January 20, 2026
You’ve been walking Berlin’s neighborhoods for months – commercial spaces, residential streets, restaurants, shops. You’ve learned to notice how “the Middle East” appears in the city.
But what about here? What about this campus?
Today, walk Freie Universität Berlin for about 90 minutes with this question: How does the Middle East appear at FU, and how is it framed?
What to Look For
Don’t just look for “where is the Middle East” – look for how it appears as a category in this institutional space.
Buildings, institutes, departments, programs:
- Which ones deal with the Middle East?
- How are they named?
- Where are they located on campus – central or peripheral?
- What does the architecture communicate?
Bulletin boards and posters:
- What events are advertised?
- Whose events get space?
- What languages appear?
- How is content categorized or framed?
The library:
- How are Middle East materials organized?
- What classification systems are used?
- Which floor? What’s shelved nearby?
- What does the organization reveal about how knowledge is structured?
Student spaces:
- Which languages do you hear?
- Which groups meet where?
- Who’s visible? Who’s invisible?
- What spaces feel marked as “Middle Eastern” vs. unmarked as “German” or “international”?
Campus maps and signage:
- How is the Middle East represented, if at all?
- What gets labeled? What doesn’t?
- What languages are used?
Memorials, plaques, building names:
- Who gets remembered?
- What histories are marked on this campus?
- What connections to the Middle East are commemorated (or absent)?
Classrooms:
- Where do Middle East courses happen?
- What do these spaces look like?
- Are they in specific buildings or scattered?
Your Task
Document 3-5 specific moments/places/things where you notice something about how the Middle East appears (or doesn’t) in this institutional space.
Be specific:
❌ Not just: “I saw Arabic”
✅ But: WHERE did you see it, in what CONTEXT, how was it FRAMED, what was NOTABLE about it?
Example of specificity:
- “In the lobby of Building X, there’s a bulletin board. Left side: German student group posters. Right side: International student posters, including one in Arabic for a Palestinian solidarity event. The Arabic poster is smaller and in the corner. Next to it: a university regulation, in German only.”
Take photos. Take notes. Notice details.
The Question to Carry With You
Is FU Berlin a space where the Middle East is:
- Studied?
- Present?
- Absent?
- Produced?
Or maybe: What work is “the Middle East” doing as a category in this institutional space?
Walk alone or with one other person. Meet back at 2.2058 at 12:15 (take 11:45-12:15 as a break).
Nur der Text ist unter der Lizenz Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International nutzbar. Alle anderen Elemente (Abbildungen, importierte Anhänge) sind „Alle Rechte vorbehalten“, sofern nicht anders angegeben.
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Victoria Mummelthei (20. Januar 2026). Walk the Campus: Looking for the Middle East at FU. Keine Disziplin – No Discipline. Abgerufen am 9. März 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/15izc

