Cicilie among the Parisians

Yesterday, I had to answer the question: “What can people learn from your research?” Eh… Learn from what I do? So this job isn’t just a way of keeping another overqualified person out of unemployment statistics? Well, joke aside, …but I have to admit that such an upfront and naïve question up here in our ivory tower-existence made me realise that I think far too little about the very simple fact that people might learn something from what I do. Even if I often think that much in this world is outside of my jurisdiction and beyond repair, I hope I haven’t totally given up on the idea that what I do might be useful, - also above the personal pleasure of it and the societal benefit of not spending my days doing something that is harming the environment more. From now on, I’ll have in the back of my mind; what can the reader learn from what I write… or perhaps less didactic and patronising; which experiences do I want to convey? What do I want the reader to experience and retain from my text? Something like that…

And what did I answer to the question yesterday? First, I though eh… something about social classification blah blah…? That they are different in different societies…? That social cohesion and nationalism is different in different societies…? No, these things people say all the time. What I really want try to convey is perhaps the greatest thing about the Parisian slam poetry: How little it takes to create an inclusive environment where even a newbie like me can feel at home, and where one get to know others and get to express oneself. Can I write a manual to an open, cosmopolitan democracy in practice!?