So, this week's compositions were varied. I really liked the art group's use of levels and surprise entrance. Kristin slowly rising as everyone else stood still was very interesting. I felt, however, that our composition was a bit of a disappointment.

I thought that drinking the blood of the Turkish was an obvious metaphor and that only partially burying "the dead" was also fairly blatantly conveyed. And that the vampire, as a figment of imagination, or flight of fancy, was a really good symbol for the forced integration: no one seems to think it is a "monster." I guess we just failed to make that clear.

Maybe next time we should chose something simpler.

Jugend und Religion

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/episode/0,2144,3236744,00.html

Gegen die Wand

I saw the movie for class last year. While I appreciated the insight into the Turkish German culture, I really was not fond of the movie over all. In all fairness, when I went to see it at the German film night last year, everyone had been raving about how wonderful of a movie it was and I went in expecting something a little bit more....happy, I guess. I felt really bad for Cahit throughout the entire movie.

As far as themes? Self-destruction. The inability to escape one's failures. Addiction. Other happy stuff.

More information on religious education in Germany

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71382.htm

http://www.euro-islam.info/spip/article.php3?id_article=299

http://www.islamische-foederation.de/