Cultural Studies…again

“Have a chat with your neighbor about…” — I will probably always remember this sentence, when thinking about our Cultural Studies course “From Empire to Europe”. In this last blogpost, I have a chat with myself about what I thought about the course at the beginning and how this changed very quickly :).

When I chose my courses for this semester I quickly noticed, that I have to attend a Cultural Studies course again. My first thoughts? — Oh dear… numerous dates again, countless facts about historical events in detail again.

So, I went to the first session quite reserved, waiting for the confirmation of what I had made up in my mind. When I first heard of the weekly assignments of writing a blogpost and comments, I thought I would rather like to have the final exam instead of doing this “homework-like” thing. Actually, I would prefer doing nothing… but well :)

But then as the course started, my concerns started to decrease more and more: not only historical facts and dates, but also and very intensely the current and perfectly fitting topic of the Brexit. The referendum and the medial discourse about it accompanied us throughout the semester and gave us another dimension to the course topics. From Empire to Europe to Brexit? Yes, to Brexit! No matter what anyone was thinking, the British decided that Britain should leave the EU, which is undoubtedly one of the most important events in the history of Europe and the EU. It was quite nice, that we covered up current news on the referendum over and over in the course.

And the blogposts? They were absolutely not as annoying as I thought they might be. From week to week I was more and more satisfied with the tasks instead of having a final exam, because it gave us the freedom to decide on which elements of the respective topics (Africa, Suez-crisis, Brexit etc.) we want to focus, do further research on and put it altogether in a non-scientific text. Moreover, it was quite interesting to read our classmates’ thoughts on the topics.

All in all, I liked the harmonious and respectful atmosphere in this course. We didn’t only focus on the facts but also on further thoughts, which consequences the history of the Empire has on Great Britain today. I would always recommend the course to fellow students.