regarded scholars that already signed the open letter. You will also find more information in the open letter and on the support website, to whose organizers I also pay my respect.

Live-Report aus dem Seevegarten.

Friday, August 10th, 2007

Foto der Wiese im Seevegarten mit Zeltsack und StangenEs ist soweit, es ist soweit. Hier zu sehen: vor dem Zeltaufbau und danach geht’s dann noch zum Abkühlen in die Seeve. Denn es ist warm. Schalalalaaa.