Faces of Science has three new bloggers:Janna de Boer, Jorrit Steehouder and Uzume Zoë Wijnsma. Janna analyzes the language use of patients with psychosis, Jorrit examines the early years of European cooperation after the Second World War, such as the Marshall Plan. And Uzume delves even further back into history:she wants to know how political ideas changed in Egypt and Iraq when they lost their independence to the first empires in the world.
Janna de Boer
What you say are you yourself. This phrase that is often used to bully someone else takes on a completely different meaning in Janna's research. The language you speak determines or influences how you think. For example, did you know that Russians have two words for the color blue, and a bridge in Spain is associated with large and dangerous and in Germany with beautiful and elegant? Dive into the diversity of different languages with Janna and discover that the same words have a completely different meaning in another country. And that a Russian can see more quickly whether something is light blue or dark blue than an English or Dutchman. So what you say is you yourself is not just something that children shout in the schoolyard, it also seems to be true. What you say and therefore which language you speak influences how you think and who you are!
Jorrit Steehouder
For example, what can we learn from all the experience we have gained in Europe working together, 70 years after the Marshall Plan started? Jorrit discusses this in detail during his first blog. He takes you back in time, to the early years of the Marshall Aid. Europe is in ruins after the Second World War. On June 5, 1947, US Secretary of State George C. Marshall delivers a speech to Harvard University alumni. In barely fifteen minutes he outlines the social and economic problems in post-war Europe. There is a threat of food shortages, essential industrial goods are scarce and trade is at an all-time low. Europe can barely take care of itself. The solution, according to Marshall, is to restore Europeans' confidence in their own (economic) future, and he is drawing up a plan for that:the well-known Marshall Plan. Seventy years later, Europeans have gained ample experience with cooperation that extends beyond their own national borders. Now that America looks like a break with Europe, it's time to give European self-confidence a new injection, which Europe must give itself, Jorrit thinks. Because if he has learned anything from all those old stories about the Marshall Aid, it is this:“We have to draw on seventy years of European cooperation for inspiration and hope.”
Uzume Zoë Wijnsma
Why is the West so powerful and rich? Where did the Israel-Palestine conflict come from? And why do we actually celebrate Christmas? Such questions cannot be answered without 'dull' historians. Like Uzume. When asked what research she does, Uzume often gets two types of responses:1) “I didn't even know that existed,” or 2) “Okay…and why is it useful?” she'll be told. Like all sciences, history is an essential part of our quest for understanding in the world:while one PhD student tells you about global warming, I explain to you the Israel-Palestine conflict going back three thousand years. Particularly useful, says Uzume. In her first blog she writes an ode to small science, and her passion to ask questions and to know everything about her research in the smallest details. Because then we know where the gaps and uncertainties are in our knowledge, and how the structure of history works, and on what people base their claims. And personally I find that a very comforting thought. After all, what can we know if we don't know the details?'