Core Academic Program

In all fields of human endeavor and inquiry, efforts have been made to establish objects, principles, and modes of thinking and proceeding that are considered important and legitimate. A multiplicity of debates and struggles shapes the standards and criteria used for judging these artifacts, ideas, and methods. Rather than relying on a traditional “great books” approach or simply on a general humanities curriculum, Bard College Berlin’s specific mission is to explore the basis for the existence of the objects and judgments of value that have shaped our intellectual, cultural, and political and social life. The foundation of the degree program consists of six core courses which provide an overview of intellectual history and of the key texts and debates at the origin of the disciplines of philosophy, literature, art history, economics, and the natural and social sciences. Core courses enable students to consider the interplay between fields and phenomena often treated as separate and distinct—for instance, painting and mathematics, or literary forms and political economy—and to examine the history of philosophy in its widest interactions with the history of science, rhetoric, and the visual arts.