Possible Research Topics

Migration/Immigration:

• Inter-relations between Germans and Immigrant Turks
• Education policies regarding religion in schools
• What is the demographic of students?
• Do most students practice a different religion from that taught in schools?
• How do the students reconcile the differences?
  

Memorials/Memory:

• Rejuvenation of Jewish society in Germany
• Are old families returning to their old residences?
• What drew them back home?
• Resurrection of East German culture
• How successful are stores selling East German goods?
• Do they exist only to satisfy East Germans or are they quality goods in their own right?

Monuments and Memorials of Seattle

Space Needle
When one thinks of Seattle, along with images of cloudy gray skies and rain, the Space Needle comes to mind. The Space Needle is a symbol of Seattle, built for the 1962 World's Fair. However, unlike most other monuments and memorials, the Space Needle holds little history behind its construction. It was simply built for the World's Fair to showcase the technological strides into the future. In fact, the Space Needle very nearly did not make it into the World's Fair as they lacked an actual building location just 13 months before the fair's opening. Since it's construction, its status as the symbol of Seattle has been strengthened with New Years' fireworks celebrations launched off of the needle each year among other events.













Seattle Underground
A slightly lesser known Seattle memorial is the Underground. In 1889 a spilled flaming glue pot led to the destruction of 33 wooden city blocks. In response to this disaster, city officials decided not to rebuild the city. Instead, a decree was issued ordering all new buildings to be built from brick or stone. In addition, the city was to be raised two stories. Seattle was originally built on tide flats and typically suffered from flooding during high tide. In addition, flush toilets would no longer back up. However, the underground remains as a memorial to Seattle's humble beginnings.


Boeing Factory
The Boeing Factory and its respective tour is another monument of sorts. Home of the Boeing 747 and other commercial airplanes, the Boeing factory in Everett hosts tours of their facilities as another attraction for visitors. This serves both as a museum and monument to Boeing's past as well as a view into their current production. However, unlike most monuments or memorials, this exists solely for commercial gain.

Reaction to First Composition

For our first drama exercise, the class was broken up into three groups. Each group was required to make a montage of five poses, one for each member, which would depict a moment in each person's life. This was to be completed in 3 minutes. After reading the Viewpoints book, I was sure this was simply an attempt to create "exquisite pressure" but found that groups were, in fact, finishing in the allotted time. Like much of the class, our group had minimal drama experience. At first, this made it difficult to proceed as no one knew what to do. However, we quickly realized that we were all in the same boat and began jumping in and quickly designing our montage. As each one finished, our progress was evident in our use of other techniques. Of particular note was the portrayal of the passage of time via a left to right progression across the stage. Interestingly enough, this was a recurring theme among the groups despite not having discussed possible techniques beforehand. This was a great introduction into the acting portion of the course, and I look forward to the work we will be doing in the future.