A pretty full week with lots of classes:
- Monday: Space & Place. I had only read one of the two mandatory texts, Ingold, but read Low after class.
- Tuesday: Media Activism. Similar situation – I skimmed the second text but managed to write the mandatory review nevertheless. As an alternative to write reviews of the readings every week we can present more extensively in one unit. I chose that option and signed up to present in Unit 6: Media Activism & Ethnographic Research on 11 June 2019.
- Wednesday: Qualitative Methods. This time on participatory action research (PAR).
- Thursday: Immersive Technologies. A tech workshop on 360 photos (see featured image), which we enjoyed in VR headsets (mostly cardboard/plastic holders for our phones).
In Qualitative Methods the lecturer asked us to submit our presentation by video since the in-house classes in April, where we were supposed to have presented, were cancelled. So after zooming with my team members I recorded my part very spontaneously on Friday night. A perfect opportunity to try the green screen that I bought for other purposes:
I finished the “shitty first draft” of my essay for Theory & History tonight. My first drafts always tend to be quite close to the finished version (that’s why they take such time), so I expect it just to need a little finishing touch before I hand it in. I also zoomed with my classmate R to give her advise on her essay.
So much coming up, I think I must summarise it:
Upcoming deadlines and presentations, Summer semester 2019
- 31 May: Essay deadline, Theory and History (S1)
- 10 June: Video presentation deadline, Qualitative Methods
- 11 June: Presentation, Media Activism
- 17 June: Presentation, Space and Place
- 9 August: Essay deadline, Media Activism
- 20 September: Essay deadline, Space and Place
Otherwise the big news is that my programme will change institution from FU to HMKW. It won’t affect me though, but it means I belong to the last generation that studies the programme at Freie Universität. I’m glad I made it before the programme moved, I really like FU!
What’s more? I took S out for a nice birthday lunch, watched the Eurovision final with A (as S boycotted it) and voted for Iceland, and booked an Airbnb apartment for Freiburger Filmforum in two weeks (we had planned to camp, but it seems it will be cold).
Yesterday I had a meeting with a “genius” at the Apple store on Kudamm since the keyboard of my 2016 Macbook Pro starts getting worse. The “up” button has been unreliable for a long time, but recently the space bar started being unreliable too, which was really annoying, and tonight the backspace seems to start freaking out as well. The question is whether Apple considers “being unreliable” as enough a reason to exchange the whole top part. I also complained about miscolourings on the screen and a popping sound. I’m scheduled to hand it in just before we go to Freiburg.
In TV, we started watching the Swedish Netflix series Quicksand (“Störst av allt”) and sort of got hooked immediately. So great to see Felix Sandman, my favourite in the Fooo, move on to acting and doing it so well!
Another full week coming up. This is apparently the most busy semester of the programme. I love it. But will have to focus on giving the finishing touches to the essay – I really look forward to handing it in and leaving it behind, as its subject clashes with the current courses, which I’m getting more and more excited about.
Study
Space and Place
Unit 2: The Body, Landscape & Process
- Ingold, Tim (1993): The Temporality of the Landscape. In World Archaeology, Vol 25, No 2: Conceptions of Time and Ancient Society. (Oct. 1993), pp. 152-174.
- Low, Setha M. (2009): Towards an Anthropological Theory of Space and Place. In Semiotica 175 – 1⁄4, pp. 21-37.
Unit 3: Scapes, Sites & The Berlin Brigade
- Appadurai, Arjun. (1990): Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. In Theory Culture Society, Vol. 7, pp. 295-310.
Media Activism
Unit 2: Historical Developments
- Kidd, D., & Rodriguez, C. (2009): Introduction. In C. Rodriguez, D. Kidd, & L. Stein (Eds.), Making our media: Global initiatives toward a democratic public sphere, Volume 1: Creating new communication spaces, pp. 1-22.
- Melucci, A. (1996): The construction of collective action. In Challenging codes: Collective action in the information age, pp. 13-41 – skimmed!
Unit 6: Media Activism & Ethnographic Research
- Video: The Guardian: Anonymous Comes to Town: The hackers who took on high school sexual assault in Ohio (via lecturer)
Qualitative Methods
- Stoecker, R. (2013): Chapter 3: The Community Development Context of Research. In Research Methods for Community Change. A Project-Based Approach (2 ed.), pp. 47-72.
- (Chapter 2: The Goose Approach to Research (p. 25-46), I read in Week 15, 2019.)
Immersive Technologies
Other
Articles
- The Economist:
- The Guardian:
- The Smoking Gun:
- Vice: How Baby Scumbag’s Quest for Social Media Fame Ended in Disaster (2017)
- The Verge: Google has been tracking nearly everything you buy online — see for yourself with this tool
Video
- “Islam in Liberalism” featuring Professor Joseph Massad on 10/4/2018
- Chelsea Manning’s Statement on Release from Jail and Second Grand Jury Subpeona
- Various Re:publica talks, for example:
- Eben Moglen: Why Freedom of Thought Requires Attention
- Frank Rieger: Cyberwar, hybride Kriegführung, Desinformation
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