All posts by Sebastian Reimann

Access America

The Most Romantic Night of the Year?

By Evangelia Kindinger

Pho­to cred­it: Tom Rick­huss on Unsplash

On Octo­ber 28, the Hall­mark Chan­nel launched its annu­al “Count­down to Christ­mas.” Dur­ing the eight weeks before Christ­mas, the chan­nel will broad­cast 21 orig­i­nal movies that are all about Christ­mas and the spir­it of the hol­i­days. Estab­lished in 2001, the Hall­mark Chan­nel is a sub­sidiary of the com­pa­ny that has pro­vid­ed many Amer­i­cans with sap­py greet­ing cards for all occa­sions. The Christ­mas movies con­tin­ue with the company’s tra­di­tion of kitsch, espe­cial­ly roman­tic kitsch, as shown in not-so-sub­tle titles, such as A Decem­ber Bride (2016), My Christ­mas Love (2016), or Mar­ry Me at Christ­mas (2017). Christ­mas, it seems, is not pri­mar­i­ly about cel­e­brat­ing the birth of Jesus Christ – or, like in my fam­i­ly, food – but about find­ing love in the midst of snowy land­scapes, hot cocoa, and con­ve­nient­ly hung mistletoes.

Read more »

Best Books & Fabulous Films

The Pursuit of (Un)happiness

By Kai-Arne Zimny

BoJack Horse­man (voice by Will Arnett) is a long-faced, washed-up Hol­ly­wood star whose career end­ed two decades ago, along with his Nineties sit­com, Horsin’ Around. Since then he’s turned into a rad­i­cal glass-half-emp­ty kind of guy with a per­pet­u­al­ly brim­ful glass of whiskey, as self-cen­tered as he is self-loathing.

Oh, he’s also a horse.

Image cred­it: Etrg Torrent

Read more »

Teaching Tools

From Comma-kazi to Comma-Sutra: Or You Too Can Learn to Love Commas

By Lynette Kirschner

Pho­to cred­it: NASA God­dard MODIS Rapid Response Team

Gram­mar doesn’t tend to be a top­ic that stu­dents are enthused about. When­ev­er I men­tion it, many of my stu­dents roll their eyes. To real­ly get a non-reac­tion, all I have to do is men­tion punc­tu­a­tion and their eyes glaze over. Not a pret­ty sight. How­ev­er, gram­mar – and more impor­tant­ly punc­tu­a­tion – is essen­tial, so I have tried many ways to make this top­ic clear and interesting.

There is always humor, which will catch their atten­tion, but most like­ly not clar­i­fy the fin­er points of punc­tu­a­tion. The famous com­ma for can­ni­bals quote (“Let’s eat grand­pa” as opposed to the more humane “Let’s eat, grand­pa”) can make stu­dents smile once they under­stand. So now I have more of their atten­tion. But that is just the begin­ning. Read more »

Best Books & Fabulous Films

American Hustle

By Kai-Arne Zimny

“As far as I could see, peo­ple were always con­ning each oth­er to get what they want­ed. We even con our­selves. We talk our­selves into things. We sell our­selves things we maybe don’t even need or want by dress­ing them up. We leave out the risk. We leave out the ugly truth.”  — Irv­ing Rosen­feld (Chris­t­ian Bale)

Pho­to Cred­it: Wolg Gang

New Jer­sey, late 70s – Fraud­u­lent duo Irv­ing Rosen­feld (Chris­t­ian Bale) and Syd­ney Pross­er aka “Lady Edith Greensly” (Amy Adams) get caught in the act by FBI agent Richie DiMa­so (Bradley Coop­er). Smelling an oppor­tu­ni­ty for fame and recog­ni­tion, the agent decides to offer the crooked cou­ple a dis­hon­est deal that would force them to gath­er incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence against four oth­er peo­ple. To avoid pros­e­cu­tion, Irv­ing and Syd­ney agree, not know­ing the object of the FBI’s inves­ti­ga­tion: sev­er­al cor­rupt con­gress­men, ruth­less mafia boss Vic­tor Tel­le­gio (Robert DeNiro), and most spec­tac­u­lar­ly Camden’s pop­u­lar and big-heart­ed may­or Carmine Poli­to (Jere­my Ren­ner). Polito’s ambi­tion to cre­ate jobs by revi­tal­iz­ing Atlantic City’s casi­nos might make him sus­cep­ti­ble to bribes by a fake Sau­di sheik. A game of deceit and con­flict ensues, not mak­ing Irving’s per­son­al dilem­mas – evolv­ing around his unpre­dictable wife (Jen­nifer Lawrence) and his beloved adop­tive son – any easier …

Read more »

Access America

Love no more? Catalonia and Spain

By Michael Lederer

Pho­to Cred­it: Michael Led­er­er — The two-arms-raised repli­ca of the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty was a gift to the town of Cadaqués from the man­ag­er of Sal­vador Dali.

CADAQUÉS, Cat­alo­nia, Spain – Dis­patch from Spain’s Cold Civ­il War.

Speak­er of the U.S. House Tip O’Neill once said, “All pol­i­tics are local.” In today’s world, no pol­i­tics are local.

Both Don­ald Tusk from the Euro­pean Union and Don­ald Trump from the Unit­ed States have issued recent state­ments sup­port­ing a view of the Cat­alon­ian con­flict as an inter­nal mat­ter. Yet the very fact that both lead­ers felt called to com­ment on it reveals that Barcelona’s rela­tion to Madrid has the easy poten­tial to affect wider inter­ests even as far away as Washington.

Read more »

Teaching Tools

Sexual Harassment in the 21st Century – Really?

By Sabrina Völz

Pho­to Cred­it: Mihai Surdu

If it wasn’t enough that Amer­i­can TV icon and edu­ca­tor Bill Cos­by was accused of sex­u­al assault, rape, and bat­tery – to name a few of the alle­ga­tions – now dozens of women (cur­rent­ly more than 65) have come for­ward about Har­vey Weinstein’s inap­pro­pri­ate sex­u­al behav­ior. Many of these women were pre­vi­ous­ly too afraid to pub­li­cal­ly share their sto­ries of sex­u­al harass­ment and assault. Or couldn’t because of non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments. Some­thing has to give. Read more »