On the 1st of April, in the frame of ZAWiW’s Spring Academy at Ulm University, the Panel on the subject “Sustainability of Cultural Heritage / National and European Identity” had taken place with focus on the following issues: How does our understanding of identity in relation to the cultural heritage (stability) and European unification (change) develop? How does our direct social space change, how does Germany change and what direction does Europe take?
The panel session in which 35 older adsults from Ulm and its region took place was opened by Acadsemic Director Carmen Stadelhofer of ZAWiW, followed by an impulse lecture from Dr. Frank Kressing on the subject “Ethnicity-Ethnical Identity”. This was followed by group work, in which seniors discussed in three groups the following thesis:
Thesis I
Basics of living together must be the mutual acceptance of people!
Where are the limits of acceptance? What can we tolerate? What do we reject?
Thesis II
We want to maintain our cultural heritage and to foster it as part of our identity!
The question that presentis itself is, why should it be fostered?
Also cultural heritage changes, but how does it change? Is there a stable core that does not change and that belongs to our identity?
Which values do we connect with identity?
Thesis III
Europa grows in the Danube region together and European identity develops! What chances does this process open? What aspects can /should European identity have?
