JURA

Seminar Week (-)
Organizer: Chair of Prof. Ursprung
Time: Oktober 19-23
Location: Jura, Switzerland
 

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JURA

The jura mountain range separates the Rhine and Rhone basins. Inhabited since the iron age, its cultural land has been divided by political borders, religion and language. It has been the site of separatist movements and struggles for social emancipation and independence.

Jura means forest. While vast oak woods disappeared with clearings during the 18th century, the industrialization brought firs and pines, new forms of agriculture and the railway. It also brought tobacco, textile and watch-making industries, each with its own history of production facilities and organization of work.
Jura is the name of a geological era. With folds that began to raise 10 million years ago, the jura is a geologically relatively young formation. Its sediments however hide fossils which tell secret tales about much older creatures that lived 200 million years ago in and on the coasts of a tropical shallow sea. Trapped in limestone, they populate the architecture of the region and attract tourists. The unknown histories of other ancient organisms have melted into the sticky black liquid of bitumen, exploited in the Val-de-Travers since the 19th century.

During the seminar week, we will hike the swiss jura mountains. We will explore mines and quarries, wander along rivers and past cloisters, watch birds, withstand thunderstorms and make a bonfire. We will meet artists and researchers. We will hear tales of precision and anarchism, of absinth production and entrepreneurial strategy, of empires, confederations, congresses and revolt, of global trade, tourism and population decrease, of extraction and spirituality, of erosion, power places and the jurassic age of reptiles. Along the way, we will practice writing (with Finn Canonica) and photography (with Tobias Wootton).