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Main Image for Literature and Rhetoric Concentration

Literature and Rhetoric Concentration

Guest Lecture with writer Angela Flournoy
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What is “literature”? Established as a special category in the eighteenth century, the specificity of the literary object has since been subject to debate: it cannot be defined by fictiveness or by a special use of language wholly distinct from “ordinary” expression. Nevertheless, the recognizability and importance of literature persists, and the methods used to understand and analyze it have been extended to the broader interpretation of culture, deriving their approaches from a range of disciplines, including history, sociology, linguistics and philosophy. This concentration introduces the manifestations of the literary object, its genres and styles and their development, as well as their relationship to other discourses and forms. In particular, it examines the connection between literary production and interpretation and the history of rhetoric, or the exploration of patterns of communication and their effectiveness.
Curriculum Overview

Curriculum Overview


 

Students in this concentration begin their studies with foundational coursework in both the production and analysis of literature. Advanced courses build on this basis, and incorporate a social analysis of the writer’s ‘place’ in the world. For any given module listed in the overview above, several courses may be offered that allow students to fulfill the requirement.

Cultivating an interdisciplinary knowledge of the origins, structure, and affiliations of literary art, the concentration provides the tools and background necessary for bringing the strategies and insights of literary hermeneutics to the scrutiny of cultural norms and values as systems of language. The literature concentration at Bard College Berlin includes the opportunity to take courses in the practice of a variety of kinds of writing, from journalistic reportage to creative writing, in workshops at foundational and advanced level. 

BCB Course List

Literature and Rhetoric Concentration Overview

Sample Courses

  • Foundational Courses
    • Writing Fiction
    • Theories of the Body
    • Thucydides’ War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians
    • Living at the Edge: Outsiders in Film
    • Intrigue, Power, and Politics: Staging Friedrich Schiller’s Maria Stuart
  • Advanced Courses
    • The Writing Life
    • Contemporary Selves: Autofiction and Autotheory
    • Technology and Culture: The Invention of the Printing Press
    • Critical Diversity and Decolonial Methodology in the (Liberal) Arts
    • Feminism and Community

Study Abroad Opportunities

Study Abroad
Bard College, Annandale-upon-Hudson, Warden's Hall

Literature and Rhetoric students may spend up to two semesters abroad during their third year of study. Students can pursue a wide array of coursework in literature at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Students also can pursue study at Central European University in Vienna.
 

Literature and Rhetoric Faculty

  • Dr. James Harker
    Literature and Rhetoric
    USA
    PhD in Rhetoric
    University of California, Berkeley
  • Prof. Dr. Matthias Hurst
    Film Studies
    Germany
    Habilitation in Literature and Film Studies
    Universität Heidelberg
  • Prof. Dr. Laura Scuriatti
    Comparative Literature
    Italy
    PhD in English Literature
    University of Reading
  • Prof. Dr. Catherine Toal
    Dean
    Ireland
    PhD in English and American Literature
    Harvard University
  • Dr. Andreas Martin Widmann
    German Literature
    Germany
    PhD in German Literature
    Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz
  • Dr. Ulrike Wagner
    Director of the German Studies Program
    Germany
    PhD in German and Comparative Literature
    Columbia University

Alumni/ae

Students who graduated from the Literature and Rhetoric HAST BA program have gone on to:

  • Graduate Programs at:
     
    • University of Oxford, UK
    • University of California, Berkeley, USA
    • The Free University of Berlin, Germany
    • Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
    • University of Potsdam, Germany
  • Employment at:
     
    • Los Angeles Review of Books, USA
    • SKDK, USA
    • ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Germany

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Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University gGmbH

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Phone: +49 30 43733 0
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Bard College Berlin is institutionally accredited at the national level in Germany by the Wissenschaftsrat.

In the United States, Bard College Berlin is accredited through
Bard College by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Qualifying students receive both a German BA and an American BA. 
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