Breaching✁✁

✁✁

✁

✁✁

Architect,this make to you?

stud

ent ma

gazin

e >>

SDU

Koldin

g >>

issue 1 >>

mar

ch 2014

quote to make you think 3

editor’s corner 4

breaching 6

study abroad u.s.a 8

a surfer’s paradise 10

internship in israel 12

shopping as unusual 16

it’s hip 2 be ∆ 18

theater lab 20

state of the uni speech 22

origami challenge 23

briefkastenonkel 24

inspiration 26

next issue 27

table ofcontents

All photographs are copyright protected. The use of the Goffman picture on page 6 is in accordance with fair use (17 U.S:C. § 107).

2FLIP T

HE TIP!

breaching

is the first

magazine

ever to be

designed

especially

with dog ear

ease

of use in m

ind!!! just

flip the

tip:

It is indeed wonderful that so simple a figure as the triangle is so inexhaustible in properties. How many as yet unknown properties of other figures may there not be?

3quote

- August Leopold Crelle (1816)

editor’s corner Dear students, colleagues and other curious souls, you now

hold Breaching (the brand-new student magazine, Campus

Kolding) in your hands! This dear baby has been long underway

– a bit longer than a human pregnancy lasts, but I am not less

proud of the offspring And my birth helpers, a tiny group of

enthusiastic, bright and mind-blowingly inventive students are in the very essence of the word the oxygen breathing life into

this beautiful new-born project.

In spring/summer 2013 I was granted resources

from the SDU programme Students in Focus to initiate a student magazine in SDU Kolding. The aim was – and still is

– to gather students across study programmes and year

groups to run a student magazine on campus. Full of energy, I

sent out an open invitation to all students for an info meeting

in autumn 2013. I arrived early for the info meeting, expecting

to see a crowd of students bursting in through the door. Alas,

20 minutes past the scheduled meeting time, I was still alone,

but then I heard a silent knock on the door, and in came … one

student! I was thrilled because “it all starts with one!” The

student and I chatted for a while and eventually parted ways,

acknowledging that we were the only ones to attend the

meeting that day. When we parted, the student said

“But is this it then?” And I looked at him and said:

“No, I will be in touch.” So I wrote down his name

and promised to email him when I had news

on the project. But later that day – in some

strange way - I lost the paper with his name

on it – and then I sort of lost my spirits,

too.

A couple of times, though, I invited my

own students to participate, but to no

avail. Changing strategy, I tracked down

some of my former students, did my

‘elevator speech’ with great enthusiasm,

but their response was: “Sorry, Jeanette,

we are too busy with other stuff.” As a last

resort I asked some co-workers to re-

promote my student magazine in the

classroom, but by the end of the autumn

semester, it seemed that my project would suffer

a silent death.

Dear reader, the well-know proverb All things come to those

who wait turned out to be my salvation. In January 2014 a

former student of mine, just having returned from an

internship abroad, and another student, a student worker in

one of my research projects, both accepted to be part of my

student magazine project. One thing hastily lead to another, and a few other former students of mine volunteered

to participate in the project too. With four students in

total, the student magazine proved to be viable,

and today you hold in your hands the fine

product of their endeavors.

4

students in focus need students to focus on!

all things come to those who wait!

We have named the student magazine Breaching, which also reflects the general theme of our very first issue. The distinct articles in this issue all give insight to some aspect of going beyond the normal rules, routines and expectancies of social conduct, and we have aimed to

cover both student perspectives and staff perspectives.

Dear reader, I encourage you to feast your eyes on our creative

and (in my opinion) exquisite and delicious layout, which has

been carefully designed to fit the new university building, both

in terms of architecture and colours. Dig into Christina’s

article (page 12) about the culture clashes in an Israeli

work place, and learn about her reasons for taking

the plunge to the unknown. If you have a secret

dream of living out the American dream, with

cocktails, surfer’s paradise, Mustangs and

long library hours in the weekends, jump to

Niels’s story (page 8). Should you prefer

tapas, Spanish culture and international

cohabitation student culture, go directly

to Kalle’s read (page 10). Ultimately, you

will find great pleasure in reading about

Rainar’s breaching experiment of poor

social conduct in the local supermarket

(page 16). Spice all this with the theme

article behind the notion of Breaching,

which originates from the American

ethnomethodologist Harold Garfinkel, who

loved to put his students on the test of

experimenting with (non)acceptable behavior

and the consequences that emerge from that.

To complement the student perspectives, we asked some

voices from the faculty to contribute to this first issue. Head of

campus, Per Krogh Hansen, volunteered to write a “State of the

Uni” speech, and coincidentally, his speech fits perfectly with

both our theme and our (too?) daring philosophising on the

construction of the new campus building. Further, we

convinced professor Klaus Robering to be Breaching’s

permanent Briefkastenonkel. His first contribution is a very

eloquent piece of writing about the we-love-to-hate-it course Philosophy of Science. And to bring in an alternative perspective to our traditional lectures, which most students are familiar with, you can read about impro theatre in the classroom by Preben Friis , a part-time actor at the university. His alternative teaching methods have a powerful effect, which not only encompasses academic and pedagogical aspects, but also the human factor.

First and foremost we want to engage our students in university life, not just as ‘consumers’ taking away with them a diploma to show off for their professional afterlife. We want to bring students across disciplines and year groups

closer together, and to help foster a sense of community in

Campus Kolding, for both students and staff.

I believe it to be essential that we always strive to explore

boundaries and new paths as a university in the Danish

educational system, both in terms of teaching and scientific

achievements, and I hope that the new student magazine will prove to do the same. Dear reader, I hope Breaching will enlighten you, surprise you, make you laugh and talk, perhaps even frustrate you – if we succeed in invoking curiosity, inspiration and emotions, we have fulfilled our goal. I wish you all a happy read indeed.

Jeanette Landgrebe

5

voices from the staff perspective

voices from the student perspective

why all this fuzz about a student magazine?

Rainar Rye Larsen 4th semester

Information and Communication Studies

Did you ever stop to wonder, why you just did what you did? Did

you ever contemplate how society or even smaller groups of

people maintain order, or how they organize everyday activities without the presence of written and enforced laws?

Ethnomethodology, as introduced by Harold Garfinkel, is the

study of the ways people use to successfully organize and

make sense of their everyday life.

Garfinkel was particularly interested in how people provide

accounts for social situations. Accounts are explanations of

conduct and are closely connected to a particular context and

situation.

Accounts must be understood as more than talk. They are

the sum of the ways members of a group or society

demonstrate how they attach meaning to a

particular behavior and organize their actions

through talk, gesture and use of artifacts.

Social order consists of everyday life’s rule

based activities: members of society

encounter and know the order as

apparently normal behavior patterns,

which they share with others and take

for granted as "seen but unnoticed

background expectancies” (Garfinkel

1967: 37). In other words: We act and

adapt to changing situations without

reflecting on why we do what we do. So,

most likely, you seldom stop and wonder

about why and how you do something – you

just do it! And don’t worry: It’s a good thing!

Just imagine how little we would actually be

able to do in our everyday lives, if we had to stop

and reflect on every little aspect of behavior!

Contrary to Queen’s world famous song “I Want to Break Free” most of us want to “fit in”; we do not approach strangers in the

bus without a reason; we do not eat with our fingers at a fancy

restaurant; we do not break wind on the first (or second) date,

and we do not skip the queue (although we sure would like to).

The Canadian (micro)sociologist Erving Goffman tells us why:

“The rule of behavior that seems to be common to all situations and exclusive to them is the rule obliging participants to “fit in”. (Goffman 1963: 11). Goffman thus provides us with a theoretical entry point to understanding everyday structures as a naturally-organized phenomenon.

Breach

ing

[Erving Goffman]

6

how do we make sense of life?

fit in!

Literature:

Breaching is a valid way of gaining insight into the contextual framing of people and thus is an interesting approach to sociological and psychological studies as well as a potential way for the interaction

designer to really understand the context of

his or her user.

Breaching is a tool. But it is also a tool with ethical implications. The test subjects are disturbed in their everyday

activities, and although it might sound trivial that something

as simple as requiring constant clarification is enough to

create disorder, a breaching experiment demands certain

considerations before being performed: (1) prior identification

of the specific norm being targeted. (2) Proportionality: does

the potential insight gained from the experiment surpass the

disorder created? (3) Debriefing - always be prepared to offeran explanation and debriefing as needed.Oh and finally: be prepared to feel the full force of social order as you try to breach it!

[Read more from a real breaching experiment on page 16]

If behavior is rule governed and unreflected, and we just typically shake our shoulders thinking “that’s just what you do in a situation like this”, then how do we obtain an accountable glimpse of how people organize everyday life?

Garfinkel expands Goffman’s ideas and proposes ‘breaching’ as

a method. Breaching is a deliberate challenge of a given moral

norm and the subsequent analysis of people's reaction.

Breach ing “produces and susta ins bewi lderment ,

consternation, and confusion; to produce the socially

structured affects of anxiety, shame, guilt and indignation”.

(Garfinkel 1967: 38). What a nice scientist and method, right?!

Garfinkel exposed his students to a variety of breaching

experiments, ranging from becoming a lodger in their own

home to constantly asking for clarification with a “what

do you mean”:

A: “How are you doing?”B: “What do you mean ‘how am I doing’?

Physically? Mentally?“ A: “What’s wrong with you?”

It might all sound perfectly harmless, but

as Garfinkel’s students soon discovered,

reactions to this simple experiment

v a r i e d f r o m o u t b u r s t o f a n g e r ,

bewilderment, and questions about the

student’s well being (or even sanity).

A breaching experiment must be organized to

target it at a specific social norm. The goal of

breaching is to seek insight into the self-written rules of

conduct that we otherwise do not see, or cannot explain. “For

these background expectancies to come into view one must

either be a stranger to the “life as usual” character of every day

scenes or become estranged from them“ (Garfinkel 1967: 37).

So, don’t fit in - stand out!

Disregarding the ritual of exchanging greetings, as shown

above by insisting on constant clarification, might seem as an

overly simple example of how to become estranged, but really -

it doesn’t take more than that!

Breaching experiments are a common exercise at mostsociological and psychological classes today, but an experiment, just for the sake of the experiment misses the entire point: it is through the subsequent analysis of how people react and account for their actions, that breaching really excels as a method.

7

don’t fit in!

the breaching experiment

and then they sent those papers on my

behalf to the university in the US. The EDU

organization does not require money from students

and has a huge worldwide university network, compared to SDU. I chose to study at San Diego State

University, and luckily I was accepted. My reasons for choosing

this particular university were: 1. A high ranked US university,

especially in business courses. 2. San Diego weather is almost

summer all year and the beaches are perfect for surfing.

After I received my enrollment letter the next step was to get a

visa. When you are going to study in the US you need a study

visa, which you have to apply for at the US embassy in

Copenhagen. After that was done, it was time to collect money

as this was going to be very expensive. I applied the Danish SU

and University of Southern Denmark for funding and I was

granted around DKK 34.000, which covered my tuition

fee at San Diego State University. Luckily, I had

savings from working so I had the money to

cover the other expenses.

I spend the first two weeks in San Diego

looking at the city’s attractions and getting to

know American culture, which is much different in

San Diego, compared to the rest of the US. After

finding an apartment right by the beach with German

international students, I started at San Diego State University.

The level of university education in the US compared to SDU

was surprisingly not that far apart. It was difficult to get used

to all the midterms, which were multiple-choice tests, and

several quizzes on material we had read. Learning which piece

of paper to bring for the different kinds of tests was not easy

either.

study abroad an experience for life

The 17th of July 2013, I left Denmark heading for San Diego, USA.

I was going to spend the next 6 months away from Denmark,

family, friends, fellow students… and SDU! The preparation

started 1 year earlier when another student convinced me to

try out a semester abroad. I read a lot on how I could enroll for a semester at a university in the States, and it actually didn’t seem difficult at all – on the surface.

Now that would change - I later found out. First

step was to apply for enrollment in a study program. For this I received help from

the independent student helper

organization, EDU Denmark,

concerning all the official

papers that I needed,

8Niels Sundstrup 6th semester International Business Communication

read more

Luckily, I was one of the only international students in my classes so I was treated well and I could ask my classmates about anything if I was in doubt. Spending time in the university library was something new that I hadn’t tried at SDU. It was necessary if I wanted to pass my midterms so a lot of time was spent in the big library on campus together with hundreds

of other students. The library was never empty. I even visited

the library one Saturday and even on Saturdays students were

doing group work or studying for an upcoming midterm.

If you have made it this far reading about my amazing

trip, you are now getting your reward. In the next

part I will tell you about how I spent my spare

time and weekends.

Every Tuesday I was at the beach surfing

together with a group of app. 25 students. We

had 5 instructors and we were in the water for 2

hours. It was great just to sit on the surfboard far out

in the Pacific Ocean and talk with other international

students and wait for the next big wave to roll in. If I wanted I

could even get ECTS points for surfing. In the weekends there

was a lot of stuff to do too. Every other Friday or Saturday there

was college football, and on Sundays there was also American

football because San Diego is home to the NFL team, San Diego

Chargers, from the National Football League. I watched almost

every home game of both our university team and the NFL

team.

I also made trips to Los Angeles, Hollywood, Palm Springs,

Grand Canyon and two trips to Las Vegas. It was a busyschedule with long university days and fully booked weekends of fun.The best trip I made was with the German international students I lived with. I rented a red Ford Mustang and then drove to Sequoia National Park north of Los Angeles. It was amazing to drive on the American roads in a Mustang. It was the true American way of living.

Now back in Denmark it is difficult to get used to just working in weekends. There are no trips to Las Vegas or Hollywood and the weeks tend to look like one another. This was definitely not the last time I visited USA.

I have gained a lot of experience and cultural understanding from my trip to the promised land, and I can only recommend it to everyone else. There are NO negative things I can think of, except perhaps my empty bank account!

9

my american paradise

From the beginning I only had two places in mind. The first

place, and also the most expensive one, was San Diego,

California. I’ve always wanted to go to the US, and besides 5

other students from my class were going to either San Diego or

Los Angeles. The other place was San Sebastian in northern

Spain. I’ve always studied Spanish and since my father is a

Basque, I also have family in this part of Spain. I chose San Sebastian! I decided that I wanted to be

on my own and independent. In worst case

scenario, I could always visit my Spanish family.

When the day finally arised, I said goodbye to

my girlfriend. I felt ready for my adventure and

was excited to see what San Sebastian had to

offer. After seven hours with Drake, Klingande and

other musicians in my earplugs, I was finally in San

Sebastian, Spain. I was going to share an apartment 50 meters

from the beach with two other students, one from Germany,

Simon, and the other one from the Netherlands, Willemijn.

At first I was a bit skeptical because it turned out that Willemijn

was a girl, and not the Dutch name of William, as I originally

thought. I actually just wanted to share an apartment with

some boys. But as time passed I found out that she was actually a nice girl, and she and Simon soon became a couple.

a surfer’s paradise in the basque country

I had never considered travelling abroad, but

when my girlfriend decided to go to Africa

for 3 months, I decided to do something

similar. So I decided to apply for an

Erasmus grant through the

university.

10

follow the mainstream - or go my own way?

Kalle Maruri 6th semester International Business Communication

Erasmusexchange

I spent a lot of time with my best friend Rainey, an American

from California. Everyday until late November we chilled at the

beach after school till late at night. We surfed, slept, walked

around doing nothing every day. It sounds boring but I just

wanted to make friends and spend as much time as I could

doing what ever I wanted.

San Sebastian was indeed a surfer’s paradise. The waves were

5 meters tall and the two beaches were full of people every

day. Sometimes the waves were even higher. The city is not

big but with a beautiful and charming ambience. The

culture of the Basque Country is reflected in the

streets of the old part of the city and the

“Pintxto” (in Denmark called tapas), are the

most delicious ones in all of Spain.

I should also mention that the university there

was excellent. I only took courses in Spanish to

improve my language skills. Of course it was hard, I

was the only Erasmus student in my classes because

the other international students all took courses in

English……lazy bastards! I struggled. But in the end I was happy

because it really helped me improve my Spanish.

One should think that being so lazy every day would fatten me

up, but I actually lost 7-8 kilos. I think that it was the need for

my girlfriend that caused me to loose so many kilos. I didn’t eat that much healthy food. The local shawarma restaurant was my favourite. We were on front name, haha! I never learned to cook which was part of my initial plan. I also wanted to go to the gym every day as I did before going on Erasmus. That didn’t happen either.

In the end, even though it didn’t go entirely as planned, I am very happy that I went on an Erasmus program. I am richer in experiences and friends. To the ones thinking of enrolling for Erasmus I can only say: “Just do it, you will not regret it. And for your own sake, chose San Sebastian!. And why not take a Spanish course while you are there as well?”

11

pintxtos, surfboards and loads of ambient atmosphere

things I did not forsee!

richer in so many

ways

Did you know… The university has a helpful international office?

[ sometimes life surprises you and it is all about taking the chances that you’re given ]

internship in israel12

Studying a Bachelor in International Business Communication in English and German, I knew that my 5th semester should be somewhat special, I just did not know

how, where and when. At first I looked into the possibilities of

studying abroad at a University in the US, but looking at the

amount of money I should raise I parked that dream for a while.

I also began wondering if it really was the right thing for me to

study in the US? I came to the conclusion that I wanted more

than that, I wanted to search for an internship in a Danish

company and in that way I could combine my studies with

practical work. Now I had a plan for my 5th semester, and it felt

perfectly right for me. The only problem was, however, that I

did not know where to start looking. Anyway, time

passed by and in June I still had nothing, and being

in the middle of my exams my head was filled

with preparation for this instead.

Then one day when I was preparing my

exams at the university I bumped into an

assistant professor (and former teacher).

She presented a very surprising and nice

idea to me: she knew someone who was

working in a large internat ional

conference planning company in Tel-Aviv,

Israel, and this company was searching

for an intern for their Sponsorship

Exhibition Sales department. So she

asked me if I would be interested in

applying for such an internship. My heart

started pumping faster, my brain thinking

"Tel-Aviv? That's a long way from home! But

what an opportunity this is!" We scheduled a

meeting and from that first meeting I was head-

over-heels sold to the idea of spending my 5th

semester in Tel-Aviv.

In the time to come I had several meetings with both the

assistant professor, the Counseling Centre of SDU, - and a

representative from the Study Board. It was not an easy task to

plan this internship due to the fact that an internship only

provides 10 ETCS points out of a semester of 20 ETCS points in

total. When you choose to plan an internship abroad, there is no explicit formalized SDU program to follow as such and you are primarily left to your own devices.

should I go, or should i stay?

The only thing that you must be sure of is that you have a plan for how you will succeed with your internship at the same time as you have courses in Denmark to follow. In order to achieve all the necessary ETCS

points, I therefore arranged with two of my teachers that I

could follow their two courses via Black Board during my stay

in Tel-Aviv. This was not easy but I decided to spend my week

evenings reading the curricula and save the weekends for fun

activities.

I also made the decision to follow the two courses up until the

mid-term holiday because in that way I could participate actively in the beginning of the semester, and then be more tuned in on what to focus on, once I was to be a distant learner.

13Christina Priisholm

6th semester International Business

Communication

challenges ahead

gaining real-life professional experience

14

broadening my horizon of cultural diversity

In order to come to work I drove with a small

private shuttle bus that Kenes had for the

employees, mainly because they wanted to avoid the terrorist attacks that apparently often hit public transportation in the middle-eastern countries (well not that often in Tel-Aviv - luckily!)

Kenes International is a large International conference planning company and they plan conferences all around the world but mainly in Europe. They are specialized in hosting conferences

within the medical industry end therefore only work in this

field. My job there was to design prospectuses, call

companies for marketing contacts, make market

research, filing and most importantly, I also

attended a large conference that was held in

Tel-Aviv during my stay there.

I helped with the final planning of it and also helped out

with different tasks on-site. It was a unique experience and I

learned a lot from it. What I learned the most is how extremely

important it is for managers and units to work as a team in

order to succeed.

During my stay I also learned a lot about cultural differences,

both with regards to the business culture and also the culture

in general. Israel is very different from Denmark but the

funniest thing was that I found many similarities between the Danes and the Israelis too. They are warm-hearted,

caring, social and they look out for each other and

help out if needed.

I left Denmark the 15th of October and

began the 11 weeks long journey of what

came to be one of the biggest experiences in

my life so far. I was very scared of the security control

that I would face in Ben Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv as I

had heard that they would question foreigners for long hours.

Luckily I went right through and there I was, all by myself, at

4.30 AM in Israel. I took a taxi to the address I had received

from my Danish contact at Kenes International. I was lucky that

her brother had an available apartment that I could rent during

my stay. It was a very cute apartment, which was fully furnished

and I did not have to bring towels or sheets either. It was a

bit expensive to rent the apartment because it was

placed in the very city centre but I was granted a

small amount from the SDU Internationalization-

Fund which covered some of my expenses. I saved a lot of money on transportation

because everything was within walking

distance from my apartment.

by big journey begins

I took the jump - you can do it too

15

I had the sweetest colleagues who dropped whatever they were working on in order to help me out, and if they felt that I had a moody day missing my family, boyfriend and "normal life", they cheered me up with a trip to the cinema or adelicious restaurant. On the other hand Israelis are very unstructured and time-fluent, meaning that you have to

count in an extra 30 minutes when you have to meet with an

Israeli. This was one of the hardest things to cope with. One day

we had a big important meeting and I was present 5 minutes

prior to the scheduled time. No one came and I started to

wonder if I was in the right meeting room. People started to

show up 5 minutes after the scheduled time and actually the

meeting did not start until 30 minutes past the scheduled

time. This time-fluent culture made me think about that

being too time rigid as we are in Denmark and

Germany, for example, may not always be the

healthiest work culture. Admittedly, I prefer

meetings to start on time but all the stress that

is connected to the time rigid culture is not

healthy.

What I experienced during my time in Israel was

that people were more in balance, they did not

buzz around like busy working bees, they just worked

in their own pace and reached their deadlines

nonetheless.

I learned a lot during my stay and most importantly I became

more confident in myself. In a larger perspective, I saw what my

study in Denmark has provided me with of tools and I worked

with these tools in a practical way. This combination of study

and practice during an internship is highly recommendable for

everyone, who dares to spend their 5th semester abroad in a

different way than what is expected and offered in our

traditional educational system.

It takes courage, strong will and planning (and a little help from others) but you will get your investment ten times back, I promise you that. And as an extra bonus Tel-Aviv is such a cool metropolis with beautiful beaches, friendly people, great shopping possibilities

and great restaurants. Israel is also a very interesting country

when it comes to history and I went on some trips to Jerusalem,

Masada and the Dead Sea to see more of this beautiful country.

PS. I passed both courses I attended as a distant learner with nice results - so please do not hesitate because of this formality - you can do it too! :)

Internship abroad

SDU

Did you know…

Tel Aviv is the “Sin City” of Israel being

dynamic and international?

Slowly I stalk her around the store, looking

for just the right moment to commit my

misdeed. I approach her shopping cart and

without a word, I remove the bag of potatoes she’s just picked up, and place it my own cart.

She looks puzzled. Confused. Paralyzed. Uncertain. Four

seconds passes. It feels like an eternity. She raises her

eyebrows, opens her mouth as if to ask something, but doesn’t

utter a word. Her face moves rapidly from her empty cart to

the potatoes now located in my cart, and a nervous laughter

finds it way: “Did you just…” she asks and points at the bag of

potatoes. Once again she looks disbelievingly back in her

empty cart as to make sure, that I in fact did remove the

potatoes, and she wasn’t just imagining it.

Seeing clearly isn’t believing, and she

repeats: “did you just take my potatoes?” now shifting her bodily orientation to

face me. “Yes, it’s easier for me to shop

from your cart!” I reply, while trying to

sound as if that’s a perfectly normal

way to go around shopping for me. It’s

not though, and once again I feel the

sweat breaking out in my hands.

“But…” she’s clearly put off guard by my

remark, and returns to a state of rapid

movement of the face and raised

eyebrows. After a few seconds, she shakes

her head, turns her body away from me

toward a bystander and asks her, if she saw,

what I just did. Obviously my explanation did not

offer her the sense-making relief she needed, and I

make a run for it. With the bag of potatoes still in my cart.

Feeling somewhat frisky, I decide to up the ante. My next victim

is clearly capable of “whooping my behind” if I’m not careful

enough. The pattern from my first victim is repeated: after the

initial phase of bodily confusion, he looks for a valid

explanation: “That’s actually… (nervous laughter) you know, that’s actually my cart and my ham?”. “Well, technically

it’s not your ham yet” I reply and continue: “as you

haven’t paid for it, it still belongs to the store”.

shopping as unusual My hands are sweaty. The next person who walks by will

become my first victim. No, she looks so nice. The next one…

No…. the next one then….. 20 minutes passes before I get a hold

of my nerves and finally select my first victim. She is an elderly,

noble looking lady who came to this supermarket without a

worry in her life, and now I’m about to change her life forever -

or at least for a couple of minutes!

16

seeing isn’t believing

nervous laughter

Rainar Rye Larsen 4th semester Information and Communication Studies

Well, the argument might hold some logical persuasive validity in itself, but really, I just want to dig a big hole, and hide. The power of social order is really exercising its full restrictive power on me right now! But my victim just shakes his head and proceeds - without his ham. Looks like dinner consists of potatoes and ham tonight with a side order of guilt!

My third victim fights back. After the initial phase, where she

looks puzzled at me and her gaze flickers from her cart to my

hand, she exclaims: “oh no you don’t” and pulls the product (a

bag of baby diapers, as she had nothing else in her cart) out of

my hand. Before the diapers are back in her cart, she kindly

tells me, and points out where I can find the product

myself. Ah, the mitigating effect of behavior in

public places!

Eight times. Eight victims. And a pattern

becomes evident: when encountering deviation

from the expected norm, we become disorientated;

we seek an explanation, and we turn to the outside world

to find it. But more clearly felt than seen on my own body:

social order is present in every situation, and by not complying

to the expected behavior, the immediate sensation of doing

something wrong kicks in. It’s felt physically as well as mentally. So breaching has to two dimensions I conclude as I leave the

supermarket: First of all it’s a valid method to gain insight into

the way people organize themselves in everyday activities, and secondly the impact on myself as the “breacher” uncovers the impact and immanent presence of social order.

17

8 victims: 1 pattern

fact box ★ 8 experiments were carried out and

recorded on video. ★ 5 times I got away with the product. ★ 3 test subjects needed debriefing. ★ 1 supermarket kicked me out. ★ 0 animals were injured during the

experiments.

∆ The triangle was an early symbol for the Trinity, as the three equal sides form one complete whole: 3-In-1 aka “A Holy Kinder Surprise”.

∆ The Greeks (an ancient version of them) named the triangle the delta glyph. It is a symbolic doorway: balancing thought and emotion (two sides of the triangle) and providing a doorway to higher wisdom.

∆ In math the delta glyph ∆ refers to change.

∆ The three sides of the triangle encapsulate the significance of the number three: The number three invokes expression, versatility and creativity. “Three” has a time element as it represents past, present and future.

∇ An upside down triangle = female, motherhood or womb.

∆ An upright triangle = male, fatherhood (read: penis).

the OMG of triangles

20

theatre lab ”What the hell is a theatre lab?” ”Are we going to play

theatre???” ”I will not participate in role plays, no way!”

These are some of the lines I’ve heard after I started my job in

SDU, Kolding last September. But I also heard lines like e.g. ”It’s nice to do something different, to try out some of the things

we are talking about.”

So are we going to play theatre

in ‘Theatre Lab’ or what? Well, yes and

no. First of all, there is no laboratory and

there is no theatre. The main idea of having

a theatre person as part of the faculty is not to

establish a university theatre, which will play new or

classical drama or impro performances. The idea is to explore if the application of theatre methods in the university

(involving emotions, the body and the intellect) could be a

useful and alternative way of learning. Actually, theatre

methods have been used to facilitate processes of

organisational change and to train managers in business life

for the past 20 years, so why not see if it may be useful for

teaching purposes in university?

Take conflict handling for instance; this was the

topic in a class the other day. In my view there is

basically not much difference between

conflicts in companies and conflicts in

university – they all involve humans, right?

So instead of talking rationally and

orderly about conflicts in general, we

might as well look into our own

experienced conflicts. To take an

example we can recreate some of our

experiences from student group work

and act them out to each other. If we do

that we realize that conflicts are rarely

r a t i o n a l , b u t f u l l o f e m o t i o n s ,

contradictions and hidden intensions –

something we are often not explicitly

aware of. It is in exploring these kinds of

complex situations that theatre is a useful

method, because it involves the participants

physically and connects own experiences with

academic learning.

This is just one way of using theatre methods of course.

Theatre is about human relationships, how people relate to one

another, so it’s mainly useful when we are working with human

interaction.

And by the way, talking about human interaction: In many

universities there is a student theatre doing performances,

workshops or impro work – but not here in Kolding. Is it

perhaps time to start such an activity?

If you want to hear more about my work (be it students or

members of faculty), by all means please write to me.

involve the participants

e-mail me:

Preben Friis actor, director consultant

21

Theatre has nothing to do with buildings or other physical constructions. Theatre- or theatricality - is the capacity, this human property which allows man to observe himself in action, in activity. The self-knowledge thus acquired allows him to be the subject (the one who observes) of another subject (the one who acts). It allows him to imagine variations of his action, to study alternatives. Man can see himself in the act of seeing, in the act of acting, in the act of feeling, the act of thinking. Feel himself feeling, think himself thinking.

- Augusto Boal 1995

quote

even closer Spring is on – and we are longing for summer. Not only due to

our natural wish for warmer days and long, light evenings. The

upcoming summer is special for us at SDU Kolding. We will

move to our new campus building.

As everybody knows moving is not just a

a matter of packing, transportation and unpacking. Moving to a different place urges us to

change our routines and do things differently. Taking

into consideration that our new building is radically different from the one we are in now, we most certainly are

given a chance to reconsider our doings and relations. Both as

employees and as students.

Feedback from present and past students who have studied at

SDU Kolding shows that one of the qualities of our study

programs and campus life is ‘closeness’. The students know

the professors and vice versa. And the students engage in

activities (both study and leisure related) across the study

programs and across the institutions in Kolding.

Kolding is not a small city (in a Danish perspective

at least), but it isn’t big either. You have

shopping and entertainment, friends and

student jobs within walking distance.

When we move to our new domicile, this

sense of closeness will become even

stronger. The building is constructed

with large common spaces, where we

can meet informally and share

knowledge and experience. Other

flagship educational institutions will be

our next-door neighbors, and just

across the street a new part of the city

is taking its form under the name

‘Design City’. Here, new student housing

will be available in the future, together

with shops, cafés and businesses.

SDU Ko ld ing i s a cornerstone in th is

development. We are, by far, the largest institution

in the area, and our study programs within design,

entrepreneurship , communicat ion and bus iness

management fits perfectly into the framework. I am sure our

students will both benefit from and contribute to the overall

perspective in the campus area.

It is a great honor for me to contribute to this first issue of the

new student magazine at SDU Kolding. Such an initiative has

been missed for a long time, and I would like to use this

opportunity to thank the people behind it and wish ‘Breaching’ all the best for the future. – And what a great name it has

been given! It suits our general aim perfectly. It is by

breaching we at SDU Kolding are reaching out to our

surroundings – both the near and the distant.

Let’s move closer. The future deserves it.

22Per Krogh Hansen Head of Campus SDU Kolding

Origami Challenge

23

Source and m

ore in

spiratio

n:

http://

en.origam

i-club.com

/traditi

onal/box1/

box1/index.htm

l

Win Prizes!Send us a photo of your best box, and win rather interesting prizes:origami@post.com

!

Briefkastenonkel

Why (for hell) do we have these strange courses in philosophy of science?

24

The short answer to this question simply is that philosophy of science (“videnskabsteori”) is required by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science: just take a look at §15 of the “Uddannelsesbekendtgørelse”. So even if you strongly dislike philosophy of science, you have no chance of avoiding it unless, of course, you move to another country, which does not have a corresponding demand. Having a long-term

teaching experience in this subject, I know there are actually quite a few students

who completely dislike their philosophy of science courses and regard them as a

pure waste of time since they are supposed to yield nothing useful, which is

relevant to one’s own and proper subject.

The reasons for such (mildly said) “sceptical” attitudes are by no

means difficult to detect. As its name says, philosophy of science

is a branch of philosophy. Thus all students from other subjects

are forced to attend lessons in a discipline, which they

definitely did not choose as their subject. Furthermore,

philosophy is a rather difficult subject: its abstractness is, if at

all, only matched by mathematics (which is also disliked by

many students); philosophical arguments are often involved

and hard to follow; and theses put forward and defended by

philosophers seem sometimes to be paradoxically, absurd, and

even offensive for the “philosophical outsider”. Here are three

examples from philosophy of science: (1) According to a commonly

held opinion, science strives for truth. However, as the surprised

student will hear in her/his courses on philosophy of science, some

philosophers (e.g., Karl Popper and his followers) think both that the

scientist’s job is to set up “falsifiable statements” and that statements,

which, for principled reasons, cannot be falsified, are not scientific ones at all. Is

thus falsity more important to science than truth? (2) A student who likes her/his

humanistic subject will be perplexed or even offended when hearing that some

philosophers of science do not share her/his high esteem of the subject but rather

think that a humanistic subject can never be a scientific one. Julius Kraft (a distant relative of Karl Popper, by the way) wrote a whole book in which he tried to

show the impossibility (as a scientific endeavor) of the humanities (“Die Unmöglichkeit der Geisteswissenschaft”). (3) Finally, what should a

student obliged to participate in a philosophy of science course think about that subject when she/he hears that some scholars

from that discipline, such as, e.g., the Austrian-American philosopher Paul Feyerabend, considers it a “hitherto

unknown form of madness” which is of no great use to the working scientist, whom it only hinders

by the regulations of a strange and unrealistic methodology.

I emphasize with you, dear students

Klaus Robering Professor SDU Kolding

Probably, many will agree cordially; however, they will then wonder why they are forced to participate in this madness. (Oh, btw, I just recognize that I chose examples from three philosophers with an Austrian background; perplexing philosophical theses, however, are by no means an exclusive privilege of

Austrian philosophers!)

Admittedly, all this sounds strange – but isn’t it interesting at

the same time? I surmise that the intention of the Danish

legislator with philosophy of science courses has been “to

make the students better scientists” by providing them with

some training in scientific methodology. This, surely, is an

honourable intention – but, excuse me, both a little bit boring

and naive. I will call it the “official view”. This official view is

boring because it rests on a boring (and, in my

perspective, false) conception of science. I do not like

very much the radical theses of Paul Feyerabend

just alluded to above and I would follow neither

his argumentation “against method” (this is

the title of one of his books) nor that for a

“methodological anarchism”. (As regards

legislators, each form of anarchism is

suspect to them, of course.) However, I

think Feyerabend is right in rejecting

that conception of science which views it

as the production of knowledge by the

application of methods, which are thus

considered “discovery procedures”.

Though methods are important for science,

they do not exhaust it. The “execution” of

methodological rules often results in the execution

of the original problem rather than in its solution.

Besides being boring, the official view is naive since its rests

on a misconception of philosophy. Philosophy is not a discipline,

which provides generally accepted answers to basic questions

in the same sense as, say, physics provides answers to

questions concerning natural phenomena. You simply cannot

expect “recipes for good science” from philosophers of science!

If you ask philosophers what science is and how scientific

results are achieved, you will receive many answers rather than

a single, definite and generally accepted one. Kant formulated

the basic problems of philosophy in three questions. The first

one - “What can I know?” - is the question philosophy of science is struggling with (of course besides other branches of philosophy). The other questions are: “What should I do?” and “What can I hope?” The three questions lead up to a fourth one: “What is man?” Does anyone really believe that these four questions have been answered by philosophy since the times of Kant or that there will be definitive answers to them one time in the future?

In spite of my qualms concerning that what I have called the “official view”, I never-theless think that it has been a splendid idea of the Danish legislator to include philosophy of science in all curricula. When one starts to study at the university, “science” is in fact what one will “do” in the next five or six years. And it is certainly a good idea to think about what one is doing. All too often one takes for granted what one is doing or what one is concerned with. This, however, is an attitude inhibiting

critical reflection. Typically, thinking is provoked by some kind

of irritation. One starts thinking about an issue only after one

has been wondering about it. “Philosophy begins in wonder”,

Plato says. By giving perplexing, provoking and challenging

answers to presumably simple questions concerning science,

philosophy of science can make you wonder about what you are

doing at the university. Dear students, come on and take up the challenge!

25

The philosophical “merry-go-around”

Send me a question here

OBS

The Valleys

inspiration

The Mountains

Mø

The Sea

Peter Fox

Stadtaffe

26

Theme: Exam - tips’n tricks The Simpsons and Philosophy - mmm Kant! More Briefkastenonkel (send us a question!) Origami challenge v. 2.0 … and much more!

next issue

editorial staff

Rainar Rye Larsen4th semester

Information and

Communication Studies

Christina Lysen Priisholm 6th semester

International Business

Communication

Niels Sundstrup6th semester

International Business

Communication

Klaus RoberingProfessor

SDU

Kalle Maruri6th semester

International Business

Communication

Jeanette LandgrebeEditor

SDU

Offended by the word penis? Questions? Want to be a part of us: facebook.com/Breaching.SDU.Kolding

Your name

here?

27

✁✁

✁

✁✁

✁✁ ✁

Dear Does

sense