Tag Archives: United States

Studying With Limited Freedom of Speech: My Semester in Hong Kong

By Charlina Strelow

In 2021, Pres­i­dent Biden offered a safe haven to Hong Kong res­i­dents in the U.S., which allowed them to pro­long their stay for up to 18 months. This year, Biden extend­ed that offer for an addi­tion­al two years, call­ing Hong Kong’s poli­cies a “sig­nif­i­cant ero­sion of human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms.” To under­stand these poli­cies bet­ter, here’s a brief look into Hong Kong’s recent history.

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Winter Sports — At What Cost?

By Hannah Quinque

Not exact­ly an idyl­lic view: The future of win­ter sports lies in pro­duc­ing arti­fi­cial snow.
Pho­to cred­it: “Ski jump­ing in Ober­st­dorf, Ger­many” by Arne Müse­le

“Hav­ing the World Cup back on U.S. soil is very impor­tant in devel­op­ing the sport of Ski Jump­ing in this coun­try and across the world,” enthus­es one ski jump­ing train­er about the return of the Men’s Ski Jump­ing World Cup to his­tor­i­cal site Lake Placid, NY, after over three decades. As heart-warm­ing as this news may be for North Amer­i­can win­ter sports afi­ciona­dos, it’s hard to feel as opti­mistic about ‘devel­op­ing’ the future of snow sports when cli­mate change is already heav­i­ly impact­ing events even today.

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Having Fun with Language on German American Day 2022

By Sabrina Völz

In coun­tries, such as Poland and the Nether­lands, learn­ing Ger­man is on the rise. Yet, in the U.S., it’s been declin­ing for the past hun­dred years. Num­bers of stu­dents learn­ing Ger­man have decreased from rough­ly two mil­lion in 1910 to a lit­tle over one mil­lion today. There­fore, it shouldn’t come as a sur­prise that Ger­man pro­grams have been clos­ing all over the U.S. The very lib­er­al arts col­lege I attend­ed as a bach­e­lor stu­dent in Indi­anola, Iowa – Simp­son Col­lege – elim­i­nat­ed its Ger­man pro­gram a few years ago. So in prepa­ra­tion for this Ger­man Amer­i­can Day (Oct. 6), I decid­ed to attempt to do some PR for German.

Recent­ly, while I was surf­ing the web, I came across some­thing that almost knocked me for a loop. It’s noth­ing bad, just a 58-let­ter word. So let’s hear that drum roll….

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ViZqQkddCc

That word is: Kurzfris­ten-energie-ver­sorgungs-sicherungs-maß­nah­men-verord­nung.

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Like Meat?

By Sunaya Mueller, Yamuna Sieber, and Lara Frey

Pho­to Cred­it: The Veg­an Burg­er: vaaseenaa/Getty Images

It’s cool to be veg­an, but are all those meat sub­sti­tutes real­ly so healthy for the envi­ron­ment and for us? Turkey or tofurkey, veg­an schnitzel or beef­steak? Stand­ing in front of a super­mar­ket freez­er, it’s up to you whether to choose between con­ven­tion­al or plant-based meat.

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Getting Germany Back on Track

By Markus Ziener

The Mar­shall Plan has become syn­ony­mous for mas­sive help, for bring­ing about a her­cu­la­neum task and hav­ing a coun­try rise again from the ash­es. Orig­i­nal­ly designed to help Europe get back on track after the dev­as­ta­tions of World War II, it has a much broad­er mean­ing today. In dis­cus­sions about how to rebuild Ukraine at some point in the future, there’s again talk of the need for a Mar­shall Plan. How­ev­er, it’s worth­while to take a step back and look at what the orig­i­nal Mar­shall Plan was all about.

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Teaching Native North America: A Continuing Challenge

By Christoph Strobel

Intel­lec­tu­al lega­cies of col­o­niza­tion play a pow­er­ful role in shap­ing how main­stream U.S. and glob­al soci­ety has come to see Native Amer­i­cans. Art­work from the 19th and 20th cen­turies – such as James Ear­le Fraser’s sculp­ture, “The End of the Trail” – have helped to cre­ate the image of Native Amer­i­cans on horse­back as rep­re­sen­ta­tions most asso­ci­at­ed with Indige­nous pop­u­la­tions of North Amer­i­ca. Type “Native Amer­i­can” into a search engine, and you’ll like­ly get many his­tor­i­cal images of Great Plains Indi­ans. In parts of Europe as well, the per­cep­tion of Native Amer­i­cans has been shaped in unique ways by authors like Karl May and the lat­er movies based on his books. With­out a doubt, our stu­dents’ per­cep­tions about Native Amer­i­cans are influ­enced by these fan­tasies and representations.

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