Culture Days

A big part of our grade for the SUK2 English course this semester was a culture project about a topic either related to Irish or US-American culture. The project included writing an 800 word essay about our topic and presenting it in front of other students on our Culture Days. These Culture Days took place last Monday and Tuesday when all first-year English students presented the wide range of different topics in front of other students. In addition to presenting our own topic, we obviously had to listen to a number of our classmates presentations. Out of these we now have to choose five topics which will be tested at our final exam at the end of this semester. 

Seeing as I presented my topic, which was related to Ireland, on Monday, I decided to watch a few other Irish presentations that same day. The first one I watched was Irish Intelligence at its Peak by Julia Kölbl which was a topic that wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me, but at the same time a lot of the information was new to me. I remember learning about the War of Independence, the IRA, Bloody Sunday and Michael Collins last semester, but I didn’t know much about the Irish secret service which is why I found it interesting listening to this presentation.

Another presentation I listened to was Belfast – A City Still Split by the Troubles by Stefanie Schauer. Again, I was already fairly familiar with the topic, because we had learned about the Troubles last semester, but I enjoyed getting more detailed information about the situation between the two colliding groups in Northern Ireland shown on the example of Belfast. I also found it interesting to get to know more about how things are now and what the government is planning for the future, because I mostly learned about the past of this conflict and not the present.

The presentation I enjoyed most this day was Irish Influences on C. S. Lewis’ work by Marlene Fischer. The reason for that lies partly in the fact that I love C. S. Lewis’ fantasy books about Narnia and I looked forward to this presentation the whole day. My expectations were high and Marlene completely fulfilled them. It was interesting to hear about C. S. Lewis’ life and how him living in Ireland influenced his books. Plus the pictures Marlene showed us of the Irish landscape were beautiful.

The next topic Oliver Cromwell – Irish vs. British Perspective by Verena Eisenköck was another topic related to history and politics. Again, I already had some knowledge about Oliver Cromwell from last semester. What I find compelling about this topic is how different the views and opinions from two countries about the same man can be and what the reason for this contradiction is.

The last presentation I listened to on Monday was Monica Loughman – Ballet in Ireland by Anja Tremmel which I enjoyed because it was completely different from all the other topics that day. I didn’t know anything about ballet or dance, so much of what Anja told us was new to me. I was impressed by Loughmans achievements and appreciated the little insight I got into how demanding the job of a prima ballerina is.

While I only listened to Irish topics on Monday, I decided to go to some US-American ones on the next day. Interesting topics included a presentation about the book The Great Gatsby, its author F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Roaring Twenties in the US, the legalization of marihuana in several US-American states, Charlie Wilson’s War, the Black Power Salute at the Olympic Games in 1968 and a comparison between the American and French college life.

Even though the culture project was a lot of work and stress for me and I was a little anxious before my own presentation, in the end the whole thing wasn’t so bad. In fact, I really liked listening to some presentations. I already knew some basic facts about many topics, but I still found myself being interested in listening, because many presenters focused on a side or aspect of these topics which I hadn’t considered before. That’s what made the days quite enjoyable for me.