University of Christians – Daniel Bendix: “Hotel Castoria”: In the land of beaver

If you are traveling in rivers in East Germany, you can quickly confuse them: beaver and Nutria. Both are rodents living near the water with a brown fur, but in contrast to Nutria, the beaver is managed as a local species in this country. It is not surprising that Biber want to adopt the environment. Its dam construction shows the creative spirit of Castor Fiber, as the European beaver is called in Latin.

It was recently reported from the Czech Republic that Biber created a wetland in the Brdy landscape protection park. Exactly this project was planned by the local community for years. Literally overnight, a beaver team pulled several dams up to thaw water. Fittingly, this happened at the places provided.

But it can also be different. If the beaver comes back, he can ensure the collapse of a university. More precisely from the Edenische Universität Edenred (EU) in the Brandenburg Desöde. Daniel Bendix wrote down what happens there in his first novel “Hotel Castoria”. In it, the social scientist describes the whimsical world of a Christian university that takes up students from all over the world, has firmly integrated services into the daily routine and in which an IT department is the actual ruler. And then the Corona pandemic breaks out.

Etherists form a Christian, worldwide active faith community, the members of which are committed to studying, do not drink alcohol and eat vegetarian. Your sign is a book with a candle on it. The new lecturer, the first-person narrator of the novel, will be received with a “bless god bless you!” It doesn’t stay that way: »A leaf blower in front of my apartment wakes me up. My first working day at the Edenistic University of Edenrad, «is how the first week begins.

“Striking how much is hugged here. And always in this cancer. “

From “Hotel Castoria”

In the following short chapters, the peculiarities of the university are described in the form of diary entries including attached letters, emails and messages. The language is short and quick, also funny, when the everyday absurdities are reproduced: »Thekla asked me if it should hug me – and called me brother. The hug was somehow not a warm, firm hug. Really a fraternal, with two knockers on the shoulder. Striking how much is hugged here. And always in this cancer. “

What is missing in close proximity is made up for in it by closeness to the surrounding nature and walks. With one of these, everything indicates that the former home, but then displaced beaver has returned. Should you prepare for it? Because preparing is good, shooters are better and switch off the safest-according to the unspoken motto of the IT department of the EU. This creeps in more and more into the everyday life of the first-person narrator. First it starts with warnings, then the tone becomes alarmist, falls into the cynical-threatening, because you have identified supposed or real attacks in the cyber world.

Danger lurks in digital everywhere, for example in mail attachments, text documents or other suspects, but unfortunately belong to work in science. When all warnings of IT and its self -made software – Edenredoc, Edengarden and Edenvision – no longer help, contact with the outside world is completely switched off. Better safe than sorry. At least the religious life still works: “Wicker in the shadow of the cross with the motto› Because he saves you from the rope of the hunter and the perishable plague. It is streamed over the intranet. “

Capping off the outside world cannot afford students from abroad. The tuition fees must be earned. And so they start working for the surrounding companies. Among them are the local Pörksen slaughterhouse, a well-known fast food chain, a supermarket or the nearby retirement home.

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The highlight: The prospective academics can be recognized as an internship for your studies. The internship reports listed show how the working conditions for foreign students are in this country. So it can happen that in addition to the many and hard work, there is no longer time to learn; Which in turn raises a new problem because the visa is linked to your studies. Exploitation in the sign of Christian scholarship and charity.

When the learned content on racism and post -colonial theory are applied to the EU and their teaching staff, the Christian world gets cracks. Lecturer Thekla takes the criticism of the research assistant Aisha from Kenya more than personally. The conflicts that are also held elsewhere are brought to Brandenburg via neocolonial power and rule- including the defense mechanisms. Just because you teach intercultural peace and conflict management does not mean seeing your own racism.

Where the necessary discussions are not conducted and the eyes are closed before developments, mischief. Aisha leaves the EU, and at the same time biber is probably stowing the Else flowing past. The IT rooms are flooded – now the intranet is over. Foreclosure flooded. In contrast, the Brdy protected area south of Prague can count itself lucky. The municipality there is saved by an impressive 30 million Czech crowns, around 1.2 million euros, through the work of the beavers. Sometimes you have to let the things run, with no god, no prayer or warnings of IT.

Daniel Bendix: “Hotel Castoria”, Klak-Verlag, 192 pages, born, 19.90 €.