Friday 5 June | The puzzling side effects of corona

During lockdown in the United Kingdom, an obscure YouTube channel featuring a soft-spoken middle-aged man and low production values has gone viral and now has people all over the world hooked on solving Sudoku puzzles. Feed your inner nerd and join a growing community of puzzle fanatics!

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Simon Anthony, who is one of the two puzzle champions behind the channel, expresses his surprise and delight at their recent success. It is certainly no coincidence that they have suddenly reached a new audience, as they have received many messages from people for whom the channel has been beneficial for their mental health during these trying times.

They have also had surprising endorsements from some unlikely YouTube heavyweights who have revealed themselves as puzzle enthusiasts, including make-up artist James Charles and music producer Kurt Hugo Schneider, who are good for over 30 million subscribers and 5 billion views between them.

Anthony’s latest hit is The Miracle Sudoku, a strangely compelling 25-minute video in which he takes on a seemingly impossible grid. Make sure to check out their channel Cracking the Cryptic.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.

Thursday 4 June | Ad Verbrugge on never ending life: gift or curse?

Who’s afraid of the end of life? Nowadays we all seem to be afraid of dying. The way we cope with the pandemic seems to say something about our tendency to hold on to life as long as we possibly can. We’d rather stay in a cage (our own home) in order to live longer, than to just live.

According to philosopher Ad Verbrugge (UvA) there is value and beauty in having an end to your life. He rather focuses on leading your life here and now and accepting the end when it comes, than to strive for banishment of all disease and death. ‘There seems to be confusion about how eternal life implies the banishment of death. But death is an integral part of life and thus we will never succeed in banning it.’

In February 2020 Studium Generale organised three events within the TU Delft Library programme ‘Who’s afraid of the end of life. Exploring and (re)designing values on (im)mortality’. This lecture was part of the event ‘Never ending life: gift or curse?’ together with the study associations of Nanobiology, Life Science & Technology and Clinical Technology.

This lecture is in Dutch.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: #MentalHealth, #TheWorldAfterCorona, #ArtsCulture, #ClipsLectures, #CasualFriday.

Check out the entire programme of ‘Who’s afraid of the end of life?’ here:
https://www.tudelft.nl/en/library/about-the-library/tu-delft-library-presents/who-is-afraid-of-the-end-of-life/

Wednesday 3 June | Reading theatre plays

Missing theatre and have had enough of staring at a screen? Feel like reading, but fed up with novels? Try reading a script, or hey, if you’re up for it, rehearse something with your roommates. De Nieuwe Toneelbibliotheek made hundreds of theatre plays available as pdf and a lot of them are for free. Paint your own play in your head by reading just the script.
We’ve selected the page with foreign language plays for you. For example, check the play ‘AMSTERDAM’ by the Israeli playwright Maya Arad Yasur.

The play AMSTERDAM unfolds the course of 24 hours in the life of a 9 months pregnant Israeli violinist living in Amsterdam, the day she wakes up and finds an unpaid gas bill from 1944 on her doorstep. The multiple speakers accompany the absent character throughout the day on which she tries to keep her regular routine while the gas bill is hiding in her bag like a ticking bomb, shattering her consciousness into pieces, awakening sentiments of collective identity, minority awareness, fear of xenophobia and strong sense of strangeness, foreignness and alienation. The speakers reconstruct a possible story of the past which takes over the plot and turns the Israeli violinist’s home environment into a scene of tragic events.

Please take into account that the scripts are for private use only. Contact the writer about the rights whenever you wish to use a text for a performance.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.

Tuesday 2 June | The COVID-19 Generation

Will this be the defining moment for Generation Z?

Studying and graduating during a recession, let alone a global health crisis, will be challenging. Job vacancies are drying up, scholarships are being canceled, and you won’t even get to celebrate properly. But each generation faces its own challenges. In this article on verywellmind.com, Kendra Cherry sketches what each generation is dealing with in terms of COVID-19.

Brooke Masters at the Financial Times warns that lessons from past crises show that the younger generations suffer the most. It may take a decade for Generation Z to catch up in wealth and opportunity. And who knows what the long term effects will be for children? Even as we try to return to some form of normal life, it may do well to remember that we ourselves have been changed. Whether this moment defines us or not, time will tell.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.

Monday 1 June | The corona app: solution to our problems or a big mistake?

The corona app: solution to our problems or a big mistake?

Several weeks ago the government organised an ‘appathon’ with the aim of launching a corona tracing app in record time. Experts complimented the government for the transparancy of the process, but were sceptical: the app had to be developed in a rush, and essential privacy concerns were not thought through. It turned out that there was no company participating in the ‘appathon’ that could live up to the safety standards. It has been quiet ever since…

But what are the main issues when developing such an app? Is it possible to reconcile the functionality of a tracing app with our right to privacy? Will there be an app in the end?

We asked dr. Seda Gürses, Associate Professor in the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at the Faculty of Technology Policy and Management. What do you think, should we use an app to trace people infected by the virus?

Are you still full of questions or ideas after watching this video? Join the discussion on corona apps on June 2nd, hosted by Matthew Dennis and organised by our colleagues at X TU Delft.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.

New: SG Online Walk-In Skype Hour!

Do you have questions or suggestions for SG? Ready your webcam and click here to meet SG team members live on Skype, every Tuesday from 11am to 12pm.

Normally the SG office (in the TUD Library, room 1.60) is open for walk-ins from Mondays through Thursdays. Since most of us are working or studying from home for the time being, we’ve decided to host a weekly walk-in Skype session instead. Whether you’re a student, a staff member, or other visitor, feel free to ‘visit’ us on Skype.

Friday 29 May | One World Government

After WWI, the League of Nations was formed. It couldn’t prevent WWII. After that war, the UN was founded, along with the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and dozens of other global agencies. None of them prevented the advance of climate change, the 2008 global recession, or 2020’s coronavirus pandemic. What will the next step in global politics be?

Apart from increased nationalism and isolation, there are voices calling for even more global connectedness. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example, is advocating a temporary one-world government to tackle the pandemic. An institution that, unlike the UN, can make broad political and economic decisions that will actually be enforced.

A one world government is a nightmare scenario for many thinkers. But even a nightmare is better faced than left to fester in our unconscious. ‘Global citizens’ as we are, we should at least think about it. What would a one world government look like? Would it tend towards democratic values, or be authoritarian? Who would be in charge? Where would the ‘capital’ be? How would it enforce its decrees? Power is not often relinquished: if we tried it out for a while, like Brown suggests, could we ever let it go? Or would Pandora’s Box be forever left open? And if so, would that be any worse or better than what we’re facing now?

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.

Thursday 28 May | Frankenstein Book Club Podcast

Dr. Kathryn Harkup has produced a fascinating podcast on the science behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for SG. Have a listen and learn about gruesome experiments with electricity, grave robbing for profit, and the quarantine-like isolation in which Shelley wrote her famous novel.

Interested? It’s not too late to join the online book club where we’ll discuss the book in its entirety.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.

Wednesday 27 May | Online opera series

Operadagen Rotterdam produces the six episode online opera Home Sweet Home. A community project together with Rotterdam artists like collective Club Gewalt and theatre-maker Gabby Bakker, but also soprano Claron McFadden and in co-production with online broadcaster OPEN Rotterdam. Together 100 Rotterdam artists show a versatile and colourful image on the streets of Rotterdam in this cross-over project.

Originally meant to kick off the festival Operadagen Rotterdam, the community project had to bring together a big crowd with people from various backgrounds. Because of COVID-19 this idea had to be adapted, and the festival organization asked singers, musicians and dancers to film themselves from home with a pre-formulated instruction. From all this footage, the online video series was made as a “chronicle of our age”, according to creative director Rajiv Bhagwanbali.

Between 21 and 30 May new episodes appear on their website, with the last episode on May 30. Check out this beautifully made online opera production.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: #MentalHealth, #TheWorldAfterCorona, #ArtsCulture, #ClipsLectures, #CasualFriday.

Tuesday 26 May | The Dilemmas that Will Shape the World After Corona

Predicting what the world will look like over the coming years is never an easy task. But looking at the different dilemmas we face because of the coronavirus, we at least get to see what’s at stake. It seems likely that this tiny virus will reshape our entire civilization.

In this short read in the Hindustan Times, former Indian ambassador dr. Mohan Kumar lists seven ways the world may change. In one example, he sees public health security becoming equally if not more important than national security. Will pathogens be seen as a greater threat than terrorists? How will this affect air travel, xenophobia, and politics?

In this longer read on New Statesman, former UK foreign secretary David Milliband argues that there are four ‘contests’ or dilemmas that have to be fought out. First, between more globalization or putting up more walls; between democracy and autocracy, to see who is better at dealing with crises; between privacy and liberty, as countries mine their citizens’ data; and between continuing society’s harsh inequalities or expanding the welfare state, introducing universal basic income, and making education more accessible.

Do you see any other dilemmas taking shape? How do you make the right decisions going forward? Let us know your thoughts below.

Studium Generale created a Corona Care Package to make #StayingIn as pleasant as possible. In the following weeks we will share videos, blogs, articles and podcasts within four focus areas: Mental Health, The World After Corona, Arts & Culture and other online events.