Anna Schwulst/The Falcon Michael Ziemann, associate professor of European Studies, German and linguistics, speaks to a group of students in the Library Seminar room as a part of the European Symposium. The lecture, entitled “Village Razed, Rebels Beheaded: How Imperial Rome Suppressed the Bar Kokhba Uprising and Created Palestina” was held on Feb. 12.

From changes in fairy tales to the changes of Jerusalem, the 25th annual European Studies Symposium brought an inside view into an evolving Europe.

Last Tuesday through Thursday encompassed several lectures by professors in the European studies program as well as presentations by senior students in the major all under this year's theme of "Changes," showing that Europe has, and continues to, evolve and develop.

"Village Razed, Rebels Beheaded-How Imperial Rome Suppressed the Bar Kokhba Uprising and Created Palestina"

Michael Ziemann, associate professor of European studies, German and linguistics, kicked off the symposium with his lecture "Village Razed, Rebels Beheaded--How Imperial Rome Suppressed the Bar Kokhba Uprising and Created Palestina."

Ziemann's lecture consisted of the shift of the original Jerusalem, from its fall to its conversion into the Roman "Aelia Capitolina" and to the Jerusalem that the world knows now.

Ziemann said in his lecture that the diverse citizens of Jerusalem, Jewish and Christian alike, did not really connect its past origins, what Jerusalem used to be, to what it is now.

In his lecture, Ziemann also paralleled ideas that brought about the Roman "Aelia Capitolina" to the Holocaust. Ziemann said that Rome outlawed Judaism in Jerusalem, as Nazi Germany would, centuries later.

This was Ziemann's 23rd lecture in the Symposium since he first began at SPU.

"The Art and Politics of Pablo Picasso: A Look into the Life of the Pacifist Artist"

Whitney Eastvold, a senior, gave her presentation on the art and politics of Pablo Picasso. Eastvold said that the 13-page research paper and the time making a slideshow were long but they were something that she enjoyed.

Eastvold said in her lecture that Picasso saw himself as a pacifist but his painting "Guernica" shows his negative view on war and the effect it has on the people.

Eastvold had the opportunity to be at the 25th anniversary of Picasso's "Guernica" return to Spain. This gave her the idea for her presentation.

"Picasso was alive during a changing period in Europe," Eastvold said in an earlier interview.

Eastvold said that Picasso was constantly ahead of his time, transitioning from his blue period all the way to Surrealism.

"Picasso's ever-evolving art brought him fame," Eastvold said in her presentation.

"French Fables and Fairy Tales: Finding the Originals in the Americanized Version"

Fables and fairytales were the subject of another student presentation last Wednesday. Kathleen Gladhill, a senior, showed the differences of European fables and fairytales when America adopted some of them.

Gladhill said that many of the fairytales that America took from European literature were ones that fit with Walt Disney's message, "work hard and be good and you'll be happy," Gladhill said in her presentation.

Comparing Disney's "Cinderella" to Charles Perrault's "Donkeyskin," Gladhill showed how America picked its morals. In "Cinderella," Gladhill said Americans are insulted by the wicked stepmother, but in "Donkeyskin" we are disgusted by the idea of a father's lust for his daughter.

Gladhill was inspired to do her presentation on fairytales by a collection of Perrault's fairytales that she had bought in France.

"A Witness to Change: Germany 1989"

The keynote address last Wednesday, "A Witness to Change: Germany 1989," was given by Jennifer Kenney, an SPU alumna and former director of undergraduate admissions.

"It [European Quarter] was the highlight of my academic career at SPU," Kenney said.

Kenney said that there were many things that she wished to show in her presentation but was unable to because she was not allowed to take pictures of certain things in East Germany.

"There was a desire on the part of the government [East Germany] to know the lives of its citizens," Kenney said in her lecture.

Kenney emphasized the differences in East and West Germany in her lecture by showing pictures of the colorful West Berlin versus the "very gray and oppressed city [East Berlin]," Kenney said.

In her lecture, Kenney talked about the feeling that came when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989.

"People were going crazy," she said.

"This was an amazing emotional burden that had been lifted," Kenney said.

Kenney went back to Germany in 2004 and described her experience as amazing to see the progress, but also in seeing the hard times, as well, Kenney said in an earlier interview. Kenney said that, although it oppressed them, East Germany's communist system also provided jobs that the capitalist system does not now.