Hangin' out at the castle

First Sunday of each month, it is free to ride the S-train. More than 100 international Humanities students made good use of this offer last Sunday, 6 March, and took a day trip to Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød.

Having the entire castle mostly to themselves, the students and their Danish mentors had a great time. See the photo gallery of their exploits here.

No point in learning Danish

For full-degree student Riccardo Mioli from Italy, learning Danish seemed like a good idea when he first arrived in Copenhagen. Now, one year later, he has changed his mind.

»In the beginning I wanted to learn Danish. But after 6 or 7 months here, when I still didn’t know any Danish, it seemed like a waste of time to start. Now I have given up.«

It is easy to survive in Copenhagen only speaking in English, and the Danes quickly switch over if they hear someone struggling with the tricky guttural Danish pronunciation, he says.

Revealing the beauty of your own language

»Danish is often considered an ugly language. Foreigners are probably not allowed to say so openly, but Danes may admit it. And that’s exactly the reason why we translate into Danish. To prove that its back-throated sounds can compose their own peculiarly beautiful music.«

Confessing such an unflattering opinion about your own native tongue doesn’t come easy. Therefore Judyta Preis and Jørgen Herman Monrad challenge this unfavourable impression with a well-chosen argument – they turn for support to the eighteenth-century German aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg:

Festival of minimalistic composers and telephones

Come and take part in an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural festival on the avant-garde at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies (IKK).

It all takes place on the 5 - 6 November with a host of lectures, workshops, film screenings, music, performances and art. Here's a quick list of the events that either transcend language, or are in English. Click on the artists to preview their work:

Thursday 5 November

Sewing clouds together

‘The bridge’ is a trite metaphor. But sometimes it is the most fitting, so Mourid Barghouti is excused.

When the Palestinian poet and author in 1996 gazes across the River Jordan and into the country he left 30 years earlier, it is the Al-Karameh Bridge he needs the soldiers’ permission to cross. A bridge that has, in the most literal sense, separated him from the past, friends and family he has longed for ever since he left Palestine during the Six Day War of 1967.

Palestinian poet to talk exile

Mourid Barghouti’s autobiography, I Saw Ramallah, won the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Medal. To promote its Danish release, the Palestinian poet is speaking at the University of Copenhagen at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Religious Studies (ToRS).

Exiled from his homeland in 1967’s Six-Day War, Mourid Barghouti spent thirty years feeling homeless and uprooted. Upon his return in 1996, crossing the very same bridge he walked to leave, he finds himself unable to recognize the city he was forced to leave behind, instead discovering new forms of displacement.

Student art - now uncut

Budding artists at the University of Copenhagen can now express themselves in a new exhibition room at the Faculty of Humanities (KUA) in Amager.

The gallery, called The Students’ Gallery, will celebrate its opening Thursday 10 September between 16:00 and 17.30.

The opening celebration takes place at the faculty library, Njalsgade 112, and the afterparty at Roland Bar from 17:30. ‘Ricard’ and dates will be served.

Democratic and uncensored

Preview: Majestic folk music at Studenterhuset

The student bar Studenterhuset is no longer just a secret place for international students in Copenhagen: The student card gives free access every Wednesday evening to the International Nights, mostly for international students, where a resident DJ juggles with current commercial hits, and types of music you can easily dance to.

However, the student bar also hosts numerous concerts with artists more or less renowned from pop, rock and folk. Thursday 2 February, the English singer-songwriter Simon Finn will honour us with his presence for only DKK 80.