Humboldt University Berlin

This course introduces students to various philosophical and sociological perspectives for analyzing and comparing welfare states. After defining the basic varieties of welfare states, the course explores how individuals interact with the welfare state and the role that politics, family, and the market have on the funding and distribution of welfare programs. To this end, students examine in depth several case studies from different countries. The course also incorporates philosophical justifications for each type of welfare state as well as any social justice implications.

This course for foreign students is designed to improve students’ language skills and vocabulary. Areas of focus include grammar, conversation, writing exercises, and listening and reading exercises. In addition, excursions are planned to introduce students to German culture. Students work with cultural and historical topics in everyday situations and broaden their intercultural knowledge. They are introduced to independent learning methods and familiarize themselves with typical learning situations at German universities. In this class at the A1 level according to CEFR, students are introduced to basic grammar points and learn basic vocabulary. All four skills are developed and applied to everyday situations and some study-related situations. The A1 level is split into two courses, the A1.1 course covers the first half of the level and the A1.2 course covers the second half of the level.

The course approaches legacy of the settler colonialism in Germany and the U.S., and it critically explores the forms it takes such as hobbyism, Indianthusiasm, Indigenous identity theft, cultural appropriation, and environmental racism. It also provides space for Indigenous voices regarding the issues, thus bringing the decolonizing approach into practice. Participants are expected to create their own research projects approaching the central research question from more specific dimensions (historical, cultural studies, and decolonial perspectives).

This seminar invites participants into a process for deepening their/our understanding of key concepts and practices in the digital mediation of culture, in the interests of a greater shared awareness and agency within the overwhelming, epochal processes referred to generally as digitalization. In lectures, readings, site visits, and group discussion, the course offers useful theoretical bases for approaching digitalization as a/the process at work on culture today. It practices critical skills for exploring and evaluating digital mediations of cultural heritage (both on-site at Berlin museums and online). And it empowers scholars/thinkers/artists/designers as producers of digital culture mediations with practical tools for developing and pitching effective concepts. The course takes Berlin’s cultural landscape as a field and the newly completed Humboldt Forum as a special object of study, drawing on the teacher’s professional experiences from 2015 to 2020 in the development and implementation of the Humboldt Forum digital concept for offer on-site and behind-the-scenes perspectives. The course invites participants to identify the issues, questions, or processes in culture that most concern them and support them in formalizing and refining constructive proposals of their own.