Are you fascinated by the intersection of technology, art and philosophy? Do you want to help shape a world where digital technology fosters connection, imagination, and care, rather than control?

Studium Generale TU Delft is looking for two motivated student assistants to collaborate with internationally renowned artist Warren Neidich on a new art installation for the festival For Love of the World: Digital Love on 21 March 2025.

Digital Love is part of Warren Neidich’s long-term project Cognitive Architecture 2: From Noo-politics to Neuro-politics, which explores how architecture, artificial intelligence, and the human brain interact in the age of “neural capitalism.” In a world where algorithms shape perception, buildings adapt to our moods, and emotions circulate through social media and smart devices, Digital Love asks how the same systems that capture our attention might also open new possibilities for awareness, solidarity, and justice.

Against the backdrop of a capitalist order that exhausts the mind and turns thought into profit — from attention metrics and surveillance architectures to “smart” urban planning that predicts our behavior — the project seeks to reclaim the technological and architectural links between brain and world as spaces for empathy, play, and imagination. It gestures toward interactive spaces that invite reflection rather than reaction, and physical encounters — in galleries, streets, or shared digital rooms — that restore intimacy, care, and the capacity to dream together.

As a student assistant, you will support concept development and the realization of a physical or hybrid installation for the festival. You will contribute to content, form, and presentation, and assist with project organization alongside the SG team, the artist, and external partners.

About the festival 
For Love of the World: Digital Love explores love and intelligence in the digital age – between people, humans and machines, and between data and the Earth. Part laboratory, part temple, part playground, the festival invites participants to inhabit digital spaces anew: not as zones of fear and control, but as spaces for connection, attention, and hope.

About Studium Generale TU Delft 
Studium Generale (SG) organizes lectures, debates, performances, workshops and festivals where science, art, and society meet. SG creates space for reflection, imagination, and dialogue at TU Delft – exploring what it means to be human (or more-than-human) in our time.

Interested?
Send your CV and a short motivation (max. 300 words) to Leon Heuts, Head of Studium Generale, at studiumgenerale@tudelft.nl before December 1.

Photo: Olivia Fougeirol

When we talk about public space, we usually think of squares, parks, and streets – places where people meet, move, protest, or rest. But public space is always political: it shapes who is visible, who can speak, and who is heard. Some people are given a voice, others ignored.

If we take a broader view, there is a much larger group that hardly has a voice: the non-human. Trees, birds, insects, fungi, rivers, even microbes in the soil exist in our cities and landscapes, yet we plan and build as if they do not matter – at most as decoration, or for economic utility. This is a perspective we can no longer afford.

In an era when nature returns like a boomerang – extreme weather, heatwaves, droughts, and floods are no longer abstract warnings but concrete consequences of ignoring life around us – it becomes clear that public space can no longer be exclusively human. Giving space to exist, human and non-human alike, strengthens the ecological resilience of our cities.

Sometimes it feels as if the Earth itself archives our mistakes. A dead albatross on a remote Pacific island, its stomach full of colorful plastic caps. A lake in Siberia whose sediment preserves radioactive isotopes, a legacy of nuclear tests. Microplastics now circle the globe as a new geological signature – a future fossil layer of ourselves.

We live in the Anthropocene, a time when humans have become a geological force. Such power brings responsibility. Physically, we accelerate entropy, the natural tendency of systems toward disorder. Life itself is a temporary slowing of that arrow of time, a local ordering that uses energy to create structure and relationships. And that works only in cooperation.

Evolution rarely hinges solely on survival of the fittest. Often it is survival of the connected. True, in nature animals sometimes try to kill one another: predators hunt, plants compete for light, bacteria fight for nutrients. But that struggle is only one layer of the story. Beneath it lies a deeper principle: cooperation, symbiosis, and mutual dependence. Mitochondria in our cells were once independent bacteria; they survived only by joining a host. Plant root networks share nutrients via fungi, bees pollinate flowers while gathering food, and microbes around our bodies cooperate to keep our digestion and immunity functioning.

It is this interconnection that makes life resilient, not brute struggle alone. Without cooperation and shared interests, ecosystems collapse, and no species – human or non-human – can maintain stable habitats. Connectedness is as evolutionarily successful, perhaps more so, than competition. Donna Haraway calls this “staying with the trouble”: learning to live with the complexity and vulnerability of the web we belong to, rather than pretending we can control it. Only by recognizing and nurturing relationships can we locally slow the arrow of time, curb chaos, and create space for life.

As the Japanese philosopher Kitarō Nishida wrote: “Space is not where things exist, but where relationships arise.” Taking this seriously transforms our orientation: space is not merely somewhere to move through, but a network of relationships. A city that gives space to the non-human is not only ecologically resilient but transforms how we perceive and act. Breathing, photosynthesis, nutrient cycles – every life-sustaining process connects us directly with other species and systems. Sharing space and listening to non-human signals lets us experience the interconnection of life.

This awareness evokes ethical values such as care for other living beings, reciprocity with ecosystems, a deep responsibility for resilient networks, and the appreciation of otherness — the recognition that other species and systems have intrinsic value, precisely through their connection to us. It also cultivates existential values: attention to the complex web we inhabit, humility in our ambitions, and connectedness as a guide for action. Human culture, science, and technology are not autonomous powers but ways to participate in a larger web. Our actions shape the ecosystem, and we are shaped by it.

This concept of shared space becomes tangible at the upcoming event in the Library Hall, where philosopher Sophie van Balen and a strandbeest by Theo Jansen will allow us to experience what it truly means to share air, life, and Earth. Join us, in thinking and creating a truly inclusive world.

In recent weeks, Studium Generale explored the theme of (re)claiming space – both literally and figuratively. What does it mean to claim space within the university, or in the city? Who decides who may stand where, speak, or remain silent?

Our first gathering focused on student protests on campus. Students entered into conversation with, among others, the director of the university library: does a demonstration belong within the institution of the university? If we see the university as more than a place of education and research – as a place of formation, of Bildung – then perhaps it should. Yet the tension remained palpable, though in a constructive way. One student said: “We oppose the course of the university itself. That can never be part of the institution.” Where does the space for dialogue end, and where does resistance begin?

These discussions on protest, participation, and institutional boundaries naturally led to questions about the deeper conditions for real change. This was the focus of our second event at Theater De Veste, together with the student association Argus from the Faculty of Architecture. The session carried the somewhat provocative title Woke Design, signaling a plea for inclusivity. There, we worked with a line of power: with each question about gender, education, or background, participants took a step forward or backward. A landscape of privilege emerged, in which men visibly stood at the front. It was confronting, but also enlightening. Beyond the exercise itself, the conversations made clear that genuine public space requires shared underlying values: without a commitment to inclusion and recognition, attempts at change remain superficial. Once again, something rare happened – real encounters between people who would normally never speak to each other: students and citizens of Delft, young and old.

(Re)claiming space thus turned out to be about more than occupying ground or raising one’s voice. It is about shaping a shared field of presence – one that requires attention, openness, and imagination. As Hannah Arendt observed, the public realm exists only “where people appear to one another.” But in our current and future-oriented work, we are stretching that insight further. How do we give space and voice to non-humans – animals, plants, rivers, or even AI? How do we account for the needs of future generations? Drawing on Donna Haraway, we begin to see the public as a multispecies space, where responsibility, care, and dialogue extend beyond the human. In this light, space is not a fixed given, but an act – a continual negotiation between self and other, even if the other is not human, and between the world as it is and the world as we collectively hope it might become.

Explore SG’s related events this quarter on the theme: (Re)Claiming Space

Men of the TU Delft, come make your voices heard on the problem of femicide and violence against women. Feel overwhelmed or powerless? That’s okay, but don’t be discouraged! There’s things you can do, and we’re asking you to do them. Yes – even if that means being emotionally vulnerable.

This Thursday, there’s a currents events lunch happening at 12:45 – 13:30 in the Library’s Orange Room. And we want you there.

A Current Event?

Putting the call to action for the men aside – it makes sense that a Studium Generale at a Dutch university would organise a discussion on femicide. It is our job to invite you to reflect on current events. But is femicide even a current event? In the Netherlands, a woman is murdered every eight days. You could argue that it is not the murders that took place this summer that make it a current event, but the protests that followed.

In my view, to call violence against women a “current event” actually misrepresents the nature of the problem. It is a part of the fabric of our society. In this article, I want to lay some groundwork for the conversation this Thursday. What is the problem, exactly? Why is it so hard to address? And above all: why do I think this conversation happening on Thursday is going to be so important?

Before we get into it, let’s have a look at some definitions.

• Femicide: murder of women.
• Gender-based violence: violence directed against a person because of that person’s gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately.
• Sexual violence: any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or other act directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion.

Not Just Stranger Danger

Sexual violence is incredibly common. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of all Dutch women have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives. For only 19% of female victims of sexual violence, the perpetrator is unknown. We know that this isn’t just about “stranger danger” or staying safe at night. Similarly, in 56% of cases of femicide, the perpetrator is the woman’s (ex-)partner. I would go as far to say that the threat of (sexual) violence is embedded in the female experience.

Protests and Politicians

The protests and the varying responses from our politicians show the complex interplay between violence against women, questions of (Dutch) identity, women’s rights to safety and freedom, and harmful cultural conceptions of masculinity. Just look at the wide spread of solutions being championed. GroenLinks politician Mariëlle Vavier called for men to take responsibility and hold each other accountable for harmful behaviour. On the other side of the political spectrum, there are calls to increase police surveillance and curb immigration. The conversation is happening online and on our streets, ranging from marches and riots to Facebook Groups.

I’m laying this out so that we can realise how complex and pervasive the problem is. The politicisation of the issue brings attention, yes, but it also muddies the waters when it comes to causes and potential solutions. I’ll give an example. It struck me that the influence of substance abuse on intimate violence has not been a substantial part of the public discussion – except perhaps to victim blame. In 31 percent of instances of sexual violence against women, alcohol or drugs were involved. This may be cynical of me, but I can’t help thinking that with elections coming up, asking men to practice moderation is not a sexy campaign slogan. Nor is investing in addiction care – unfortunately.

So, uh, Why Am I Asking TU Men to Come Have This Conversation?

Our colleagues at the University of Utrecht came at this topic from the angle of how women can adapt and claim more space. After talking to their moderator, one of their programme makers wondered why they were focusing on women. Well, in Delft, we want to focus on men.

TU Delft has a gender ratio of 68% male to 32% female. Our students go out, form friendship groups, and shape who they are through new experiences and relationships. What better place to talk about male culture and behaviour? And no, we’re not planning to put all the weight of this terrible problem on your shoulders. We invited Hessel from Emancipator to talk with you about what it is like to navigate the world as a man, as a student, and in all the different roles you occupy as you go through life. Do you see opportunities to create a positive impact? Are there ways you can support others, and receive support? It’s going to be an exploration. With sandwiches. We hope to see you there.

We’ve all seen it: in a group, a few voices dominate, others fall silent, and some struggle to break through. Maybe you’re an introvert, like me? Personality plays a role — but so do identity, power, and context. What does it take for you to speak up and be heard?

Tomorrow at the TUD Library we’ll be asking: how do we express ourselves in public? Because what happens in small groups also plays out at the scale of society. We all want to be heard, seen, and included. But who gets space in public — both among peers and among opponents — is deeply political. And the spaces where we speak, online or in person, shape what is possible to say, and to whom.

Here’s the hard truth: expressing yourself is risky. You make yourself vulnerable to disagreement, criticism, even censorship or oppression. But speech can also be risky for others: words can wound, incite, or escalate into violence. The violent protest in The Hague last weekend is a stark reminder of what happens when emotions overwhelm reason: fear grows, society feels less safe, and democracy itself weakens.

So I keep circling back to three questions:

1. Can democracy survive if only the loudest shouters claim the space?
2. Is a society where every voice is heard equally always better?
3. Are there opinions that we shouldn’t tolerate to begin with?

My instinct is yes: in theory, there should be room for everyone’s opinion. Pro-Palestine demonstrators should be allowed to speak, as should pro-Israel voices. Anti-immigration groups must be free to gather, and Antifa must be free to counter them — peacefully. That’s democracy.

But making space for all voices without letting violence dominate or silence take over requires more than just tolerance. It demands effort, empathy, emotional maturity — even intentional design of our public spaces. This is true for our streets, our social media (and the companies behind them), and even a place like a university campus. Looking at Karl Popper, the philosopher, the paradox of tolerating the intolerant is one that should be at the forefront of our minds in this age.

Perfect equity and perfect safety may be impossible. But democracy depends on our willingness to keep trying — to create spaces where as many as possible can speak, and still be heard.

Join us tomorrow to reflect on how we can shape that fragile, necessary balance.

12:45pm | Existential Tuesday: How do you claim space? 
5:00pm | Is the campus designed for protest?

Before the summer, a tent camp appeared between the Library and the Aula. I heard colleagues (not from Studium Generale) sigh that the campus is not an “action camp.”

After all, a university is supposed to be a place for education and research, not political struggle. But is that really true? To begin with: research is often politically charged. The recent decisions by universities to suspend collaboration with Israeli institutions show that policy increasingly reflects this. One might wonder whether it would have happened at all without the student protests.

But beyond the question of neutrality or complicity, the tent camps reveal something deeper. Protest is about presence. People come together, sleep in tents, sing, and in doing so, show that behind the neutral description of the university as a “place for education and research,” real people are at work. People connected to the world around them, drawing strength from that connection to speak against perceived injustice—but who are also profoundly vulnerable. We are dependent beings: on care, institutions, and solidarity.

That vulnerability is visible in demonstrations and camps, which often generate friction and sometimes provoke aggression. The protesting (and vulnerable) body in public space is experienced as a disruption, sometimes even as a threat. In Delft, the tensions remained relatively contained (thanks to all the involved parties!), but in Amsterdam, in May, the riot police (ME) acted forcefully against students on the UvA campus (and according to many official sources, disproportionate: read and hear (in Dutch) the reconstruction of The investigative journalists of VPRO Argos https://argos.vpro.nl/artikelen/barricades-op-de-campus-een-reconstructie-van-de-studentenprotesten). Why does protest provoke such anger? This is a pressing question in a time of public political violence.

As the philosopher Judith Butler reminds us, the vulnerable body in public space challenges our illusion of omnipotence. It also connects to bodies elsewhere that are far more exposed, piercing the reassuring neutrality of words like “education and research,” which often hide institutional power. It makes us feel naked, exposed. By making vulnerability visible, protest teaches us something fundamental about public space: it is not empty or neutral, but a space where people connect, affect one another, and take responsibility for shared vulnerabilities.

This is not a carte blanche to set up a tent camp anywhere. Safety remains a core value, and universities must navigate how protest and security coexist. Yet a protest on the campus can be a living experiment, a lesson in citizenship, even a form of education. Not a lecture hall, but a square. Not a curriculum, but a community forming in situ, with all the friction that entails. Discomfort is not the enemy of the university. On the contrary, it reminds us that public space is something we must learn to inhabit—to practice being together, listening, and taking responsibility.

It is precisely in protest, in that physical presence and visible vulnerability, that the heart of the university project may lie: learning to navigate our own dependence and fragility, and that of others. Beyond all political content (that’s not what this piece is about), the tent camps remind us that knowledge and power are never separate from the bodies that carry them. By acknowledging vulnerability, we learn what it truly means to inhabit public space and to live together in a shared, contingent world.

Across the world, women are taking to the streets under the banner of Reclaim the Night, protesting the fact that they cannot move safely through public space after dark. Their message is clear: violence, exclusion, and fear are not abstract—they are embedded in how spaces are designed, regulated, and inhabited.

This Autumn’s series of events takes that urgency as a starting point and asks a broader question: how does design—of streets, campuses, digital platforms, or lecture halls—shape who belongs and who does not?

When we meet others—whether a close friend, a potential employer, or a stranger—we meet in a space. It may be physical or virtual, but it always requires a place. And the way these spaces are designed—where they are, for whom they are accessible—determines who is automatically included, and who remains outside.

Awareness begins with noticing who is not automatically included. From there, we can build a willingness to make space for others. SG invites designers, philosophers, activists, and students to explore how we might design for difference: for neurodiversity, for inequality, for unheard voices.

(Re)Claiming Space is an invitation. To think along. To sketch along. To ask a stranger: what kind of space is as inviting to you as it is to me?

But there is also tension in designing inclusively. Can a space embody an ideal? And what happens when we try to force an ideal into a space? When we use spaces to speak out, resist and make ourselves seen? A sidewalk, a lecture hall, a highway – these become political spaces when they are claimed, inhabited, or disrupted. When presence turns into protest.

In this series, we explore how political spaces come into being: why they matter, how they are designed, and how they might be redesigned. Because a political space is never simply given—it must be created, shared, and sometimes fought for. With language and speech, with bodies, and with objects.

What happens when a campus is not just a place to study, but also a space to protest? Where are its limits—and how do we discover them? It’s not only about whether space is granted, but also about what it looks like, and for whom. Who is welcomed, and who remains unseen?

Together, we will trace how such spaces are shaped—both literally and figuratively. Through design, through language, through objects, platforms, and symbols.

Explore SG’s related events this quarter on the theme: (Re)Claiming Space

How does design—of streets, campuses, digital platforms, or lecture halls—shape who belongs and who does not? And what happens when we use these spaces to speak out, resist and make ourselves seen? When presence turns into protest, these spaces become political.

In this series, we explore how political spaces come into being: why they matter, how they are designed, and how they might be redesigned. SG invites designers, philosophers, activists, and students to explore how we might design for difference.

9 September 12:45 | Existential Tuesday: Is everything political for Gen Z? @ TUD Library, The Nook
23 September 17:00 | Is a campus designed for protest? @ TUD Library Hall
1 October 12:45 | Current Affairs Lunch Lecture: Male Violence Against Women @ TUD Library, Orange Room
8 October 16:00 | Driving societal change through inclusive STEM research processes and outcomes @ TUD Library Hall
13 October 19:00 | Critical Mass: Woke Design @ Theater de Veste
15 October 16:00 | ‘Flying Solo’ Opening Reception @ TUD Library Hall
13 November 12:45 | Kiting Huddle: Write for the Wind @ TUD Library, The Nook & the Greenroof
4 December ttba | Non-humans and public space @ TUD Library Hall

If you’re new in Delft, you might be a little bit overwhelmed by all the different groups and events that you can join. Here’s an overview to help you find your way around Studium Generale and the groups we sponsor, because we too have a lot to choose from. All of it will drastically enrich your life, but we understand if you can’t make it to everything. Choose wisely 😛

Many of our events take place in the TU Delft Library (in the main hall or in the Nook) and in Theater de Veste, downtown.

Note: the events listed below are some of our recurring events. But we also dedicate each academic quarter to a different theme, with additional events like workshops, exhibitions, lunch lectures, and so on. Find out how to follow us at the bottom of this page.

RUN BY STUDENTS – POWERED BY STUDIUM GENERALE

💬🤓 VOX Delft: run by students and PhD’s, we host small weekly discussion groups in the Library on a wide range of topics in society, politics, philosophy. There are no dumb questions. No perspectives that can’t be entertained, at least as a thought experiment. And there’s no membership either; you just join on the nights that interest you. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

📚📖 VOX Book Club: run by students, we read and discuss one book every quarter. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

🎥🎞️ VOX Film Club: run by students, we watch a movie every week in the Library. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

🎓🎤 TUD Debating Club: run by students, we host weekly practice debate sessions in the Library. Learn formal debate styles and techniques and visit tournaments in other cities. Become a member for a low fee for either six or twelve months. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

🎨👩‍🎨 Hesiodos: run by students and PhD’s, we curate a yearly magazine with different forms of visual and textual art by students, staff, and alumni. And we also come together for low key workshops on campus or in a pub. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

🌱💚 Students4Sustainability: run by students, we fund projects abroad and organize lectures, a symposium, and a festival on sustainability.

RUN BY STUDIUM GENERALE

💬🦜 Existential Tuesdays: every Tuesday in the Library, during the lunch break, we delve into a different existential topic. Tea, snacks, and the ultimate questions in life. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

📝✍️ Writing Huddle: twice every quarter we come together in the Library to try out different writing styles, prompts, and other skills. Join the SG WhatsApp community for more info

🕵️‍♀️🎭 Critical Mass: in-depth, interactive evenings hosted by SG in the theater downtown, we analyze, co-create, watch performances and listen to short presentations on big societal topics.

🥲📚 Filosofie en literatuur: gesprekken met filosofen in Theater de Veste, gehost door hoofd van Studium Generale Leon Heuts. Thema dit jaar: filosofie en crisis.

👩‍🔬🔬 Van Leeuwenhoeklezingen: Delftse wetenschappers, ingenieurs, ontwerpers en architecten geven elk kwartaal een publiekslezing in Theater de Veste

⚠️🎓 University in Times of Crisis: these events give a platform for discussion and debate on the role and responsibilities of the university in complex times

YouTube: check out some of our playlists

It’s a lot, we know! And there’s always more! To find out what’s coming up, keep an eye on our website, newsletter, Instagram, or WhatsApp.

Why do Japanese hotels have backdoors through garages instead of a main entrance? What do public spaces and the way they are designed say about the city they’re in? And why is it important to have well-lit parks at night with trimmed hedges? The material world and the way it is designed tells a lot about ourselves. The hardcopy society isn’t a collection of random objects; read between the lines and you will learn about a people, a culture or a country.

If we look at our material world, can we say who we designed it for? Public space is a good yardstick to measure the status of a society. Who is a space for, who is invited to use it and who is excluded? Are differences tolerated? Can we put borders around spaces? Or countries? When do we leave the realm of public?

In this global society, differences are inevitable. But do we design it for all? And if not, can we do so? Coming Autumn, we’ll investigate the role of objects and more specifically of public space. Can we create spaces where all earth-dwellers feel welcome?
In Q2-3 we’re investigating digital space, who it is created for and how we make use of it. And in our Spring programme we will focus on our inner space: the brain. Is society fit for neurodivergence?

We will be on Summer break for a bit. But check out our first events after Summer. 
We wish you a relaxing holiday for now. See you in the new Academic year. 

For the last four years, SG has helped organize events on campus to mark, celebrate, and learn about Keti Koti. Keti Koti, on July 1^st, commemorates the end of slavery in Dutch Suriname in 1873. With the 150^th anniversary in 2023, and a formal apology from the king, a lot of attention was paid to our colonial history, with a promise to continue working on healing the wounds and improving the lives of descendants of enslaved people in the Netherlands and abroad.

Lots of promises were made. But there is no Keti Koti event on campus this year. Why not?

The sad truth is that we lost a great partner and the driving force behind these events. The Surinamese students’ association SUBEST Delft had to close shop in 2024. The search for new board members proved to be too big of a challenge.

So why is there no more association for Surinamese students in Delft? The number of Surinamese students coming into the country keeps increasing. And, post pandemic, the problem of finding new board members is common to many if not all student associations. But SUBEST faced extra challenges that you will be surprised and perhaps even shocked to learn about.

Here are a few of these challenges.

Despite the strong ties with the Netherlands, and a common language, Surinamese students still need to arrange for a passport, visa, residence permit, health insurance, bank, etc. They face a ton of bureaucratic admin. They face high housing fees and living costs, all to be paid in Euros against a weak Surinamese dollar. That said, they do pay the same amount of tuition as the Dutch students. But that’s where the similarities end. Because unlike Dutch students, Surinamese students must provide proof of a minimum amount of personal financing per year; you need to be able to indicate that you have enough money upfront to support yourself and your studies. In other words, you or your parents must be rich if you want to be allowed to study here.

Supplementing their personal finances with a job in the Netherlands is an obstacle, as Surinamese students (like all non-EU students) are only allowed to work a limited number of hours in the Netherlands (16 hours per week). Of course they could work more, but they won’t get paid more. Surinamese students have no access to student financing and limited access to scholarships. They will face major culture shock, and often psychological difficulties as a result. After a study in the Netherlands, there are limited options for (continued) study or for jobs in Suriname. Jobs that are sorely needed after a very expensive time in the Netherlands.

All in all, these hurdles make it not only difficult for Surinamese students to come to Delft, but to find the time and energy to join and support an association like SUBEST. Life is simply too busy and there are too many demands. Under these circumstances, how can we expect Surinamese students to support each other?

The last board was comprised of students who kept putting their heart and soul into it for multiple years. Not for the usual Delft board year, but for years, plural. And Keti Koti was a moment where they could open their doors to the wider TU Delft community. In the words of Prijanti Moensi, former President of SUBEST Delft:

“For me, Keti Koti on campus was more than just remembering history. It was about sharing our culture, our stories, and our food. We cooked heri heri, a traditional Surinamese dish made with cassava, sweet potato, plantain, salted fish and an egg. Seeing everyone enjoy it made it feel like home again, even if just for a moment. I really miss that feeling this year.”

None of this is to say that life for non-Surinamese students is always easier. But if we want this university and this society to be open, equitable, and inclusive, these obstacles should give us pause. How does the end of SUBEST Delft reflect on our university and our country? Hopefully, there will be better circumstances in the future, so that Surinamese students in Delft can keep working on important cultural and social events.

Other Keti Koti events:

Okay, so there’s no Keti Koti event on campus this year. But if you’re looking to visit other Keti Koti events in the Delft area, there’s one co-organized with the Gemeente at the Theater de Veste on Monday, June 30^th (in Dutch). Or you can take a look at some of the recordings we made of previous SG events (2022, 2023).

And if you want to look ahead at an event on campus, mark the 25^th of November in your calendars, because we’re working on plans to observe 50 years of Surinamese independence with a historical look at the role of engineers in Suriname.

• Klaas P van der Tempel, program maker at Studium Generale TU Delft