Berliner Zeitung 28.03.2007

Michaela Schlagenwerth presents two Muslim women and their website: "Betül Yilmaz wears a headscarf, Clemence Delmas doesn't. They don't have problems with that. Betül is 21 and studies Islamic Studies. Clemence, 28, is writing her doctorate in political science on Islamic feminism. Both live in Berlin. When discussion about Islam flared up in the media after the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, they observed: 'A lot of people were talking about Islam, but the Muslims themselves hardly had a say.' Tired of looking on in silence, they decided to start up their own forum. For the last year and a half they've been running the website www.muslimische-stimmen.de (Muslim voices)."


Frankfurter Rundschau 28.03.2007

Volker Mazassek talks with Nikolai Nikitin, who sits on the selection committee for "Go East," the festival of East European film which starts today in Wiesbaden. Asked if he has favourites among the films selected, Nikitin answers: "You know, as a selection committee member all the films are like my children, I love them all. But to give one or two examples: I found the Serbian-German-Hungarian co-production 'Klopka' (The Trap) very moving, because it gives a great insight into the Serbia of the post-Milosevic era, and says a lot for the talent of its director, Srdan Golubovic. 'Armin', by Ognjen Svilicic, tells a father-son story that's so good it's simply gripping. And 'Pleasant Moments' (review here) by the Czech master Vera Chytilova is an incredibly light comedy about a psychiatrist and her problems."

Arno Widmann tells of the "wall newspaper literature" in his fitness studio, which displays a new verse or encouraging sentence each day, sometimes even by Mahatma Gandhi. "Yesterday's slogan was: 'There are more important things in life than constantly increasing your speed.' And that in a fitness studio. Everywhere people are saying the postmodern era is over, and that playful, narcissistic self-irony is a thing of the past. Maybe it really has left the seminar rooms and literary institutes. But it's now blooming - and dreaming of even better days - between anabolics and aerobics, biceps and triceps."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 28.03.2007

Urs Hafner reports that the Bologna process (more) has been largely implemented in Swiss universities. The problems are the same as in Germany: "It's primarily the institutes and faculties of social sciences that are confronted with massive problems – where curricula have traditionally offered both students and lecturers a large degree of freedom. The feeling here is that the reform is mainly bad news: professors complain about the standardisation of teaching practices by ever new commissions, assistants are saddled with mountains of essays and tests to correct, students that are working part-time complain about their massive debts and the excessive time they're having to put into their mandatory courses."

On the oaccsiaion of the ten year anniversary of the "Giardino di Daniel Spoerri" in Tuscan Seggiano, a museum in Prato has devoted a retrospective to the work of Daniel Spoerri. Gabriele Detterer was impressed. "The Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art presents a comprehensive look at the stupendous production of the master of coincidence and its demolition, perfectly planned and considered. The work is associated with Nouveau Réalisme but can't be forced into one drawer alone. Spoerri's resistance to uni-dimensionality made him the most surrealistic of the New Realists. A piece like 'Le tiroir' (1960) contains echoes of surrealism, Neo-Dada and Pop-Art and anticipates the spirit of Fluxus."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 28.03.2007

Paul Ingendaay prophesies a dramatic future for Spain, where people are slow to think about climate change. "Just this winter, for example, the Spanish winter sports made bitter losses because no snow fell until the beginning of February.... Already today the province of Murcia can't meet it's annual water needs with its own supply. Notwithstanding that, there and in Almeria, the hottest zone in Spain, more than one hundred thousand housing units will be constructed in the years to come."


Die Tageszeitung, 28.03.2007

In an essay, Mark Terkessidis thinks about the relationship between the perceived fears and actual dangers to the middle class. "In the 1970s, life was significantly more dangerous and fears were fewer. There was a normality which was taken to apply generally and which was experienced as constricting. The most creative people were looking for danger and insecurity. Their journeys were to take them into the unknown, into open country beyond the well-trodden path. Back then, Kabul and Baghdad lay on the Hippy Trail as outposts of freedom. ... Those seeking freedom in the unknown were transformed into the defenders of a kind of freedom that can only be lived at home. Afghanistan today is more dangerous than ever before, but it's a form of danger that one can only experienced armed."