The online magazine of the University of Bern

Our image of Africa often does not correspond to reality. Cultural diversity is much greater than in Europe, for example. Technological progress is sometimes ahead of ours. We try to give you an impression of this with a few examples.

Between the colonial past and the economic engine of the future: Africa is somewhere in between. An assessment by Chinwe Ifejika Speranza from the Institute of Geography and Thomas Breu from the Centre for Development and Environment.

The Djiboutian novelist Abdourahman Waberi reflects on his Dürrenmatt Guest Professorship in World Literature in Bern. Together with his students, he pondered the possibilities: Could the future be African? His vision, symbolised by a West African animal, is clear and optimistic.

Is it a spiritual force? God? Resonance? Functioning neurons in the brain? Motivation? A theologian, a psychotherapist, a neuroscientist and a religious scientist examine the term “life energy” from different perspectives.

Tourism and milk production are the two mainstays of the Jungfrau region. But climate change puts both sectors at risk. Together with the Wyss Academy for Nature, the Canton of Bern and the University of Bern, the 28 municipalities of the East Oberland region are looking for strategies for more climate protection.

Who knows what a mitochondrium does? Everyone (thanks to the many memes on the Internet)! But hardly anyone knows what a crazy history these cell components have. An attempted portrait.

Diana Pashchenko started a marketing degree in Ukraine. She is now preparing to do an English degree at the University of Bern and would like to become a teacher.

Franco Rasetti was one of the physicists who laid the foundations of nuclear physics – and thus made the atomic bomb possible. Despite having the courage to say NO to the atomic bomb project, he was devastated by the effects of his discovery.

When is a trauma a trauma? And why do some people suffer more from psychological distress than others? Yvonne Egenolf explains. The co-head of the Psychotherapeutic Practice at the University of Bern supports people who have been through stressful events.

The way society deals with intoxicants remains challenging. Lawyer Franziska Sprecher and physician Reto Auer, who conduct research on the subject at the University of Bern and advise policymakers, assess current developments.

In the early days of mankind, shared states of intoxication helped individuals to form collectives, says Jens Schlieter, who studies the connection between religion, drugs and intoxication. Can intoxication still be of help today?

If you become intoxicated, you risk losing your balance – and that also means your mental balance. It is a frightening and at the same time pleasurable state that humans have always consciously sought out.

The decisions we make have a lot to do with our personality. Deeply entrenched behavioral tendencies are not easy to shed – even when it comes to which party we prefer. Insights from political psychology.

The Swiss sociologist Peter Gross proclaimed the “multi-option society” 30 years ago. His future scenario of a society overwhelmed by countless options became a bestseller. Where are we today? We asked experts in Bern.

So you’re off. On a hike in Vaud. This is where thoughts and conversations about literature meander: decisions in literary texts. Soon the hike becomes an allegory of literature. Because here as there, people act by deciding to leave, sometimes confiding in one another.

Digitalization seems to be turning the world as we know it upside down. How can we shape change while defending values that are important to us? An interview with Ernst-Joachim Hossner and Christiane Tretter, head and future head of the Digitalization Commission at the University of Bern.

The development of text-generating artificial intelligence (AI) is proceeding at a rapid pace and will change teaching and research. How exactly, we can’t say yet. Universities are the focus of reflection on the new and should therefore not be afraid of innovation, but rather embrace it and put it to good use.

How do you feel when you look at the following pictures? Do you perhaps have to look twice, wondering what is real and what is fictitious?

Real friends go through fire and flood for each other. How does this mutual care come about? A journey through the animal kingdom with behavioral ecologist Michael Taborsky shows that cooperation has its origins in biology.

Social anthropologist Serena Owusua Dankwa studied the life stories of women in Ghana who love women. To do so, she left Western notions of sexual identity and the LGBTQ scene behind.

Girlfriends, bound in their cramming of statistics, starting a family thanks to a degree in sports: The University of Bern is also a platform for meeting new people. Alumni and international students of the University of Bern describe what can result from this, giving us an insight into their personal histories.

Whether global warming, the pandemic, or the war in Ukraine: today’s crises also endanger our food supplies. Sabin Bieri and Theresa Tribaldos of the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) call for a transition away from uniform food production and processing.

Most societies are aware of eating taboos, but these affect different foods. The very idea of eating something that is taboo causes disgust among its members. This leads to the paradox that an involuntary physical emotion such as disgust is culturally constructed.

Improving global food security is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine shows how trade insecurity can destroy food security. The Word Trade Institute (WTI) at the University of Bern has been monitoring Ukraine’s grain exports, which are so important for Africa, since February. Now it is formulating demands.

Whether blindness in chamois or heart abnormalities in lynxes, diseases found in wildlife shape the professional life of Marie-Pierre Ryser. Good collaboration with equally passionate project partners and the balance in nature help the Head of the Wildlife Division at the Vetsuisse Faculty to deal with the immense workload.

Katharina Heyden is Professor of Ancient History of Christianity and is an ordained priest. Her research focuses in particular on interreligious encounters. She obtains her research material from text sources, art and archeology.

Martino Mona is Professor of Penal Law and the Philosophy of Law at the University of Bern. What he particularly appreciates about his field is that it is not only socially relevant, but also of intellectual and philosophical significance.