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30 years later: Kella and its neighbors commemorate the opening of the border

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This article from the Werra Rundschau’s January 1, 2020 issue, about the festivities marking the 30thanniversary of the border opening between Kella and Braunrod, describes the improvisation that was necessary to set up a border crossing in the absence of any guidance from “above”.  The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, had thrown the… Read more 30 years later: Kella and its neighbors commemorate the opening of the border

Lost Worlds

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Syrian architect Mohamad Hafez was at the Fleming Museum recently to speak about how as a college student in Iowa back in 2004, he began to build miniature scenes of his native city, Damascus, to work through his homesickness. I’ve been thinking about his work a lot, so I finally wrote a commentary about it.

“It’s complicated”: Borders and Wilderness

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“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” (Section 2 (c) of the 1964 Wilderness Act) This certainly sounds like a good idea in an age where human… Read more “It’s complicated”: Borders and Wilderness

Britta Kowalski: Heimat

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If you missed this post in English, you can find it here. Mit dem Lernen von Sprachen habe ich früh angefangen. Mein erstes Wörterbuch war ein Bündel vergilbter Seiten mit Listen russischer Wörter die meine Großvater väterlicherseits gehört hatten. Sie waren bei seiner persönlichen Habe, die meiner Großmutter geschickt wurde, nachdem er in einem Lazarett… Read more Britta Kowalski: Heimat

Silke Kowalski on Heimat (in German)

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Today’s post is in German, at the request of some German readers. If you missed this post in English, you can find it here. Während meiner Expedition entlang des Grünen Bandes (der ehemaligen deutsch-deutschen Grenze) folgte ich einer Strategie, für die ich mir die Bezeichnung “strukturiertes Umherwandern” (Englisch “sauntering”) überlegt habe.  Die 1400 km lange… Read more Silke Kowalski on Heimat (in German)

More on Heimat, and Sauntering, and Gratitude

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During my expedition along Germany’s death strip-turned-green-belt, I  followed a strategy I came to think of as “structured sauntering.”  The former border strip itself, with the help of a guidebook in my handlebar pouch and a GPS route in my phone, provided the geographical structure for my journey, from the Baltic coast in the north… Read more More on Heimat, and Sauntering, and Gratitude