#UCL Women’s Liberation
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Feminists hold a conference and not only does a TRA assault a woman but one of the protesters is a violent ex-con TIM, yet TRAs claim to the victims of hateful ideology.
A conference held in support of women’s sex-based rights was protested by trans activists yesterday. Among them was a violent convict known for having been England’s longest-serving transgender inmate.
University College London hosted a one-day conference yesterday centered around panel discussions on education and women’s rights. The sold-out event was organized by the UCL Women’s Liberation special interest group and Women’s Place UK, with support from Southall Black Sisters and FiLiA.
Among the event’s participants were many known for their vocal critiques of gender ideology, including Sex Matters’ executive director Maya Forstater, journalist Helen Joyce, and writer Julie Bindel.
Shortly after the conference began, reports emerged that protesters had gathered outside of the UCL lecture hall where the event was taking place.
A crowd of approximately 20 trans activists began banging on the windows and screaming expletives in an effort to interrupt the women inside. Counter-protestors similarly gathered to support the event, recording the trans activist rage at the conference continuing.
“You try to deny our existence, well — f*ck you!” One activist screamed into an amplified microphone. “Literally f*ck you. This is our university. This is our space. You are not welcome here. We will make sure you will never ever be here again!”
As the conference began, two lecturers who co-direct qUCL, a campus research group focused on queer theory, released a statement comparing it to “eugenics.”
Hours into the event, women’s rights advocate Katy Worley, also known on social media as DJ Lippy, was assaulted by a trans activist who aggressively wrangled her phone from her as she had been filming the protestors. Worley was interviewed by police on the incident, who reportedly left her feeling “blamed” for her own assault.
“The police were pretty useless, actually,” Worley told Reduxx. “The guy attacked me as I was out of the main college [campus]. I was actually just about to go home. He tried to get my phone off of me… he threw it over a wall, and I just grabbed ahold of him by his rucksack because I didn’t want him to leave. I told him ‘you can’t do this, it’s unacceptable.’ I started screaming for security.”
Worley says police arrived about one hour after the incident, and began questioning her on the attacker’s motivations.
“They asked me ‘why do you think he did that?’ It’s like they wanted me to prove motivation. And it’s not really a victim’s job to provide motivation to the police.” Worley says she tried to tell the police about the protest, but became emotional as she interacted with them due to their apparent lack of concern for her. But as she continued with them, a group of women who had hosted a workshop at the conference came to her aid.
Kate Coleman, director of Keep Prisons Single Sex, as well as another woman who was a former police chief superintendent, butted in to help Worley in her conversation with police. No arrests were made, and Worley doesn’t believe anything more is being done with her report.
“I doubt anything will be done. They didn’t even take a description of the assailant until I prompted them.”
According to social media updates provided by her significant other, Worley was left with dark bruising on her arm and swelling in her hand from the attack.
This is not Worley’s first time being assaulted at such an event. In November of 2022, a similar incident occurred during which Worley was manhandled by a trans activist who attempted to stop her from recording with her phone camera. Worley was interviewed by police, and the assailant was taken into custody.
While many of the trans activists at yesterday’s protest claimed to be students at UCL, there were outsiders within the crowd. Among them was a notorious convict known for being England’s longest-serving transgender inmate.
Sarah Jane Baker, born Alan Baker, spent 30 years in prison for multiple violent crimes. Baker was initially sentenced for kidnapping and torturing his stepmother’s brother, but received additional time after attempting to murder a cellmate.
While incarcerated, Baker became vocal on the issue of trans-identified males in prison, often claiming to be the victim of systemic mistreatment for being kept in the male prison estate.
In 2013, Baker made headlines when he first began identifying as “Sarah,” billing taxpayers £10,000 for what media referred to as his “sex change.” Baker once boasted that he never wanted to be freed, describing himself as a “professional prisoner.”
During a 2009 hearing, he claimed to be quite pleased with his time in custody, stating: “I am happy to be locked away. Doing bird is the one thing I excel at. I have no responsibility, free food, laundry, healthcare, a job and my Open University course costs me nothing.”
Baker was released in 2019, after which he began to brand himself as both a trans rights activist and a prison abolitionist. Baker has turned up at multiple protests intended to denigrate women who oppose gender ideology. In June of 2021, Baker was photographed at London’s Pride Parade holding signs which read, “Be Trans, Do Crime.” Another sign in an identical style which read “Kill JK Rowling” was placed on the Bomber Command Memorial, prompting speculation that Baker was responsible for the death threat.
During Saturday’s protest at UCL, Baker was seen wearing his characteristic red beret and hurling abuse at the women’s rights advocates.
“Trying to make us scared? You f*cking c*nts!” Baker was filmed yelling. “Trying to make us afraid? To walk on our own streets?”
Baker has stated his intention to be “the next transgender member of parliament” for the Richmond Park district in London, and will be putting his name forward in upcoming elections.
By Anna Slatz Anna is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Reduxx, with a journalistic focus on covering crime, child predators, and women's rights. She lives in Canada, enjoys Opera, and kvetches in her spare time.
#University College London#UCL Women’s Liberation#Women’s Place UK#Southall Black Sisters#FiLiA#Maya Forstater#Helen Joyce#Julie Bindel#Police don’t do shit to protect women#Sarah Jane Barker is Alan Baker#Trans people and DARVO
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FREE PDF DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE!
Women in the History of Science brings together primary sources that highlight women’s involvement in scientific knowledge production around the world. Drawing on texts, images and objects, each primary source is accompanied by an explanatory text, questions to prompt discussion, and a bibliography to aid further research. Arranged by time period, covering 1200 BCE to the twenty-first century, and across 12 inclusive and far-reaching themes, this book is an invaluable companion to students and lecturers alike in exploring women’s history in the fields of science, technology, mathematics, medicine and culture.
While women are too often excluded from traditional narratives of the history of science, this book centres on the voices and experiences of women across a range of domains of knowledge. By questioning our understanding of what science is, where it happens, and who produces scientific knowledge, this book is an aid to liberating the curriculum within schools and universities.
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Resource List
Bailey, M., Trudy. (2018) ‘On Misogynoir: citation, erasure and plagiarism’ Feminist media Studies, 18(4) pp. 762-768 [online] [Accessed on 20th October 2019] DOI:10.1080/146800777.2018.1447395
Beale, F. (1969) Black Woman’s Manifesto; Double Jeopardy: To Be Black And Female http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/196.html
Beyoncé (2014) Beyoncé - ***Flawless ft. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [online video] [Accessed on 20th October 2019] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyuUWOnS9BY
Blevins, C. (2017) How Music Has Influenced The Feminist Movement. March 1st. Voice [online] [Accessed on 21st October 2019] https://medium.com/@VoiceMonthly/how-music-has-influenced-the-feminist-movement-d58d99a7fdab
Canosa, S. (2014) ‘Modern Feminism: The Role Of Feminism In Music’. Highbrow Magazine. [online] 4th April [Accessed on 20th October 2019] https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3879-modern-feminism-role-women-music
Crenshaw, Kimberle (1989) "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics," University of Chicago Legal Forum [online] 1989(1) pp. 139-167
Available at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=ucl
For Harriet (2017) Thank A Black Feminist [Online Video] [Accessed 19th October 2019] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdjpY9gm_GA
Hawking, T. (2013) Why ‘Beyonce’ Makes Me Want To Die. 13th December. Flavorwire.com. [online] [Accessed 20th October 2019] https://www.flavorwire.com/429583/why-beyonce-makes-me-want-to-die
Hill Collins, P. (2005) In Ritzer, G. (ed) Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications, pp. 485
Johnson, M.Z, (2015) ’The Black Feminist’s Guide to the Racist Sh*t That Too Many White Feminists Say’ Everyday Feminism. [online] 24th June [Accessed on 20th October 2019] https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/black-feminists-guide-white-feminists/
Julious, B. (2017) When Feminism Meets Music: Great Songs That Sample Radical Speech. 18th October. Pitchfork. [online] [Accessed on 19th October 2019] https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/when-feminism-meets-music-great-songs-that-sample-radical-speech/
Kaloski, A. (2017) Desiring Feminism, Wanting Ch-ch-ch-changes. No date. Feministseventies.net. [online] [Accessed on 21st October 2019] http://feministseventies.net/kaloski.html
Lobanova, N. (2016) This Cher Video From 1996 Is Going Viral Because Its Perfect AF. 13th September. Buzzfeed. [online] [Accessed on 23rd October 2019] https://www.buzzfeed.com/natalyalobanova/this-cher-video-from-1996-is-going-viral-because-its-perfect
Lubitz, R. (2017) Dior Is Selling A Cotton ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ T-shirt. It’s $710. 16th March. Mic.com. [online] [Accessed on 20th October 2019] https://www.mic.com/articles/171332/dior-is-selling-a-cotton-we-should-all-be-feminists-t-shirt-it-s-710
McNair, L. (2017) Taylor Swift And White Feminism. 7th September. Hercampus.com. [online] [Accessed on 22nd October 2019] https://www.hercampus.com/school/augustana/taylor-swift-and-white-feminism
Ngozi Adichie, C. (2014) We Should All Be Feminists. London: Fourth Estate
Pitchfork. (2017) When Feminism Meets Music: Great Songs That Sample Radical Speech. 18th October [online] [Accessed on 19th October 2019] https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/when-feminism-meets-music-great-songs-that-sample-radical-speech/
Primeau, J. (2016) Prince And His Career Embody Feminism In Ways You May Not Have Realized. 21ST April. Bustle.com. [online] [Accessed on 21st October 2019] https://www.bustle.com/articles/156239-prince-his-career-embody-feminism-in-ways-you-may-not-have-realized
Sabety, S. (2017) David Bowie: Feminist Icon And Liberator. 1st December. Huff Post [online] [Accessed on 19th October 2019] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/david-bowie-feminist-icon_b_8960058?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20vc2VhcmNoP3E9ZGF2aWQrYm93aWUrZmVtaW5pc3QraWNvbithbmQrbGliZXJhdG9yJmZvcm09RURHRUFSJnFzPVBGJmN2aWQ9NDEwOTE2YTBkNGJjNDBkNmIyZGMxZWE0ZWNiMWE1NTEmY2M9R0Imc2V0bGFuZz1lbi1VUyZwbHZhcj0wJlBDPUxDVFM&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFnQZyKS5ubUX8wNC-qEINKG8oKzrjN0KkzXm_iYbIHCDEdmLfCxp6BUaaakljfsOurqE0fYYbra1DL6wWKj3CRDkNlRCkagsvyaorpw15yiC-Ld4zwdNR7t_HKYWSI8uqyqTS77Js18p-uk1ibBfCt4wzY3ElkI_7YRR58w8oHY&_guc_consent_skip=1572456759&guccounter=1
Salewicz, C. (2011) ‘Poly Styrene: Singer who blazed a trail for punk’s feminist revolutionaries’ The Independent [online] 27th April [Accessed on 20th October 2019] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/poly-styrene-singer-who-blazed-a-trail-for-punkrsquos-feminist-revolutionaries-2275032.html
Slater, S. (2016) ‘Don’t Blame Beyonce For The Harsh Lives Of Garment Makers’ The Guardian. [online] 18th May. [Accessed on 22nd October 2019] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/18/beyonce-ivy-park-harsh-lives-garment-makers-fashion-branding-consumers
TEDx Talks. (2012) TEDxEuston: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – We Should All Be Feminists. [online video] [Accessed on 19th October] https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_we_should_all_be_feminists
The Culture (2016) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the Importance of Beyoncé: "There is Power in Pop Culture. No date. [online] [Accessed on 22nd October 2019] http://theculture.forharriet.com/2016/02/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-on-importance.html
Www2.mmu.ac.uk https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/media/mmuacuk/content/documents/careers/Applying-the-Gibbs-Model-2018.pdf
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2022 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2022, RIBA World Architecture Travel Prize
2022 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship News
12 April 2022
RIBA opens 2022 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for applications – open to schools of architecture globally
‘Life Between Shelters’ by Iulia Cistelecan, winner of the 2020 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship and founder of design-forgood:
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2022
Tuesday 12 April 2022 – The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has today (Tuesday 12 April 2022) opened applications for the 2022 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship.
The scholarship seeks to reward one outstanding architecture student and fund their travel to research the sustainable survival of cities and towns.
A £7,000 grant will be awarded to the winner, decided by a panel of judges including Lord Foster and RIBA President Simon Allford.
Lord Foster said:
“As a student I won a prize that allowed me to spend a summer travelling through Europe and to study first hand buildings and cities that I knew only from the pages of books. It was a revelation – liberating and exhilarating in so many ways. Today it is the privilege of the Norman Foster Foundation to support the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, which I hope will have a lasting legacy – offering the chance for discovery and the inspiration for exciting new work – for generations to come.”
RIBA President Simon Allford added:
“The Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, now in its 16th year, has enabled many talented architecture students to explore the sustainable development of cities and towns around the world. I would like to add my thanks to the Norman Foster Foundation for their continued generosity in funding this important initiative, which both opens up how we see the world and helps make our profession ever more accessible.”
Applications are open to students who are enrolled in, or have successfully completed, the first year of a professional qualification in architecture, in one of the higher education institutions invited to participate.
The deadline for submissions is 17:00 (GMT) Tuesday 7 June 2022. For more information visit: https://ift.tt/SmM5tnQ
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Winners
Past recipients of the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship:
2021: Weronika Zdziarska – Politecnico di Milano, Italy – ‘‘Don’t Stay Out Alone: addressing women’s perception of safety and freedom in cities by design.’
2020: Iulia Cistelecan – London School of Architecture – ‘‘Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow.’
2019: Siti Nurafaf Ismail – University of Malaya, Malaysia – ‘Architecture of Humility’
2018: Steven Hutt – University of Greenwich, UK – ‘East of Eden’
2017: Chloe Loader – University of Lincoln, UK – ‘Emerging Cities: Sustainable Master-Planning in the Global South’
2016: Abel Feleke – University of Western Australia – ‘Weaving the Urban Fabric: Examining the Significance of Community’
2015: Charles Palmer – University of Sheffield, UK – ‘Cycling Megacities’
2014: Joe Paxton – Bartlett (UCL), UK – ‘Buffer Landscapes 2060
2013: Sigita Burbulyte – Bath University, UK – ‘Charles Booth Going Abroad’
2012: Thomas Aquilina – University of Edinburgh – ‘Material Economies: Recycling Practices in Informal Settlements Along African Longitude 30’
2011: Sahil Bipin Deshpande – Rizvi College of Architecture, India – ‘Sanitation: A Case Study across Eight Metropolises’
2010: Andrew Mackintosh – Robert Gordon University, UK – ‘In Search of Cold Spaces’
2009: Amanda Rivera – University of Bio Bio, Chile – ‘Ancestral Cities, Ancestral Sustainability’
2008: Faizan Jawed Siddiqi – Rizvi College of Architecture, India – ‘The Role of Public Transport in Shaping Sustainable Humane Habitats’
2007: Ben Masterton-Smith – Bartlett, UK – ‘Emerging East: Exploring and Experiencing the East Asian Communist City’.
Previously on e-architect:
15 July 2021
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 Winner
Weronika Zdziarska wins 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Architecture student Weronika Zdziarska:
photo : Tomek Kaczor
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021
Weronika Zdziarska:
photo : Tomek Kaczor
Student Weronika Zdziarska:
photo : Tomek Kaczor
Weaving the Urban Fabric: Examining the Significance of Community:
photo © Abel Feleke – 2016 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient
Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD
Phone: +44 (0)20 7307 3814
The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2022 information / image received 120422
Previously on e-architect:
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Iulia Cistelecan wins 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
The 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has been awarded to Iulia Cistelecan, from the London School of Architecture, for her project ‘Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow’.
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2020
Bidibidi Refugee Settlement is a refugee camp in northwestern Uganda:
photograph : Nora Lorek
The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2019
Hong Kong Peak © Steven Hutt – 2018 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient:
image courtesy of architects
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2019
The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2017
image courtesy of architects
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2017
Norman Foster
photo of Norman Foster from HPA
Norman Foster is one of the most important architects practicing in the world. He is chairman and founder of Foster + Partners, an international practice with project offices worldwide.
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Architecture Travel Scholarship
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2015
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2014
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Winner
Architecture Awards
Pritzker Prize Architects
American Architecture Awards
American Institute of Architects Gold Medal
Stirling Prize
Norman Foster Buildings Selection
Sperone Westwater, New York, USA
Sperone Westwater Gallery
Swiss Re, London, UK
Swiss Re Building : London skyscraper
Faustino Winery, Spain
Faustino Winery Building
Millau Viaduct, France
Millau Viaduct
Website: RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Information – www.architecture.com page
Asian Architecture
Norman R. Foster Visiting Professorship Established at Yale University
Norman Foster Professorship USA
Comments / photos for the 2022 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship page welcome
Website: Foster and Partners
The post 2022 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship appeared first on e-architect.
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Witchcraft and Feminism
We speak to Elisabeth Krohn, editor of Sabat and two converts to the craft to get in touch with our inner witch.
text by Kara Kia // 30 October 2017
Don’t you ever wish you could hop on a broomstick and just fly away into the stars? Who does’t love candles, crystals, tarot cards and incense? There is something so seductive and comforting about magic, this dark sparkling power that lives inside all of us. Magic has recently become cool and sexy thanks to Charmed, Buffy, The Craft and Harry Potter, but it wasn’t always so. Once upon a time, approximately four hundred years ago, magic and witchcraft was treated very seriously.
If you were born with freckles, moles or had sex before marriage, you could be accused of making a deal with the devil. Even still in many cultures, like Nigeria and Cuba, witchcraft is very real and feared by many. In other places like London, California and Canada, the craft is experiencing a renaissance moment. Women are reclaiming their dark femininity by meeting in the woods to drink wine, sing and invoke the goddesses under the cycles of the moon. Social media is bringing the craft into the digital age and witches are more visible and globally connected than ever before.
We spoke to Elisabeth Krohn, the founder of Sabat magazine for witches. Sabat is building an online community with the #witchesofinstagram and taking orders from every inch of the globe. Elisabeth shares that a lot of feminism has become a bit surface and superficial, where witchcraft goes a bit deeper. It not only explores femininity but also dark femininity and women today are really interested in that.
“Women now have this space to explore and get down and dirty with femininity and feminine archetypes, that are not necessarily just positive or good or kind or healthy and just to explore everything. I think witchcraft is a good lens to do that through. Many women involved in feminism have turned away from spirituality because so many of the dominating religions are patriarchal systems so its liberating to not be spiritual and not be religious…
I think witchcraft is also a way to come back to a very feminine spirituality, that’s why it’s also very appealing. As a young woman today, when we have so many options, why would you put yourself in a position where your spiritual life is a part of this patriarchal system? Why would you submit yourself to that? I think it’s quite logical that women would look for something else.
The world situation is making people feel a little bit disempowered and that often makes you look to magic. It makes you look to things that are maybe irrational or intuitive or not as easily explained because you don’t trust the system or you don’t trust that Trump is going to take care of you. You kind of look to other ways of taking power and reclaiming power and I think that appeals to women and it also appeals to so many other groups like LGBTQ witchcraft.”
The more established covens are quite private but we managed to find a new moon meetup online for newcomers and converts. After calling the elements in the woods near Highgate Station, we got talking with some young witches in training to find out what draws them to the craft.
Clarissa, 28, is an ESL teacher for Korean children. She moved to London two years ago because her partner got his dream job teaching at UCL. Originally from Oakland, California, Clarissa was raised in an orthodox Baptist community. She grew up in the church, going once a week to see children and their parents getting into spirit, speaking tongues and crying for hours. This was her normal until she made friends outside the community and started questioning her spiritual autonomy. At 14, she decided to leave and started exploring the connection between femininity and the cycles of the moon. She finally found an all-female goddess group in California that became a sisterhood and support group. They would talk about the goddesses of different cultures, women’s issues on body image, menstruation, claiming your voice and your power in a man’s world. Now that she’s in London, she’s seeking something similar.
Clarissa is drawn to witchcraft as a feminist because it feels like an ancient and organic secretive thing that has existed through centuries, that has been passed on by word of mouth from woman to woman. People have tried to eliminate it forever and it’s continued on and she really likes that thought. The thought of being with women that have kept this tradition going for as long as it’s existed. She makes clear that the Wicca she speaks about is not the Wicca that was invented by British men in the 20th century, but the personal, nature based, cycle based herbal rituals that women have done in the forest for centuries. Clarissa likes that it doesn’t feel dogmatic and full of rules. Wicca feels like you can make rules that fit what feels right for you and that people can’t tell you how you should be doing things, because what feels right for you is what is right for you. That’s what compels her to keep trying to find her own thing that fits instead of settling for religious or spiritual groups that don’t fit with what she wants.
Sara, 18, works in Sales at a Call Centre. She’s originally from Jönköping, a small town southwest of Stockholm, Sweden. Her hometown was areligious, understanding Christianity more as a tradition than doctrine. She has long been exploring alternative religions but has more recently been particularly drawn to witchcraft. Even in Sara’s hometown, mothers and daughters are practicing the craft as a way to bond and explore femininity. She likes that you can make witchcraft your own, that it’s a bit different for everyone. Sara thinks it empowers young women because it makes her feel like power comes from within herself.
“I think there’s this feminism thing going on like yay! girl power! but in reality, there’s a lot of girls that think they don’t have any power when they walk on the streets at night. Like I’m all-alone, it’s not safe, I’m always a victim and I always have to be cautious. The whole protection spells, charms, makes you feel like you have some power over your fate, like I’m taking the power into my own hands.”
#the addams family#morticia addams#the craft#witchcraft#witch#wicca#harry potter#buffy the vampire slayer#buffy#charmed#the power of three#magic#magick#coven#crystals#tarot#moon#insence#candles#goddess#divine feminine#feminism
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Publications
“In response to the exceptional nature of the current crisis and the related challenges faced by States, this paper aims to offer Governments a set of practical considerations and concrete advice to enable an effective response to the pandemic while at the same time respecting international refugee law and standards.” Practical Recommendations and Good Practice to Address Protection Concerns in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic. UNHCR, Regional Bureau for Europe. 9 April 2020.
“The Guidance illustrates how to ensure continuity of procedures as much as possible while fully ensuring the protection of people’s health and fundamental rights in line with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. At the same time, it recalls the fundamental principles that must continue to apply, so that access to the asylum procedure continues to the greatest extent possible during the COVID-19 pandemic.” COVID-19: Guidance on the implementation of relevant EU provisions in the area of asylum and return procedures and on resettlement. Communication from the Commision. Official Journal of the European Union. 17 April 2020.
“As of February 2020, nearly 250 people resided in common areas and makes-shift shelters in dire conditions and more than half of the camp’s population were not registered as residents by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. In the midst of this situation, on 5 April 2020, the first COVID-19 case was detected in Malakasa and the camp has been locked-down for a 14-day quarantine.” In This Place, we have to Help Ourselves - Malakasa Camp. Refugee Support Aegean (RSA). 19 April 2020.
“The myth that immigration brings disease is a centuries-old trope used to heighten anti-immigrant fears and anxieties. To be clear, the myth of immigration and disease is not supported by the academic literature.” COVID-19 and the Remaking of US Immigration Policy? Empirically Evaluating the Myth of Immigration and Disease. Tom K. Wong. US Immigration Policy Center. University of California San Diego. 22 April 2020.
“Ethnographic fieldwork amongst 105 unauthorized migrants in the Netherlands shows that unauthorized migrants suffer from the pains of being unauthorized. These migrants feel punished and are severely hurt by – amongst others – the deprivation of healthy and secure living conditions, social and geographical mobility and citizenship.” The Pains of Being Unauthorized in the Netherlands. Mieke Kox, Miranda Boone and Richard Staring. Punishment & Society. 2020.
“Children in migration are more vulnerable than adults, particularly when they are unaccompanied. Their vulnerability makes them more exposed to violence, exploitation and trafficking in human beings, as well as physical, psychological and sexual abuse.” Children in Migration in 2019. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. 2020.
“Women were made destitute at different points during their asylum journey. But the vast majority who participated in this research became destitute after their asylum claims had been refused.” Will I Ever Be Safe? Priscilla Dudhia. Women for Refugee Women. 2020.
“No data on the number of people accessing the EU in order to submit asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) are collected in EU member states. Yet, research shows that thousands of these claims are submitted each year in these states.” Submission by Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum (SOGICA) to the 2019 report by the EU’s European Asylum Support Office. March 2020.
“This paper is an effort to make sense of the legislative and policy frameworks of protection that apply globally, regionally and domestically, and the way in which these frameworks facilitate or hinder solutions for people in protracted displacement.” Governing protracted displacement: An analysis across global, regional and domestic contexts. Ferreira, N., et al. Transnational Figurations of Displacement (TRAFIG). Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). 2020.
“The movement of thousands of people in Turkey towards the Greek border drew the issue of collective expulsion across the Evros River into view. Meanwhile, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe was used as justification for new and concerning policy at multiple points along the route, such as the proposed militarization of Slovenian borders.” Illegal Pushbacks and Border Violence Reports. Border Violence Monitoring Network. March 2020.
“In late 2015, the recently elected Liberal Government made a commitment to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees in a short period of time, in what became known as Operation Syrian Refugees. Since the launching of this Canadian operation, there has been abundant research analysing the large-scale resettlement process, its successes, limitations, and lessons for future policymaking and host communities.” Private Sponsorship in Canada: The Resettlement of Syrian Refugees in the Kitchener-Waterloo Region. Suzan Ilcan, Diana Thomaz, Manuela Jimenez Bueno. Policy Points Issue XVII. International Migration Research Centre. March 2020.
“Although the country had begun implementing measures in March 2020 to safeguard staff and inmates at the country’s prisons in response to the COVID-19 crisis, no such measures appear to have been taken with respect to people detained for immigration reasons.” Tunisia Immigration Detention Profile. Global Detention Project. March 2020.
“Whether explicitly or implicitly, narratives from refugees’ and hosts’ faith traditions play a role in framing the ways that the presence, needs and rights of refugees are understood and responded to.” Religion and Social Justice for Refugees: Insights from Cameroon, Greece, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Mexico. E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Z. Grewal, U. Karunakara, A. Greatrick, A. Ager, C. Panter-Brick, L. Stonebridge and A. Rowlands. UCL, Yale. Bridging Voices, British Council. March 2020.
“Belgium has adopted increasingly hardening immigration and asylum policies, including an expansion of its detention system. But the COVID-19 crisis has spurred the country to temporarily reduce its immigration detention capacity by half, to some 300 beds, while the Immigration Office has temporarily halted the registration of new asylum seekers.” Belgium Immigration Detention Profile. Global Detention Project. March 2020.
“From Australia’s on-going disregard for the rights of refugees ensnared in its offshore processing system to the escalating controls implemented by the United States on its border with Mexico—where hundreds of thousands of children were detained last year—it is clear that the world’s leading liberal democracies continue to be captivated and motivated by the fear of a never ending refugee and migration ‘crisis.’” Global Detention Project Annual Report 2019. Global Detention Project. 19 March 2020.
“This article looks closely at the prospects for the GCR in sub-Saharan Africa based on the need to shift from a humanitarian system of “care and maintenance” to comprehensive and effective development responses to refugee crises.” Building Blocks and Challenges for the Implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees in Africa. Sergio Carciotto and Filippo Ferraro. Journal on Migration and Human Security, Center for Migration Studies. 18 March 2020.
“As Africa deals with more challenges to regional stability than it can readily handle, South Africa’s re-emergence as a leader in conflict prevention would be good for Pretoria, good for a continent that continues to prefer African solutions to African problems and good for the people of conflict-affected areas.” Four Conflict Prevention Opportunities for South Africa’s Foreign Policy. International Crisis Group. 27 March 2020.
“I have, therefore, determined that it is in the foreign policy interests of the United States to extend the DED wind-down period for current Liberian DED beneficiaries through 10 January 2021, to facilitate uninterrupted work authorization for those currently in the United States under DED who are eligible to apply for LPR status under the LRIF provision.” Memorandum on Extending the Wind-Down Period for Deferred Enforced Departure for Liberians. US President Donald Trump. 30 March 2020.
“What follows is a snapshot of how these and other issues are playing out across major humanitarian and displacement crises. The information and analysis in this report reveal key principles and recommendations that should be part of any effective humanitarian response to the pandemic.” COVID-19 and the Displaced. Refugees International. 30 March 2020.
“All information provided in this report is based on direct assistance provided to asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection as well as information received for advocacy interventions and studies/assessments, and on information obtained from the authorities.” Country Report: Cyprus - 2019 - updated. Corina Drousiotou, and Manos Mathioudakis. Cyprus Refugee Council and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). Asylum Information Database. April 2020.
“This report draws on statistical information obtained from the competent administrative agencies, information obtained through the monthly contact meetings between the asylum authorities and civil society, analysis of legislation, practices and case law.” Country Report: Belgium - 2019 - updated. Flemish Refugee Action and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). Asylum Information Database. April 2020.
“This report draws on information provided by the Office for Foreigners, the Border Guard, the Refugee Board, Voivods, and NGOs in writing and in oral interviews.” Country Report: Poland - 2019 - updated. Karolina Rusiłowicz, and Ewa Ostaszewska-Żuk. Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). Asylum Information Database. April 2020.
“The information in this report was obtained through observations from Accem’s practice and engagement with relevant stakeholders, including the Office for Asylum and Refuge (OAR), UNHCR, Save the Children, as well as non-governmental organisations.” Country Report: Spain - 2019 - updated. Magdalena Queipo de Llano and Jennifer Zuppiroli. Asociación Comisión Católica Española de Migración (Accem) and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). Asylum Information Database. April 2020.
“This report draws on jurisprudence of the Federal Administrative Court, publicly available statistics by the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), press releases of the SEM and the Federal Council, information and statistics provided by the SEM upon request, newspaper articles, documents from the political process, and the experience of the Swiss Refugee Council,” Country Report: Switzerland - 2019 - updated. Adriana Romer, Guillaume Bégert, Lucia Della Torre and Laura Rezzonico. Swiss Refugee Council and the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE). Asylum Information Database. April 2020.
“Chinese embassy officials tell Uyghurs that the only way to renew a passport is to return to China. Those Uyghurs who have returned to China have disappeared.” Weaponized Passports: The Crisis of Uyghur Statelessness. Uyghur Human Rights Project. April 2020.
“With New York and much of the country in lockdown, immigrant workers are sustaining the economy and helping to keep Americans healthy and safe.” In New York State, 1.8 Million Immigrants Work in Essential Businesses. Center for Migrations Studies, New York. April 2020.
“Amnesty International has received credible, consistent, and disturbing accounts by detainees of dangerous conditions in ICE’s immigration detention facilities, which needlessly put all those detained there at a higher risk of contracting Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).” USA: “We are Adrift, About to Sink.” Amnesty International. April 2020.
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Because there are endless trumpposters on this site i swear i have never posted to before, yet have me blocked for whtaeever reason, such as the OP, preventing me to reblog shit; ill just cappost to @siryouarebeingmocked @thespectacularspider-girl
I hope this answers your question:
London's mayor, Sadiq Khan said urgent action needed to be taken in light of the "shocking" statistics, as the British capital prepares to celebrate Pride weekend.
"I want London's LGBT+ community to feel truly valued, happy and safe in our great city and know how important these spaces are to its well being," said Khan in a statement.
Many LGBT pubs and nightclubs are thriving businesses but rent hikes from landlords and construction for London housing and public transport projects have forced many to close their doors, the report said.
Some of the city's iconic gay bars, such as the Black Cap pub in north London and the Joiners Arms to the east, have closed down as part of plans to redevelop them.
Ben Campkin, senior lecturer in architecture at UCL, said LGBTQ spaces remain vital, despite social media making it easier for LGBT people to communicate.
"The ... evidence we have collated disputes unsubstantiated but often repeated claims that LGBTQ+ spaces are no longer needed, or have been replaced by digital apps, which tend only to serve small sections of these communities," said Campkin.
"Where they have survived, LGBTQ+ spaces are extremely valuable... and the consequences of closures are acutely felt."
Petitions and protests at the closure of historic central London venues have drawn support from hundreds of patrons, but they have limited power to resist large property owners and off-shore investors leading redevelopment projects, the report said.
Campkin recommends London's boroughs should recognize the importance of LGBT venues in their local plans and conduct assessments when developments threaten gay bars, nightclubs or music venues.
TL;DR
Straight liberals who cant stop jerking themselves off to queers are shocked to find out that moving into gay neighbourhoods to get closer to and live in “progressive and diverse” areas (see: diverse but not around the poor brown people that mostly inhabit contemporary urban London) where they feel can see gay people hold hands and be neighbours to drag queens, so they can feel awesome flying their rainbow flag in solidarity with their new neighbours and feel leftier than thou; has the effect of driving rent and real estate costs up or having gay spaces snapped up by developers to cater to these well-off straight people wanting to be close to the exotic and fun gay culture they purport to great allies to.
Ask any gay person or drag queen what they feel about this and they will sneer and roll their eyes at the increasing rate that straight women come to their clubs and bars to try and befriend drag queens (especially in this post-rupaul era) and evade the aggressive straight men at their own venues. Hell, sometimes they bring their “accepting and totally cool with gay people” boyfriend. Past that, the queer community looks at the new condos and stores that pop up in their neighbourhood with resent, as their community gradually erodes away to these hordes of straight people transforming a historically gay area into a “trendy spot”
It’s hilarious, the hamfist method that Sadiq Khan and London’s council will try and save the queer community in their city, when it’s their own civic planning, rapid demographic changes, and income disparity that is to blame for the rapid destruction of the queer community they desperately want to protect.
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"I grew up in East London and my school was very diverse, and though diversity doesn't mean racism is non-existent, I still felt quite safe where I was. I was very well-read as a child and so read a lot about racism and xenophobia out there, but it hit me when I was on a school trip in Plymouth and a man screamed at me and my friends: 'we have no mosques here!' - I felt an overwhelming fear and for so long didn't want to leave London again. That's when it hit me that people have these prejudices and they don't like you, and I'd ask my teachers: 'Am I British? Can I be both Somali and British?' - It made me investigate myself, about ideas of race and racism, and that's how I got to where I am today. - My first ever lecture started with me being told that UCL was the radical alternative to Oxbridge, and that it was the first higher academic institution to accept both women and people of colour. Eighteen-year old me was stunned and thought UCL was so liberal and cool, and I was proud of it. Then the news broke of the eugenicist conference that was taking place, and at the same time I was taking a module where we learned about UCL's history with white supremacy and eugenicism, and it was then that I began to realise how this institution has used it's spaces to create a narrative of its history which tends to brush over these realities. - The Main Library has a painting of Jeremy Bentham, our 'spiritual' founder, directing the construction of this institution, all the while the fact that many men who worked at this institution - like Pearson and Petrie - were able to use its backing to go to places in Africa and write about "savages" and conduct experiments which today still have a profound impact on our knowledge and understanding of black history is very much hidden and overlooked." - Taken for @humansofucl with a Sony A6000 📸 #humansofucl #humans #portrait #portraiture #photography #photo #candid #interview #stories #inspiration #life #ucl #blackhistory (at UCL) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bor033YHRK7/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1639mbz8lol1g
#humansofucl#humans#portrait#portraiture#photography#photo#candid#interview#stories#inspiration#life#ucl#blackhistory
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from 'RittenhouseTL' for all things Timeless https://ift.tt/2Kagbqj
via Istudy world
Starlight & Strange Magic, Chapter 8: In Which Lucy’s Life Becomes Unnecessarily Difficult
Rating: M
Summary: Lucy Preston, a young American woman, arrives in England in 1887 to teach history at Somerville College, Oxford. London is the capital of the steam and aether and automatonic world, and new innovations are appearing every day. When she meets a mysterious, dangerous mercenary and underworld kingpin, Garcia Flynn, her life takes a turn for the decidedly too interesting. But Lucy has plenty of secrets of her own – not least that she’s from nowhere or nowhen nearby – and she is more than up for the challenge.
Available: AO3
Previous: In Which Extremely Stupid Deeds Are Done
Lucy spends a pleasant afternoon absorbed in research at the Bodleian, in the reading rooms and the sixteenth-century Duke Humfrey’s Library, which looks more wizardly than ever. As she waits for the elderly archivist to take his sweet time at fetching out various books and manuscripts, it half-seems to be whispering in dusty parchment voices, edged like the elegant finials of gothic script, the shadows shifting in a way that seems to be entirely without reference to the gauzy light through the high arched windows. As warned, there are a few uppity young men in jackets and ties, getting a jump on their Michaelmas reading and throwing Lucy arch looks. They seem just short of walking up to her and demanding to know if she can quote Cicero in Latin or The Odyssey in Greek, but she politely and deliberately ignores them, and they apparently think better of it.
Nonetheless, as enjoyable as the experience is, aesthetically speaking, Lucy still isn’t getting as much done in her research as she would like. She reminds herself that it is just one afternoon, that no scholar in the history of this or any universe found all the answers in one day, and that the only way to get anywhere is to keep on plodding, picking out information bit by bit, identifying small clues or references and following up from there. It would help if she knew what texts or authors to ask for specifically, who is recognized as an expert on aether science or the history of magic. There is not one of Ada’s Analytical Engines here like there is at UCL, and Lucy gets the sense that it might be regarded as a heresy and affront to proper scholarship to have a machine mindlessly pick out potentially relevant texts, according to an artificial algorithm. That sort of shortcutting is all well and good for lesser intellectuals, but not at Oxford. No sirree bob. You did not get into here because you were thick.
Lucy is tempted to tell them that everywhere will end up using computers, even Oxford, but that doesn’t help her at the moment. She is also aware that if a newcomer turns up and starts trying to pull all the Restricted Section books, word will get around. Magic might be part and parcel of this world, as unremarkable to this England as rain on bank holidays and losing major football matches is to the other one, but it is also dangerous. Oxford is more able to get away with it than other places, but there are limits. Lucy already drew enough attention in London, and until she goes at least a fortnight without more trouble, she needs to be careful.
Thus, she calls a halt as dusk is falling and the reading rooms are about to close. The light is purple and atmospheric and broody as Lucy steps out onto Broad Street, and bells are sounding across the city, Evensong services at various college chapels. Streetlamps fire on in flares of aetheric glow, and she can’t help but look warily for more tockers. Rittenhouse can’t have hijacked all of them, though. At least she damn well hopes not.
Lucy starts to walk, since it’s not far, and jumps when a vaucanson clicks past on the cobbles, clockwork spinning in its engine. She wonders how long it will take Dodgson to build a prototype to communicate with home, and decides that it is probably longer than twenty-four hours and she shouldn’t go rushing back tomorrow morning. He said he’d send word. No use breathing down his neck. And right now, she wants to get back before it’s completely dark.
Thankfully, she manages to make it to Somerville without an incident – it’s been two whole days without one, she is in danger of getting spoiled. She eats dinner in Hall, which is an informal affair compared to last night, and strikes up a conversation with the middle-aged woman seated next to her. It isn’t until several minutes in that the other introduces herself as Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake, here to give some guest medical lectures, and Lucy has a giddy fangirl meltdown which she has to try very hard not to show. Dr. Jex-Blake is basically the reason women can attend elite British universities at all, was the leader of the “Edinburgh Seven” who fought to gender-integrate the famous Scottish medical school in 1869, founded medical schools for women in Edinburgh in London, and is a leading campaigner for women’s education and liberation. (She is also a lesbian, as she and one Dr. Margaret Todd have been together for many years.) If Lucy recalls, however, she is a notoriously brusque and impatient teacher who even gets sued by her students at one point, so any Somerville girls taking her lectures had better make sure they bring their A-game.
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Holocaust Education. Reflections on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau
This week I took my 15-year old son on a trip to Krakow in Poland. Once we’d decided to go, the central feature of the trip was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau – just an hour outside Krakow. As we anticipated, it was a profound experience.
My personal experience of learning about the Holocaust has been patchy. Having never studied WWII or Nazi Germany at school, I’ve pieced together my understanding of what happened throughout my adulthood. ‘Understanding’ has two senses. There’s knowledge of the facts about the sequence of events and key people and places- and then there’s an appreciation of the relative scale and significance of events in historical terms and, most importantly, in terms of human tragedy. It’s this last part that is so hard to grasp.
I remember reading Sophie’s Choice at university. I watched the Holocaust TV series and I’ve since seen numerous films that reference the concentration camps. Some, like Boy in the Striped Pyjamas massively distort the facts but convey the emotions. Others like Schindler’s List seem more realistic but still largely leave you to imagine the scale of events.
When I was 19 I went to Israel and visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, It’s a powerful experience – the deep solemnity and reverence is powerful. Memorials are important and the work of various holocaust education groups is vital. In my last school I met holocaust survivor Janine Webber when we hosted the annual Holocaust Memorial Day event on January 27th (anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz). She described the harrowing events that shaped her childhood as she grew up in Nazi-occupied Poland including the story of her father’s death and her eventual separation from her family:
“One day we were warned that the Gestapo would be coming, so my parents dug a hole under the wardrobe which was in our room, and when we heard the German soldiers approaching we hid in the hole: my mother, my brother and myself. But there was no room for my father and my grandmother.”
Another haunting story was the time Janine saw the boots of the Nazi officer who murdered her father as she cowered beneath her bed. The image haunted her, and she continued to experience nightmares until she was in her 70s. She’d escaped and lived on a flea-ridden bed alone for several months in a barn, aged 9, fed by a farmer who kept her hidden. The loneliness and grief she experienced at that time were unimaginable.
On another occasion, at the planting of the Anne Frank Memorial Tree in Highbury Fields, Dr. Eva Schloss, 87, told stories from her time in hiding in Amsterdam during the war, and her subsequent time spent in Auschwitz at the age of just 15. Her father and brother were killed at the concentration camp.
These encounters with facts and stories from the Holocaust have been important but until this week, I don’t think I had fully grasped the nature of what took place: the sheer scale of the deliberate, determined, systematic, industrial genocide and the inhumanity of the philosophy of racial supremacy that drove it. At Auschwitz all of these things become completely vivid.
From the moment you walk under the Arbeit Macht Frei gate and see the train track, the barbed wire and the lines of brick barracks, there’s an eery hush. The thousands of visitors trudge solemnly around the buildings as the guides create a mood of serious reflection sustained throughout the whole visit. The different buildings in Auschwitz I give you a sense of the enterprise: prisoners in brutal living conditions; extermination rooms; standing-only cells; buildings devoted to medical experiments; the death wall for executions. You get a sense of the SS officers going about their work with a kind of zealous determination, with the guide informing us of the wider mission driven by Hitler and the Nazi ideology to repopulate parts of Poland with German Reich families.
The photographs capture the nature of the process: trains arriving loaded with people unaware of the fate that awaited them; the separation of people who would be kept for labour and those who would proceed to immediate extermination in the gas chambers. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the visit was seeing the collections of possessions. This is where you get a sense of each of the individual tragedies: the shoes – all styles, all sizes including those belonging to small children – the glasses; a room full of hair; the suitcases; the prosthetic limbs: all traces of the lives of real individual people, often lost in the scale of the genocide. In one of the buildings, the corridors are lined with photographs of men and women – all in their striped uniforms with their death date recorded, usually just a few months after their arrival. The individual faces help to cut through the desensitising effect of the scale.
Where Auschwitz I gives you a feeling for the personal tragedy, Auschwitz II ( Birkenau) reveals the full scale of it. It’s hard to put it into words. You have to see it. This was the product of the depraved logic of the Final Solution. Line after line of barracks, many demolished, some still standing and some re-built for the museum. It goes off into the distance. Here barracks with stone floors and wooden frames were crammed with 400 prisoners seven to a bed, sometimes over-filled to house 700 people; sanitary conditions were desperate; it was freezing in winter. People died constantly from starvation, disease and the cold. And these were the people kept from immediate extermination. The conditions were so bad in Birkenau that Auschwitz I was called ‘the hotel’ by comparison. Everyone there was in constant fear of execution which was a daily event.
For me, the biggest impact of Birkenau was to see and hear about the industrial nature of the extermination process. It’s just so hard to get your head around the numbers involved. Over 1 million people were killed here in the space of around four years. At some points well over 1000 people were exterminated every day. The infrastructure and determination to enact genocide on that scale is mind-blowing: the central platform receiving trains from all over Europe; the reception blocks; the gas chambers and crematorium (destroyed but visible); the sorting of possessions – hair, gold and other artefacts – and the disposal of the ashes.
My son and I talked about how to put the scale of the extermination into perspective. We thought about 12 Wembley stadiums full to capacity – that was the easiest to imagine but still incomprehensible. Each one of those people someone with a future, a character, family, hopes, dreams….human. And this was one-sixth of the number who were killed in the Holocaust as a whole in the other camps and killing sites across Europe.
We talked about the mentality of the people involved; those who enacted the mechanics of the operation, the relentless daily cruelty and degradation, the sheer scale of the death toll – and the mindset you would need to contribute to that, even if you feared for your own life. This is what humans are capable of doing when they lose perspective on what it means to be human, when they lose touch with what ‘humanity’ is and the truth of our absolute equality regardless of faith or ethnic origin. It’s staggering that this happened only 70 years ago. Of course there have been other genocides since – so we can’t be complacent about the extent to which we have learned the lessons.
I came away feeling more strongly than ever that Holocaust education must feature in every child’s education – alongside a drive to challenge antisemitism and racism of all kinds. A few assemblies and memorial events are unlikely to be enough even though they are a start. This should be core taught history for everyone – surely? What else could be more important than this?
Here are some websites that provide a good introduction with some excellent video resources:
Auschwitz: a short history of the largest mass murder site in human history
http://ift.tt/1eKEcNC
UCL CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
http://ift.tt/2xnlfkO
Holocaust Education. Reflections on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau published first on http://ift.tt/2uVElOo
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Ultimately, what’s the cost?
Over my four years in college, I have attended 4 different schools. I spent my freshmen year at the University of Kentucky. For my sophomore year, I transferred back home and spent two years at Southwestern Illinois College. During my second year at SWIC, I applied for dual enrollment at Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville. Currently, I find myself at a small, faith-based liberal arts university in Vienna, WV, called Ohio Valley University.
Over the course of those four years, I suffered a strained ACL in my left leg, a concussion, and, most recently, an inflamed rotator cuff and UCL strain in my right arm. All of these injuries are sports related. None of them, however, resulted from a sport sanctioned by the NCAA.
These injuries all came at the hands of the fringe activity known simply as ultimate.
For those unfamiliar with the sport (or who associate the flying disc activity with drugged up hippies on the quad), ultimate is a high action, spirit-oriented sport characterized by full field throws (in excess of 70 yards), big posterizing jumps, and incredible layout catches on par with some of the best outfield plays in Major League Baseball. Its primary draws are the core beliefs of Spirit of the Game, affordability, and low risk of injury to those who play.
But those who play will tell you that injuries are regular and some can be extraordinarily gruesome. And those who play at and cover the upper echelons of the sport will tell you that the physical impact of ultimate on the human body is not understood through rigorous study, but through analogous comparison to other activities such as football, basketball, and soccer.
Plays such as this layout by Jacksonville's Andrew Carleton can result in serious injury. The affected Atlanta receiver, Sean Sears, was later diagnosed with a concussion from the hit.
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Contested jumps downfield can lead to players coming down at an awkward angle, kcausing tears in the knee and other disturbing injuries which require serious surgery and physical therapy. This incident of former Indianapolis Alley Cat and internet sensation, Brodie Smith, resulted in a torn meniscus.
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The lack of awareness in regards to injury and health of ultimate players poses a major issue for not only the advancement of the sport, but the establishment of its legitimacy. Ultimate has grown in recent years, with USA Ultimate (the national governing body of the sport in the United States) membership increasing to 53,362 registered members in 2015 (approx. 18,000 were college students), the establishment of the semi-professional American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL) in 2012, and the recognition of the sport's international governing body, the WFDF, by the International Olympic Committee in August of 2015.
But the biomechanics, exercise physiology, and overall understanding of injuries sustained in ultimate are all limited to a single statistical research paper published by a team at the School of Public Health at Harvard University in November 2014. The full paper, found here, analyzes the epidemiology and sets out to define the, "diagnoses, anatomical locations, and mechanisms of injuries," of college ultimate players in the US during the 2012 season. In other words, the researchers' sole purpose was to analyze how injuries happened and how often, but not how to prevent them or treat them.
The study was made up of 53 women's and 53 men's teams from across the United States. Unfortunately, the survey failed to define injury diagnosis due to inadequate medical staff for participating teams. Instead, the injuries were defined as injury determinations and the incidence of an individual injury was not universally recognized. For some teams, only the most serious fractures and ligament damage were counted while other teams included cuts and abrasions from an errant disc. The study also sought to record each injury based on anatomical location, injury type, how the injury occurred, and whether the incident occurred in practice or in game. The paper also measured the incidence rate (IR) as injuries per athlete-exposure (AE), with one AE being one player participating in one practice or game. Total AE for the study was 104,193.
Ultimately, the paper determined that the, "Injury patterns to college ultimate players were similar to those for athletes in other National Collegiate Athletic Association sports," implying that ultimate players were just as likely to sustain injury in the same fashion and anatomical region as athletes in other NCAA sports. 1,317 injuries were recorded across the 104,193 AE's, for an IR of 12.64 per 1000 AE. There were no significant differences between the injury rates of men and women athletes, though the severity of injury in certain regions differed significantly. Men suffered more injuries to the upper body (primarily dislocated shoulders sustained through body-ground or body-body impacts) while women were seven times more likely to tear a ligament in the knee. Overall, strains, sprains, and tears of muscles, tendons, and ligaments were the leading cause of injury, with 582 total incidents. The overall breakdown of injury mode and number of incidents per mode per gender is found below.
The primary culprits of injury in the sport are running related. The act of running on inadequately prepared muscle/ligament systems leads to sprains, hyperextension, or tearing of vital musculotendon groups in the ankles, calves, knees, and thighs. Collisions with other players while running can result in concussions, fractures in the arms, chest, and head, dislocated shoulders, and torn ligaments in the upper extremities.
As mentioned previously, this study was limited in its scope by one major factor: lack of trained medical staff or athletic trainers. This is a major issue considering the study compared the incidence rate to that of major NCAA sports and a sizeable number of training regimens, stretching programs, and injury treatments utilized in ultimate are geared for sports which only share parts of their kinesiology with ultimate. The explosive nature of football. The endurance and offensive patterns of soccer. The vertical intensity of basketball. The shoulder and elbow strain of baseball. With all of these factors being key facets of the sport, where are the in-depth studies? Furthermore, with consistent injuries to players over the history of the sport, where are the medical professionals who typically train athletes to avoid these injuries in the first place?
Both of these questions hung around for a considerable time after I strained my UCL in October of 2016. Consistent use without adequate resting and a lack of preventative care which took into account the intense distances and speeds which discs are thrown by players led to inflamation and tightening of the tendon which resulted in significant pain and damage in the right elbow. Thankfully, ready access to the training staff at my university helped me to isolate the problem and adjust my mechanics to alleviate stress to the joint. But such luxuries are not afforded to many teams, especially at the critical developmental stage most players find themselves in during college.
Over the course of the Spring 2017 semester, I conducted a small, albeit imperfect, survey to gain a rough understanding of the access teams at various competitive and divisional levels have to certified athletic trainers. The survey garnered a total of 187 responses from teams across all divisions, competitive levels, and regions in USAU, in addition to responses from two former AUDL players. The results were as follows:
- Of the 187 surveyed teams, only 50 have regular, ready access to a trained/qualified medical trainer with a specialization in sports medicine.
- Of the 54 college teams in the survey, only 9 teams have ready access to a trained/qualified medical trainer with a specialization in sports medicine. - Of the 33 high school teams in the survey, none of them have an on-staff athletic trainer in the event of on-field injuries.- Along the gender divisions, 17% (17) of open teams, 37.5% (12) of women's teams, and 35.6% (21) of mixed teams have access to trained medical staff. However, approximately 85% (43 teams) were reliant on a team member with medical experience as opposed to dedicated trainers.
(Minneapolis Drag’N Thrust’s Brian Schoenrock goes over a Boston Slow White defender in the endzone. The MNSU Blueskunk alum would fracture his wrist on the play. [Photo: Daniel Thai — UltiPhotos.com])
What was most surprising through this process, though, was the lack of care and attention to detail when communicating injuries and severity. Of the 187 survey entries, all but 3 reported an injury which prevented the affected player from full practice/game participation for a period in excess of six weeks. Of the 184 which reported at least one significant injury, only 57 (that's 30.98%) went in depth as to the exact location, incident, and severity of the injury. Of those 57, only 38 reported a visit to a sports medicine doctor to evaluate the injury and set a treatment plan for the athlete.
Almost as if to add insult to injury, the plays which result in these types of injury are largely illegal per USAU rules of play, and the players who commit these errors are typically the ones who receive the screen time from ESPN and other mainstream broadcasting groups which spread the sport to the mass public. This creates a whole different issue involving the sport's representation and mainstream following which has already been covered numerous times by outlets such as Ultiworld and Skyd Magazine.
But moving forward, what could be done to fix what is a fundamental problem with the culture of the sport? There are three key areas I feel need to be further studied.
First is preventative care and maintenance of body systems. Proper education of ultimate teams at the youth, high school, and college levels in regards to the sport is critical. I would propose a focus on flexibility of the lower body (primarily the groin, tibiofemoral and patellofemoral components of the knee, and the IT band), plyometrics found in basketball and football, and the shoulder/elbow care acronym, RAMS, in baseball (Recovery, Activation, Mobility, Strengthening).
The second focus should be the analysis of long-term and cumulative wear impact on body and system function. Several injuries which are regularly found in ultimate players such as ACL/LCL strains, IT band strains, shin splints, etc., are all associated with overuse of the legs. UCL injuries (sustained from regular, unrested overloading of the elbow through the flick [forehand] motion of throwing the disc) and rotator cuff injuries (resulting from repeated hammer and thumber throws) have become more prevalent as offensive and defensive approaches have evolved and the sport, much to the dismay of traditionalists, has continued to draw bigger, stronger, and faster athletes. This is especially true in handlers who are responsible for regular distance throwing and complete anywhere between 100 to 200 throws over the course of a six game tournament.
My third concern would be the creation of incremental exercise and stretching programs which focus on the gradual development and loosening of muscle and ligament groups before a competition. A warm-up jog with a thorough, full-body stretch and supplemental throwing warm-up, would be a good place to start for most beginning players. Incremental throwing before a practice or tournament day, progressing from 10 yards to max distance (say 65-75 yards for handlers) is a page out of the baseball playbook, but one which is dangerously overlooked by many at the beginner and intermediate levels of the sport.
youtube
#ultimate#ultimate frisbee#frisbee#flying discc#USAU#USA Ultimate#AUDL#American Ultimate Disc League#Injuries#Brodie Smith
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Intellectual and art school, champion of medieval art, but it was John Ruskin’s alleged horror of female pubic hair that was the ground breaking revelation I first heard as an undergraduate.Emma Thompson’s film Effie Gray appeared to add that he was an oppressed mummy’s boy, too. However this programme grew out of an invitation to address Speech Day at Queenswood School in Hertfordshire 2 years ago which suddenly opened up a new way of seeing him.
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The school had been named in reference to Of Queens’ Gardens, Ruskin’s famous speech and subsequently published essay about raising girls like flowers, to be educated and freed from the narrowest constraints of traditional feminine upbringing. Archivist Wendy Bird showed me photos, letters and a mini mock up of the infamous “purple horror” floaty Liberty-designed dresses that early pupils would wear for special occasions. There was a white wafting gown, too, really very Isadora Duncan, to dance like flowers. I was fascinated by the unashamedly aesthetic glamour. There were photos of the Queen Mother who came to a display back in the 1950s.
Sutton High School chemistry lab designed by teacher Annette Hunt (far right) photo taken between 1895 and 1928 (photo SHS archives)
I thought of my own memories of attending a private girls’ school, founded in 1880 and of the many like it. Their photographs of Edwardian ladies in chemistry laboratories or lined up as hockey players in long skirts and piecrust collared blouses. How did girls’ education come so rapidly to include the same ambitions of sporting and scientific prowess as boys? Did Ruskin, even before the female suffrage movement, help set that off?
I enlisted Simon and Thomas Guerrier, my regular Sunday Feature producers from HG and the H Bomb and The Fundamentalist Queen, to help me explore John Ruskin’s Victorian vision of female liberation.
Ruskin wanted to educate women only as far as they would make superior wives and companions for their empire building husbands, and raise healthy children. Toby Haydoke does a wonderful job bringing him to life for us, while Dr Matthew Sweet, author of Inventing the Victorians, gives an insight into his huge intellectual celebrity. But it wasn’t a simple revisionist thesis, to reclaim Ruskin the medievalist as a feminist. There was a prejudicial disgust at inferior races. The V&A’s excellent Lockwood Kipling exhibition catalogue on the sculptor and art and design teacher points out that Ruskin dismissed the richness of Indian art because of his insistence they were savages.
Drill at Darley St School (copyright Leeds Library and Museum)
Yet there were clearly so many revolutionary ideas brewing in his theories. At a time when reading novels was considered dangerous for female minds he promoted the idea that girls should have a wide education in science and art (though not theology) and that a “noble girl” should be given free rein in books as she would choose wisely and not be harmed. Asa Briggs’ Victorian Things quotes his advice, in a letter to a girl correspondent, about using a magnifying glass to look at crystals: “I send you one for yourself, such as every girl should keep in her waistcoat pocket always hand.”
Talking fit bodies with Dr Fern Riddell
At the British Museum Dr Fern Riddell, author of A Victorian Guide To Sex discussed Ruskin and Charles Kingsley’s fascination with the muscular bodies of the Greeks in their loose robes. The idea that healthy bodies made healthy minds would have had a political power in Victorian England, where childbirth was so dangerous and malnutrition, poverty and child labour stunted growth. But Riddell warned against giving too much credit to Ruskin and his friends, when women doctors and health campaigners were at the forefront of female education programmes around sexual health. Still isn’t there a fascinating modern legacy in women, whether homemakers or career women, obsessed with both success and strength, having abs as honed as those of Jessica Ennis Hill?
With Dr Debbie Challis and Dr Amara Thornton. 3 career women discussing Ruskin & mummies around the kitchen table
Dr Debbie Challis from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL and Dr Amara Thornton from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL offered insight into the world of adult education opening up for women who whether as archaeological explorers themselves, or night school enthusiasts, signed up to study the growing knowledge about the Egyptian and classical worlds.
At Angels Costumes with Louise Scholz-Conway
Ruskin’s focus was on middle class women as the angels of the hearth. To get an insight into what physical liberation meant to them, Simon insisted I needed to try on corsets at Angels Costumiers. The experience challenged another of my lazy assumptions – that women hated corsets. To liberate oneself from the feeling of protection and support it gave at a time when women were considered physically weaker, required a significant leap of faith.
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The dancing that schools like Queenswood promoted represented both a very Ruskinian idea of the intrinsic beauty of the feminine and a delightfully female-focussed physicality. The school staged elaborate classical and mythological based plays and masques. The development of Delacroze Eurythmics formalized aesthetic ideals amid the more traditional wholesomeness of outdoor games.
Queenswood register (Queenswood archives)
One of the most moving moments of making the programme was when Dr Wendy Bird showed me through the registers of Queenswood School. Reading the entries of when girls joined and when and why they left was an insight into changing times: In the early years many were returning home to nurse invalid relatives or to early marriage. But surprisingly fast, they are going to be teachers and increasingly to university as female colleges began to flourish.
Old Queenswood girls Diane Maclean (L) Annette Haynes (centre) Dr Jean Horton (seated)
For our programme Queenswood brought together old girls Annette Haynes, Dr Jean Horton, Diane Maclean, from the 1940s and 50s who remembered the eurythmic dancing lessons and the unexpected paths their lives took after. Some had become wives of empire, joining husbands working for Western corporations in Africa and the Far East. But many, like Dr Horton, a renowned anaesthetist in Hong Kong, never married, defying the goal Ruskin had in mind for his flower girls.
Queenswood girls today: Check out those badges
It was fun to read Ruskin’s words to Isobel Beynon, Aoife Morgan Jones and Natasha Rajan current sixth formers, and hear their opinion. Their blazers were festooned with shields and badges celebrating team success. Exactly the kind of ambition Ruskin thought so unladylike. The Victorian ladies’ schools that still thrive today, and there are many of them, have long defied the idea of producing humble helpmeets. Girls from all over the old Empire come to get a British girls’ school education. Would Ruskin flinch in horror, Effie Gray-style at the monster he’d created? Does it matter? Now more than ever a young woman finds herself entering a garden of delights thanks to the possibilities of a good well rounded education.
With gratitude to all our interviewees, but especially the staff and pupils of Queenswood School.
John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls is on Radio 3 on Sunday February 26th 2017 at 630pm and iplayer after
The making of John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls Intellectual and art school, champion of medieval art, but it was John Ruskin’s alleged horror of female pubic hair that was the ground breaking revelation I first heard as an undergraduate.Emma Thompson’s film Effie Gray appeared to add that he was an oppressed mummy’s boy, too.
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2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 Winner, RIBA World Architecture Travel Prize
2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship News
Royal Institute of British Architects News – open to schools of architecture globally
15 July 2021
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 Winner
Weronika Zdziarska wins 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Architecture student Weronika Zdziarska:
photo : Tomek Kaczor
Thursday 15th of July 2021 – The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is pleased to announce the 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient as Weronika Zdziarska, an architecture student from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, for her project ‘Don’t Stay Out Alone: addressing women’s perception of safety and freedom in cities by design’.
The annual scholarship offers £7,000 to fund research by one outstanding architecture student who demonstrates original thinking on issues relating to the sustainable survival of cities and towns.
Weronika Zdziarska:
photo : Tomek Kaczor
Zdziarska’s project will evaluate previous interventions carried out by international, regional and local organisations in South America, to improve the safety of women in cities. Five cities have been selected for evaluation, each representing different attitudes and responses to this area of research: Medellín, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay and Curitiba, Brazil.
The proposal seeks to demonstrate the relationships between gender inequality and design, and to outline best practices for building more inclusive cities.
The judging panel also commended ‘Biofuel Producing Technology; Algae: An Alternative Energy Source’ by Basant Abdelrahman from the American University in Dubai, UAE.
The 2021 judging panel comprised of:
• Norman Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank (Founder and Executive Chairman, Foster + Partners; President, Norman Foster Foundation)
• Elena Ochoa, Lady Foster of Thames Bank (Publisher and curator; Vice-President, Norman Foster Foundation)
• Professor Ricky Burdett (Professor of Urban Studies, and director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age Programme; Trustee, Norman Foster Foundation)
• Sofie Pelsmakers (Assistant Professor Sustainable Architecture and Sustainable Housing Design, Tampere University; Co-founder & Director, Architecture for Change (AfC))
• Professor Alan Jones (President, RIBA)
Student Weronika Zdziarska:
photo : Tomek Kaczor
Lord Foster said:
“The Jury was unanimous in its selection of Weronika Zdziarska’s submission as the winner. Her methodology was impressive, and her project was beautifully presented. Her decision to explore issues of gender in the public spaces of just Latin America demonstrated a sophistication in her early research which differentiated her work from that of her worthy fellow applicants.”
RIBA President Professor Alan Jones said:
“Zdziarska’s proposal was very well structured and presented, with her focus on exploring and learning from South American urban environments that have improved inclusion and safety and increased gender equality in design. As a judging panel we were inspired by her initial research and pertinence of the proposal, and her drive to investigate and address these issues on an international scale. Congratulations on this winning project – I look forward to seeing the findings of this important research.”
29 Mar 2021
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 News
RIBA opens 2021 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship for applications
Weaving the Urban Fabric: Examining the Significance of Community:
photo © Abel Feleke – 2016 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient
Monday 29 March 2021 – The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has today (Monday 29 March 2021) opened applications for the 2021 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship.
The scholarship seeks to reward one architecture student and fund their travel to explore the sustainable survival of cities and towns.
This year, in response to global travel restrictions, students can alternatively submit a proposal to research a topic in their home country. Applications are welcomed from students around the world and a £7,000 grant will be awarded to the winner, decided by a panel of judges including Lord Foster and RIBA President Alan Jones.
Lord Foster said:
“As a student I won a prize that allowed me to spend a summer travelling through Europe and to study first hand buildings and cities that I knew only from the pages of books. It was a revelation – liberating and exhilarating in so many ways. Today it is the privilege of the Norman Foster Foundation to support the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, which I hope will have a lasting legacy – offering the chance for discovery and the inspiration for exciting new work – for generations to come.”
RIBA President Alan Jones added:
“The prestigious Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship gives aspiring architects the chance to carry out important research, addressing global challenges and the sustainable future of our towns and cities. Students need support now more than ever, and we are very grateful to the Norman Foster Foundation for their ongoing generosity to make this grant possible.”
Applications are open to students who are enrolled in, or have successfully completed, the first year of a professional qualification in architecture, in one of the higher education institutions invited to participate.
The deadline for submissions is 17:00 Friday 28 May 2021. For more information visit: www.architecture.com/fosterscholarship
First established in 2006, the scholarship, supported by the Norman Foster Foundation, is now in its fifteenth year and is intended to fund national or international research on a topic related to the sustainable survival of our towns and cities, in a location of the student’s choice. Past RIBA Norman Foster Scholars have travelled through the Americas, Europe, Africa, South East Asia, the Middle and the Far East, and Russia. Proposals for research might include: learning from the past to inform the future; the future of society; the density of settlements; sustainability; the use of resources; the quality of urban life; and transport.
Over 400 higher education institutions are invited to participate, and this list includes all institutions that offer qualifications validated by the RIBA or are recognised by the Commonwealth Association of Architects; it also includes a large number of schools listed under other recognition systems (such as the European Directive for Recognition of Professional Qualifications in the EU, or the National Architectural Accreditation Board in the US).
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Winners
Past recipients of the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship:
2020: Iulia Cistelecan – London School of Architecture – ‘‘Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow.’
2019: Siti Nurafaf Ismail – University of Malaya, Malaysia – ‘Architecture of Humility’
2018: Steven Hutt – University of Greenwich, UK – ‘East of Eden’
2017: Chloe Loader – University of Lincoln, UK – ‘Emerging Cities: Sustainable Master-Planning in the Global South’
2016: Abel Feleke – University of Western Australia – ‘Weaving the Urban Fabric: Examining the Significance of Community’
2015: Charles Palmer – University of Sheffield, UK – ‘Cycling Megacities’
2014: Joe Paxton – Bartlett (UCL), UK – ‘Buffer Landscapes 2060
2013: Sigita Burbulyte – Bath University, UK – ‘Charles Booth Going Abroad’
2012: Thomas Aquilina – University of Edinburgh – ‘Material Economies: Recycling Practices in Informal Settlements Along African Longitude 30’
2011: Sahil Bipin Deshpande – Rizvi College of Architecture, India – ‘Sanitation: A Case Study across Eight Metropolises’
2010: Andrew Mackintosh – Robert Gordon University, UK – ‘In Search of Cold Spaces’
2009: Amanda Rivera – University of Bio Bio, Chile – ‘Ancestral Cities, Ancestral Sustainability’
2008: Faizan Jawed Siddiqi – Rizvi College of Architecture, India – ‘The Role of Public Transport in Shaping Sustainable Humane Habitats’
2007: Ben Masterton-Smith – Bartlett, UK – ‘Emerging East: Exploring and Experiencing the East Asian Communist City’.
Royal Institute of British Architects, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD
Phone: +44 (0)20 7307 3814
The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2021 information / image received 290321
Previously on e-architect:
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Iulia Cistelecan wins 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
The 2020 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship has been awarded to Iulia Cistelecan, from the London School of Architecture, for her project ‘Life Between Shelters: Refugee camps of today becoming cities of tomorrow’.
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2020
Bidibidi Refugee Settlement is a refugee camp in northwestern Uganda:
photograph : Nora Lorek
The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2019
Hong Kong Peak © Steven Hutt – 2018 Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship recipient:
image courtesy of architects
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2019
The RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2017
image courtesy of architects
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2017
Norman Foster
photo of Norman Foster from HPA
Norman Foster is one of the most important architects practicing in the world. He is chairman and founder of Foster + Partners, an international practice with project offices worldwide.
Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
Architecture Travel Scholarship
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2015
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship 2014
RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Winner
Architecture Awards
Pritzker Prize Architects
American Architecture Awards
American Institute of Architects Gold Medal
Stirling Prize
Norman Foster Buildings Selection
Sperone Westwater, New York, USA
Sperone Westwater Gallery
Swiss Re, London, UK
Swiss Re Building : London skyscraper
Faustino Winery, Spain
Faustino Winery Building
Millau Viaduct, France
Millau Viaduct
Website: RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship Information – www.architecture.com page
Asian Architecture
Norman R. Foster Visiting Professorship Established at Yale University
Norman Foster Professorship USA
Comments / photos for the 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship page welcome
Website: Foster and Partners
The post 2021 RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship appeared first on e-architect.
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Holocaust Education. Reflections on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau
This week I took my 15-year old son on a trip to Krakow in Poland. Once we’d decided to go, the central feature of the trip was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau – just an hour outside Krakow. As we anticipated, it was a profound experience.
My personal experience of learning about the Holocaust has been patchy. Having never studied WWII or Nazi Germany at school, I’ve pieced together my understanding of what happened throughout my adulthood. ‘Understanding’ has two senses. There’s knowledge of the facts about the sequence of events and key people and places- and then there’s an appreciation of the relative scale and significance of events in historical terms and, most importantly, in terms of human tragedy. It’s this last part that is so hard to grasp.
I remember reading Sophie’s Choice at university. I watched the Holocaust TV series and I’ve since seen numerous films that reference the concentration camps. Some, like Boy in the Striped Pyjamas massively distort the facts but convey the emotions. Others like Schindler’s List seem more realistic but still largely leave you to imagine the scale of events.
When I was 19 I went to Israel and visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, It’s a powerful experience – the deep solemnity and reverence is powerful. Memorials are important and the work of various holocaust education groups is vital. In my last school I met holocaust survivor Janine Webber when we hosted the annual Holocaust Memorial Day event on January 27th (anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz). She described the harrowing events that shaped her childhood as she grew up in Nazi-occupied Poland including the story of her father’s death and her eventual separation from her family:
“One day we were warned that the Gestapo would be coming, so my parents dug a hole under the wardrobe which was in our room, and when we heard the German soldiers approaching we hid in the hole: my mother, my brother and myself. But there was no room for my father and my grandmother.”
Another haunting story was the time Janine saw the boots of the Nazi officer who murdered her father as she cowered beneath her bed. The image haunted her, and she continued to experience nightmares until she was in her 70s. She’d escaped and lived on a flea-ridden bed alone for several months in a barn, aged 9, fed by a farmer who kept her hidden. The loneliness and grief she experienced at that time were unimaginable.
On another occasion, at the planting of the Anne Frank Memorial Tree in Highbury Fields, Dr. Eva Schloss, 87, told stories from her time in hiding in Amsterdam during the war, and her subsequent time spent in Auschwitz at the age of just 15. Her father and brother were killed at the concentration camp.
These encounters with facts and stories from the Holocaust have been important but until this week, I don’t think I had fully grasped the nature of what took place: the sheer scale of the deliberate, determined, systematic, industrial genocide and the inhumanity of the philosophy of racial supremacy that drove it. At Auschwitz all of these things become completely vivid.
From the moment you walk under the Arbeit Macht Frei gate and see the train track, the barbed wire and the lines of brick barracks, there’s an eery hush. The thousands of visitors trudge solemnly around the buildings as the guides create a mood of serious reflection sustained throughout the whole visit. The different buildings in Auschwitz I give you a sense of the enterprise: prisoners in brutal living conditions; extermination rooms; standing-only cells; buildings devoted to medical experiments; the death wall for executions. You get a sense of the SS officers going about their work with a kind of zealous determination, with the guide informing us of the wider mission driven by Hitler and the Nazi ideology to repopulate parts of Poland with German Reich families.
The photographs capture the nature of the process: trains arriving loaded with people unaware of the fate that awaited them; the separation of people who would be kept for labour and those who would proceed to immediate extermination in the gas chambers. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the visit was seeing the collections of possessions. This is where you get a sense of each of the individual tragedies: the shoes – all styles, all sizes including those belonging to small children – the glasses; a room full of hair; the suitcases; the prosthetic limbs: all traces of the lives of real individual people, often lost in the scale of the genocide. In one of the buildings, the corridors are lined with photographs of men and women – all in their striped uniforms with their death date recorded, usually just a few months after their arrival. The individual faces help to cut through the desensitising effect of the scale.
Where Auschwitz I gives you a feeling for the personal tragedy, Auschwitz II ( Birkenau) reveals the full scale of it. It’s hard to put it into words. You have to see it. This was the product of the depraved logic of the Final Solution. Line after line of barracks, many demolished, some still standing and some re-built for the museum. It goes off into the distance. Here barracks with stone floors and wooden frames were crammed with 400 prisoners seven to a bed, sometimes over-filled to house 700 people; sanitary conditions were desperate; it was freezing in winter. People died constantly from starvation, disease and the cold. And these were the people kept from immediate extermination. The conditions were so bad in Birkenau that Auschwitz I was called ‘the hotel’ by comparison. Everyone there was in constant fear of execution which was a daily event.
For me, the biggest impact of Birkenau was to see and hear about the industrial nature of the extermination process. It’s just so hard to get your head around the numbers involved. Over 1 million people were killed here in the space of around four years. At some points well over 1000 people were exterminated every day. The infrastructure and determination to enact genocide on that scale is mind-blowing: the central platform receiving trains from all over Europe; the reception blocks; the gas chambers and crematorium (destroyed but visible); the sorting of possessions – hair, gold and other artefacts – and the disposal of the ashes.
My son and I talked about how to put the scale of the extermination into perspective. We thought about 12 Wembley stadiums full to capacity – that was the easiest to imagine but still incomprehensible. Each one of those people someone with a future, a character, family, hopes, dreams….human. And this was one-sixth of the number who were killed in the Holocaust as a whole in the other camps and killing sites across Europe.
We talked about the mentality of the people involved; those who enacted the mechanics of the operation, the relentless daily cruelty and degradation, the sheer scale of the death toll – and the mindset you would need to contribute to that, even if you feared for your own life. This is what humans are capable of doing when they lose perspective on what it means to be human, when they lose touch with what ‘humanity’ is and the truth of our absolute equality regardless of faith or ethnic origin. It’s staggering that this happened only 70 years ago. Of course there have been other genocides since – so we can’t be complacent about the extent to which we have learned the lessons.
I came away feeling more strongly than ever that Holocaust education must feature in every child’s education – alongside a drive to challenge antisemitism and racism of all kinds. A few assemblies and memorial events are unlikely to be enough even though they are a start. This should be core taught history for everyone – surely? What else could be more important than this?
Here are some websites that provide a good introduction with some excellent video resources:
Auschwitz: a short history of the largest mass murder site in human history
http://ift.tt/1eKEcNC
UCL CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
http://ift.tt/2xnlfkO
Holocaust Education. Reflections on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau published first on http://ift.tt/2uVElOo
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Holocaust Education. Reflections on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau
This week I took my 15-year old son on a trip to Krakow in Poland. Once we’d decided to go, the central feature the trip was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau – just an hour outside Krakow. As we anticipated, it was a profound experience.
My personal experience of learning about the Holocaust has been patchy. Having never studied WWII or Nazi Germany at school, I’ve pieced together my understanding of what happened throughout my adulthood. ‘Understanding’ has two senses. There’s knowledge of the facts about the sequence of events and key people and places- and then there’s an appreciation of the relative scale and significance of events in historical terms and, most importantly, in terms of human tragedy. It’s this last part that is so hard to grasp.
I remember reading Sophie’s Choice at university. I watched the Holocaust TV series and I’ve since seen numerous films that reference the concentration camps. Some, like Boy in the Striped Pyjamas massively distort the facts but convey the emotions. Others like Schindler’s List seem more realistic but still largely leave you to imagine the scale of events.
When I was 19 I went to Israel and visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, It’s a powerful experience – the deep solemnity and reverence is powerful. Memorials are important and the work of various holocaust education groups is vital. In my last school I met holocaust survivor Janine Webber when we hosted the annual Holocaust Memorial Day event on January 27th (anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz). She described the harrowing events that shaped her childhood as she grew up in Nazi-occupied Poland including the story of her father’s death and her eventual separation from her family:
“One day we were warned that the Gestapo would be coming, so my parents dug a hole under the wardrobe which was in our room, and when we heard the German soldiers approaching we hid in the hole: my mother, my brother and myself. But there was no room for my father and my grandmother.”
Another haunting story was the time Janine saw the boots of the Nazi officer who murdered her father as she cowered beneath her bed. The image haunted her, and she continued to experience nightmares until she was in her 70s. She’d escaped and lived on a flea-ridden bed alone for several months in a barn, aged 9, fed by a farmer who kept her hidden. The loneliness and grief she experienced at that time were unimaginable.
On another occasion, at the planting of the Anne Frank Memorial Tree in Highbury Fields, Dr. Eva Schloss, 87, told stories from her time in hiding in Amsterdam during the war, and her subsequent time spent in Auschwitz at the age of just 15. Her father and brother were killed at the concentration camp.
These encounters with facts and stories from the Holocaust have been important but until this week, I don’t think I had fully grasped the nature of what took place: the sheer scale of the deliberate, determined, systematic, industrial genocide and the inhumanity of the philosophy of racial supremacy that drove it. At Auschwitz all of these things become completely vivid.
From the moment you walk under the Arbeit Macht Frei gate and see the train track, the barbed wire and the lines of brick barracks, there’s an eery hush. The thousands of visitors trudge solemnly around the buildings as the guides create a mood of serious reflection sustained throughout the whole visit. The different buildings in Auschwitz I give you a sense of the enterprise: prisoners in brutal living conditions; extermination rooms; standing-only cells; buildings devoted to medical experiments; the death wall for executions. You get a sense of the SS officers going about their work with a kind of zealous determination, with the guide informing us of the wider mission driven by Hitler and the Nazi ideology to repopulate parts of Poland with German Reich families.
The photographs capture the nature of the process: trains arriving loaded with people unaware of the fate that awaited them; the separation of people who would be kept for labour and those who would proceed to immediate extermination in the gas chambers. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the visit was seeing the collections of possessions. This is where you get a sense of each of the individual tragedies: the shoes – all styles, all sizes including those belonging to small children – the glasses; a room full of hair; the suitcases; the prosthetic limbs: all traces of the lives of real individual people, often lost in the scale of the genocide. In one of the buildings, the corridors are lined with photographs of men and women – all in their striped uniforms with their death date recorded, usually just a few months after their arrival. The individual faces help to cut through the desensitising effect of the scale.
Where Auschwitz I gives you a feeling for the personal tragedy, Auschwitz II ( Birkenau) reveals the full scale of it. It’s hard to put it into words. You have to see it. This was the product of the depraved logic of the Final Solution. Line after line of barracks, many demolished, some still standing and some re-built for the museum. It goes off into the distance. Here barracks with stone floors and wooden frames were crammed with 400 prisoners seven to a bed, sometimes over-filled to house 700 people; sanitary conditions were desperate; it was freezing in winter. People died constantly from starvation, disease and the cold. And these were the people kept from immediate extermination. The conditions were so bad in Birkenau that Auschwitz I was called ‘the hotel’ by comparison. Everyone there was in constant fear of execution which was a daily event.
For me, the biggest impact of Birkenau was to see and hear about the industrial nature of the extermination process. It’s just so hard to get your head around the numbers involved. Over 1 million people were killed here in the space of around four years. At some points well over 1000 people were exterminated every day. The infrastructure and determination to enact genocide on that scale is mind-blowing: the central platform receiving trains from all over Europe; the reception blocks; the gas chambers and crematorium (destroyed but visible); the sorting of possessions – hair, gold and other artefacts – and the disposal of the ashes.
My son and I talked about how to put the scale of the extermination into perspective. We thought about 12 Wembley stadiums full to capacity – that was the easiest to imagine but still incomprehensible. Each one of those people someone with a future, a character, family, hopes, dreams….human. And this was one-sixth of the number who were killed in the Holocaust as a whole in the other camps and killing sites across Europe.
We talked about the mentality of the people involved; those who enacted the mechanics of the operation, the relentless daily cruelty and degradation, the sheer scale of the death toll – and the mindset you would need to contribute to that, even if you feared for your own life. This is what humans are capable of doing when they lose perspective on what it means to be human, when they lose touch with what ‘humanity’ is and the truth of our absolute equality regardless of faith or ethnic origin. It’s staggering that this happened only 70 years ago. Of course there have been other genocides since – so we can’t be complacent about the extent to which we have learned the lessons.
I came away feeling more strongly than ever that Holocaust education must feature in every child’s education – alongside a drive to challenge antisemitism and racism of all kinds. A few assemblies and memorial events are unlikely to be enough even though they are a start. This should be core taught history for everyone – surely? What else could be more important than this?
Here are some websites that provide a good introduction with some excellent video resources:
Auschwitz: a short history of the largest mass murder site in human history
http://ift.tt/1eKEcNC
UCL CENTRE FOR HOLOCAUST EDUCATION
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
http://ift.tt/2xnlfkO
Holocaust Education. Reflections on a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau published first on http://ift.tt/2uVElOo
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