Today we had our SEVENTH (hard to believe!) academic session called "Beyond Citizenship." Coincidentally (or maybe not!) it is Bastille Day in France, so it made today's session even more personalized. Because Bastille Day symbolizes the emergence of the modern nation, we looked at evidence and implications from recent attempts towards citizenship beyond the nation state.
Additionally, we looked at this expansion of citizenship. With the European Union, the United Nations, and other supranational bodies in mind, we discussed dual and nested citizenship. Also, we looked at the ideas and critiques of a world government and global citizenship.
A global citizen is someone who is aware of the wider world and has a sense of their own role as a world citizen, respects and values diversity, has an understanding of how the world works, is outraged by social injustice, and participates in the community at a range of levels. After learning this concept, we explored questions such as, "Can this 'global citizen' co-exist with the 'national citizen' or the 'European citizen?'" "Does global citizenship require the existence of a world government in order to ensure global rights?" "Does global or world citizenship imply a common set of values?" "Would a common set of values mean that some values will be excluded (i.e. the common set will be the only imposed?)" "If we do become world citizens then should we also expect to receive a passport? A passport to where??" Very interesting!
During lunch we were all introduced to a truly bizarre food group known as overcooked egg-like quiche that was actually meant to be pizza? As it jiggled like Jello and tasted like something unidentifiable, we all filled ourselves up with bread and butter instead ;)
In the afternoon, we had the opportunity to split into our video groups and meet with our professor/mentor who will eventually be giving us our "marks." We shared our video ideas with Alex Hensby and he gave us a few more things to think about, like making sure that we have a clear thesis and point to making the video. It was good advice and nice to be able to run ideas by him before we start in order to be sure we're headed in the right direction!
Afterward we watched "In the Loop." It was actually a comedy! It was nice to watch something relatively light-hearted in class. Basically, the film examined international relations and the "special relationship" between the UK and US government mainly during the Bush era. It was definitely interesting to see some British humor :)
We got out of class early, which gave us all a chance to go back to Bede and catch up on the crazy amounts of work we have to do! I caught up on some blogging, uploading a video for a video blog we're working on, starting to think of essay topics, etc. Emma and I attempted to go to the library to upload her video and use the FlipShare software but sadly the library closed at 7 :( So we all headed over to dinner instead and decided what we wanted to do for the evening! After throwing around a few ideas we finally decided to....
...see Eclipse! Malik, and all us girls decided to go :) It was interesting because all the voice-overs for the previews are done with a British accent... a small detail, but definitely different! Also, all the previews were for American movies, so that was interesting too. The movie itself was... entertaining? Malik definitely got a few laughs! It was one of those things that all of us girls had read the books and just felt inclined to see the movie, but the acting was by no means top notch. One of the most ridiculous parts was when Bella explained how she was going to take a neutral status by saying "From now on, I'm Switzerland!" Regardless of how we felt about the movie, it was a fun experience to see a movie in England! :)
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