Post Magazine - winter edition 2015 by Laurens Hebly

A Magazine by UCU Alumni

On my way back from graduating in Canterbury (yay!), the Channel looked pretty cool. Managed to take a picture before I got too seasick. / Januschka Veldstra

Cover photo | Invincible summer / Gala-Alexa Amagat

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project I am so glad this was my last cellphone pic and not the double-chinned disaster that was the one before this incessant photographing of this wall. This is my kidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room, with the mural I painted. Took me ages to finish so when I did I took an embarrassingly high amount of pictures of it to show off to everyone and hey, would you look at that, Post asks for pics! Ha! / Indra Spronk-Baas

This was my view while having a late lunch at the HEMA in Groningen last weekend. / Annique Claringbould

I thought he looked hot. He didn’t. / Carys Mol

Post | A Magazine by the Alumni of University College Utrecht Winter 2015

Angus posing in front his friend Tristan Pigott’s painting ‘Big Softie’ for which he was the model in the Cob Gallery, London. Little did he know the theme of the painting was impotence. / Tymon Kiepe

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Alumni et al.! Friench Fries I am not an idealist A Drop of Woman This Year, for Christmas Featured Artist: Laurence Herfs Let’s be Selfish in the Face of Tragedy Welcoming Refugees: Our Future is Common The Last Photo Project Looking Back Alumni Matters Class of 2015 1/2 Who, What, Where? Colophon

I N M U L A ET AL.! This is the tenth edition of Post Magazine. “How on God’s verdantly green earth do you know that!?” you exclaim, tapping your foot impatiently, demanding to know the answer. “Well,” we calmly respond, “because we counted.” We counted since the day we baked a half-burnt apple pie – sour as lemons – a little less than five years ago. It was a mediocrely executed bribe but it worked. As the UCU management team – Rob van der Vaart, Bettina Nelemans, Fried Keesen, and others – chomped down on that tart tart back in 2011 (excusez le pun), their prior objections to funding a printed magazine in the Age of iPad were suddenly, miraculously forgotten. The dean was so intently focused on keeping his silk necktie away from the whipped cream-wrapped treat he was pushing into his mouth, that he, distracted and barely audible between chews, promised to partially fund our plans for Post magazine for “some time” to see if it would pay off. It was a win. The only way he would’ve been distracted enough to promise full funding was if we had filled the conference room with super fluffy puppy dogs, cutely yipping away and tumbling over each other, rendering everyone incapable of logical thought because puppy dogs1. This edition contains all that half-burnt whipped cream-wrapped goodness that you have come to expect from us over the years. So go ahead, feast on some of those juicy, mind-expanding articles! They’re chock-full of the hard-earned knowledge and insight that comes with leading the UCU alumni life. But don’t bite off too much at once; there’s some real acidity to this particular slice of Post. Max Lamb shares some disheartening observations of cultural cannibalism. Anna Geurts interviews Katja Swider

about the misfortune of those who are unrecognized by any nation. Laura Scheske writes about the unnatural, disastrous coming of age of a little boy. Jerome Roos stresses the importance of hospitality towards those displaced by war. And if you want to tweet about it all, you’re going to have to wrap that in some social media etiquette, according to Kiran Coleman. Who said things were easy? To wash it all down, however, we thoughtfully provided a sweet scoop of compromising photos – glimpses into alumni life – taken straight from alumni phones after strongly, persuasively suggesting on the UCAA Facebook Group that you should all send us the very last picture you took. It didn’t work on everybody, but then again: we didn’t offer apple pie, let alone puppy dogs. Yip yip, The Post Editorial Board

Renting out puppy dogs for bribery purposes is a rock solid business idea and anyone reading this is free to run with it.

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This is an empty waiting room at the Brussels center city hall on Monday 23 November. Why does one take a picture, you asked? Because on average the waiting time is an hour and this room resembles a departure gate at Istanbul international airport when all flights have been cancelled, screaming babies included. / Agnes Venema

This is not soup. This, dear onlooker, is a potage – a spicy roasted pumpkin potage with crispy bacon, crème fraîche, and chives to be precise. / Thijs van Himbergen

A picture of a geen juice, which I evidently took as a proof to remind myself I have moments in which manage to live a life that resembles the aspirations as found on my pinterest boards. Of course immediately counterbalanced by the messy kitchen you cannot see in the picture, the spilt juice, the summer shoes I wear in wintertime, the cutting board that I kept in a storage unit for four (four!) years while I sorted out some issues that did not require household items. Evidently. / Hannah van der Deijl

Only hours after returning from a visit to a friend in Mexico, I tried to take a picture to show her how cold, but also how amazed by the city’s beauty I was, standing in the St. Petersburg night. / Isabel Seeger

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Western Taste

Max Lamb writes of the cultural and culinary clashes he experienced in Addis Ababa, and how French fries in the Ethiopian capital can alienate you from your Westernness.

spent a month of the summer of 2014 interning for a development consulting firm in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The highrise complex which housed the firm’s office – supposedly one of Addis’ most exclusive – had been built with a Western façade lazily smeared over Soviet foundations (which would make for great hyperbole if it wasn’t potentially true). There was a ground floor of shops which never seemed to be open. There was a painstakingly cleaned stainless-steel elevator that only elevated passengers on an arbitrary basis. Friendly staff in New York City doorman outfits puttered about the building without purpose, maybe they were the ones who stocked the rolls of paper for toilets which didn’t flush. When the elevator wasn’t working, I would run my fingers along the wall and chuckle as I walked up five flights of stairs. The drywall’s intricate splatter finish could not hide its flimsiness; it would bow slightly between studs under my gentle touch. Most days there was some excuse not to work. Sometimes it was a lack of power and internet: the semiweekly outages would send the entire office out on extended lunches. But even more often, it was because there was actually no work to be done. My supervisor, a slick diaspora Ethiopian with an Ivy League degree, was nice enough to feign an apologetic attitude for this when he’d visit the office as a break from his other dubious affairs. Left with no responsibilities and effectively no supervision, I would run my fingers back down five flights of stairs

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over the wall to explore the city. The geographic location of Addis as a capital makes me wonder how such political decisions are generally made – perched at the foot of a mountain deep in Ethiopia’s highlands, I can only imagine it was agreed out of sentimental respect to some creation myth rather than by any measure of convenience. As a result of the altitude the air was always thin and dry, and was a heady concoction when mixed with the blackened fumes of the trucks that cycled in and out of the city. The air only heightened the undeniable strangeness which permeated the place. Bole Road, the main artery of the city, was more of a highway with sidewalks, and was lined with dozens of high rises like the one containing my office – reflecting some off-kilter idea of ‘modern’ which seemed almost comical in attempt. Not comical in any sort of postcolonial schadenfreude, but in observance of the chasm between the prestige of modernity and the value of its actual function. Why worry if your elevator works as long as you’ve got one? On my free afternoons I would wander down Bole, where in the shadows of the high rises I was regularly confronted by beggars and teenage pickpockets. Swarming from Ethiopia’s even poorer rural areas to Addis with broken dreams of a better life in mind, they would follow me down the sidewalk making desperate gestures and shouting the only English phrase they knew: “Give me money!” While I made an

SUPER Fries

attempt at showing my humanity by brushing them off with sympathetic politeness, wealthy Ethiopians in suits and ties would throw beggars to the ground. Perhaps they were just used to it, or perhaps they felt something I did not. Eventually, I gave in and threw a beggar to the ground too, after one tried to grab my arms while another scrambled at my pockets. I told my coworkers this, and they reassured me that I had dealt with the situation correctly, too many Westerners encourage this kind of behavior by handing out cash on the street. And now, looking back on it, I don’t know which upsets me more – the ease with which my humanity was discarded, or the futility of trying to preserve it. As I towered over this beggar, paralyzed with shock in the dirt where he’d landed, it was hard to believe that he and I were created equal.

different options before the waiter would accept my order with annoyance, as if I should have known they weren’t really available in the first place. The one thing I could always count on to be served, though, was French fries.

August was rainy season for Addis, which meant that my afternoon explorations of the city were often punctuated by extended lunches to avoid the downpours. Gangs of street kids with scrapwood shoeshine kits and wilted newspapers over their heads would scatter in vain as I would duck into cafés with covered terraces and order an exquisite Ethiopian coffee. To my surprise, the menus for these cafés were usually quite expansive, but that surprise was quickly diminished when it became clear that only a small selection of the menu could actually be ordered. It wasn’t uncommon to request three or four

Of course, I would expect them with something like a club sandwich or a burger. But to my amusement, they would also come with eggs and toast, with pizza, with salad. I half-expected to find one swimming in my coffee. Like any good Westerner might, at first I enjoyed the quantity of French fries I was presented with. Their constant presence soon became laughable, yet another non-sequitur in a city which I was still struggling to understand. It became a game to find things on the menu which were both orderable and would not come with fries. Unsurprisingly, I discovered that this was limited

“I half-exp ec

ted to find a french fry s wimming in my coffee.”

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Original

Enjoy More

French

“I was grip ped

with the ug liness of the slow cannibaliza tion of Ethiopian cu lture by mine.” to Ethiopian food, with exotic curries and injerra pancakes which tasted sour and unfamiliar to me; I didn’t eat it often. Before long, though, I came to resent the French fries. As words lose their meaning in mindless repetition, after several weeks my beloved fries appeared as greasy little woodchips on a plate. I couldn’t bear to eat another; they were insults from the waiters and the kitchen. Is this all that you think I want? Is this all that you think I am? In feeble protest I began to leave the woodchips untouched for when the plate was collected, as I stubbornly continued to order Western food. To my chagrin the restaurants and cafés of Addis Ababa didn’t pick up on my hints, so I made the painfully obvious decision to start eating injerra. The foreignness of Ethiopian food was decidedly less insulting. It was only through my tumultuous relationship with French fries that I began to unravel the strangeness I felt of the city. They were signposts of a cultural collision beyond my understanding, but so great that I could not help but notice. They were verses of some sick inverted parable which I was involuntarily but inextricably a part of – have we created ourselves in your image? Without so much as firing a shot, my culture had convinced Ethiopians that being modern, that being like us, was better. So they look at us like a mirror and it shatters when they don’t fit the reflection. Every sad plate of fries, every broken elevator in every shoddy high rise is a product of this cracked mirror, where it is so strange to me because in all of its earnestness and ambition it misses the 08

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point. In my short month in Addis Ababa, I could not do justice to Ethiopian culture and its beautiful intricacies as any other. No, the beauty would have taken far longer to appreciate, for I was gripped with the ugliness of the slow cannibalization of Ethiopian culture by mine. This realization was the swan song of my brief stay – in the absence of work to do, the toxic combination of boredom and disgust had me restless and homesick. On one of my final nights in the city, a Western colleague offered to take me out to an authentic Ethiopian bar. Praying that this might actually be the case, I joined him to what turned out to be a sleazy dive with cheap liquor and overly friendly Ethiopian dancing girls who joined the tables of businessmen ordering bottle service. I hung around the walls with a drink and crossed arms to avoid being solicited. Another Ethiopian colleague, who had spent more than ten years living in Canada prior, noticed my discomfort and beamed at me – I could see the strangeness, I understood. He whisked me away down alleys and corridors that no Westerner would have conceived of venturing, to a bar for locals, with an incredible live band and people dancing unforced. Over many beers, fried cow tongue and the impenetrable whir of Amharic, the month’s strangeness temporarily faded away. While studying at UCU, Max Lamb (‘15) spent one month in Addis Ababa working for the Center for Development Consulting. After graduating in June of this year, he went on to do a research internship at a non-profit in Amsterdam.

‘I am not an idealist’ Katja Swider on Statelessness An interview by Anna P.H. Geurts Since graduating from UCU in 2006, Katja Swider has gone on to be a legal scholar specialising in statelessness, about which she is now preparing a doctoral thesis. One summer evening, we meet for a long-distance conversation about her work.

Katja, you once told me that statelessness can happen to anyone. So how do you become stateless?

tatelessness is a lack of nationality. First you have to understand that if a person does have a nationality, it is simply because somewhere in the world, a state has decided to consider them a national. The rules used by states to decide whom they consider their own nationals vary tremendously. For example, in Iran, fathers pass on their nationality to their children. Another example: the US claim everyone born on their territory as their national – this is the ius soli principle. The Netherlands do not. For them, anyone with at least one Dutch parent is Dutch, based on the ius sanguinis. Most states, however, have a combination of ius soli and ius sanguinis. The Netherlands, for instance, do grant nationality to the third generation born on their territory.

Most people do not know how they have acquired their nationality. They have had it from birth and take it for granted. Yet some people are not considered nationals by any state. These are the world’s stateless. You can become stateless in a variety of ways. You may have never acquired a nationality, for instance winter 2015 | Post

“Every single jurisdiction in the world is responsible for every instance of statelessness.”

by being born in a ius sanguinis state to parents who hold a nationality of a ius soli state – a Canadian expat couple who have a baby in Germany would run this risk. Or by having a single mum in a state where only men can pass on their nationality to their children. Such gender discrimination exists in as many as twenty-six countries. Later on in life, you can also still lose your nationality. States can withdraw it in their persecution of unwanted minorities, as happened to stateless Dominicans of Haitian descent. Or your country simply ceases to exist – like the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia – and you do not acquire the nationality of any of the newly formed states. In the future, we may have to add ecological causes to this list, for example if small island states sink below sea level and cease to exist. So this is an important social issue. Is that also what attracted you as a researcher? That was not the only reason. There is a technical story to tell here, and a personal story. To begin with the personal one: I have been a foreigner most of my life. I almost always lived in countries outside my nationality. As a child, this fascinated me. Not sociologically - I would integrate very fast and feel local almost anywhere - but in its legal, bureaucratic aspects. Going to strange places to be registered and renew documents... Being ‘Polish’ meant so much more when you were outside Poland! I felt the power papers have. I was always wondering what happens if you do not have them. Then I made a friend at UCU who used to be stateless. I wrote a paper about her for a sociology course. My professor could not believe it was true. He actually checked my footnotes to make sure I did 10

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not misunderstand the legal situation. That is when I realised the issue was not well researched. A lot of things have changed since then. Now, statelessness is a hype in the United Nations and among NGOs. So how about the technical story? Statelessness is a fascinating legal concept. It is the product of the interaction between the nationality laws of different countries. The laws of a single state usually align: they make sense together. But statelessness arises on the boundaries between different national legal systems. Only if no single state claims a person as its national, this person is stateless. Consequently, every single jurisdiction in the world is responsible for every instance of statelessness. The issue relates to the sovereignty of states. States need statelessness. But they are also threatened by it. They need it because sovereignty requires the freedom to determine the composition of their own population without having to coordinate this with other states. This inevitably leads to both statelessness and multiple nationality. Yet if a state contains too many ‘unclaimed’ people you have a problem, as a government. You cannot deport them, nor can you control them very well. This, too, can threaten sovereignty. Then there is the interaction with migration, and the issue of human rights... Human rights are always lurking near statelessness, but we do not know where to place them. The right to a nationality? But what nationality? Is nationality perhaps a ‘right to have rights’? [a concept from Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism.] But perhaps we should also consider the right to be stateless?

actually quite distinct, from a legal point of view. It was decided that refugeehood was the more urgent issue. It was an emergency, a global disaster that had to be addressed there and then. So the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted in 1951, and a UN agency was established to supervise its implementation: the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The two UN statelessness conventions were adopted in 1954 and 1961, respectively, but almost nothing was done with them at that time. Statelessness was thought to be less related to the Second World War: a thing that had always been there and that should be dealt with at some point in the future. We now have a strong lobby for the rights of refugees, and solid legal mechanisms, but the world also needs to deal with statelessness. In terms of human impact and legal complexity it is not much smaller than the refugee issue.

A great deal more thinking has to go into statelessness. Then, we might even come to understand better what statefullness means. You said statelessness is hyped. Many of the policy and research initiatives on statelessness that we have seem to be only a few years old. Can we conclude that statelessness is a new problem? No, it has been around for as long as nationalities have existed. And then again, according to people like Hobbes and Locke, statelessness is our natural state: when you go back in time far enough, everyone is stateless. After the Second World War, the UN began to develop human-rights conventions inspired by the Holocaust. In fascist Europe, Jews were both refugee and stateless. Thus at first these two problems were not distinguished. They are merged in the works of Hannah Arendt, one of the best-known thinkers on statelessness. Then came the realisation that the two issues are

Sometime in the 1990s, the UNHCR also received a mandate on statelessness. I think this has created the hype. It took them about ten years to develop some expertise, to open jobs for people to work precisely on statelessness, and then the hidden problems were discovered. So what might help stateless people in the short term? To start with, it would help if their statelessness were recognised and documented. Having a piece of paper that says you are stateless is definitely not the end of your trouble, but it starts the conversation. It helps protect you against arbitrary deportation, for instance, and you may be better able to arrange a nationality for your children. But even this mere acknowledgement of your statelessness is not an option in most countries. A wider awareness that statelessness is a legal issue would also be good. Being stateless does not say anything about your social position or your political views. Still, a lot of suspicion surrounds stateless persons: that they are dangerous, or disloyal to their community. Yet stateless people often feel very much part of a nation. Their statelessness may only surface winter 2015 | Post

“She said she was stateless, whereupon a border guard honestly asked: ‘Where is that?’”

as they are trying to arrange some ‘silly’ paperwork. Even then, they often feel that a problem has to do with their ‘papers’, not their national belonging. People know so little about statelessness, and that can really hurt affected individuals. At a conference, one stateless woman said that border crossings are hell because of the amount of explaining she needs to do. Once, when the question of nationality arose, she said she was stateless, whereupon a border guard honestly asked: ‘Where is that?’ What major legal changes or mentality shifts do you feel are needed in the long term? What would your ideal world look like? I am not an idealist. My opinion is that the world is bad. People are bad, we cannot do anarchism, and 12

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we fail at communism. All great ideas just do not work because we cannot manage to be nice to each other. So I think that whatever we do, there will be a division between them and us; some will be rich, and others will be poor. In my ideal world, there is an awareness of this inherent injustice. People who are privileged feel guilty about that privilege. When a foreigner is denied access, this is done with the feeling ‘I need to do this in order to keep my society rich and prosperous’, and not with the feeling ‘I have a moral right to do it’.

Katja Swider’s (‘06) blogs about statelessness are heartily recommended: www.statelessness.eu/search/node/swider. In the contribution ‘States as a root cause of statelessness’, Katja explains some of the thoughts that go into her doctoral thesis to a non-juridical audience. Anna P.H. Geurts (‘06) works as an historian at the University of Sheffield (UK) on the theme of space in the long nineteenth century, next to that of perceptions of time. She also writes about the history of everyday life on Historian at Large (https://historianatlarge.wordpress.com).

From water to wine (via beer). Dining Hall 2015/16. / Anthony Guevara

LAhSotTo P

proje

The last picture I took is from last night, when I was having dinner (and drinks, obviously) in celebration of our group’s last day of “gz-opleiding” - to become a registered health psychologist. A nice moment though the pic isn’t all too great ;). / Marijtje Koolschijn

Accidentally constructed one of the closets in the living room, but I’m happy with it. :) Photo for my mom, to share moving progress. / Sarah Brinckmann

This is an achievement (as a parent): having your kids falling asleep in the buggy right after a two hours game-run! / Somaye Dehban

At the screenprinting studio with Thijs, trying to prepare a new screen for the huge beach towels we are about to print. / Laurens Hebly

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a drop of woman

A momentary sound of a rain drop on the water disappears before you see it, like imaginary daughter You wished it would stay longer, you cry to have been with her, but you couldn’t keep a promise and her presence swiftly withered You looked away when it mattered, didn’t stop when time stood still. You couldn’t catch her beauty, although dream on it you will Like that rain drop on the water that was heard to miss in sight, it flocked with other water drops and vanished before the night, like imaginary daughter, an imaginary wife

IG Karfield ( ‘ 07), 2015

This picture was taken in Tel - Aviv, in a little bar where they serve cocktails in chemistry apparatus. I turned around and saw the window was decorated with a plethora of vintage bras. / Rebecca van Enter

For about 30 horrifying minutes it seemed like our dishwasher had completely broken down. Turned out it just needed some cleaning! Sent this picture to my sister to share my relief and renewed sense of appreciation of the luxury to have these around. / Franka van Buuren

I take a lot of photos in the library of stuff to remember. I thought this might be an interesting article to look up for my dissertation. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not likely that I actually will do anything with it. / Isabel Braadbaart

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An amazing rainbow I saw in Utrecht after work one day. Unfortunately my picture is not as good as the rainbow actually was. / Judith de Jong

Nijmegen train station, on my way to work. No words. / Jeroen van Baar

My aunt’s sinterklaas present. Gotta love the print on these rain boots. / Joske Brouwer

LASTo

Phot t projec

Taken to post on my family’s app group, with the caption “Een jaar zonder IKEA is een jaar niet geleefd.” My fellow alumni can probably relate. / Myrte Vos

Aim being to capture the first wet snow of the season. Which obviously you can’t see, and even if you could, it wouldn’t have amounted to a stunning sight. / Fleur van Wijck

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A little boy is growing up, and it’s not pretty. Laura Scheske explains how our collective upbringing of a natural phenomenon is having devastating effects.

his winter, we are witnessing one of the most significant climate events yet. I am not referring to the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21), which took place in Paris this December and involved negotiators from all over the world eating foie gras from plastic plates while discussing the future of Planet Earth. Parallel to what is undoubtedly the most important international conference (with the highest carbon footprint!) organized to this day, nature is hosting its very own climate event: El Niño, and we are all attending. In Spanish, ‘El Niño’ means “slobbering little immigrant boy wrapped in rags worshipped by millions across the world” – a worship which culminates in a consumer-driven frenzy at the end of every year that is commonly known as “Christmas”. However, El Niño is also the term used to refer to an oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system in the

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tropical Pacific, which has important consequences for weather around the globe1. Thus, much like little baby Jesus, this climactic El Niño impacts millions of people worldwide; not as our Lord and Savior but by messing with global weather patterns – such as causing excessive rainfall or none at all. Both El Niños bless us with their presence around December, and it is thanks to some very observant medieval Peruvian fishermen that the term El Niño is now used to refer to this phenomenon. Similar to the warming of hearts and hearths that happens around Christmas, El Niño brings warmth in his own way: by increasing the sea-surface temperature in the eastern equatorial Pacific (off the coast of Peru). El Niño visits every three to five years, making himself felt around October and lasting well into the first or second quarter of the subsequent year. In some cases, he is followed by a

“El Niño’s voice is breaking and he is starting to grow facial hair.”

the schoolyard and invited his friends from Tropical Cyclone Central3 to bully these small Pacific Island States.

frigid lady, La Niña, who cools down the equatorial Pacific. Leave it to a woman to cool a boy down! This year we find ourselves in quite a pickle: the average sea-surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific have risen above 2.5 C in the last weeks of October, which basically means that little El Niño’s voice is breaking and he is starting to grow facial hair. In fact, climate outlook models suggest that the current El Niño may exceed the magnitude of the strongest ever recorded (in 1997-982). Before you start booking your tickets to frolick around in Pacific bathwater, there are a few things worth noting: apart from the impact on global rainfall, which can result in extensive flooding* or droughts, El Niño is also associated with extreme weather events, such as stronger and more frequent hurricanes or harsh winters. Most Pacific islands, including Fiji, Vanuatu and others not found on the budget-airline grid have been experiencing some of the worst droughts in decades, leading to crop failures, loss of safe drinking water, and even closure of public institutions such as schools, hospitals and police stations. To top it off, El Niño has rallied up

When extreme weather events exacerbated by El Niño batter regions with ongoing conflicts or socioeconomic strife, the consequences for society can be devastating. This year, El Niño is hanging around with shady phenomena such as those two rare cyclones, Chapala and Megh, which hit the Middle East in October. These two caused significant damage in Somalia and Yemen, displacing thousands of people in Yemen alone by dumping more than a year’s worth of rain onto the mainland. To make matters worse, relief efforts are being hampered by the ongoing conflict between Houthi rebels in Sanaa and government-loyal forces, turning this into a true transdisciplinary crisis. In Indonesia, El Niño is breathing hot air onto the worst drought and fire duet in living memory, which is blanketing much of Southeast Asia in a sepia haze. The use of fires to clear land for oil palm plantations is not new to Indonesian farming practices, and most years the haze goes by largely unnoticed (by western media at least). This year, however, the consequences have been overwhelming: more than half a million reports of respiratory distress, damaged infrastructure, loss of biodiversity, widespread crop failures and dwindling water supplies are sure to have popped up at least once between the cat videos and end-of-year-listicles that adorn your Facebook feeds.

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Other parts of the world have had to pay for such havoc before: in 1997-98, El Niño caused roughly $20 billion in damages in Latin America alone. Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Ecuador therefore stepped up their rainfall and flood preparedness measures this year in anticipation of future incarnations. Eastern Africa has also been heavily affected by El Niño’s tantrums in the past, with droughts annihilating entire harvests. Presently, the Ethiopian government is responding to one of its worst droughts in decades by importing over 30,000 tons of maize to provide relief to the 8 million people that are in need of emergency food assistance.

El Niño is just an example of how climate change can intensify events that devastate livelihoods worldwide, the poster child of how we have screwed nature, if you will. Therefore, it is vital that COP21 participants not only to offset their travel carbon emissions and pass on the foie gras, but push for the toughest resolution yet. While the reversal of climate change is impossible, opportunities exist to dampen it, and to adapt to a world where extreme weather events become the norm. The obvious option is to ramp up greenhouse gas mitigation and keep global warming below 2 C. Even if we achieve this target, we need to adapt to the impacts of our changing climate.

While the aforementioned scenarios barely scratch the surface of El Niño’s global impact, they do provide a glimpse into the hardships brought about by intensifying normal weather fluctuations through human activity. This creates an urgency not only for the international community to step up preparedness and relief efforts, but also for the world to wake up and tackle once and for all the underlying culprit that is externally influencing our little boy to become a bully: Climate Change4.

Adaptation starts by developing tools to accurately monitor climate and weather, improving (or creating) global disaster preparedness and response activities, and building resilient cities. Adaptation can also be done on a personal level, by riding more bikes, choosing the green energy provider, building low emission homes, eating less meat, and choosing palm-oil free products (that’s a tough one). What is needed most, however, is recognition and support from the international community and governments

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“El Niño is the poster child for how we have screwed nature.”

*Impact input - December 2nd, 2015

for climate change adaptation and disaster preparedness, so that during the next El Niño, we can worship him without guilt. After UCU, Laura Scheske (‘10) received her MSc in Biomedical Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, specializing in Infectious Diseases and Global Health. She went on to work at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in Amsterdam, before receiving the Mercator Fellowship on International Affairs and moving to Geneva, Switzerland, to work for the WHO/WMO Joint Office for Climate and Health.

Chennai, India: this year’s northeast monsoon, which occurs every year between October and December, has been extremely exacerbated by the ongoing El Niño. The heaviest rainfall in over a century has caused massive flooding in the area. Andrew Gilmoor (‘10½) experienced the floods first hand. While discussing the situation with him, we lost contact, most likely due to the extensive power outages. This picture says it all:

Sources 1. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elNiño/el-Niño-story.html 2. http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcasp/enso_update_latest.html 3. “Hurricane”, “cyclone” and “typhoon” are different terms for the same weather phenomenon which is accompanied by torrential rain and maximum sustained wind speeds exceeding 119 kilometers per hour; the only difference is the location where the storm occurs (WMO, NOAA) 4 It must be noted that El Niño is a prominent phenomenon in naturally occurring climate variability, and has been observed over hundreds of years. However, increased greenhouse warming (caused by increasing CO2 emissions), and the resulting rise in global mean temperatures, improves conditions for El Niño development (remember that El Niño is caused by a warming of the equatorial Pacific). In fact, what we can observe is an increase not only in the frequency of El Niño events (instead of the usual three to five years, they occur every 2-3 years), but also in their intensity.

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“I love making art – it’s simultaneously the most liberating and most terrifying thing there is. There’s this intense freedom in being able to pour yourself into a visual form, having a unique platform to express a particular emotion and hope others will recognize it and go, “hey, I know that feeling too.” But there’s always also the feeling that you’re running down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and mind to a world that may well reject it. That’s the whole point though, that’s the adventure. ” Artwork by Laurence Herfs (‘15) Find more work at loorae.deviantart.com

winter 2015 | Post

Let’s be selfish in the face of tragedy

I will not will try to I will str experience informatio on Twitte online expe

Kiran Coleman shares some essential guidelines for doing better on social media.

ocial media are great, aren’t they? They give us a way to keep up to date on the lives of our friends, the holiday destinations of our favourite Victoria’s Secret models, the news. Even the myriad of things that suck about social media (like how Facebook is probably collecting all that data in order to create photorealistic holograms of us, that they will make do embarrassing things unless we wish everyone we know a happy birthday) are not enough to get us to quit all together, because we’re still getting a lot out of it. But you know this. You’re a presumed young person who’s probably on Twitter, considered dipping a toe into Snapchat, has swiped right on Tinder, and gets around using Blimple (I’m really hoping my Uber for blimps start-up will have taken off by the time you read this). So if we’re going to be on social media anyway, why not strive to make them a little bit better? Social media are made up of people, so there are always going to be horrible people posting horrible things (shut up, Trump) and delightful people posting delightful things 24

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(you keep showing us those pictures of gloves you find on the street, Tom Hanks). But for the rest of us somewhere in between on that spectrum, there’s probably room for improvement. Extreme times especially seem to bring out both the best and worst in people’s digital representations of themselves. With a depressingly large sample of shootings, terrorist attacks and other tragedies to draw from, let’s all vow to maybe stop doing some of the things we’ve all been guilty of at one point or another. I’m not going to tell you how to social media – you can post only pictures of your cat reenacting the selfies of Kim Kardashian if that’s your thing (and I will promise to give you all the little red hearts) – but if, in the spirit of the Kardashians, we embraced our self-absorption maybe we could actually make social media a more enjoyable way to spend our time, including during a tragedy. One of the most prevalent critiques of social media you hear from people not as engaged with them

information. I spam my facebook friends with useless ple on Twitter peo lly bu or oll tr t no l wil I . est hon be o peoples online rive to be an authentic voice in other ds with useles e. I will not spam my facebook frien oll or bully people on. I will try to be honest. I will not tr in other people er. I will strive to be an authentic voice erience. I will not spam my fac “Some poached eggs and avocado on toast just demand to be shared.”

is that they don’t care knowing what you had for breakfast. Of course, if you follow the right people, it’s not the most accurate reflection of your experience on social media (though some poached eggs and avocado on toast just demand to be shared), but it does highlight that most every social media outlet is by nature kind of a narcissistic medium. Posting the generic ‘my thoughts and prayers are with the people of [insert place of recent tragedy]’ sentiment that you will often see when something unequivocally terrible has occurred tells the people on your page little more than that you too have heard about the thing that everyone’s talking about, and that’s not really pertinent information to anyone but yourself. But your non-spambot followers are generally interested in you, so it’s okay to be a little egocentric and make something that is not about you about you. Sharing that picture you took of the Eiffel tower or that Eagles of Death Metal have been a vital part of your workout mix? Totally cool. Coming to terms with any kind of winter 2015 | Post

I will not spam my facebook friends with useless be honest. I will not troll or bully people on Twitt authentic voice in other peoples online experience. I friends with useless information. I will try to be bully people on Twitter. I will strive to be an auth online experience. I will not spam my facebook friend “We are in full control of whose voice and insights make it to our screens.”

majorly messed up incident in the news is hard enough, so relating it to yourself and your own experiences is one of the few things we can do to start grappling with the severity of it. It’s a bit of a balancing act to then not lean too heavily into it or start using a tragedy to push your political agenda, but implicitly stating that in some small way ‘that could’ve been me’ is a healthy expression of empathy that should definitely have a place on your social media feed. On the other hand, any time a major tragedy strikes close to the experiences of a lot of us in the Western world, there is often a wellintentioned contingency of people quick to point to another tragedy that happened around the same time, but is not getting as much attention. It happened with the Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and, more recently, with the bombings in Beirut shortly before the Paris attacks. Otherwise little reported small-scale gun violence also tends to get more shares every time the United States is dealing with the aftermath of another mass shooting. Facebook’s roll-out of features that let its users imbue their profile pictures 26

Post | winter 2015

with the French tricolore and have them check in as ‘safe’ after the November attacks were scrutinised because the same had not been done for Lebanon, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq, etc. And while arguments bemoaning the focus of our digital friends skewing towards the eurocentric are certainly valid, equating this focus with an indifference towards the suffering or lives lost in other tragedies is rather disingenuous. Most everybody has the ability to simultaneously empathise with several different tragedies, without explicitly expressing their disapproval of each one, but we don’t have to experience the weight of each tragedy equally. Just like when, in response to the #BlackLivesMatter protests, we proclaim that all lives matter, we are simply stating a given fact that belittles that black lives haven’t been felt to have mattered as much recently (as well as not so recently). Unfortunately, there is a lot of misery in the world and no one can take it all on. Social media, being made up of what we ourselves decide to share, are inherently personal, so we shouldn’t feel bad sharing our reaction to the pain of a place we can most readily relate to and understand.

information. I will try to ter. I will strive to be an will not spam my facebook honest. I will not troll or hentic voice in other peoples ds with useless information.

THINK before you post

T H I N K

is it TRUE? is it HELPFUL? is it INSPIRING? is it Necessary? is it KIND?

In this great age of getting to curate every little bit of media we consume, social media too are truly what you make of them. Apart from that handful of people we only follow because it would be awkward not to follow them back (not you mom, you’re cool), we are in full control of whose voices and insights make it to our screens. Unlike with a lot of old media, when we feel we are getting a bit too much or too little of a certain flavour, we actually get to remedy that. And despite the efforts of a few no fun governments, the bar for being able to get on social media and having your voice heard is set very low. Social media provide an immediate and broadly accessible platform for anyone wanting to share their stories, photos and videos. You get the most out of your social media experience by aggregating a diverse group of interesting and authentic voices in your online social circles. So let’s strive to be one of those ourselves as well. Even when the topic of discussion veers towards something so much greater than us we should still stay true to our own experiences. Let’s be a little selfish. Kiran Coleman (‘05) got his Masters in International Law and works as one of those taxmen The Beatles sang about. He is also a member of the Post editorial board.

winter 2015 | Post

Welcoming refugees:

our future is common

The EU’s external borders are rapidly becoming untenable. Rather than resist, Europe should embrace its future as a continent of great diversity, writes Jerome Roos.

he “refugee crisis” of recent months has split Europe in two. But unlike the liberal press would have us believe, the main dividing line runs not between those states (like Germany) that have taken a more humane approach to the crisis by accepting more refugees, and those (like Hungary) that have shut their borders and cracked down violently on anyone attempting to cross them.

increasingly precarious middle classes to exploit short-term electoral opportunities and to transform the world’s largest migration flows since World War II into a “crisis of border control,” rather than the humanitarian crisis it really is. While some EU leaders – most notably Angela Merkel – have inclined towards a more lenient approach, their superficial compassion nevertheless betrays the same logic of control.

Rather, the real schism is the one between states and institutions that jealously guard their borders, clinging on to an exclusionary territorial logic that is rapidly becoming untenable, and the ordinary people on the ground – refugees, activists and locals alike – who are self-organizing solidarity beyond borders and creating a radically different kind of Europe from below.

The latter, by contrast, are the true face of a changing Europe. From the beaches of Lesbos and Kos to the border crossings in the Balkans, from the fences at the Serbo-Hungarian border to the train stations of Munich and Vienna, and from detention centers across the continent to self-organized spaces like the refugee camp in Calais, the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who have made their way to Europe in recent months are injecting a healthy infusion of

The former play on the fears of the continent’s 28

Post | winter 2015

bottom-up social change into the lifeblood of a moribund European community. In the process, they have inspired the birth of a transnational movement that is uniting Europeans across borders in solidarity with the newly arrived. Coming on the heels of the continent-wide solidarity movement with Greece around the July referendum, the “refugees welcome” mobilizations are already changing the face of European politics by decisively shifting discursive momentum away from the nationalists and xenophobes. The nature and extent of the changes produced by these two simultaneous and interconnected processes can only be properly assessed in hindsight several years from now, but the long-term impact on European society is likely to be tremendous and irreversible. For one, refugees are breaking down borders in the very act of crossing them. The large movements of human beings over the past months have revealed just how weak and unprepared Europe’s ailing nation states really are, and how ineffective the EU’s external border regime remains. Fortress Europe, for

all its evils and atrocities, is far more porous than its defenders like to think (or want us to believe). In truth, its walls are being breached daily by the thousands. As the influx of people intensifies, Europe is certain to throw up more fences and step up its external border patrols. But wherever there is a will, there is a way – and since the will for life will always be stronger than the capacity to withstand endless poverty, war and oppression, people will keep coming to Europe in search of a better future. And rightfully so. To be sure, there will be immense individual suffering in the process – from the tragedies of sunken boats to the brutalities of forced deportation. At a more systemic level, however, the hundreds of thousands of people who are currently making their way into Europe illuminate an incontrovertible fact at the heart of twentyfirst century politics: no matter how hard national governments may try, it will simply prove impossible to stop the immense flows of human beings who are bound to make their way across in the years and decades ahead. No amount of border fences or Frontex patrols will be able to stop them. winter 2015 | Post

“Quote Here?”

For an aging and privileged continent like Europe, this is actually a good thing: migration offers an opportunity to organically rejuvenate and enrich its greying societies. Merkel, for one, is well aware that with the lowest birth rate in the world, Germany is doomed without a large influx of labor power. For German capitalists, the Syrian exodus is nothing short of a godsend. Combined with a historical sense of guilt, naked opportunism explains at least part of Merkel’s relatively open-armed approach. But regardless of the question whether migration is “profitable” or “desirable”, there is a much more elementary reality Europeans are going to have to confront somehow: like it or not, a decade and a half into the twenty-first century, mass migration is here to stay. The so-called refugee crisis of the summer of 2015 was really only just the beginning. This year some 850,000 people fled to Europe. Similar numbers, if not more, are expected next year, and millions more will join them in the years to come. Tens, if not hundreds of millions are likely to follow as a result of climate change in future decades. How is Europe to adapt to such dramatic patterns 30

Post | winter 2015

of human relocation and the resultant demographic changes? To begin with, anxious Europeans will have to place the actual numbers and the reality of mass migration in perspective: the 850,000 people applying for asylum in Europe this year really do not amount to very much on a total population of half a billion Europeans. The numbers also pale in comparison to the 4 million registered Syrian refugees in the region (Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt), or the 7.5 million internally displaced. Syria’s tiny neighbor Lebanon alone has taken in 1.3 million refugees – on a local population of 4 million. Seen in this light, it is difficult to understand what European leaders are complaining about. Secondly, if Europeans are serious about halting the flows of desperate people pouring into the continent, they will have to stop endlessly reproducing the underlying causes of the refugee crisis and of mass migration more generally. Europe’s responsibilities in this respect are not just historical; they are equally contemporary. War, poverty and persecution remain the principal drivers of migration – and the West has had a

hand in furthering all of those through foreign interventions, predatory financial and commercial practices, and support for authoritarian regimes across Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. We will soon be able to add anthropogenic climate change to this list. Third, if Europe really wants refugees and migrants to stop coming in “illegally” on inflatable dinghies and overloaded fishing boats, it will simply have to secure safe passage to those fleeing war, poverty and persecution. Nobody would pay in excess of 1.000 euros per head for a life-endangering boat journey across the Mediterranean if they could apply for their papers and permits abroad and pay 200 euros for a commercial flight to their destination of choice. Transport has to be “regularized” before migration can be regulated. Lastly, to accommodate the people who have already arrived and those who will continue to arrive in the future, Europe itself will have to change from within. Instead of jealously guarding their borders and privileges, Europeans will have to embrace the international responsibilities that come with their great wealth and power. If the continent is

to avoid falling into another episode of worldhistorical darkness, it will have to rekindle the ideal of “solidarity beyond borders” that was always supposed to lie at the heart of the postwar European project to begin with. Luckily, the erosion of national borders is going hand in hand with the active mobilization of European society and of refugees and migrants themselves. As these developments continue to converge, it will become clearer and clearer that Europe is inexorably bound to become a continent of great diversity. Rather than resist this, Europeans should simply embrace the realities of the twentyfirst century and welcome their new neighbors as their own. Our histories may differ but our future is common. This article was originally written for teleSUR English. Jerome Roos (‘06) is a PhD researcher at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute, and the founding editor of ROAR Magazine. Follow him on Twitter at @JeromeRoos. The photos on these pages were taken in Lesbos, Greece by Tamara van der Putten (‘10).

winter 2015 | Post

After a risk game of 4 hours and stacking armies, everybody started going on a rampage in a massive clash between powers. The result of the battle? Everybody was back to square one and nobody is close to winning. A minute later we decided to (figuratively) flip the board. Shouldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve majored in politics... / Sam Nipius

Trying to work paperless in the UN system is never an option. (Yes, these are all for one document/project) / Laura Scheske

I took this photo of my homemade sourdough to brag to my girlfriend (UCU alumna Isabel Braadbaart, who has not yet progressed beyond yeastbased bread-making) that it had perfectly risen. / Simon van Oort

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This is “Berry Sawz” - the (delicious) end-product of an impulsive decision to make cranberry sauce at 22:30. I am not sure that was the exact time... / Andrea Sindova

Was walking downtown and a train rolled by. Can see the Mississippi river on the left in front of the train. / John Brooke

Me (class of ‘04) walking on my prosthetics for the first time! / Leon Emmen

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Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re holding the tenth edition of Post Magazine. On these pages, we permit ourselves a pat on le back, by publishing a tiny retrospective of the past five years.

winter 2015 | Post

Irene van Gaalen, (’04) I became involved with this publication as a language editor back when it was QuaQuaVersal. It’s impressive to see how this alumni magazine has grown and developed into the Post.

Laurens Hebly (‘01) Hopefully Post will continue provide a platform for new generations of UCU alumni, to find similar inspiration and opportunity to take part in the creative process of making this magazine for many years to come.

Sarah Carmichael (’06) Working on the early editions of Post was like sitting in the middle of a creative hurricane of ideas.

Iris Otto (‘09) I do often miss the awesome process of making a paper Post. I believe the magazine has evolved exponentially from its predecessor by adding an extra dimension to quality content and artwork.

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Leonie Hussaarts (‘08) & Kiran Coleman (‘05) We’d like to think that Post has become a thought-provoking magazine that is completely worth all the panicked late night editing, e-mail deluges, and long meetings that only sometimes include pizza that go into making the magazine.

Indra Spronk (‘06) Post actually helped me get a Real Life Job, as I am now working at the UU’s magazine (DUB). I love the way Thijs & Laurens revamped Post and made it into what it is now, it’s an amazingly professional magazine and way cooler than thou.

Tanya van Goch (‘12½) As winter sets upon us and you ponder your purpose in life... You admit to yourself that you’re looking for something to spice up your life. One awesome way to do so is to join the Post Editorial Board.

Thijs van Himbergen (‘03½) The best part of it all has been inventing projects that aim to engage the community in a meaningful way; by having you all tell some of your stories we aimed to strengthen the UCU bonds.

winter 2015 | Post

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to meet you!

At MeetingMoreMinds we are regularly looking for UCU alumni who are good at interdisciplinary thinking, shifting gears, working in teams and who are not afraid to approach complex challenges in refreshing new ways. What we offer: the chance to work together in solving highly interesting, complex and relevant issues that MeetingMoreMinds tackles through advanced organizational methods such as ecosystems, networks of networks, data analytics and business models.

MeetingMoreMinds is based in Amsterdam, Jan Evertsenstraat 725, phone number 020-5040000. Are you interested to learn more? Please visit our website (below) for more information or send an email to info@meetingmoreminds.com. Please note MeetingMoreMinds is only looking for candidates who are fully fluent in Dutch.

www.meetingmoreminds.com/vacatures

Alumni matters Somaye Dehban invites us all to think about the alumni community we want, and to try and make that happen.

he one thing that unites all of us, reading this 10th edition of Post Magazine, is an interest in the University College Utrecht Alumni community. Maybe you yourself are a UCU alumna or alumnus; maybe your son or daughter is; maybe you know the great ideas and initiatives the UCAA works on and want to read more about them; or you’re curious to get to know them. Whatever the reason is, you are here now. The UCAA is in the wonderful position of being able to connect all these different parties, through Post magazine, but also through the events we organize and through the alumni themselves. As the UCAA, we focus on the long term. We have done a lot of reflecting on our plans over the years, and grown in our ambitions. Not only do we want to offer places for alumni to socialise, we also want to keep building up a network of people who can really help each other. Whether that is to find a new job, knowledge, or a purpose in life. The composition of our board changes frequently, because of exciting new opportunities that our members pursue and because we feel that all alumni should get the chance to be part of this organization. This allows many people to add to the spirit of the UCAA. However, we believe it’s hugely important to maintain a focus on the strategic plans by reviewing them regularly and setting up our annual goals accordingly, so that we’re not reinventing the wheel every year. Here, too, you can have your say. Tell us if you have an idea you think we should work on, or better yet, something that we can work on together. There are many ways of getting involved besides joining the UCAA board. Take writing for Post, for instance. Or help out by organising regional drinks or at one of the events the UCAA board organises, such as the New Year’s Party. Your input is invaluable to us;

“we’re always looking for ways that we can collaborate with the alumni network and the world at large.” we’re always looking for ways that we can collaborate with the alumni network and the world at large. The UCAA likes to think big. Are you a student at UCU currently, and do you have a plan to bring current students and alumni together, let us know! Are you an alumna/alumnus working at a great company with positions to fill, share the message! Do you want to know how you can make use of all the assets the UCAA has to offer, don’t hesitate to ask! The only way we were able to get to this point was with the help of countless alumni, students, and UCU staff alike. Here you are, reading a 10th edition of Post! These days, we have alumni meeting up all over the world on a regular basis, and many people have found jobs or employees within the alumni network. However, this doesn’t mean we can lean back: the work goes on and we’re hoping to call on your strengths - get involved! Maybe we’ll see some of your work featured in the 11th edition? Somaye Dehban (‘07) runs a business in development and fundraising which sends her on trips she would have never imagined. She chairs UCAA and on weekends she plays with her two boys.

winter 2015 | Post

Congratulations to the

Class of 2015 ! 1/ 2

Laura Arts / Kristine Asferg Jet Akkerman / Ben van Arendonk / her Frattina della Frattina Linda Barry / Beate Berke / Christop Hazenbosch / Linda Holler Eva Garritsen / Syrta Geldof / Mirjam / Haris Kalic / Mikki Korodimou Jamie Hutchins / Larissa Ietswaard huizen Luiten / Madeleijn van den Nieuwen Kristina Lani / Liesbeth Lens / Philip oven Poth m / Ella van de Pol / Saskia Suus van Noort / Gustaaf van Oostero Triest nna Svensson / Hanna Szab贸 / Floris Josephine Rees / Will Richards / Susa er Viss n / Julia Verheijden / Daa Erik Trompetter / Melanie Valanzuolo e Waltz / Mara Wendebourg rlott Clara Vogt / Alfie Walker / Cha

Post | winter 2015

A lovely statue on the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam. / Bram Fransman

Dutch cuisine at its best, I felt so good after this. / Jamie White

Some interesting plant watering methods. / Debora Dubois

I was getting a new cupboard, made this photo so I could find it in Ikeaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pick-up storage, but the picture was too blurry. FML. / Frank Joppen

Checking out some furniture for my new house, love my Sundays! / Kiki de Boer

winter 2015 | Post

Who

w h ? a e t r , e h w ,

Bob Rog (‘01) writes: “Married in January 2015. Expecting a child. As of 6 October, please throw trash where it belongs - for our children.” Tea Pemovska (‘08) defended her PhD thesis on personalized cancer medicine at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, FIMM, University of Helsinki. Daphne Paree Engelke (‘02), her husband Stefan and their daughter Charlotte are delighted to announce the birth of their baby boy and brother Maximilian on 24 August 2015 in Zurich, Switzerland.

Somaye Dehban (‘07) writes: “Last year, Iran Academia was launched: an online university that allows Iranians to enjoy quality education in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences. This year, Iran Academia won an Active Citizens of Europe (ACE) award in the category ‘civil society organisations’. This award recognises contributions to social justice around the world, and it’s a great honor to receive this award. I’m very proud and looking forward to what Iran Academia will accomplish in the future.”

Karen Sijbrandij (‘03) and Sytse Sijbrandij got married on 3 June in San Francisco, and on 9 October in Utrecht.

Liselotte Snijders (‘09) received a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Oxford in November of this year.

Leonie Hussaarts (‘08) obtained her PhD degree in Immunology from Leiden University for her thesis on “Immune modulation by schistosomes: molecular mechanisms of T helper 2 polarization and implications for metabolic disorders”.

Roeland van Beek (‘11) writes: “On June 8, I proposed to Hannah van Boven (‘13) and she said yes! We’re getting married in June 2016 and we’re really excited :)” Nicole des Bouvrie (‘07) got her PhD in philosophy at the European Graduate School, and successfully defended her dissertation titled “The Necessity of the Impossible”.

Call for contributors Post is still looking for Peeps!

If you want to share your experiences in the next edition of Post magazine go to the following link: goo.gl/ZHFD62

Post | winter 2015

Making Post Magazine takes a lot of time, and we’re hoping to find people who’d like to help out. Do you want to develop your editorial / design / illustration / general magazine-making skills? Send us an email at: info@ucaa.nl

Though my iPhone takes worse quality pictures than the average potato.. If you look closely you may see this is a game of pool being played by me. Last night my fellow class of ‘10 alumnus Simone de Lucia and his class of ‘11 girlfriend Franka van Buuren lost so bad, they will remember it forever. Or repress the memory. / Maarten van der Kroef

LAST

Photo

project

Colophon Editorial Board Kiran Coleman (‘05) Laurens Hebly (‘01) Thijs van Himbergen (‘03½) Leonie Hussaarts (‘08) Maia Kenney (‘12) Design & illustration Laurens Hebly (’01) Thijs van Himbergen (’03½) www.prettynicestuff.com Featured artist Laurence Leonore Herfs (‘12)

Policy is not boring! When was the last time you saw such a vintage (retro) PowerPoint that includes lightning? / Saskia Westenberg

I got a sausage roll at Gregg’s this lunchtime. Back at the office I spotted the instant Christmas spirit on the back of the packaging - do you think Santa likes pasties? #PastySanta / Sarah Wells

Photography Many thanks to the participants in the ‘Last Photo’ project Tamara van der Putten (‘10) Contributors Kiran Coleman (‘05) Somaye Dehban (‘07) Anna P.H. Geurts (‘06) IG Karfield (‘07) Max Lamb (‘15) Jerome Roos (‘06) Laura Scheske (‘10) Katja Swider (‘06)

Printed by Drukkerij ZuidamUithof A very special thanks to all UCAA contributors and to the UCU administration for believing in this magazine and for making the many UCAA events possible.

Many thanks to ‘Who, What, Where’ contributors The UCAA board Gisele de Souza Charlie Handsome winter 2015 | Post

University College Alumni Association