Culture Days, June 16/17

A short explanation at the beginning: I study the English language as well as the culture that dominates English-speaking countries at the University of Graz, Austria. Our English teachers conceived a culture project and so every student had to prepare a presentation about a topic of his/her choice. The only restriction was to keep to your "home culture" which means to stick to the culture your teacher grew up in. As a result, I had to pick an issue concerning Ireland and decided to do research on Leprechauns. Eventually, I ended up with the topic "The popularised Leprechaun".
We all had to present the outcomes of our research on June 16 or 17, so just a few days ago. Every student additionally had to be present at seven other presentations of their home culture and only at three of a foreign culture. In the end, everyone had to choose five home culture topics on which we will be tested in the last big exam this semester: The KGP.
The two exhausting Culture Days are over now and so it's time to reflect on my impressions. All in all, I went to see thirteen presentations and I have to say that I was very impressed by the performances of many peers.

Sophie, for example, talked about great American entrepreneurs and, in my view, she did a really good job. Well prepared and motivated she stood, full of self-confidence, in front of her audience and informed us about elite universities in the USA and their influences on the foundings of huge businesses such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, HP and so on.
Her presentation was followed by one about the TV series Homeland and its relation to reality. It was very interesting to see how fiction can be transferred into the real world and how similarities can actually be found easily.
The third and last presentation I watched about American culture dealt with same-sex marriage in the US, a topic that is up to date in many European countries, too. Miriam told her audience about differences of opinions between the fifty states, gave with LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender) rights in California as well as in Alabama two disparate points of view and summarised the results of her research perfectly.

I was lucky and had time to go and watch the only presentation about Australian culture. "Chinese immigrants in Australia" is, at least for me, a quite boring topic but Carla presented it in a lively and likeable way, so it was a pleasure to listen to her.

C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia

But now to the most important presentations - the Irish ones. The decision on which I want to be tested on the exam is harder than I thought but eventually I chose five of the nine topics I was introduced to.
1) I went to see Marlene's presentation on "Irish influences on C.S. Lewis' work" and was impressed by her sovereignty. She caught my interest in the topic, maybe because she was very passionate about it herself. Through her way of presenting, she even convinced me to learn more about Irish mythology and landscape, C.S. Lewis' biography and especially his relation to Ireland. I would say: KGP Topic 1!

Oliver Cromwell

2) Verena talked about the life and work of Oliver Cromwell, seen from two disparate perspectives, the Irish one and the British one. Is he a cruel slaughterer or one of England's greatest sons? She didn't really need to convince me to take this topic for my KGP, I was already curious about his doings before she started to talk. KGP Topic 2!

3) The next Irish culture presentation I visited was the one of Margarita. She described the gain of women's power throughout Irish history. As far as I can remember, she did a good job and presented interesting facts, nonetheless this topic didn't make it into my KGP list.

4) Alexandra presented a very extensive topic, namely "The conspiracies about the murder of Jean McConville". I really liked her presentation but the issue she was talking about is very complicated because of the time Jean was murdered in. There were a lot of bad things going on in Ireland during the Troubles, all of them somehow related to each other. I won't pick it as an exam topic, for me it's enough to know that the IRA murdered her.

5) Dolores dealt with the Irish language, how and why it became an official EU lanuage. Honestly, I wasn't exactly captivated by the presentation. There were much more interesting topics that I prefer to take over that one.

6) Kathi had an interesting topic concerning the LGBT rights and David Norris' contribution to them. As with same-sex marriage, these rights and the whole issue of tolerance are matters of present discussions in Europe and other parts of the world. I think I didn't take this topic because I just survived the "Wurst-hype". ;)

Gaeilge -"Irish" in Irish

7) Nina asked the question "Is Irish a dying language?" and answered it directly in her presentation. I will definitely answer that question, too, while talking about it in my exam: KGP topic 3! Simply because I love languages and want to expand my knowledge about as many of them as possible.

Vikings - ready to invade

8) Simone talked about the educational system in Austria and Ireland. Sounds boring but actually it's interesting to compare the way of teaching and the quantity of time spent in school and university in different countries. The opportunity to check through polls whether the pupils of the one or the other country make more profit from their educational system rewards the research on the topic. KGP topic 4!

9) Last but not least, KGP topic 5! Verena held a presentation about the Vikings in Ireland and as with Oliver Cromwell, I already was interested in the topic before. How and where did the Vikings live? What did they do in their free time? What did they look like? What was the women's role in the Viking society? When and how did they come to Irel...............