Verba Manent

Date, hook-up, lover, partner, etc. Love and its derivatives are quite everywhere in our daily lives. During our university years, we have and most probably will experience relationships going beyond friendship. Is the dating culture in our international environment different from your home country’s? Are sexy looks really that effective? Lian (from Singapore) and Alberto (from Italy) will gladly share their thoughts about their experiences.

The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, written by David Landes and published in 1998, provides a contentious take on the reason behind Europe’s economic take-off by the end of the Middle Ages. Through a comparative approach, Landes boldly claimed that historically unique cultural values of curiosity, novelty, and property protection empowered European society and propelled it to global dominance. Tune in to this episode of Inkling and find out whether you should read Landes. (An Easter egg awaits at the very end.)

There is a version of college that each person has conjured up in their minds. Perhaps you were expecting a huge campus, parties every weekend, a secret poet society, a chill schedule and eating pain au chocolat for breakfast- perhaps the latter is mostly true (your secret is safe with us). Nonetheless, we all have a different perspective and take on what college means to us now that we have finally made the move from adolescence to adulthood. Dive into the podcast to hear Zaheer and Pavithran talk about their experiences from mental health to their idealized version of college and everything in between!

Parties are an essential aspect of student life. They help us get rid of stress and pressure, and construct social contact. When noticing differences between parties of people of the same nationality, we wondered what it would be like for an international student to discover another culture when changing countries. How does the party experience differ from one country to another? We talked about this with Rameen and Pedro, two international students.

Breaking down the key ideas of one of the most famous works in recent years, Piketty's Capital in the 21st century, we'll look at how wealth and income inequality has surged in the past decades. What do these changes imply for the system of meritocracy and people's social mobility? What does Piketty propose to do to counter the rising social and economic inequality? Tune in to the first episode of Inkling, a brand new and ambitious book review programme in search of the good life in good writing.

As we have moved away from our friends and family for university, which often implied going to a different country, we have begun to notice changes in our behavior, mentality, approach to life, etc. When visiting our hometown and its people, we might have found this change has affected our relationships with our friends and family who we left behind.  We talk about this with Brennan, Jahnvi and Ugo (respectively Singaporean, Indian and Belgian) who have moved here in Le Havre to study at SciencesPo.

The military junta in Myanmar seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Since then, military authorities have cracked down on protests and dissent, killing some 1,269 people and arresting more than 10,000, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group monitoring the situation. Rights of citizens were suddenly suspended and free speech became a dangerous road to tread upon. The numbers of journalists arrested vary, going from at least forty seven and into potential hundreds. The American journalist Danny Fenster, who recently made it back home from behind Burmese bars was one of the lucky few who have been able to escape the tyranny that Myanmar finds itself in.

The international human rights law protects and defends human rights which are premised on the fundamental right to life. However, a right to a dignified life does not seem to include a right to a dignified end. More controversial is whether doctors or anyone else has the right to make medically informed decisions about whether death would serve some terminally ill patients better than trying to keep them alive, and how such decisions will transform societies. All these debates were put to the foreground of American society in 1915, when doctor Haiselden allowed a deformed newborn to die.

The Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated while at the Saudi Consulate of Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Despite being close to the Saudi royalty, and even maintaining a friendship with Osama bin Laden, he progressively drifted apart from their mentality and entertained pro-democracy ideas.  Although now solved, his case remains controversial to this day.

Writer and filmmaker Tsitsi Dangarembga received in 2021 the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Her artistic work and her activism emphasized the mechanism of oppression, linked with gender, colonialism and racism intrinsic to the Zimbabwean society.