Campus Tour Through Europe: YUFE Academy

How does a European University feel? YUFE Academy is supposed to give a first impression of that in a series of online events by the ten universities involved in this EU project. Main topic this year: European identity and responsibility in a global world. The University of Bremen was prominently involved with a quite critical view on Europe. 

It does not exist, the one European identity. Europe’s wealth consists in its diversity, in its multitude of cultural identities, and in its multilingualism. This was advice from Shalini Randeria for the European universities: to not talk about the one European identity but, instead, to discuss the manifold visions making up Europe and to also impart this within the curricula. Prof. Shalini Randeria, holder of an Excellence Chair at the University of Bremen, spoke about ‘Decentering Europe’ on November 17. More than sixty participants followed the discussion between Jens Adam from the department of anthropology and cultural research and Shalini Randeria. The social anthropologist conducts research and teaches in Vienna and Geneva among others and currently establishes a working group on ‘Soft Authoritarianisms’ in Bremen.

In November and December, several different events are being held each week at the YUFE Academy (Young Universities for the Future of Europe). Originally devised as a conference over several days in one place, all lectures are now held online due to the pandemic and are, therefore, available for a broad audience. Claudia Harsch, professor at Department 10 and director of the Language Center for Higher Education in Bremen, gave a talk in November on the topic ‘Is your B2 my B2?’ Her quite entertaining speech gave a detailed account on how the classifications of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) come about, what they mean, and what they could have in common with the contents of a mojito.