Fascinating

By Kees Winkel on 6 February 2012

Fascinating. I have started following a course at the University of Utrecht. This Monday morning, I found myself in a hugh auditorium with my colleague Jelke de Boer and some 430 other students. Apart from Jelke and me, I recon the average age was somewhere round 20. “Fascinating”, I found myself thinking in a rather Mr. Spock-like fashion as I really tried to make absolute sense of what I was doing there and how it happened of me actually sitting in that big dark hall with assistant professor Mirko Tobias Schäfer explaining the differences between McLuhan and Williams, ergo, the perhaps philosophical or at least academic dispute on issues of Technological Determinism and Social Constructivism. Fascinating.

It was Rogier Brussee who attended me on Mr. Spock’s slightly irritating announcements – ‘fascinating’ –  when finding something unknown to this great all-knower in that spaceship with Kirk, Scotty an god knows what the name of that doctor was (I can’t even remember the name of the computer they talked to as if it was Hal. It is fascinating what people know about early days entertainment shows that are now the archetypes for today’s teleological discourse and I was silly enough to just enjoy the show without considering the future relevance of it all).

Back to the auditorium this morning. Professor Schäfer has taught me (at least) one important and all too relevant lesson; do not get caught in the hyping rhetoric. Fascinating.

Apropos. Maybe you are as excited to learn about our students and the Media and Museum Battle as I am. Check out the feeds on mediabattle.ning.com. Fascinating.