“Border-Walls, Fire-Walls, Sea-Walls: Setting Global-Cultural Limits 30 Years after Berlin 1989.”
Events at the University of Florida this fall titled “Border-Walls, Sea-Walls, Firewalls: Global-Cultural Resources as Limits” are already in planning. For information on the events involving Historian David Frye, which are already planned and financed from the Waldo W. Neikirk fund, please see: https://songs.clas.ufl.edu/border-walls-fire-walls-sea-walls/.
2019 Campus Weeks support from the German Embassy will enable UF to continue a decade old consideration of Walls and their cultural significance – with the Berlin Wall as a central focal point — that began with the Freedom without Walls” Campus Weeks in 2009 and continued with the “Future of Freedom and Walls” Campus weeks in 2017. These previous events had broad visibility on campus, locally, and globally via Facebook and YouTube publications of our events. The focal point in our with Walls has continued to be the nexus between Freedom/Walls, poetry, music, drama and the arts. This year, the focal point – expanded to include Fire Walls and Sea Walls – endeavors to include the physical and biological sciences, the College of Engineering and Design, and the College of Construction and Planning.
We propose to incorporate the Fall of the Berlin Wall “Building Block” suggested in the materials you sent us into our “Border-Walls, Sea-Walls, Firewalls” events under the independent title: “Border-Walls, Fire-Walls, Sea-Walls: Setting Global-Cultural Limits 30 Years after Berlin 1989,” including:
October, 2019
-Op Ed Writing Contest: Starting with the Berlin Wall and lessons that can be drawn from its history, students will be invited to suggest how best to set global-cultural limits 30 years after Berlin 1989, paying special attention to the roles to be played (or not) by different kinds of walls. First, second, and third prize winners to be announced November 14. (FYI—here is the winning Op Ed from our 2017 Campus Weeks: https://www.gainesville.com/opinion/20171116/romy-rajan-walls-are-more-about-symbolism-than-protection). Here is an op ed describing the original “Freedom without Walls events in 2009: https://www.gainesville.com/article/LK/20091108/News/604164377/GS/
-Two Film Screenings with introductions by UF faculty: Following the successful model of the 2017 Campus Weeks film festival related to our “Future of Freedom and Walls” events that year, two films addressing major challenges connected to the “Setting Global-Cultural Limits 30 Years after Berlin 1989” topic will be screened, with introductions by UF faculty: “Climate Refugees” (2006; http://www.climaterefugees. com/) and “The Age of Consequences” (2017; http://theageofconsequences.com/). These films focusing on climate migration and its probable consequences compellingly show how questions pertaining to environmental sustainability will inevitably spill over into broader question regarding the sustainability of democratic political institutions and, seemingly inevitably, to the employment of different kinds of Walls, for better or worse. The faculty introductions to these films will ask students to reflect on how, since Berlin 1989, primarily politically- and/or economically-determined migration patterns are merging ever more increasingly and tangibly with climate-determined migration patterns, calling for new kinds of solutions to new kinds of problems.
-Student Projects: Three student working groups will be formed to develop foamboard projects focusing on Border-Walls, Fire-Walls, and Sea-Walls respectively. In connection with the essay topic above, students will be encouraged to think creatively, innovatively, and inventively about these different kinds of Walls (whether as problems or solutions), how they have been used in the past, how they are being used now, and how they could/should be used to address likely problems and challenges of the future. Projects will be displayed and presented by the groups on the November 14 Commemorative Evening. Funding supports costs associated with the production of pictorial display on large panel boards (involving costs of panel boards, paints, markers, prints, photographs, etc.). Some 3D-Printing costs might also be covered (subject to prior approval).
-Guest Speaker Lecture and Panel Discussion with UF faculty and students. I am currently corresponding with Susanne Götze (free journalist, Berlin) about the possibility of her being our guest speaker and panelist. She is a regular contributor to Die Zeit and is author of Land Unter im Paradies: Reportagen aus dem Menschenzeitalter https://www.oekom.de/nc/buecher/vorschau/buch/land-unter-im-paradies.html-. In her lecture, Ms. Götze will be invited to present her own thoughts on “Setting Global-Cultural Limits 30 Years after Berlin 1989,” and an ensuing discussion among Ms. Gotze and UF faculty in
the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the College of Journalism will address the same theme from different disciplinary and personal perspectives. Here, too, a central question will be how, since Berlin 1989, primarily politically- and/or economically-determined migration patterns are merging ever more increasingly and tangibly with climate-determined migration patterns, calling for new kinds of solutions to new kinds of problems.
November, 2019
-Commemorative Evening: The events will culminate on Thursday, November 14, with a Commemorative Evening in remembrance of the November 9th Kristallnacht, the 30th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and our own UF “Freedom without Walls” and “Future of Freedom and Walls” commemorations in 2009 and 2017 (November 9th proper falls on the preceding Saturday this year, hence the later date for the Commemorative Evening). The Border-Walls, Fire-Walls, and Sea-Walls Groups will display and present their projects. Winners of the essay contest will be announced and will read their Op Ed pieces. Our guest speaker (foreseeably Susanne Götze) will speak. I have already been in touch with Axel Zeissig, Vice Consul of the Miami German Consulate, about the possibility of the new incoming German Consul General attending and speaking on that evening. Finally, I have spoken twice on the phone with former U.S. Senator and Florida Governor Bob Graham about this commemorative event (as chance would have it, November 9 is also his birthday and he has memories of his own travels in Berlin with his wife in 1961 months before the wall began to be built). Senator Graham is interested in attending and speaking and plans to confirm his participation at the end of August. This commemoration will be held in the Ocora Room of Pugh Hall on the University of Florida Campus, adjacent to the Bob Graham Center for Public Service. I expect that higher UF administraters will also be interested in speaking on this auspicious occasion.