“So, are you looking forward to going to Berlin?” my dad asked me the day before my departure. I thought about it, wanting to reply genuinely, but the only answer I could come up with was “I don’t know.” Of course I wanted to go, but I wasn’t like a little girl on Christmas Eve
Author: Archives
ISU Visit To Reichstag And Sanssouci
The second weekend of July marked the official beginning of ECLA’s International Summer University. It was a weekend abounding in novelties with new students trying to get to know each other and going on two trips to kick-start the international summer university on Prussia: Philosophy, Rebellion and the State. What follows is an account of
The Magus Of The North: Johann Georg Hamann
Johann Georg Hamann is arguably the most extraordinary thinker and writer of the late 18th century, and studying his works leads one to wonder why he is so little known. Compared with his contemporaries such as Immanuel Kant who was his friend, (although they were usually in radical disagreement on philosophical matters) and those who
The Brillo Box Of History
The beginning never ended. Here we stand now and from here we move on. History has shattered. I was brooding on this, when together with other ISU students, I went on a tour of the Berlin Museum of German History—a journey spanning over two thousand years of history, the living ashes of the Phoenix of
Spray Paint Workshop
On June 11, ECLA organized a spray paint workshop in which a group of students got together under the leadership of student Josefina Capelle and the professional artist Guillaume Cayrac, whose work can be found throughout Europe, to learn how to create a stencil template and employ useful methods for cutting it out, as well
Welcoming Stefan The Chef (Or Culinary Tales and Theories My Mother Taught Me)
“You better learn how to cook or your life will be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” was what my mother’s advice sounded like four years ago before I left home for college. Despite being a big fan of Thomas Hobbes, my mother prepares the most delicious food known to man. Her food is not
Postcard From New York
Dear ECLA, This is to proudly share I graduated from Columbia this weekend. The ceremony was outstanding, with an inspiring speech by Kofi Annan. The speech is here. I would like to thank you for my time at ECLA before Columbia. While I have undoubtedly learned a lot this year, it all fell in place
Dynamics of Modernity
A week’s worth of immersion in Renaissance art requires both time for contemplation and occasion for discourse. As such, the spring term’s core course on Values of Florentine Renaissance commenced with a guest lecture by the prominent Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller. Professor Heller broached the topic of historical interpretation by briefly discussing Goethe and Hegel’s