Huge bookstores have always made me feel as excited as a little kid in a toy store. The possibilities of what you can find there – good or bad – gives me the sense of going on a Sunday afternoon adventure. So when I went to Dussmann a few weeks ago, looking for no book
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An Urgent Reflection on a Crisis Back Home
After (basically) fascists break into your country’s parliament on Thursday the 27th April 2017, you feel as if so often you’ve discussed right-wing populism in too academic of a setting. You’ve talked about the causes and cures to a movement that is only now getting underway in the West, while this is the only kind
#1: On the History and Lore of the Döner Kebab (a podcast by Claire August)
The döner kebab is a ubiquitous street food and a staple for many Berliners and BCB students alike. Despite its popularity, this functional fast food has ambiguous origins and is claimed by multiple creators. Follow Claire August and Hana Bargheer as they trace the history and reception of this food of legends, checking in with
An Interview with a Clown
Veronika Rišnovská leads a civic engagement project at BCB descriptively entitled “Clowning!”. She holds weekly workshops where she trains students to interact with kids from difficult social backgrounds through improvisation and play. Once trained, the clowns, complete with red noses, visit refugee camps, hospitals, and special needs classrooms. I recently interviewed Veronika and asked her
Putting the Dutch Elections into Perspective: Rethinking the narrative of ‘surging right-wing populism’
A question on the exit polls during the US presidential election was which “presidential quality” mattered most. Interestingly enough, it was not experience, nor good judgment that people deemed the most necessary quality for a president: it was their ability to “bring needed change” (39%). That was also the only quality where Trump, lagging behind
The Wait
“The Wait” is a short fiction piece by guest contributor Elena Gagovska, a BA2 student in the HAST program at BCB Christina felt bored waiting in line at the insurance office and tapped her little finger against her chin obsessively. She was there to renew the health insurance for her two-year-old. It wasn’t a complicated
Demonizing Populism or Demeaning Democracy?
Should populists be demonized? Today especially, after Donald Trump’s latest victory in securing a seat as President of the United States of America, this topic is incredibly relevant. But one might ask: How did he win? Trump’s campaign was largely centered around garnering anti-systemic attention from voters that cited exasperation at their treatment by the
Sequels, Remakes, Reboots and Other Forms of Intertextuality: When is too much?
2016 has been a historically awful year for Hollywood. Cinemas have not sold this few tickets per person in the US since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, sequels have become Hollywood’s new addiction.The number of sequels among the top-grossing Hollywood movies has doubled in the past 10 years. At the same time, we see that several