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

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ECLA International Summer University 2009

On July 1, students started arriving for this year’s ECLA International Summer University (ISU) devoted to “Montaigne and the Making of the Modern Self.” The quiet residential neighborhood was awakened by the sound of young people talking excitedly, eager to get to know each other and their new summer home. ISU 2009 began even before

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A Sunday Afternoon at the Berggruen Museum

ECLA students enrolled in the elective class “Methods and Interpretations: The Visual Arts” spent an exciting afternoon at the Museum Berggruen in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. The students confidently took up the challenge of applying visual analysis to major works of European modernism, and the museum provided a perfect setting with its works by Picasso, Matisse,

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ECLA in Milan

ECLA’s day-trip to Milan, part of the weeklong study trip to Italy, was an exciting adventure in the heart of the second largest city and largest metropolitan area in Italy, also known as the world capital of design and fashion. With the virtuoso guidance of ECLA Laura Scuriatti – a native Milanese – the city’s

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ECLA Guest Lecture: David Colander on Economics and the Liberal Arts

Colander began by pointing out that the goal of economics lies beyond textbook catch phrases such as optimization and efficient allocation of resources. Rather, it should be the creation of excellent decision-makers, who are instrumental not only in achieving society’s goals effectively through rigorous quantitative analysis, but also in defining these goals. To do that,

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