Course List Search

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Modules: Art and Artists in Context, Art Objects and Experience

AH162 Modernism in the Visual Arts: Experiment, Conflict, and Crisis

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika

This class looks at the key works, movements and debates emerging from modernism and modern movements in the visual and plastic arts. Our survey addresses controversies that arose when new works and techniques were first introduced, as well as later (post)modern criticisms. We will consider the ‘grand narratives’ and contrasting explanatory tools that seek to understand and theorize modernist artistic practice (e.g. Marxism, Formalism). An important theme in our journey will be the modernist artists’ entanglement with colonialism; the freedom they claimed for their own creative adventures was often barred to their subjects and absent from the contexts in which they sought new inspiration. Modernist artists and movements also have a complex relationship to the phenomenon of totalitarian regimes, with some embracing and some resisting the pull of dictatorship. Modernism was the moment in which the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ or ‘mass’ culture first appeared, and we will look at the meaning of this fissure for modern art movements. Finally, we examine the role of new media—the revolutionary advent of film and photography—in modernist art production. Our case studies include the formative movements of the early 20th century, such as Expressionism, Dada, Bauhaus and Surrealism. The class ends with what we might call the “nervous breakdown” of modernism in the 1960s, when we witness the end of reigning concepts such as ‘originality’ and ‘authenticity’, and encounter the rise of postmodernism. Throughout the seminar we will make use of Berlin’s wide-ranging and diverse art collections.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Modules: Approaching Arts Through Theory, Art Objects and Experience

AH207 Feminist Art in the 20th and early 21st Centuries

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Mon 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Christina Landbrecht

This seminar introduces the work of female artists in Germany and the US. Starting with artists who were educated around the turn of the century, the seminar will trace the development of feminist art throughout the 20th century, ending with recent figures in feminist art discourse. Among the artists whose works will be discussed are Julie Wolfthorn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Meret Oppenheim, Louise Bourgeois, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Alice Neel, Judy Chicago, Adrian Piper, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Lygia Clark, Nicole Eisenman, Rosemarie Trockel, Margaret Raspé, Cindy Sherman, Sharon Hayes and Mary-Audrey Ramirez. Furthermore, a selection of seminal texts by prominent scholars such as Linda Nochlin, Lucy Lippard, and bell hooks will be discussed throughout the course. The main idea of the seminar is to focus on the work of female artists who not only questioned the established art canon but contributed to changing and expanding it. Particular attention will be dedicated to themes such as “Body, Sexuality, and the Image of the Woman”; “Female Materiality and Crafts”; “the Politics of Race and Gender” and “Care and Maintenance as Artistic Practices.” Through such topics, we will not only have the chance to get to know a multitude of diverse female artists and artistic practices, but to establish their connection to a wide critical discourse. Excursions to museum exhibitions, visits by art professionals, and a studio visit are planned as well.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Artists, Genres, and Movements

AH224 Beyond Crisis: South American Memory Politics and Art

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Mon 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Haley Stewart

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

In this course, we will explore some of the roles historical memory and memory politics have played in artistic production in Chile and Bolivia and in the wider Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America since the 1970s. The aim of the course is to introduce students to the way in which art in these regions has sought to respond to ongoing crises such as those caused by the legacy of violent Southern Cone dictatorships, economic exploitation and environmental degradation by extractive industries, and the consequences of colonial violence against Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. Central to our study are these questions: How does art invoke, remember and critique the historical past? How does it offer alternatives to this past and envision possibilities of healing, repair and growth beyond crisis? How do different artistic and cultural media like painting, sculpture, land art, performance art and film, as well as indigenous forms of making (i.e., textiles, quipus) reflect and develop different concepts of historical memory, often in productive tensions with terms like aesthetics or art? Each week, we’ll discuss specific works from artists, artistic groups and movements like Cecilia Vicuña, Daniela Catrilea Cordero, Luis Bernardo Oyarzún, Elvira Espejo, Gastón Ugalde, Raúl Zurita, and the CADA and avanzada movements in Chile, with the help of readings providing necessary context, critical perspectives and theory. When possible, the readings will privilege the writings of critics and scholars from these regions, such as Nelly Richard and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Art and Artists in Context

AH236 Critical Perspectives on Berlin's new Cultural Venue, the Humboldt Forum

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika, Tarek Ibrahim (Stiftung Humboldt Forum)

Hardly any project has been more controversial than the rebuilding of Berlin’s City Palace. Since its opening in 2021, the Humboldt Forum has brought in more than 2.5 million visitors, constituting one of the centerpieces of the capital’s New Mitte. Yet, the recently opened cultural venue – which gathers five institutions under its roof – is still very much in the process of considering how to address the challenges that arise from the contradictions between its form (a hybrid of Baroque and modern) and its contents (serving as a home to and meeting place for the cultures of the world). Most delicate is its role as the new home of the Ethnological Museum (previously housed in Berlin-Dahlem) with collection histories that are often inextricably linked to European colonialism. The seminar provides an introduction to the history and current operation of the Humboldt Forum and to the various institutions and collections that it accommodates on more than 16,000 square meters. Furthermore, as a collaborative project with the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, the class seeks to give students insights into the conceptualization and planning of cultural events, exhibition projects and educational outreach. Members of the Humboldt Forum's team will introduce students to not only the building and its collections, but also to their day-to-day tasks and overall aims.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Exhibition Culture and Public Space

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Thur 1045-1400
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Hanan Toukan

This course examines how Palestine has been produced, ordered, and made legible through exhibitions, archives, maps, archaeology, photography, and digital platforms from the late Ottoman period to the present. Drawing on Timothy Mitchell’s concept of the “exhibitionary order” in Colonizing Egypt, the course focuses on how the land has been framed and re-framed across different political regimes, including Ottoman, British, Palestinian and Israeli institutions. It asks How does visual display function as a technology of power? How has Palestine been staged as biblical landscape, empty land, imperial province, security problem, heritage site, or humanitarian crisis in museums, exhibitions and other visual media? What forms of authority and knowledge emerge when land, ruins, and the built environment are rendered as objects of display? Beginning with nineteenth-century European Holy Land exhibitions, the course will cover shifts in exhibitionary regimes across the periods of Ottoman reform, early Zionist settlement, British colonial administration of Palestine, Israeli state formation, and the aftermath of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba. Students will examine Ottoman and Zionist exhibitionary practices, British Mandate surveying and aerial photography, post-Nakba archival formations, the formation of national museums, and contemporary digital mapping projects. Case studies will include Holy Land panoramas; Zionist pavilions at international expositions; British Mandate survey displays; Israeli and Palestinian national museums; and contemporary Palestinian and Israeli counter-archives and artistic interventions, including Palestine From Above, the work of Forensic Architecture, and Visualizing Palestine. The course will conclude with students-led curatorial proposals as a final project.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 1045-1400
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Hanan Toukan

This course examines how Palestine has been produced, ordered, and made legible through exhibitions, archives, maps, archaeology, photography, and digital platforms from the late Ottoman period to the present. Drawing on Timothy Mitchell’s concept of the “exhibitionary order” in Colonizing Egypt, the course focuses on how the land has been framed and re-framed across different political regimes, including Ottoman, British, Palestinian and Israeli institutions. It asks How does visual display function as a technology of power? How has Palestine been staged as biblical landscape, empty land, imperial province, security problem, heritage site, or humanitarian crisis in museums, exhibitions and other visual media? What forms of authority and knowledge emerge when land, ruins, and the built environment are rendered as objects of display? Beginning with nineteenth-century European Holy Land exhibitions, the course will cover shifts in exhibitionary regimes across the periods of Ottoman reform, early Zionist settlement, British colonial administration of Palestine, Israeli state formation, and the aftermath of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba. Students will examine Ottoman and Zionist exhibitionary practices, British Mandate surveying and aerial photography, post-Nakba archival formations, the formation of national museums, and contemporary digital mapping projects. Case studies will include Holy Land panoramas; Zionist pavilions at international expositions; British Mandate survey displays; Israeli and Palestinian national museums; and contemporary Palestinian and Israeli counter-archives and artistic interventions, including Palestine From Above, the work of Forensic Architecture, and Visualizing Palestine. The course will conclude with students-led curatorial proposals as a final project.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Aesthetics and Art Theory

AR315 Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Geoff Lehman

“He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too!” (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass). Alice’s reflection upon her dream evokes something of the oneiric experience that can be part of one’s encounter with a work of art: the dialogue between the specific universe the artwork invites us to enter—with its own logic, kinds of seeing, and means of expression—and the viewer as subject, bringing her or his own desires and experiences to its interpretation. One important aspect of this encounter could be described, in psychoanalytic terms, as a relationship between the unconscious wishes, drives, and memories of the viewing subject, on the one hand, and the unconscious qualities of the work itself, both in its production and—especially—in its visual character (its “optical unconscious”), on the other. Major topics for the course include: psychoanalytic interpretations of art; the relationship between the oneiric, the imaginative, and the theatrical; contemplation, daydreaming, schizophrenia, nightmares, and other altered states of consciousness in relation to the experience of artworks; the oneiric and visual narrativity; the place of (self-)reflexivity or its absence in immersive art. Artists whose works we study include Wang Ximeng, Mirza Ali, Goya, De Chirico, Dalí, Miller, Varo, Kahlo, Fellini,Tarkovsky, Kentridge, and Kusama. Readings will be from Lewis Carroll, De Quincey, Woolf, Freud, Jung, Carrington, Borges, Bachelard, and others.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

EC235 Feeding the Planet, Eating the Earth: The Modern History and Future of our Food Systems

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Mon 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Omri Polatsek

Our global food systems lie at the heart of today’s planetary emergencies. When affected by climate change, economic shocks, and wars, they can have destabilizing consequences for human health, ecological systems, and planetary boundaries. In this course, we will explore the history, present, and future of our food systems. Drawing on history, sociology, anthropology, and critical agrarian studies, we examine the major transformation toward industrialized agriculture and the globalization of food systems from the 1870s to the present. Throughout the course, we will investigate diverse case studies from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, exploring how these regions were integrated into the world-spanning networks, infrastructure, and markets that constitute our modern-day agro-food systems. We will examine the major junctions that shaped the transition from locally scaled subsistence economies to a planetary-scale, market-based food economy, examining the reciprocal relations between social-ecological, techno-scientific, and globalizing forces. By focusing on food production, circulation, and consumption, we explore the shifting dynamics of globalization, urban-rural relations, and the world political order, developing analytical skills to understand structural transitions in international trade and politics while remaining attentive to the unique trajectories of locally based case studies.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

EC320 Econometrics

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Israel Waichman

Prerequisites: Statistics and Microeconomics

Economics is in many ways an applied science deeply anchored in real-world phenomena that can be measured and quantified. In order to answer important quantitative questions and in particular assess the descriptiveness of economic theories, the economist needs to collect data and assess the empirical relationships between objects of interest. Since most economic data is non-experimental, a main task of the econometrician is trying to find out whether events that are correlated also stand in causal relationship with each other. And in particular to test the accuracy of economic theories specifying a causal relationship between factors/events. This course expands on the basic statistics course by applying and developing core statistical notions within an economic context. In particular, we will learn how to estimate linear regressions and their requirements for causal inference. We will also learn how to deal with cases when the requirements are not fully met (e.g., the endogeneity problem, the binary outcome model, etc.). The course develops literacy in applied economics, and the capacity to analyze field data, as well as cultivating the ability to assess claims made in that field through critique of methods of econometric analysis. The course will introduce students to the statistical software package Stata, which will be used to analyze data applying the methods learned.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

EC325 Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed & Fri 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Stephan Müller

Game theory is a fundamental discipline in the fields of economics, political science, biology, and beyond, as it provides a systematic framework for analyzing strategic interactions among rational decision-makers. This undergraduate course in Game Theory offers students a comprehensive introduction to the core concepts, principles, and applications of this fascinating field. The course begins with an overview of the basic components of game theory, including players, strategies, payoffs, and extensive and normal form representations. Students will learn how to model different types of games, ranging from simple two-player games to more complex multi-player scenarios, and study various solution concepts such as dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium, and subgame perfection. Throughout the course, students will explore various classical games, including the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Battle of the Sexes, and the Tragedy of the Commons. By examining these games, students will gain insight into real-world situations such as social dilemmas, competition, cooperation, and bargaining. Furthermore, applications of game theory in diverse fields will be discussed, ranging from economics and business strategy to politics, law, and environmental issues. The course will include interactive discussions and problem-solving exercises to enhance students' understanding of the concepts and their practical applications.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Artistic Practice

FA103 Found Fragments and Layered Lines: mixed-media techniques for drawing and collage

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Wed 0930-1245 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): John Kleckner

This studio art course explores contemporary and historical approaches to drawing and collage. Suitable for all levels of artistic ability, the course develops artistic understanding and personal expression through the creation of mixed-media drawings and collages. Students begin by transcribing embodied experience into visual compositions, strengthening the coordination of mind, eye, and hand through focused attention to perception. Course activities include making analytic drawings of figures and object arrangements; developing conceptual artistic strategies; experimenting with automatic drawing and aleatoric techniques; making abstract studies outdoors based on observation of nature; and creating collages and assemblages using materials sourced from Berlin’s Flohmärkte (flea markets). Students will also explore innovative combinations of text and image inspired by Dada and Surrealism. A core theme will be exploring the potential to generate new and surprising pieces from the juxtaposition of found printed fragments and hand-drawn lines. Of special interest for our class discussions will be works created by Berliners, such as Dada artist Hannah Höch. The majority of class sessions are dedicated to studio practice. There will also be group critiques, weekly slide presentations, and visits to contemporary art galleries and museums. Students are expected to be open to experimentation and eager to discuss their work in a supportive critique environment. The semester culminates in the “Open Studios'' exhibition in the Direktorenhaus at Monopol Berlin.
Studio work is central to this course, students should expect to devote substantial time to working outside of scheduled class sessions. Prospective students should email their questions to the professor directly at: [email protected]

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Artistic Practice

FA115 Introduction to Digital Photography: Identity Construction and Representation

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Mon 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Carla Ahlander

This course is designed for beginners who are interested in exploring digital photography through basic technical skills and creative expression. Students will learn the fundamentals of the camera, including exposure, composition, and lighting. Alongside mastering technical skills, students will engage in picture analysis, examining how images communicate meaning and emotion. Throughout the course, students will complete a series of assignments and longer projects that emphasize creative exploration. The course structure is based on regular in-class critiques and discussions. A key focus will be on different kinds of portrait photography, approached from multiple perspectives to explore the construction of identity and memory. Themes such as family, gender, history, class, stereotypes, and representation will guide the creative process. Students will be allowed to experiment with controlled lighting, while lectures and discussions will provide inspiration from a range of photo artists who have dealt with similar themes in a variety of ways, from Jo Spence to Juan Pablo Echeverri. In addition, students will reflect on photography's role in shaping societal clichés, while considering the balance between uniqueness and originality in their own work.
By the end of the course, students will not only gain confidence in their technical abilities but also deepen their understanding of photography as a powerful medium for self-expression and social commentary.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA223 (Re)Imagining Realities: Experimental Documentary

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Janina Schabig

In this hands-on filmmaking course, we will explore experimental approaches to documentary film, challenging traditional notions of truth, representation, and storytelling.
At a time when the boundaries between fact, fiction, and fabrication grow increasingly unstable, this course invites you to consider experimental documentary as a mode of inquiry, a practice that unsettles fixed meanings and reorients how we see, feel, and make sense of the world. How do we represent what was never recorded? How can documentation give form to the intangible: a feeling, a memory, a haunting? In the absence of evidence, can speculation become a form of truth-telling? Through engagement with both original and found materials, i.e. archival footage, photographs, text, and sound, we will explore how experimental practices can embrace subjectivity, respond to absence, and challenge the illusion of objectivity, expanding not only what is true, but how truth can be felt and formed.
A mix of short production assignments, in-class exercises, readings and screenings—featuring a dynamic range of works by both established and emerging filmmakers—will support you in developing your own artistic voice as filmmakers and deepen your understanding of documentary’s power to shape perception and meaning. While prior filming and editing knowledge is useful, no prior in-depth experience with audiovisual production is necessary, only a willingness to experiment, to question, and to (re)imagine.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Media, Practices, and Techniques

FA223 (Re)Imagining Realities: Experimental Documentary

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Janina Schabig

In this hands-on filmmaking course, we will explore experimental approaches to documentary film, challenging traditional notions of truth, representation, and storytelling.
At a time when the boundaries between fact, fiction, and fabrication grow increasingly unstable, this course invites you to consider experimental documentary as a mode of inquiry, a practice that unsettles fixed meanings and reorients how we see, feel, and make sense of the world. How do we represent what was never recorded? How can documentation give form to the intangible: a feeling, a memory, a haunting? In the absence of evidence, can speculation become a form of truth-telling? Through engagement with both original and found materials, i.e. archival footage, photographs, text, and sound, we will explore how experimental practices can embrace subjectivity, respond to absence, and challenge the illusion of objectivity, expanding not only what is true, but how truth can be felt and formed.
A mix of short production assignments, in-class exercises, readings and screenings—featuring a dynamic range of works by both established and emerging filmmakers—will support you in developing your own artistic voice as filmmakers and deepen your understanding of documentary’s power to shape perception and meaning. While prior filming and editing knowledge is useful, no prior in-depth experience with audiovisual production is necessary, only a willingness to experiment, to question, and to (re)imagine.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Media, Practices, and Techniques

FA245 Intermediate Painting: Oil Paint

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Thur 0930-1245 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): John Kleckner

This studio art course introduces the materials, techniques, and principles of oil painting. Through practical demonstrations students will learn the properties of oil paint; how to stretch canvases and prepare painting surfaces; and how to apply oil paint using traditional and experimental approaches. Assignments develop an understanding of color theory (hue, value, chroma, color temperature), compositional design, perspectival space, surface texture, glazing, and the depiction of form through light and shadow. Students will establish their studio practice by working from direct observation, using photographic references, and building abstract compositions. Studio work is supported by assigned readings, group discussions, gallery and museum visits, and slide presentations of historical and contemporary paintings. Particular attention is given to painters, past and present, with strong connections to the city of Berlin.

Class size is limited to ensure each student has sufficient studio space and abundant time for individual feedback. Evaluations and critiques occur at midterm and at the end of the term. The semester culminates in the “Open Studios'' exhibition in the BCB arts building at Monopol.

Studio work is central to the course and will require a substantial commitment of time outside of scheduled class sessions. Prospective students should email their questions to the professor directly at: [email protected]

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Artistic Practice

FA250 Immersive Spatial Experiences

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Fri 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Magdalena Emmerig

In this practicing arts seminar, students will learn about various forms of spatial design. The idea is to create immersive spaces. In the context of theater, immersion describes an experience in which the division between stage and audience is non-existent and the visitor becomes part of the play. It can also describe a spatial experience in which the visitor encounters a closed, artificial world. The course aims to convey an artistic exploration of architecture and an introduction to spatial design. What narratives does a space contain and how can the experience of the space be designed? In the seminar we will explore different artistic approaches. We will look at architectural works by visual artist Gregor Schneider, stage designs by Anna Viebrock and the artist duo Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller. We will visit theater performances and exhibitions to encounter and reflect on spatial experiences. During the semester, students will collect visual material from which mood boards will be developed. They will learn to elaborate a conceptual approach for their own spatial setting and explore different modes of visualization, from drawing/painting to model building. In the second half of the semester, the focus will be on working with the model to create different kinds of atmosphere, for example through spatial changes and lighting design. In addition, we will do a workshop on theater lighting to become familiar with varieties of lighting materials. At the end of the semester, each student presents their own spatial design.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA260 Dance it Out! Freedom Tactics & Channeling on Film

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Mon 1000-1315
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Justin Kennedy

Dance it out! Dance to get out of your own way! Dance with spirit! Dance out all you already possess inside! ‘Dance it Out’ is an experimental dance lab focused on the emancipatory potential of dancing and embodied knowledge. This course builds/acquires tools for artistic composition as well as for healing. The overarching theme of the course is to use movement-, vocal-, imagination-based tasks and repetition/insistence to tap into spiritual communion. The core of the course involves a rigorous warm-up: including breathwork, meditation, Kundalini yoga exercises, Qi Gong and voice exercises to prepare for durational dance sessions (inspired by Authentic Movement), where students take turns witnessing (the gaze is also material) and improvising in various altered states upheld for long durations, creating a deeply collective and conscious relationship to each other and the materials. Engaging in a stylistic and cultural hodgepodge, no physical coordinations are off limits, some of which may include shaking, animatronics, sonic landscaping, folkloric footwork, simple choreographic sequences, Body-Mind-Centering, as well as activated somatic exercises. Known and unknown fictions, mythologies and imaginaries will emerge to inform and form the dances, discursively framing the work in radical Afro-Caribbean queer studies/politics. We will develop a range of performative skills/affects, sliding along a continuum of spirit possesion/trance states/channeling and tools for daily living. The final component of the course will be looking at various dances on film and filmed dance references that feature trance, possession and apocalypse/disaster, linking the dances to larger geopolitical movements and other artistic media.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Module: Media, Practices, and Techniques

FA325 The Photo Zine: A Subversive Phenomenon

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): April Gertler

The concept of a “Zine” (pronounced ‘zeen') refers to small-circulation (typically an edition of 100 or less), self-published works of original or appropriated images and texts, often reproduced using a copy machine / printer / duplicator. Zines, or ‘fanzines' can be traced back to the 1940s. They emerged from science fiction literature initially, created by fans who generated small self-published magazines about the stories they loved. Zines famously played a significant role in the punk movement of the 1970s and continue to be found in many subcultures. They often embrace a "do-it-yourself" ethos, challenging established norms of professional design and publishing. Zines offer an alternative, confident, and self-aware mode of expression. Photography is an essential component of most Zines. The Zine functions as a space for visual storytelling, but can also be used to create a preview of an ongoing photographic project. Historically, the kind of photography used in Zines is highly diverse, ranging from personal photographs made specifically for the Zine, to found images from any source. This class will work with printers, copy machines and a RISO duplicator to create Photo Zines and explore the joys of the limited-edition Photo Zine and how it can become an important mode of self-expression. We will work with image and text, using found images and also found text to create photographs and text specific to the formats we will explore. The class will visit Schikkimikki - a Zine library with Zines from all over the world in its collection. At the end of this class, each student will have created a small library consisting of their own Photo Zines and those made by the other students.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Modules: Aesthetics and Art Theory, Artists, Genres, and Movements

FA366 Game changers in 20th and 21st century Art

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Fri 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Dorothea von Hantelmann

The 20th century was not yet out of its teens. What was anyone to make of the porcelain urinal Marcel Duchamp submitted to a New York art exhibition? Fountain, with its signature R Mutt and the date 1917, was photographed and remembered. It became art, and so changed art forever. Every once in a while, artworks change how we define and talk about art. How does this happen? What makes an artwork a game-changer? This course seeks to understand how artworks can represent and simultaneously influence the cultural zeitgeist and discourse of their time. What makes a great work of art, and what criteria might define it? How does globalization and the Internet affect these criteria? We also want to comprehend how the iconic status of an artwork can change over time: Is Duchamp still or again contemporary? Can we look at Duchamp differently when we see him through the lens of Andy Warhol? What characterizes an “iconic artwork” of today? Besides discussing individual artworks and artists (among them Duchamp, Georgia O’Keefe, Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Pierre Huyghe and Arthur Jafa), we will also highlight game changing exhibitions (the case of documenta) and discuss the idea of a game changing institution for the arts. Our discussions in class will be enriched by readings (authors will include Arthur Danto, Clement Greenberg and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh) and accompanied by field trips to museums and exhibitions in the city of Berlin. Some of these field trips may take place on Saturdays and schedule adjustments may occur.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

HI109 Global History Lab

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Louise Thatcher

This course is part of Princeton University's "Global History Lab," working towards an integrated, encompassing, and multi-faceted history of the world. It gives you a thorough overview of global historical developments from Chinggis Khan’s armies conquering China and Baghdad in the thirteenth century, to the crises of the present day. In addition, it provides tools and techniques to situate any historical event, place or person in broader, globally-relevant narratives, and to be able to tell your own story in a broader context. You will explore models and concepts for explaining the cycles of world integration and disintegration, like the rise and fall of empires and the role of free trade, religious conversion, and global governance. Do earlier modes of globalization help us to understand our own age? What explains European global expansion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? How can one explain the staggering wealth of China in the centuries up to 1750, as well as China’s recent re-ascent? How have world wars and revolutions shaped the international system over time? What role have diseases and pandemics played? The aim of this course is to understand some of the vital forces that draw different regions of the globe into closer connections, as well as those that drive them into conflict and division.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

HI215 History of Modernities in Eastern Europe

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1545-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ostap Sereda

The course should serve as an introduction to the key issues of the modern intellectual, social, and cultural history of the region broadly defined as Europe’s East. It will provide a broad overview of the East European reactions to the challenges of modernity. In the initial phase, these range from the incorporation of regional agrarian economies into emerging European capitalist modernity in the 16th century, to the continent-wide repercussions of the French Revolution. They then take in the contested modernizing agendas of imperial reform, the demands of modern nation-building, and the largescale transformations wrought by fascist and communist regimes in the twentieth century. As the concept of Eastern Europe itself appeared on the mental “map of civilization” in the time of the Enlightenment, we will discuss how the contested understanding of “modernity” and “backwardness” shaped the mental geography of the region. The course will explore the key competing modernizing visions and policies in the region, highlighting the role of intellectual transfers, adaptation, and revision of general developmental paradigms. We cover the broad ideological spectrum, from utopian socialism, agrarian populism, and Marxism to liberalism and conservatism, and consider the emergence of right-wing authoritarian nationalism in the region. We will also analyze how the East European experiences of predominantly peasant societies and of the “new Soviet society” influenced global concepts of developmental pathways. The course will introduce postmodern and postcolonial critiques of East European modernities.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Certificate in Human Rights, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

IS331 Berlin Internship Seminar: Working Cultures, Urban Cultures

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Florian Duijsens, Agata Lisiak

Fulfills GHEA21 Civic Engagement Certificate and GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirements

Students enrolled in the Bard College Berlin Internship Program are required to complete the Berlin Internship Seminar, an interdisciplinary course designed to accompany the internship experience. We will meet on a weekly basis and discuss contemporary ways of living and working in Berlin and beyond: What do we mean when we talk about work? Do we need to love what we do? What renders work in/visible? How is work gendered and classed? How is work organized temporally and spatially and how does it, in turn, affect the city and its residents? What distinguishes the spaces in which we live and work today? Which new forms of work have recently emerged in Berlin? Which of them seem to thrive? How do Berlin’s art institutions and citizen-activist organizations operate? Besides in-class discussions, invited lectures, and off-campus visits, the seminar offers a platform for the exchange of observations, reflections, and comments on individual internships.

Students must already be in the process of arranging an internship with Careers Office before registering. If a student has arranged their own internship, they should contact [email protected] to register your internship before enrolling in the course.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Politics
Module: Elective

LT142 Writing Fiction Workshop

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Fri 1230-1545
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Clare Wigfall

With over seventeen years experience of teaching creative writing, British author and BBC National Short Story Award Winner Clare Wigfall has developed a method that guarantees to inspire your imagination. Whether you are a total beginner, or a writer with some prior experience keen to work on your craft in collaboration with other writers, her intention is to break down the barriers that inhibit so that the creative process can come naturally. Her maxim for teaching is that in creative writing there are no rules. You’ll be challenged to experiment with new writing techniques and different genres, such as dystopian fiction and reversioning fairytales, as well as exploring how to mine your own experience for inspiration. You’ll also be introduced to inspirational and thought-provoking fiction by established authors, from Roxane Gay to Vladimir Nabokov, and will have a chance to hone your critical skills through discussion of these texts. Encouragement and guidance will be given to help you with shaping your ideas into fully developed writing, and of course you’ll gain invaluable feedback from the group through sharing your work in class. This course will work you hard and provide challenges and surprises, but it also promises lots of laughter, as well as much stimulation and encouragement from the others in the group. As per tradition, Clare’s workshops always conclude with a lively public reading to which other BCB students and faculty are warmly invited, offering a chance for the group to share their new work with the world.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Politics
Module: Elective

LT226 Tutors of History: Narrating South Asia in Fiction

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Saskya Jain

This course introduces the multi-layered postcolonial histories of South Asia through its recent literature, moving beyond the names of the few well-known figures from these literatures typically familiar to a Western readership. Through fiction, we will explore key moments such as Partition and its aftermath in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, the civil wars in Nepal and Sri Lanka, the insurgency in India’s Northeast, the displacement of indigenous populations and the Naxalite movement in India, and the migration of labor from South India to the Middle East. Making sense of this world through stories, we will read our way into the region’s own modernity—made even more complex by economic shifts, climate change and urbanization—which brings with it a new understanding of global dynamics. The reading list will include texts (written originally in English or translated from South Asian languages) by writers such as Geetanjali Shree, Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Manjushree Thapa, Shehan Karunatilaka, Aruni Kashyap, Mohammad Hanif and Sheela Tomy. We will consider how these authors offer an intimate access to individual and collective experience through close reading and attention to elements of literary form and style, such as structure, character, narrative voice, dialogue, sentences and paragraphs, profluence, etc. Concomitantly, this course also introduces students to the vibrant world of publishing, with a special focus on South Asia and translation, by exploring the dynamics of publishing and circulation, as well as the formats, forums and opportunities available (or not) to aspiring writers.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Politics
Module: Elective

LT253 The Medieval Scholar: From Manuscripts to Modern Fantasy

Fall 2026

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Eleonora Andriani

The Middle Ages endure as a primary source of imagery in contemporary fantasy. From novels such as The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, along with their screen adaptations, to games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Assassin’s Creed, and Kingdom Come, many of today’s most influential fantasy narratives are set in real or imagined medieval worlds. Within this imaginary, the medieval scholar emerges as one of its most compelling figures: philosopher and magician, trained in the astral sciences, and repeatedly invoked to decipher enigmas beyond ordinary understanding. In contemporary fantasy, this figure is almost invariably staged within vast libraries of leather-bound codices, dense double-column texts, intricate diagrams, and desks crowded with astronomical instruments. Yet how far does this seductive image depart from historical reality? In Western Latin Europe, medieval scientific culture was shaped by a dense interplay of astronomy, astrology, magic, and divination, which together constituted a coherent system of knowledge grounded in shared methods, instruments, and practices. This course examines the libraries, manuscripts, and intellectual frameworks of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century erudites, including: Michael Scot (13th), advisor to Frederick II, supervisor of the mathematician Fibonacci, and renowned medieval diviner and magician; Antonio da Montolmo (14th), a university master esteemed by the mathematician Johannes Regiomontanus, who taught in northeastern Italy and practiced the astral sciences alongside magic; and Amplonius Rating de Berka (15th), owner of the largest surviving late medieval scholar’s library, where technical astronomy coexists with astrology, magic, and divination. By engaging in close analysis of manuscripts, texts, diagrams, and computational tables, students will develop core palaeographical and codicological skills and receive an introductory overview of the multifaceted nature of medieval science. In parallel, by bridging medieval science and modern fantasy, the course fosters critical thinking about representations of the Middle Ages in contemporary popular culture.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Politics
Module: Elective

LT326 Advanced Fiction Writing Workshop

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS credits, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Alexander Lumans

This course is designed for students who want to continue honing their writing craft and are interested in working within the genre of fiction—although “genre” is a slippery concept and the definition of fiction is extremely malleable. As a workshop class, we’ll be focusing primarily on peer-written fiction, examining formal and structural components, and discussing creative writing craft elements like tone, character, point of view, temporality, dialogue, and scene. But we’ll also be reading widely from work by both canonical writers (e.g., James Baldwin, Katherine Mansfield, Yasunari Kawabata, J.G. Ballard) and contemporary writers (e.g., Carmen Maria Machado, Etgar Keret, Mariana Enriquez, Helen Oyeyemi). This class's written assignments include: writing and revising two short fiction pieces due on a rotating schedule over the course of the semester; completing short workshop letters as part of the peer review process. The class participation requirements include: reading all assigned works carefully and coming to class prepared to discuss them in detail, being an active and vocal participant in workshops, giving a short presentation on a work of fiction you recommend to your fellow participants, and attending a literary reading. All reading material will be supplied in both hard copy and PDF form.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Politics
Module: Elective

LT334 From Modernismo to the Present: Contemporary Latin American Literature in Short Fiction

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS credits, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Luis Miguel Isava

It is often stated that Latin American Literature acquired a definite identity with its first original literary movement: El Modernismo, initiated by the Nicaraguan writer Rubén Darío (1867-1916). This course begins with that foundational moment and traces the development of the Latin American short story from the early 20th century to the present, setting out from these guiding questions: Is it possible to speak of Latin American literature as a whole? Is there a common trait among so many national literatures? What is the relation between Latin American Literature and Western (European, North American) Literature? Through the semester we will explore the evolution of the literary fields as well as the texts’ themes and formal features from both an aesthetic and historical perspective. Beginning with Rubén Darío’s short fiction, the syllabus will include foundational authors, such as Horacio Quiroga (Uruguay, 1878-1937), Julio Garmendia (Venezuela, 1898-1977), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1899-1986) and Felisberto Hernández (Uruguay, 1902-1964). Then we will focus on mid-century figures, such as Julio Cortázar (Argentina, 1914-1984), Juan Rulfo (Mexico, 1917-86), Clarice Lispector (Brazil, 1920-1977), Rosario Castellanos (Mexico, 1925-1974), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia, 1927-2014), followed by authors from the next generation, Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay, b. 1941), Ricardo Piglia (1941-2017), Ana Lydia Vega (Puerto Rico, b. 1946) and Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003). Finally, we will examine short stories from what could be considered a “new boom” of Latin American literature, this time led predominantly by women writers: among others, Lina Meruane (Chile, b. 1970), Mariana Enríquez (Argentina, b. 1973), Samanta Schweblin (Argentina, b. 1978), and Mónica Ojeda (Ecuador, b. 1988).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Politics
Module: Elective

LT370 What Was Romanticism?

Fall 2026

Credits: 8 ECTS credits, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Christian Wollin

Romanticism is rarely mentioned in intellectual or cultural discourse today except when it is a direct object of study. Yet as a European movement stretching from the 1790s to the mid-1850s, it had a decisive and far-reaching influence on aesthetic forms, ideas about art and the artist, and even on modes of thought and feeling. The tropes of Romanticism permeate our assumptions about creativity and taste, even when we are not aware of their influence. Equally, the kinds of narrative, image or concept generated by Romantic poetry, theory, or experiments in the novel often resurface in contemporary popular entertainment. By exploring central texts and dialogues of Romanticism, this course seeks to recapture the deep sense of rupture that originally marked the emergence of this complex and wide-ranging movement. We will examine and compare works across the genres of poetry, narrative prose, epistolary writing, and non-fiction by British, French, German and Russian authors: Anna Barbaud, William Blake, Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Thomas De Quincey, Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Chateaubriand, Louise Colet, Olympe de Gouges, Victor Hugo, Gérard de Nerval, Germaine de Staël, Bettina and Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Novalis, E.T. A. Hoffmann, Friedrich Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck Heinrich Wackenroder, Mikhail Lermontov, and Alexander Pushkin. We will also consider paradigms of Romantic classical music and visual art. Lastly, we address critiques of Romanticism – in philosophy (Hegel, Nietzsche), and in the aesthetics and poetics of Modernism (Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PL115 Foundations of Political Theory

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed & Fri 0900-1030
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Riaz Khan

This course provides a broad survey of the main intellectual traditions of modern political thought. Our exploration of political theory will proceed from the close reading and analysis of seminal texts that are presented both conceptually and, for the most part, chronologically. The primary focus will be placed on examining the historical antecedents of some of the foundational concepts and practices that distinguish our political behavior and institutions today. While taking account of the historical complexities and stylistic conventions of each text, the course will highlight the recurrent themes that animate these influential writings and continue to shape our contemporary understanding of politics. In particular, the lectures and discussions will be geared towards tracing the conceptual underpinnings of current forms of political organization, such as republicanism, liberal democracy, the modern state, and nationalism, and their effects on the concerns of law, justice, and morality. Some of the critical issues to be discussed include the divergent views of human nature and ideal society, the structure of authority and sovereignty, the rise of political morality, the defense of liberty, equality and justice, and the models of democratic practice.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PL250 Ethics and Aesthetics in the face of Ecological Crisis

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Manuel Gebhardt

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

The debate about climate change and the resulting contemporary ecological crisis has brought into prominent focus the relation between humankind and the environment. Over the past decades, artists and thinkers in the field of environmental ethics have developed various ways of determining ethical forms of human action in relation to nature. In order to grasp and evaluate these positions, we will – in a first step – study traditional ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics). We will discuss their premises and the conclusions they suggest in regard to moral commitments. Building on this foundation, we will evaluate the soundness and validity of contemporary artistic and theoretical approaches to the field of environmental ethics. The seminar aims for students to acquire the competence to develop their own ethical stances and to advocate for their moral judgments. On our way, we will analyze the implication of anthropocentric and physiocentric arguments (caring for nature for the sake of humankind or for the sake of nature itself?), touching on the realms of human rights, animal rights, (global) justice, sustainability, ecopolitics (e.g. sumac kawsay, a concept of the “good life” alongside nature), ecofeminism and moral psychology (how can we bridge the gap between knowing what is right and doing what is right?). Readings will include Immanuel Kant, David Hume, J.S. Mill, and Martha Nussbaum (part I) as well as Donna Haraway, Vittorio Hösle, Hans Jonas, Christine Korsgaard, Angelika Krebs, Bruno Latour, Catriona McKinnon, Peter Singer, and Val Plumwood (part II).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PS185 Introduction to Policy Analysis

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed & Fri 1045-1215 or Wed & Fri 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Gale Raj

Prerequisites: Understanding Politics

This course introduces students to policy analysis and policy making. Public policies are courses of action undertaken by governments to solve societal problems by changing behavior. They include laws, regulations, incentives, and providing services, goods and information. It is important to remember that policies not only include what governments choose to do but also what they choose not to do. Policies by individual governments, groups of governments and intergovernmental organizations can impact outcomes for people, communities, industries, and the environment in different parts of the world. During the first part of the course, we will spend time learning about and discussing what characterizes and defines a public policy, and how such policies are formulated, implemented, and evaluated. In the second half, we will apply these foundational concepts by examining and discussing real-world policy case studies addressing current policy problems within a domestic and global context. With this course, students will gain an understanding of a holistic approach to public policy and policy analysis. Students will also learn how to communicate on the subject of policy problems, options and recommendations verbally, visually, and in writing.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PS271 US Foreign Policy

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aaron Allen

This multidisciplinary course explores the structural evolution of the United States’ role in the world and the institutions shaping elite policy-making. Through an interactive approach, students will be able to contextualize contemporary American foreign policy challenges from their geographic, material, and ideational roots. Furthermore, course activities and assignments are tailored to assist students in becoming foreign policy practitioners fully capable of applying national security decision theories. The curriculum threads together historical cases, international relations scholarship, and security studies in order to provide a holistic understanding of all the constituent parts influencing America’s external posture. How did a nation once known for its relatively isolationist disposition become a global superpower and key enforcer of the liberal international order? What are the unique attributes of American-style foreign policy that have remained consistent across presidential administrations since the end of World War II? Can we discern a coherent approach in the recent emergence of a determination to disengage from global alliances while maintaining a right of intervention and interference? A critical appraisal of topics such as hard and soft power, alliances, globalization and multilateralism, bureaucratic politics, and the rise of the military industrial complex offers students the necessary tools to answer these core questions. The complementary emphasis on professional development will allow participants to garner practical skills through simulations, seminar debates, and presentations.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PT250 Global Citizenship

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1730-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Nassim AbiGhanem

Fulfills Civic Engagement Certificate requirement

Citizenship is traditionally a concept associated with nation-states, and at base signifies the status of belonging to a bounded political order and the rights and duties this entails. Yet economic, legal, and technological globalization increasingly call state boundaries into question. Transnational challenges such as climate change, forced migration, epidemics, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism also require collective action on a global scale. In this context, global citizenship has been promoted both as a sensibility and as an emerging reality. This course explores the notion of "global citizenship" from its philosophical foundations. We also address cultural and political perspectives, thinking critically about what global citizenship can and should mean. Building on these investigations, we explore the contemporary experiences and movements through which a future idea or reality of global citizenship might be shaped. The heart of the course will be in an interdisciplinary exploration of two of the transnational problems already noted above – climate change and ethno-nationalist conflicts – through readings and discussion of novels, historical work, film, social theory, social scientific research, and policy documents. We present and compare rising political and social movements relevant to the definition of the category of the citizen across the globe. Texts will include essays by Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Edward Said, Martha Nussbaum, Craig Calhoun, along with Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines, Tayib Salih's Season of Migration to the North, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and Michael Winterbottom's In This World.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PT315 Democracy in the European Union

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Berit Ebert

The institutions and political processes of the European Union (EU), namely the concept of supranationality, offer a unique construct of international collaboration that was developed with clear goals by founding members. However, Brexit, the war in Ukraine, the financial crises, and the rise of populist movements and the outcome of the 2024 European Parliament elections, among others, seem to challenge this concept. At the same time, the political and legal framework of the EU provides its citizens with new opportunities for political participation in multilevel political system, as the cases of Poland and Hungary have vividly displayed. All of this underlines the dynamic development of the EU, which started with the establishment in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) geared towards securing peace and long-term economic growth. Today, the Union is much more than that. Article 2 of the Treaty of Lisbon specifies: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.” How is this done? How do the institutions work? Where do citizens come into play? What is the relationship between the nation state and the supranational institutions in what political science refers to as “multilevel system”?
The course analyses the institutions that have developed over this 70-plus year history: the European Council, the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the Committee of the Regions. It will also compare the institutions’ supranational characteristics with those of the nation-state and of international organizations with a focus on governance structures in the EU. Major cases tried in the European Court of Justice and key legal principles that have shaped the Union’s political advancements will be interpreted. Furthermore, we will discuss some of the European Union’s policies and current political developments, among them the European electoral-law reform, the rule-of-law mechanism, gender equality, digital policy, and foreign and security policy. Students will engage with original EU policy documents to acquire the skills of analyzing and interpreting them. At the end of the seminar, students will have a solid knowledge about the functioning of the Union’s institutions, and the evaluation of legal texts, treaty provisions, and policy approaches, enabling a clearer assessment of the future of the European project as well as a more astute understanding of broader political processes. At the end of the seminar the class takes a trip to Brussels.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Certificate in Human Rights, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Elective

PT358 Critical Human Rights Advocacy / Scholars at Risk

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Mon & Wed 1545-1715 (Online)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Kerry Bystrom

This is an GHEA21 Online Course (O C) and fulfills the Human Rights Certificate and Civic Engagement Certificate requirements

This seminar serves as an introduction to human rights advocacy, with a practical component. Half of the course focuses on the history and theory of human rights. What is it to make claims for human rights, or to denounce suffering or rights violation, especially on behalf of others? How and when and why have individuals and groups spoken out, mounted campaigns, published reports and exposés? How do they address, challenge, and sometimes work with governments and international organizations like the United Nations, particularly through transnational advocacy networks? What allows some campaigns to succeed while others fail? As we look at human rights advocacy from the campaign to abolish the slave trade to the founding of Amnesty International and the advent of digital activism, this half of the course serves as an introduction to human rights work as a mode of legal, political and cultural practice. The other half of the course involves hands-on work with the human rights organization Scholars at Risk (SAR) to support detained and disappeared scholars connected to the SAR Scholars in Prison Program. We will research events and individuals, communicate with families and lawyers and other advocates, write country and case profiles, propose strategies and tactics for pressuring governments and other powerful actors, and develop appeals to public opinion -- all while recognizing the ethical and political risks this work may involve. The course will be run as a GHEA21 Online course connected with Network Collaborative Course sections at Bard College Annandale (US) and National Sun Yat Sen University (Taiwan).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Modules: Approaching Arts Through Theory, Artistic Practice

SC215 Reflecting Human-Environment Relations (Through Sound)

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Francisca Rocha Goncalves

In light of the serious impact of human activities on the environment, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and noise pollution, we must rethink our relationship with the natural world. A significant barrier to this reimagining is the long-lasting division between “nature” and “culture” in Western thought. Through a cross-disciplinary approach that includes acoustic ecology, the arts, environmental artistic activism, and natural history, this foundational course reflects on recent and ongoing efforts to dismantle such a divide, providing students with a blend of theoretical and practical knowledge. Students will critically examine the reasons behind the societal separation of nature and culture and how this division has shaped our environmental perceptions and actions. They will develop a deeper appreciation of the interconnectedness of all life forms and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex ecological issues. Approaches include investigating how soundscapes and acoustic ecology can challenge conventional boundaries of the nature-culture divide, reflecting on the potential of creative expression to re-connect culture and nature, examining the role of environmental artistic activism in addressing noise pollution and ecosystem impact, and engaging in hands-on practical activities and fieldwork to connect theory with real-world experiences. Alongside the practical activities, students will engage with critical theoretical readings by thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and Jane Bennett, as well as composers and sound ecologists such as Murray Schafer and Hildegard Westerkamp. These readings will offer insights into the historical separation of nature and culture, the contemporary efforts to overcome this divide, the broader implications of the Anthropocene, and how artists work to create awareness of the environmental crisis.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

SO240 Science, Sea, and Society

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Fri 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Lakshmi Pradeep (MPI Berlin)

In recent years, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have begun speaking of an “oceanic turn.” This shift asks us to reconsider the ocean not only as a resource that has sustained human life, trade, and imagination, but also as a space shaped and damaged by human activity. Long treated as distant and adventurous, the ocean is, for many coastal and island communities, an everyday reality marked by increasing pollution, extraction, and warming. Thinking with the multitude of marine life inhabiting these environments raises urgent questions about sustainability and ocean governance. This course examines how the sea has been seen, studied, measured, and conceptualized in the history of science, while also engaging recent conversations in literature and media studies gathered under the name “Blue Humanities.” Interdisciplinary in scope, the course places modern scientific knowledge alongside other ways of knowing the ocean, attending to both Western and non-Western contexts. Bringing together work from history, anthropology, literature, Science and Technology Studies, and philosophy, the course invites students to reflect on their own relationships (or lack thereof) with the sea. It asks us to move beyond viewing the ocean simply as a site of leisure toward a more engaged perspective on ocean environments and their histories. Active participation in class and group discussions is essential, and the exchange of diverse perspectives and examples is encouraged. The final assignment will be developed in consultation with the instructor throughout the semester.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Art and Aesthetics, Artistic Practice, Economics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

SO285 Migration, Space, and Power

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1545-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Agata Lisiak

Fulfills GHEA21 Civic Engagement Certificate

This course is an invitation to radically rethink migration with the help of two exceptional scholars, teachers, and activists: Rosa Luxemburg and Doreen Massey. Both Luxemburg and Massey were economic thinkers who made long-lasting contributions to their respective disciplines, shaped the political movements they supported, and inspired new generations of scholars and activists. Both were staunch supporters of internationalism and critics of global capitalism. Both conducted research on and advocated for workers’ rights, and both left behind incisive reflections on the potential of solidarity. Rejecting neat, linear theories of development, both also repudiated binary models that juxtaposed the west and the rest, reform and revolution, global and local. Last but not least, both were women in spaces coded masculine – women who refused to conform to the heteropatriarchal gender norms of their social worlds. Considering that “there is no capitalism without migration” (Casas-Cortes et al. 2015), Luxemburg’s and Massey’s critiques of capitalism yield inspiring insights on migration because they engage with political and economic dependencies, colonial legacies, and what Massey called power geometry: the uneven positioning of different individuals and different groups within global interconnectedness. In dialog with Massey’s notion of a global sense of place, Luxemburg’s theory of the accumulation of capital can help us reframe the sticky connections between migration and capitalism in its current neoliberal guise. Following Massey’s observation that “mobility, and control over mobility, both reflects and reinforces power” and Luxemburg’s insistence that we consider inequality globally and not just locally, we will examine the wide-reaching consequences of capitalism’s expansion into social activities hitherto unclaimed by the market (such as sharing and solidarity), as well as its enduring impact on both lived realities and popular perceptions of migration. In addition to selected texts by Luxemburg and Massey, we will also read a range of complimentary writings on migration, space, and power including the works of Gurminder Bhambra, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Maria Lugones, Gloria Anzaldúa, Walter Rodney, Stuart Hall, among others.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Modules: Approaching Arts Through Theory, Artistic Practice

TH207 Intensifying Reality: A Survey and Staging of 21st Century German Drama

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Fri 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS Credits, 4 U.S. Credits

Professor(s): Julia Hart

German dramatists in the 21st Century have been developing new methods of ordering and processing verbal material for the stage. Some writers, like Fritz Kater, are said to create a special kind of compression, an intensification of reality. Other dramatists, like Elfriede Jelinek, do not break down their texts into individual speakers. It is up to the director and actors to distribute the text and position them in a living space. This course will examine a selection of German plays from 2000-2020. We will be discussing the dramaturgy of these sometimes shocking plays as well as exploring methods of staging these works in translation. We will be reading and rehearsing plays by writers in translation including: Dea Loher, Falk Richter, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Anja Hilling, Sibylle Berg, Elfriede Jelinek, and Sascha Marianna Salzmann. Students will work as dramaturges, directors, and actors throughout the semester. Questions we will be wrestling with include: What are the issues that German dramatists were addressing twenty years ago? Which plays and themes from the 2000s and 2010s can we relate to today? How are these playwrights experimenting with different forms of storytelling and characterisation? And how can these plays, that experiment radically with theatrical form and language, be staged? This class will include theatre visits to see current stagings in Berlin of contemporary German plays at the Deutsches Theater, the Schaubühne and the Maxim Gorki Theater.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics
Modules: Artists, Genres, and Movements, Media, Practices, and Techniques

TH384 Self-Instructions: Creating Autobiographical Performance with She She Pop

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715 (16/9, 28/10, 18/11 at 1400-1900)
Credits: 8 ECTS Credits, 4 U.S. Credits

Professor(s): Nina Tecklenburg, in collaboration with She She Pop

She She Pop is an internationally renowned feminist performance collective based in Berlin. Over the course of their 30 years of collaboration, they have challenged established theater aesthetics and traditional hierarchies of theater-making. Their experimental and provocative body of work, for which they received Germany’s highest theater prize in 2019 (Theaterpreis Berlin), has been deeply influential and groundbreaking for many theater and performance artists. Considering the private as deeply political, the inclusion of their own autobiographies has been a crucial element of their artistic practice. Rather than being the purpose of their work, however, autobiography is for them primarily a method. In this respect, She She Pop’s work is deeply rooted in conceptual performance art of the 1960s and 70s, particularly with regard to the use of (self)-instructions and tasked-based approaches. In this course we will practice and reflect on She She Pop’s particular approach to “autobiography as method.” Classes will be taught partly in weekly sessions and partly in four hour-long hands-on workshops with members of the collective. We will study She She Pop’s art-historical influences by conceptual (performance) artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Marina Abramović, Valie Export, Chris Burden, Sophie Calle and Forced Entertainment. Investigating techniques of (self-)instructions, tasked-based performance art, conceptual rule-making, and collaborative creation for both rehearsal and performance, students will be asked to develop short autobiographical group performances, which will be presented at the end of the semester. No previous experience in performance art or theater is necessary.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Art History, Culture and Society

AH162 Modernism in the Visual Arts: Experiment, Conflict, and Crisis

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika

This class looks at the key works, movements and debates emerging from modernism and modern movements in the visual and plastic arts. Our survey addresses controversies that arose when new works and techniques were first introduced, as well as later (post)modern criticisms. We will consider the ‘grand narratives’ and contrasting explanatory tools that seek to understand and theorize modernist artistic practice (e.g. Marxism, Formalism). An important theme in our journey will be the modernist artists’ entanglement with colonialism; the freedom they claimed for their own creative adventures was often barred to their subjects and absent from the contexts in which they sought new inspiration. Modernist artists and movements also have a complex relationship to the phenomenon of totalitarian regimes, with some embracing and some resisting the pull of dictatorship. Modernism was the moment in which the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ or ‘mass’ culture first appeared, and we will look at the meaning of this fissure for modern art movements. Finally, we examine the role of new media—the revolutionary advent of film and photography—in modernist art production. Our case studies include the formative movements of the early 20th century, such as Expressionism, Dada, Bauhaus and Surrealism. The class ends with what we might call the “nervous breakdown” of modernism in the 1960s, when we witness the end of reigning concepts such as ‘originality’ and ‘authenticity’, and encounter the rise of postmodernism. Throughout the seminar we will make use of Berlin’s wide-ranging and diverse art collections.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Art History, Culture and Society

AH207 Feminist Art in the 20th and early 21st Centuries

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Mon 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Christina Landbrecht

This seminar introduces the work of female artists in Germany and the US. Starting with artists who were educated around the turn of the century, the seminar will trace the development of feminist art throughout the 20th century, ending with recent figures in feminist art discourse. Among the artists whose works will be discussed are Julie Wolfthorn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Meret Oppenheim, Louise Bourgeois, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Alice Neel, Judy Chicago, Adrian Piper, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Lygia Clark, Nicole Eisenman, Rosemarie Trockel, Margaret Raspé, Cindy Sherman, Sharon Hayes and Mary-Audrey Ramirez. Furthermore, a selection of seminal texts by prominent scholars such as Linda Nochlin, Lucy Lippard, and bell hooks will be discussed throughout the course. The main idea of the seminar is to focus on the work of female artists who not only questioned the established art canon but contributed to changing and expanding it. Particular attention will be dedicated to themes such as “Body, Sexuality, and the Image of the Woman”; “Female Materiality and Crafts”; “the Politics of Race and Gender” and “Care and Maintenance as Artistic Practices.” Through such topics, we will not only have the chance to get to know a multitude of diverse female artists and artistic practices, but to establish their connection to a wide critical discourse. Excursions to museum exhibitions, visits by art professionals, and a studio visit are planned as well.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Modules: Art, Institutions and Engagement, Theory, History, Art Forms

AH224 Beyond Crisis: South American Memory Politics and Art

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Mon 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Haley Stewart

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

In this course, we will explore some of the roles historical memory and memory politics have played in artistic production in Chile and Bolivia and in the wider Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America since the 1970s. The aim of the course is to introduce students to the way in which art in these regions has sought to respond to ongoing crises such as those caused by the legacy of violent Southern Cone dictatorships, economic exploitation and environmental degradation by extractive industries, and the consequences of colonial violence against Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. Central to our study are these questions: How does art invoke, remember and critique the historical past? How does it offer alternatives to this past and envision possibilities of healing, repair and growth beyond crisis? How do different artistic and cultural media like painting, sculpture, land art, performance art and film, as well as indigenous forms of making (i.e., textiles, quipus) reflect and develop different concepts of historical memory, often in productive tensions with terms like aesthetics or art? Each week, we’ll discuss specific works from artists, artistic groups and movements like Cecilia Vicuña, Daniela Catrilea Cordero, Luis Bernardo Oyarzún, Elvira Espejo, Gastón Ugalde, Raúl Zurita, and the CADA and avanzada movements in Chile, with the help of readings providing necessary context, critical perspectives and theory. When possible, the readings will privilege the writings of critics and scholars from these regions, such as Nelly Richard and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Art History, Culture and Society

AH236 Critical Perspectives on Berlin's new Cultural Venue, the Humboldt Forum

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika, Tarek Ibrahim (Stiftung Humboldt Forum)

Hardly any project has been more controversial than the rebuilding of Berlin’s City Palace. Since its opening in 2021, the Humboldt Forum has brought in more than 2.5 million visitors, constituting one of the centerpieces of the capital’s New Mitte. Yet, the recently opened cultural venue – which gathers five institutions under its roof – is still very much in the process of considering how to address the challenges that arise from the contradictions between its form (a hybrid of Baroque and modern) and its contents (serving as a home to and meeting place for the cultures of the world). Most delicate is its role as the new home of the Ethnological Museum (previously housed in Berlin-Dahlem) with collection histories that are often inextricably linked to European colonialism. The seminar provides an introduction to the history and current operation of the Humboldt Forum and to the various institutions and collections that it accommodates on more than 16,000 square meters. Furthermore, as a collaborative project with the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, the class seeks to give students insights into the conceptualization and planning of cultural events, exhibition projects and educational outreach. Members of the Humboldt Forum's team will introduce students to not only the building and its collections, but also to their day-to-day tasks and overall aims.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Cultures of Knowledge Production

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Thur 1045-1400
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Hanan Toukan

This course examines how Palestine has been produced, ordered, and made legible through exhibitions, archives, maps, archaeology, photography, and digital platforms from the late Ottoman period to the present. Drawing on Timothy Mitchell’s concept of the “exhibitionary order” in Colonizing Egypt, the course focuses on how the land has been framed and re-framed across different political regimes, including Ottoman, British, Palestinian and Israeli institutions. It asks How does visual display function as a technology of power? How has Palestine been staged as biblical landscape, empty land, imperial province, security problem, heritage site, or humanitarian crisis in museums, exhibitions and other visual media? What forms of authority and knowledge emerge when land, ruins, and the built environment are rendered as objects of display? Beginning with nineteenth-century European Holy Land exhibitions, the course will cover shifts in exhibitionary regimes across the periods of Ottoman reform, early Zionist settlement, British colonial administration of Palestine, Israeli state formation, and the aftermath of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba. Students will examine Ottoman and Zionist exhibitionary practices, British Mandate surveying and aerial photography, post-Nakba archival formations, the formation of national museums, and contemporary digital mapping projects. Case studies will include Holy Land panoramas; Zionist pavilions at international expositions; British Mandate survey displays; Israeli and Palestinian national museums; and contemporary Palestinian and Israeli counter-archives and artistic interventions, including Palestine From Above, the work of Forensic Architecture, and Visualizing Palestine. The course will conclude with students-led curatorial proposals as a final project.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Theory, History, Art Forms

AR315 Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Geoff Lehman

“He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too!” (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass). Alice’s reflection upon her dream evokes something of the oneiric experience that can be part of one’s encounter with a work of art: the dialogue between the specific universe the artwork invites us to enter—with its own logic, kinds of seeing, and means of expression—and the viewer as subject, bringing her or his own desires and experiences to its interpretation. One important aspect of this encounter could be described, in psychoanalytic terms, as a relationship between the unconscious wishes, drives, and memories of the viewing subject, on the one hand, and the unconscious qualities of the work itself, both in its production and—especially—in its visual character (its “optical unconscious”), on the other. Major topics for the course include: psychoanalytic interpretations of art; the relationship between the oneiric, the imaginative, and the theatrical; contemplation, daydreaming, schizophrenia, nightmares, and other altered states of consciousness in relation to the experience of artworks; the oneiric and visual narrativity; the place of (self-)reflexivity or its absence in immersive art. Artists whose works we study include Wang Ximeng, Mirza Ali, Goya, De Chirico, Dalí, Miller, Varo, Kahlo, Fellini,Tarkovsky, Kentridge, and Kusama. Readings will be from Lewis Carroll, De Quincey, Woolf, Freud, Jung, Carrington, Borges, Bachelard, and others.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Artistic Practice

FA103 Found Fragments and Layered Lines: mixed-media techniques for drawing and collage

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Wed 0930-1245 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): John Kleckner

This studio art course explores contemporary and historical approaches to drawing and collage. Suitable for all levels of artistic ability, the course develops artistic understanding and personal expression through the creation of mixed-media drawings and collages. Students begin by transcribing embodied experience into visual compositions, strengthening the coordination of mind, eye, and hand through focused attention to perception. Course activities include making analytic drawings of figures and object arrangements; developing conceptual artistic strategies; experimenting with automatic drawing and aleatoric techniques; making abstract studies outdoors based on observation of nature; and creating collages and assemblages using materials sourced from Berlin’s Flohmärkte (flea markets). Students will also explore innovative combinations of text and image inspired by Dada and Surrealism. A core theme will be exploring the potential to generate new and surprising pieces from the juxtaposition of found printed fragments and hand-drawn lines. Of special interest for our class discussions will be works created by Berliners, such as Dada artist Hannah Höch. The majority of class sessions are dedicated to studio practice. There will also be group critiques, weekly slide presentations, and visits to contemporary art galleries and museums. Students are expected to be open to experimentation and eager to discuss their work in a supportive critique environment. The semester culminates in the “Open Studios'' exhibition in the Direktorenhaus at Monopol Berlin.
Studio work is central to this course, students should expect to devote substantial time to working outside of scheduled class sessions. Prospective students should email their questions to the professor directly at: [email protected]

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Artistic Practice

FA115 Introduction to Digital Photography: Identity Construction and Representation

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Mon 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Carla Ahlander

This course is designed for beginners who are interested in exploring digital photography through basic technical skills and creative expression. Students will learn the fundamentals of the camera, including exposure, composition, and lighting. Alongside mastering technical skills, students will engage in picture analysis, examining how images communicate meaning and emotion. Throughout the course, students will complete a series of assignments and longer projects that emphasize creative exploration. The course structure is based on regular in-class critiques and discussions. A key focus will be on different kinds of portrait photography, approached from multiple perspectives to explore the construction of identity and memory. Themes such as family, gender, history, class, stereotypes, and representation will guide the creative process. Students will be allowed to experiment with controlled lighting, while lectures and discussions will provide inspiration from a range of photo artists who have dealt with similar themes in a variety of ways, from Jo Spence to Juan Pablo Echeverri. In addition, students will reflect on photography's role in shaping societal clichés, while considering the balance between uniqueness and originality in their own work.
By the end of the course, students will not only gain confidence in their technical abilities but also deepen their understanding of photography as a powerful medium for self-expression and social commentary.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Advanced Artistic Practice

FA223 (Re)Imagining Realities: Experimental Documentary

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Janina Schabig

In this hands-on filmmaking course, we will explore experimental approaches to documentary film, challenging traditional notions of truth, representation, and storytelling.
At a time when the boundaries between fact, fiction, and fabrication grow increasingly unstable, this course invites you to consider experimental documentary as a mode of inquiry, a practice that unsettles fixed meanings and reorients how we see, feel, and make sense of the world. How do we represent what was never recorded? How can documentation give form to the intangible: a feeling, a memory, a haunting? In the absence of evidence, can speculation become a form of truth-telling? Through engagement with both original and found materials, i.e. archival footage, photographs, text, and sound, we will explore how experimental practices can embrace subjectivity, respond to absence, and challenge the illusion of objectivity, expanding not only what is true, but how truth can be felt and formed.
A mix of short production assignments, in-class exercises, readings and screenings—featuring a dynamic range of works by both established and emerging filmmakers—will support you in developing your own artistic voice as filmmakers and deepen your understanding of documentary’s power to shape perception and meaning. While prior filming and editing knowledge is useful, no prior in-depth experience with audiovisual production is necessary, only a willingness to experiment, to question, and to (re)imagine.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Advanced Artistic Practice

FA245 Intermediate Painting: Oil Paint

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Thur 0930-1245 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): John Kleckner

This studio art course introduces the materials, techniques, and principles of oil painting. Through practical demonstrations students will learn the properties of oil paint; how to stretch canvases and prepare painting surfaces; and how to apply oil paint using traditional and experimental approaches. Assignments develop an understanding of color theory (hue, value, chroma, color temperature), compositional design, perspectival space, surface texture, glazing, and the depiction of form through light and shadow. Students will establish their studio practice by working from direct observation, using photographic references, and building abstract compositions. Studio work is supported by assigned readings, group discussions, gallery and museum visits, and slide presentations of historical and contemporary paintings. Particular attention is given to painters, past and present, with strong connections to the city of Berlin.

Class size is limited to ensure each student has sufficient studio space and abundant time for individual feedback. Evaluations and critiques occur at midterm and at the end of the term. The semester culminates in the “Open Studios'' exhibition in the BCB arts building at Monopol.

Studio work is central to the course and will require a substantial commitment of time outside of scheduled class sessions. Prospective students should email their questions to the professor directly at: [email protected]

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Artistic Practice

FA250 Immersive Spatial Experiences

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Fri 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Magdalena Emmerig

In this practicing arts seminar, students will learn about various forms of spatial design. The idea is to create immersive spaces. In the context of theater, immersion describes an experience in which the division between stage and audience is non-existent and the visitor becomes part of the play. It can also describe a spatial experience in which the visitor encounters a closed, artificial world. The course aims to convey an artistic exploration of architecture and an introduction to spatial design. What narratives does a space contain and how can the experience of the space be designed? In the seminar we will explore different artistic approaches. We will look at architectural works by visual artist Gregor Schneider, stage designs by Anna Viebrock and the artist duo Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller. We will visit theater performances and exhibitions to encounter and reflect on spatial experiences. During the semester, students will collect visual material from which mood boards will be developed. They will learn to elaborate a conceptual approach for their own spatial setting and explore different modes of visualization, from drawing/painting to model building. In the second half of the semester, the focus will be on working with the model to create different kinds of atmosphere, for example through spatial changes and lighting design. In addition, we will do a workshop on theater lighting to become familiar with varieties of lighting materials. At the end of the semester, each student presents their own spatial design.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Theory, History, Art Forms

FA366 Game changers in 20th and 21st century Art

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Fri 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Dorothea von Hantelmann

The 20th century was not yet out of its teens. What was anyone to make of the porcelain urinal Marcel Duchamp submitted to a New York art exhibition? Fountain, with its signature R Mutt and the date 1917, was photographed and remembered. It became art, and so changed art forever. Every once in a while, artworks change how we define and talk about art. How does this happen? What makes an artwork a game-changer? This course seeks to understand how artworks can represent and simultaneously influence the cultural zeitgeist and discourse of their time. What makes a great work of art, and what criteria might define it? How does globalization and the Internet affect these criteria? We also want to comprehend how the iconic status of an artwork can change over time: Is Duchamp still or again contemporary? Can we look at Duchamp differently when we see him through the lens of Andy Warhol? What characterizes an “iconic artwork” of today? Besides discussing individual artworks and artists (among them Duchamp, Georgia O’Keefe, Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Pierre Huyghe and Arthur Jafa), we will also highlight game changing exhibitions (the case of documenta) and discuss the idea of a game changing institution for the arts. Our discussions in class will be enriched by readings (authors will include Arthur Danto, Clement Greenberg and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh) and accompanied by field trips to museums and exhibitions in the city of Berlin. Some of these field trips may take place on Saturdays and schedule adjustments may occur.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Art, Science and Ecology

PL250 Ethics and Aesthetics in the face of Ecological Crisis

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Manuel Gebhardt

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

The debate about climate change and the resulting contemporary ecological crisis has brought into prominent focus the relation between humankind and the environment. Over the past decades, artists and thinkers in the field of environmental ethics have developed various ways of determining ethical forms of human action in relation to nature. In order to grasp and evaluate these positions, we will – in a first step – study traditional ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics). We will discuss their premises and the conclusions they suggest in regard to moral commitments. Building on this foundation, we will evaluate the soundness and validity of contemporary artistic and theoretical approaches to the field of environmental ethics. The seminar aims for students to acquire the competence to develop their own ethical stances and to advocate for their moral judgments. On our way, we will analyze the implication of anthropocentric and physiocentric arguments (caring for nature for the sake of humankind or for the sake of nature itself?), touching on the realms of human rights, animal rights, (global) justice, sustainability, ecopolitics (e.g. sumac kawsay, a concept of the “good life” alongside nature), ecofeminism and moral psychology (how can we bridge the gap between knowing what is right and doing what is right?). Readings will include Immanuel Kant, David Hume, J.S. Mill, and Martha Nussbaum (part I) as well as Donna Haraway, Vittorio Hösle, Hans Jonas, Christine Korsgaard, Angelika Krebs, Bruno Latour, Catriona McKinnon, Peter Singer, and Val Plumwood (part II).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Art, Science and Ecology

SC215 Reflecting Human-Environment Relations (Through Sound)

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Francisca Rocha Goncalves

In light of the serious impact of human activities on the environment, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and noise pollution, we must rethink our relationship with the natural world. A significant barrier to this reimagining is the long-lasting division between “nature” and “culture” in Western thought. Through a cross-disciplinary approach that includes acoustic ecology, the arts, environmental artistic activism, and natural history, this foundational course reflects on recent and ongoing efforts to dismantle such a divide, providing students with a blend of theoretical and practical knowledge. Students will critically examine the reasons behind the societal separation of nature and culture and how this division has shaped our environmental perceptions and actions. They will develop a deeper appreciation of the interconnectedness of all life forms and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex ecological issues. Approaches include investigating how soundscapes and acoustic ecology can challenge conventional boundaries of the nature-culture divide, reflecting on the potential of creative expression to re-connect culture and nature, examining the role of environmental artistic activism in addressing noise pollution and ecosystem impact, and engaging in hands-on practical activities and fieldwork to connect theory with real-world experiences. Alongside the practical activities, students will engage with critical theoretical readings by thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and Jane Bennett, as well as composers and sound ecologists such as Murray Schafer and Hildegard Westerkamp. These readings will offer insights into the historical separation of nature and culture, the contemporary efforts to overcome this divide, the broader implications of the Anthropocene, and how artists work to create awareness of the environmental crisis.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Artistic Practice

TH207 Intensifying Reality: A Survey and Staging of 21st Century German Drama

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Fri 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS Credits, 4 U.S. Credits

Professor(s): Julia Hart

German dramatists in the 21st Century have been developing new methods of ordering and processing verbal material for the stage. Some writers, like Fritz Kater, are said to create a special kind of compression, an intensification of reality. Other dramatists, like Elfriede Jelinek, do not break down their texts into individual speakers. It is up to the director and actors to distribute the text and position them in a living space. This course will examine a selection of German plays from 2000-2020. We will be discussing the dramaturgy of these sometimes shocking plays as well as exploring methods of staging these works in translation. We will be reading and rehearsing plays by writers in translation including: Dea Loher, Falk Richter, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Anja Hilling, Sibylle Berg, Elfriede Jelinek, and Sascha Marianna Salzmann. Students will work as dramaturges, directors, and actors throughout the semester. Questions we will be wrestling with include: What are the issues that German dramatists were addressing twenty years ago? Which plays and themes from the 2000s and 2010s can we relate to today? How are these playwrights experimenting with different forms of storytelling and characterisation? And how can these plays, that experiment radically with theatrical form and language, be staged? This class will include theatre visits to see current stagings in Berlin of contemporary German plays at the Deutsches Theater, the Schaubühne and the Maxim Gorki Theater.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, Study Abroad
Concentration: Artistic Practice
Module: Advanced Artistic Practice

TH384 Self-Instructions: Creating Autobiographical Performance with She She Pop

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715 (16/9, 28/10, 18/11 at 1400-1900)
Credits: 8 ECTS Credits, 4 U.S. Credits

Professor(s): Nina Tecklenburg, in collaboration with She She Pop

She She Pop is an internationally renowned feminist performance collective based in Berlin. Over the course of their 30 years of collaboration, they have challenged established theater aesthetics and traditional hierarchies of theater-making. Their experimental and provocative body of work, for which they received Germany’s highest theater prize in 2019 (Theaterpreis Berlin), has been deeply influential and groundbreaking for many theater and performance artists. Considering the private as deeply political, the inclusion of their own autobiographies has been a crucial element of their artistic practice. Rather than being the purpose of their work, however, autobiography is for them primarily a method. In this respect, She She Pop’s work is deeply rooted in conceptual performance art of the 1960s and 70s, particularly with regard to the use of (self)-instructions and tasked-based approaches. In this course we will practice and reflect on She She Pop’s particular approach to “autobiography as method.” Classes will be taught partly in weekly sessions and partly in four hour-long hands-on workshops with members of the collective. We will study She She Pop’s art-historical influences by conceptual (performance) artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Marina Abramović, Valie Export, Chris Burden, Sophie Calle and Forced Entertainment. Investigating techniques of (self-)instructions, tasked-based performance art, conceptual rule-making, and collaborative creation for both rehearsal and performance, students will be asked to develop short autobiographical group performances, which will be presented at the end of the semester. No previous experience in performance art or theater is necessary.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Core
Concentration: Core
Module: Greek Civilization

IS101 Plato’s Republic and Its Interlocutors

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215 or Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ewa Atanassow, Giulia Clabassi, Tracy Colony, David Hayes, Gilad Nir, Sinem Kılıç, Thomas Raysmith

Bard College Berlin's core curriculum begins with a semester-long reading of Plato’s Republic in dialogue with the main works and movements that shaped its cultural and intellectual context. The Republic offers a unique point of entry into the epochal philosophical, political, and literary achievements of fifth and fourth-century Athens. Through its depiction of Socrates in conversation, it draws us into a conversation about ethical, political, aesthetic, and epistemic questions that are fundamental to human life. Rather than being a series of separate treatises, the Republic addresses its themes as a dynamic and open investigation that transcends disciplinary boundaries as we have come to conceive them. And while it may be said to contain a social contract theory, a theory of psychology, a theology, a critique of mimetic art, a theory of education, and a typology of political regimes, it is reducible to none of these. In its aspiration and scope, the Republic offers an illuminating starting point for the endeavor of liberal education. Moreover, as an exemplar of open and critical inquiry, both in Plato’s time and beyond, the figure of Socrates is a vital resource for our own engagements with the contemporary world.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Core
Concentration: Core
Module: Renaissance Art and Thought

IS102 Renaissance Florence

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215 or Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Giulia Clabassi, Geoff Lehman, Clio Nicastro, Laura Scuriatti, Katalin Makkai, Sasha Shapiro

In this course we examine the visual and intellectual culture of Renaissance Florence. A sustained engagement with a number of principal monuments in Florentine painting, sculpture, and architecture provides the basis for a consideration of key values within the development of Renaissance art that also shape, more broadly, the thought, cultural practices, and everyday experiences of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Renaissance could be characterized as an historical period in which the visual arts played the leading role in the culture as a whole. Thus the focus on works of visual art, in a dialogue with literary, philosophical, and political texts of the period, opens a consideration of trans-disciplinary problems such as the emergence of new models of subjectivity and objectivity, the relationship between religious and secular experiences, the framing of early modern political thought, and the origins of the scientific method. The course is structured around four principal topics, each a defining value for the visual arts between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries that is also central to the development of Renaissance thought: self-reflexivity, perspective, harmony and grace, humanism. The direct experience, evaluation, and interpretation of individual works of art are a crucial part of the course, and with this in mind there will be several visits to Berlin museums – specifically, the Gemäldegalerie and the Bode Museum, with their extensive Renaissance collections – to encounter works of art firsthand.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Core
Concentration: Core
Module: Origins of Political Economy

IS303 Origins of Political Economy

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed & Fri 1045-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Boris Vormann, Riaz Khan, Ewa Atanassow, Kerry Bystrom, Aysuda Kölemen

This course explores the intellectual history of the contemporary disciplines of economics, political science and sociology, by examining the historical origins of the discourse and practice known as “political economy”: the means and processes by which societies and populations provide for their own survival and development. It offers an introduction to the reach and implications of this endeavor, its relationship to questions of law, sovereignty and political representation. It equally addresses changing state-market relationships and normative discourses about the best ways to organize societies as they echo in the liberal and critical traditions of Western political thought. In keeping with its attention to the formative history of modern categories and disciplines of knowledge, the course also addresses the ways in which changes in the (understanding of) political economy have led to disciplinary specializations and certain blind spots in linking development and underdevelopment, enlightenment and exclusion. It allows students to understand, draw upon and critique the historical formulation of contemporary problems and concerns such as the foundations of political freedom, the nature of markets, the sources and circulation of wealth, the social impact of inequality and racism, and the connection and differentiation between the economic and political spheres.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

AH162 Modernism in the Visual Arts: Experiment, Conflict, and Crisis

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika

This class looks at the key works, movements and debates emerging from modernism and modern movements in the visual and plastic arts. Our survey addresses controversies that arose when new works and techniques were first introduced, as well as later (post)modern criticisms. We will consider the ‘grand narratives’ and contrasting explanatory tools that seek to understand and theorize modernist artistic practice (e.g. Marxism, Formalism). An important theme in our journey will be the modernist artists’ entanglement with colonialism; the freedom they claimed for their own creative adventures was often barred to their subjects and absent from the contexts in which they sought new inspiration. Modernist artists and movements also have a complex relationship to the phenomenon of totalitarian regimes, with some embracing and some resisting the pull of dictatorship. Modernism was the moment in which the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ or ‘mass’ culture first appeared, and we will look at the meaning of this fissure for modern art movements. Finally, we examine the role of new media—the revolutionary advent of film and photography—in modernist art production. Our case studies include the formative movements of the early 20th century, such as Expressionism, Dada, Bauhaus and Surrealism. The class ends with what we might call the “nervous breakdown” of modernism in the 1960s, when we witness the end of reigning concepts such as ‘originality’ and ‘authenticity’, and encounter the rise of postmodernism. Throughout the seminar we will make use of Berlin’s wide-ranging and diverse art collections.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

AH207 Feminist Art in the 20th and early 21st Centuries

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Mon 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Christina Landbrecht

This seminar introduces the work of female artists in Germany and the US. Starting with artists who were educated around the turn of the century, the seminar will trace the development of feminist art throughout the 20th century, ending with recent figures in feminist art discourse. Among the artists whose works will be discussed are Julie Wolfthorn, Georgia O’Keeffe, Meret Oppenheim, Louise Bourgeois, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Alice Neel, Judy Chicago, Adrian Piper, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Lygia Clark, Nicole Eisenman, Rosemarie Trockel, Margaret Raspé, Cindy Sherman, Sharon Hayes and Mary-Audrey Ramirez. Furthermore, a selection of seminal texts by prominent scholars such as Linda Nochlin, Lucy Lippard, and bell hooks will be discussed throughout the course. The main idea of the seminar is to focus on the work of female artists who not only questioned the established art canon but contributed to changing and expanding it. Particular attention will be dedicated to themes such as “Body, Sexuality, and the Image of the Woman”; “Female Materiality and Crafts”; “the Politics of Race and Gender” and “Care and Maintenance as Artistic Practices.” Through such topics, we will not only have the chance to get to know a multitude of diverse female artists and artistic practices, but to establish their connection to a wide critical discourse. Excursions to museum exhibitions, visits by art professionals, and a studio visit are planned as well.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

AH224 Beyond Crisis: South American Memory Politics and Art

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Mon 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Haley Stewart

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

In this course, we will explore some of the roles historical memory and memory politics have played in artistic production in Chile and Bolivia and in the wider Andean and Southern Cone regions of South America since the 1970s. The aim of the course is to introduce students to the way in which art in these regions has sought to respond to ongoing crises such as those caused by the legacy of violent Southern Cone dictatorships, economic exploitation and environmental degradation by extractive industries, and the consequences of colonial violence against Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations. Central to our study are these questions: How does art invoke, remember and critique the historical past? How does it offer alternatives to this past and envision possibilities of healing, repair and growth beyond crisis? How do different artistic and cultural media like painting, sculpture, land art, performance art and film, as well as indigenous forms of making (i.e., textiles, quipus) reflect and develop different concepts of historical memory, often in productive tensions with terms like aesthetics or art? Each week, we’ll discuss specific works from artists, artistic groups and movements like Cecilia Vicuña, Daniela Catrilea Cordero, Luis Bernardo Oyarzún, Elvira Espejo, Gastón Ugalde, Raúl Zurita, and the CADA and avanzada movements in Chile, with the help of readings providing necessary context, critical perspectives and theory. When possible, the readings will privilege the writings of critics and scholars from these regions, such as Nelly Richard and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

AH236 Critical Perspectives on Berlin's new Cultural Venue, the Humboldt Forum

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika, Tarek Ibrahim (Stiftung Humboldt Forum)

Hardly any project has been more controversial than the rebuilding of Berlin’s City Palace. Since its opening in 2021, the Humboldt Forum has brought in more than 2.5 million visitors, constituting one of the centerpieces of the capital’s New Mitte. Yet, the recently opened cultural venue – which gathers five institutions under its roof – is still very much in the process of considering how to address the challenges that arise from the contradictions between its form (a hybrid of Baroque and modern) and its contents (serving as a home to and meeting place for the cultures of the world). Most delicate is its role as the new home of the Ethnological Museum (previously housed in Berlin-Dahlem) with collection histories that are often inextricably linked to European colonialism. The seminar provides an introduction to the history and current operation of the Humboldt Forum and to the various institutions and collections that it accommodates on more than 16,000 square meters. Furthermore, as a collaborative project with the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, the class seeks to give students insights into the conceptualization and planning of cultural events, exhibition projects and educational outreach. Members of the Humboldt Forum's team will introduce students to not only the building and its collections, but also to their day-to-day tasks and overall aims.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

AR315 Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Geoff Lehman

“He was part of my dream, of course—but then I was part of his dream, too!” (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass). Alice’s reflection upon her dream evokes something of the oneiric experience that can be part of one’s encounter with a work of art: the dialogue between the specific universe the artwork invites us to enter—with its own logic, kinds of seeing, and means of expression—and the viewer as subject, bringing her or his own desires and experiences to its interpretation. One important aspect of this encounter could be described, in psychoanalytic terms, as a relationship between the unconscious wishes, drives, and memories of the viewing subject, on the one hand, and the unconscious qualities of the work itself, both in its production and—especially—in its visual character (its “optical unconscious”), on the other. Major topics for the course include: psychoanalytic interpretations of art; the relationship between the oneiric, the imaginative, and the theatrical; contemplation, daydreaming, schizophrenia, nightmares, and other altered states of consciousness in relation to the experience of artworks; the oneiric and visual narrativity; the place of (self-)reflexivity or its absence in immersive art. Artists whose works we study include Wang Ximeng, Mirza Ali, Goya, De Chirico, Dalí, Miller, Varo, Kahlo, Fellini,Tarkovsky, Kentridge, and Kusama. Readings will be from Lewis Carroll, De Quincey, Woolf, Freud, Jung, Carrington, Borges, Bachelard, and others.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Economics
Module: Elective

EC235 Feeding the Planet, Eating the Earth: The Modern History and Future of our Food Systems

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Mon 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Omri Polatsek

Our global food systems lie at the heart of today’s planetary emergencies. When affected by climate change, economic shocks, and wars, they can have destabilizing consequences for human health, ecological systems, and planetary boundaries. In this course, we will explore the history, present, and future of our food systems. Drawing on history, sociology, anthropology, and critical agrarian studies, we examine the major transformation toward industrialized agriculture and the globalization of food systems from the 1870s to the present. Throughout the course, we will investigate diverse case studies from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, exploring how these regions were integrated into the world-spanning networks, infrastructure, and markets that constitute our modern-day agro-food systems. We will examine the major junctions that shaped the transition from locally scaled subsistence economies to a planetary-scale, market-based food economy, examining the reciprocal relations between social-ecological, techno-scientific, and globalizing forces. By focusing on food production, circulation, and consumption, we explore the shifting dynamics of globalization, urban-rural relations, and the world political order, developing analytical skills to understand structural transitions in international trade and politics while remaining attentive to the unique trajectories of locally based case studies.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Economics
Module: Econometrics

EC320 Econometrics

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1045-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Coordinator: Israel Waichman

Prerequisites: Statistics and Microeconomics

Economics is in many ways an applied science deeply anchored in real-world phenomena that can be measured and quantified. In order to answer important quantitative questions and in particular assess the descriptiveness of economic theories, the economist needs to collect data and assess the empirical relationships between objects of interest. Since most economic data is non-experimental, a main task of the econometrician is trying to find out whether events that are correlated also stand in causal relationship with each other. And in particular to test the accuracy of economic theories specifying a causal relationship between factors/events. This course expands on the basic statistics course by applying and developing core statistical notions within an economic context. In particular, we will learn how to estimate linear regressions and their requirements for causal inference. We will also learn how to deal with cases when the requirements are not fully met (e.g., the endogeneity problem, the binary outcome model, etc.). The course develops literacy in applied economics, and the capacity to analyze field data, as well as cultivating the ability to assess claims made in that field through critique of methods of econometric analysis. The course will introduce students to the statistical software package Stata, which will be used to analyze data applying the methods learned.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Economics
Module: Behavioral Economics

EC325 Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Wed & Fri 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Stephan Müller

Game theory is a fundamental discipline in the fields of economics, political science, biology, and beyond, as it provides a systematic framework for analyzing strategic interactions among rational decision-makers. This undergraduate course in Game Theory offers students a comprehensive introduction to the core concepts, principles, and applications of this fascinating field. The course begins with an overview of the basic components of game theory, including players, strategies, payoffs, and extensive and normal form representations. Students will learn how to model different types of games, ranging from simple two-player games to more complex multi-player scenarios, and study various solution concepts such as dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium, and subgame perfection. Throughout the course, students will explore various classical games, including the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Battle of the Sexes, and the Tragedy of the Commons. By examining these games, students will gain insight into real-world situations such as social dilemmas, competition, cooperation, and bargaining. Furthermore, applications of game theory in diverse fields will be discussed, ranging from economics and business strategy to politics, law, and environmental issues. The course will include interactive discussions and problem-solving exercises to enhance students' understanding of the concepts and their practical applications.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA103 Found Fragments and Layered Lines: mixed-media techniques for drawing and collage

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed 0930-1245 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): John Kleckner

This studio art course explores contemporary and historical approaches to drawing and collage. Suitable for all levels of artistic ability, the course develops artistic understanding and personal expression through the creation of mixed-media drawings and collages. Students begin by transcribing embodied experience into visual compositions, strengthening the coordination of mind, eye, and hand through focused attention to perception. Course activities include making analytic drawings of figures and object arrangements; developing conceptual artistic strategies; experimenting with automatic drawing and aleatoric techniques; making abstract studies outdoors based on observation of nature; and creating collages and assemblages using materials sourced from Berlin’s Flohmärkte (flea markets). Students will also explore innovative combinations of text and image inspired by Dada and Surrealism. A core theme will be exploring the potential to generate new and surprising pieces from the juxtaposition of found printed fragments and hand-drawn lines. Of special interest for our class discussions will be works created by Berliners, such as Dada artist Hannah Höch. The majority of class sessions are dedicated to studio practice. There will also be group critiques, weekly slide presentations, and visits to contemporary art galleries and museums. Students are expected to be open to experimentation and eager to discuss their work in a supportive critique environment. The semester culminates in the “Open Studios'' exhibition in the Direktorenhaus at Monopol Berlin.
Studio work is central to this course, students should expect to devote substantial time to working outside of scheduled class sessions. Prospective students should email their questions to the professor directly at: [email protected]

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA115 Introduction to Digital Photography: Identity Construction and Representation

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Mon 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Carla Ahlander

This course is designed for beginners who are interested in exploring digital photography through basic technical skills and creative expression. Students will learn the fundamentals of the camera, including exposure, composition, and lighting. Alongside mastering technical skills, students will engage in picture analysis, examining how images communicate meaning and emotion. Throughout the course, students will complete a series of assignments and longer projects that emphasize creative exploration. The course structure is based on regular in-class critiques and discussions. A key focus will be on different kinds of portrait photography, approached from multiple perspectives to explore the construction of identity and memory. Themes such as family, gender, history, class, stereotypes, and representation will guide the creative process. Students will be allowed to experiment with controlled lighting, while lectures and discussions will provide inspiration from a range of photo artists who have dealt with similar themes in a variety of ways, from Jo Spence to Juan Pablo Echeverri. In addition, students will reflect on photography's role in shaping societal clichés, while considering the balance between uniqueness and originality in their own work.
By the end of the course, students will not only gain confidence in their technical abilities but also deepen their understanding of photography as a powerful medium for self-expression and social commentary.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA245 Intermediate Painting: Oil Paint

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Thur 0930-1245 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): John Kleckner

This studio art course introduces the materials, techniques, and principles of oil painting. Through practical demonstrations students will learn the properties of oil paint; how to stretch canvases and prepare painting surfaces; and how to apply oil paint using traditional and experimental approaches. Assignments develop an understanding of color theory (hue, value, chroma, color temperature), compositional design, perspectival space, surface texture, glazing, and the depiction of form through light and shadow. Students will establish their studio practice by working from direct observation, using photographic references, and building abstract compositions. Studio work is supported by assigned readings, group discussions, gallery and museum visits, and slide presentations of historical and contemporary paintings. Particular attention is given to painters, past and present, with strong connections to the city of Berlin.

Class size is limited to ensure each student has sufficient studio space and abundant time for individual feedback. Evaluations and critiques occur at midterm and at the end of the term. The semester culminates in the “Open Studios'' exhibition in the BCB arts building at Monopol.

Studio work is central to the course and will require a substantial commitment of time outside of scheduled class sessions. Prospective students should email their questions to the professor directly at: [email protected]

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA250 Immersive Spatial Experiences

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Fri 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Magdalena Emmerig

In this practicing arts seminar, students will learn about various forms of spatial design. The idea is to create immersive spaces. In the context of theater, immersion describes an experience in which the division between stage and audience is non-existent and the visitor becomes part of the play. It can also describe a spatial experience in which the visitor encounters a closed, artificial world. The course aims to convey an artistic exploration of architecture and an introduction to spatial design. What narratives does a space contain and how can the experience of the space be designed? In the seminar we will explore different artistic approaches. We will look at architectural works by visual artist Gregor Schneider, stage designs by Anna Viebrock and the artist duo Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller. We will visit theater performances and exhibitions to encounter and reflect on spatial experiences. During the semester, students will collect visual material from which mood boards will be developed. They will learn to elaborate a conceptual approach for their own spatial setting and explore different modes of visualization, from drawing/painting to model building. In the second half of the semester, the focus will be on working with the model to create different kinds of atmosphere, for example through spatial changes and lighting design. In addition, we will do a workshop on theater lighting to become familiar with varieties of lighting materials. At the end of the semester, each student presents their own spatial design.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

FA366 Game changers in 20th and 21st century Art

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Fri 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Dorothea von Hantelmann

The 20th century was not yet out of its teens. What was anyone to make of the porcelain urinal Marcel Duchamp submitted to a New York art exhibition? Fountain, with its signature R Mutt and the date 1917, was photographed and remembered. It became art, and so changed art forever. Every once in a while, artworks change how we define and talk about art. How does this happen? What makes an artwork a game-changer? This course seeks to understand how artworks can represent and simultaneously influence the cultural zeitgeist and discourse of their time. What makes a great work of art, and what criteria might define it? How does globalization and the Internet affect these criteria? We also want to comprehend how the iconic status of an artwork can change over time: Is Duchamp still or again contemporary? Can we look at Duchamp differently when we see him through the lens of Andy Warhol? What characterizes an “iconic artwork” of today? Besides discussing individual artworks and artists (among them Duchamp, Georgia O’Keefe, Cindy Sherman, Ana Mendieta, Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Pierre Huyghe and Arthur Jafa), we will also highlight game changing exhibitions (the case of documenta) and discuss the idea of a game changing institution for the arts. Our discussions in class will be enriched by readings (authors will include Arthur Danto, Clement Greenberg and Benjamin H.D. Buchloh) and accompanied by field trips to museums and exhibitions in the city of Berlin. Some of these field trips may take place on Saturdays and schedule adjustments may occur.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

SC215 Reflecting Human-Environment Relations (Through Sound)

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715 (Monopol)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Francisca Rocha Goncalves

In light of the serious impact of human activities on the environment, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and noise pollution, we must rethink our relationship with the natural world. A significant barrier to this reimagining is the long-lasting division between “nature” and “culture” in Western thought. Through a cross-disciplinary approach that includes acoustic ecology, the arts, environmental artistic activism, and natural history, this foundational course reflects on recent and ongoing efforts to dismantle such a divide, providing students with a blend of theoretical and practical knowledge. Students will critically examine the reasons behind the societal separation of nature and culture and how this division has shaped our environmental perceptions and actions. They will develop a deeper appreciation of the interconnectedness of all life forms and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in addressing complex ecological issues. Approaches include investigating how soundscapes and acoustic ecology can challenge conventional boundaries of the nature-culture divide, reflecting on the potential of creative expression to re-connect culture and nature, examining the role of environmental artistic activism in addressing noise pollution and ecosystem impact, and engaging in hands-on practical activities and fieldwork to connect theory with real-world experiences. Alongside the practical activities, students will engage with critical theoretical readings by thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and Jane Bennett, as well as composers and sound ecologists such as Murray Schafer and Hildegard Westerkamp. These readings will offer insights into the historical separation of nature and culture, the contemporary efforts to overcome this divide, the broader implications of the Anthropocene, and how artists work to create awareness of the environmental crisis.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

TH207 Intensifying Reality: A Survey and Staging of 21st Century German Drama

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Fri 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS Credits, 4 U.S. Credits

Professor(s): Julia Hart

German dramatists in the 21st Century have been developing new methods of ordering and processing verbal material for the stage. Some writers, like Fritz Kater, are said to create a special kind of compression, an intensification of reality. Other dramatists, like Elfriede Jelinek, do not break down their texts into individual speakers. It is up to the director and actors to distribute the text and position them in a living space. This course will examine a selection of German plays from 2000-2020. We will be discussing the dramaturgy of these sometimes shocking plays as well as exploring methods of staging these works in translation. We will be reading and rehearsing plays by writers in translation including: Dea Loher, Falk Richter, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Anja Hilling, Sibylle Berg, Elfriede Jelinek, and Sascha Marianna Salzmann. Students will work as dramaturges, directors, and actors throughout the semester. Questions we will be wrestling with include: What are the issues that German dramatists were addressing twenty years ago? Which plays and themes from the 2000s and 2010s can we relate to today? How are these playwrights experimenting with different forms of storytelling and characterisation? And how can these plays, that experiment radically with theatrical form and language, be staged? This class will include theatre visits to see current stagings in Berlin of contemporary German plays at the Deutsches Theater, the Schaubühne and the Maxim Gorki Theater.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Artistic Practice and Society, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Electives, Study Abroad
Concentrations: Economics, Ethics and Politics, Literature and Rhetoric, Politics
Module: Elective

TH384 Self-Instructions: Creating Autobiographical Performance with She She Pop

Fall 2026

Day/Time: Wed 1400-1715 (16/9, 28/10, 18/11 at 1400-1900)
Credits: 8 ECTS Credits, 4 U.S. Credits

Professor(s): Nina Tecklenburg, in collaboration with She She Pop

She She Pop is an internationally renowned feminist performance collective based in Berlin. Over the course of their 30 years of collaboration, they have challenged established theater aesthetics and traditional hierarchies of theater-making. Their experimental and provocative body of work, for which they received Germany’s highest theater prize in 2019 (Theaterpreis Berlin), has been deeply influential and groundbreaking for many theater and performance artists. Considering the private as deeply political, the inclusion of their own autobiographies has been a crucial element of their artistic practice. Rather than being the purpose of their work, however, autobiography is for them primarily a method. In this respect, She She Pop’s work is deeply rooted in conceptual performance art of the 1960s and 70s, particularly with regard to the use of (self)-instructions and tasked-based approaches. In this course we will practice and reflect on She She Pop’s particular approach to “autobiography as method.” Classes will be taught partly in weekly sessions and partly in four hour-long hands-on workshops with members of the collective. We will study She She Pop’s art-historical influences by conceptual (performance) artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Marina Abramović, Valie Export, Chris Burden, Sophie Calle and Forced Entertainment. Investigating techniques of (self-)instructions, tasked-based performance art, conceptual rule-making, and collaborative creation for both rehearsal and performance, students will be asked to develop short autobiographical group performances, which will be presented at the end of the semester. No previous experience in performance art or theater is necessary.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Methods in Social and Historical Studies

AH236 Critical Perspectives on Berlin's new Cultural Venue, the Humboldt Forum

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aya Soika, Tarek Ibrahim (Stiftung Humboldt Forum)

Hardly any project has been more controversial than the rebuilding of Berlin’s City Palace. Since its opening in 2021, the Humboldt Forum has brought in more than 2.5 million visitors, constituting one of the centerpieces of the capital’s New Mitte. Yet, the recently opened cultural venue – which gathers five institutions under its roof – is still very much in the process of considering how to address the challenges that arise from the contradictions between its form (a hybrid of Baroque and modern) and its contents (serving as a home to and meeting place for the cultures of the world). Most delicate is its role as the new home of the Ethnological Museum (previously housed in Berlin-Dahlem) with collection histories that are often inextricably linked to European colonialism. The seminar provides an introduction to the history and current operation of the Humboldt Forum and to the various institutions and collections that it accommodates on more than 16,000 square meters. Furthermore, as a collaborative project with the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, the class seeks to give students insights into the conceptualization and planning of cultural events, exhibition projects and educational outreach. Members of the Humboldt Forum's team will introduce students to not only the building and its collections, but also to their day-to-day tasks and overall aims.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Movements and Thinkers

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Thur 1045-1400
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Hanan Toukan

This course examines how Palestine has been produced, ordered, and made legible through exhibitions, archives, maps, archaeology, photography, and digital platforms from the late Ottoman period to the present. Drawing on Timothy Mitchell’s concept of the “exhibitionary order” in Colonizing Egypt, the course focuses on how the land has been framed and re-framed across different political regimes, including Ottoman, British, Palestinian and Israeli institutions. It asks How does visual display function as a technology of power? How has Palestine been staged as biblical landscape, empty land, imperial province, security problem, heritage site, or humanitarian crisis in museums, exhibitions and other visual media? What forms of authority and knowledge emerge when land, ruins, and the built environment are rendered as objects of display? Beginning with nineteenth-century European Holy Land exhibitions, the course will cover shifts in exhibitionary regimes across the periods of Ottoman reform, early Zionist settlement, British colonial administration of Palestine, Israeli state formation, and the aftermath of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba. Students will examine Ottoman and Zionist exhibitionary practices, British Mandate surveying and aerial photography, post-Nakba archival formations, the formation of national museums, and contemporary digital mapping projects. Case studies will include Holy Land panoramas; Zionist pavilions at international expositions; British Mandate survey displays; Israeli and Palestinian national museums; and contemporary Palestinian and Israeli counter-archives and artistic interventions, including Palestine From Above, the work of Forensic Architecture, and Visualizing Palestine. The course will conclude with students-led curatorial proposals as a final project.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Methods in Social and Historical Studies

HI215 History of Modernities in Eastern Europe

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1545-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ostap Sereda

The course should serve as an introduction to the key issues of the modern intellectual, social, and cultural history of the region broadly defined as Europe’s East. It will provide a broad overview of the East European reactions to the challenges of modernity. In the initial phase, these range from the incorporation of regional agrarian economies into emerging European capitalist modernity in the 16th century, to the continent-wide repercussions of the French Revolution. They then take in the contested modernizing agendas of imperial reform, the demands of modern nation-building, and the largescale transformations wrought by fascist and communist regimes in the twentieth century. As the concept of Eastern Europe itself appeared on the mental “map of civilization” in the time of the Enlightenment, we will discuss how the contested understanding of “modernity” and “backwardness” shaped the mental geography of the region. The course will explore the key competing modernizing visions and policies in the region, highlighting the role of intellectual transfers, adaptation, and revision of general developmental paradigms. We cover the broad ideological spectrum, from utopian socialism, agrarian populism, and Marxism to liberalism and conservatism, and consider the emergence of right-wing authoritarian nationalism in the region. We will also analyze how the East European experiences of predominantly peasant societies and of the “new Soviet society” influenced global concepts of developmental pathways. The course will introduce postmodern and postcolonial critiques of East European modernities.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Ethics and Moral Philosophy

PL250 Ethics and Aesthetics in the face of Ecological Crisis

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Manuel Gebhardt

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

The debate about climate change and the resulting contemporary ecological crisis has brought into prominent focus the relation between humankind and the environment. Over the past decades, artists and thinkers in the field of environmental ethics have developed various ways of determining ethical forms of human action in relation to nature. In order to grasp and evaluate these positions, we will – in a first step – study traditional ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics). We will discuss their premises and the conclusions they suggest in regard to moral commitments. Building on this foundation, we will evaluate the soundness and validity of contemporary artistic and theoretical approaches to the field of environmental ethics. The seminar aims for students to acquire the competence to develop their own ethical stances and to advocate for their moral judgments. On our way, we will analyze the implication of anthropocentric and physiocentric arguments (caring for nature for the sake of humankind or for the sake of nature itself?), touching on the realms of human rights, animal rights, (global) justice, sustainability, ecopolitics (e.g. sumac kawsay, a concept of the “good life” alongside nature), ecofeminism and moral psychology (how can we bridge the gap between knowing what is right and doing what is right?). Readings will include Immanuel Kant, David Hume, J.S. Mill, and Martha Nussbaum (part I) as well as Donna Haraway, Vittorio Hösle, Hans Jonas, Christine Korsgaard, Angelika Krebs, Bruno Latour, Catriona McKinnon, Peter Singer, and Val Plumwood (part II).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Law, Politics, and Society

PS271 US Foreign Policy

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aaron Allen

This multidisciplinary course explores the structural evolution of the United States’ role in the world and the institutions shaping elite policy-making. Through an interactive approach, students will be able to contextualize contemporary American foreign policy challenges from their geographic, material, and ideational roots. Furthermore, course activities and assignments are tailored to assist students in becoming foreign policy practitioners fully capable of applying national security decision theories. The curriculum threads together historical cases, international relations scholarship, and security studies in order to provide a holistic understanding of all the constituent parts influencing America’s external posture. How did a nation once known for its relatively isolationist disposition become a global superpower and key enforcer of the liberal international order? What are the unique attributes of American-style foreign policy that have remained consistent across presidential administrations since the end of World War II? Can we discern a coherent approach in the recent emergence of a determination to disengage from global alliances while maintaining a right of intervention and interference? A critical appraisal of topics such as hard and soft power, alliances, globalization and multilateralism, bureaucratic politics, and the rise of the military industrial complex offers students the necessary tools to answer these core questions. The complementary emphasis on professional development will allow participants to garner practical skills through simulations, seminar debates, and presentations.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Political Systems and Structures

PT250 Global Citizenship

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1730-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Nassim AbiGhanem

Fulfills Civic Engagement Certificate requirement

Citizenship is traditionally a concept associated with nation-states, and at base signifies the status of belonging to a bounded political order and the rights and duties this entails. Yet economic, legal, and technological globalization increasingly call state boundaries into question. Transnational challenges such as climate change, forced migration, epidemics, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism also require collective action on a global scale. In this context, global citizenship has been promoted both as a sensibility and as an emerging reality. This course explores the notion of "global citizenship" from its philosophical foundations. We also address cultural and political perspectives, thinking critically about what global citizenship can and should mean. Building on these investigations, we explore the contemporary experiences and movements through which a future idea or reality of global citizenship might be shaped. The heart of the course will be in an interdisciplinary exploration of two of the transnational problems already noted above – climate change and ethno-nationalist conflicts – through readings and discussion of novels, historical work, film, social theory, social scientific research, and policy documents. We present and compare rising political and social movements relevant to the definition of the category of the citizen across the globe. Texts will include essays by Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Edward Said, Martha Nussbaum, Craig Calhoun, along with Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines, Tayib Salih's Season of Migration to the North, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and Michael Winterbottom's In This World.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Modules: Civic Engagement and Social Justice, Law, Politics, and Society

PT358 Critical Human Rights Advocacy / Scholars at Risk

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Mon & Wed 1545-1715 (Online)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Kerry Bystrom

This is an GHEA21 Online Course (OC) and fulfills the Human Rights Certificate and Civic Engagement Certificate requirements

This seminar serves as an introduction to human rights advocacy, with a practical component. Half of the course focuses on the history and theory of human rights. What is it to make claims for human rights, or to denounce suffering or rights violation, especially on behalf of others? How and when and why have individuals and groups spoken out, mounted campaigns, published reports and exposés? How do they address, challenge, and sometimes work with governments and international organizations like the United Nations, particularly through transnational advocacy networks? What allows some campaigns to succeed while others fail? As we look at human rights advocacy from the campaign to abolish the slave trade to the founding of Amnesty International and the advent of digital activism, this half of the course serves as an introduction to human rights work as a mode of legal, political and cultural practice. The other half of the course involves hands-on work with the human rights organization Scholars at Risk (SAR) to support detained and disappeared scholars connected to the SAR Scholars in Prison Program. We will research events and individuals, communicate with families and lawyers and other advocates, write country and case profiles, propose strategies and tactics for pressuring governments and other powerful actors, and develop appeals to public opinion -- all while recognizing the ethical and political risks this work may involve. The course will be run as a GHEA21 Online course connected with Network Collaborative Course sections at Bard College Annandale (US) and National Sun Yat Sen University (Taiwan).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Module: Law, Politics, and Society

SO240 Science, Sea, and Society

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Fri 1545-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Lakshmi Pradeep (MPI Berlin)

In recent years, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have begun speaking of an “oceanic turn.” This shift asks us to reconsider the ocean not only as a resource that has sustained human life, trade, and imagination, but also as a space shaped and damaged by human activity. Long treated as distant and adventurous, the ocean is, for many coastal and island communities, an everyday reality marked by increasing pollution, extraction, and warming. Thinking with the multitude of marine life inhabiting these environments raises urgent questions about sustainability and ocean governance. This course examines how the sea has been seen, studied, measured, and conceptualized in the history of science, while also engaging recent conversations in literature and media studies gathered under the name “Blue Humanities.” Interdisciplinary in scope, the course places modern scientific knowledge alongside other ways of knowing the ocean, attending to both Western and non-Western contexts. Bringing together work from history, anthropology, literature, Science and Technology Studies, and philosophy, the course invites students to reflect on their own relationships (or lack thereof) with the sea. It asks us to move beyond viewing the ocean simply as a site of leisure toward a more engaged perspective on ocean environments and their histories. Active participation in class and group discussions is essential, and the exchange of diverse perspectives and examples is encouraged. The final assignment will be developed in consultation with the instructor throughout the semester.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Study Abroad
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Modules: Global Social Theory, Law, Politics, and Society

SO285 Migration, Space, and Power

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1545-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Agata Lisiak

Fulfills GHEA21 Civic Engagement Certificate

This course is an invitation to radically rethink migration with the help of two exceptional scholars, teachers, and activists: Rosa Luxemburg and Doreen Massey. Both Luxemburg and Massey were economic thinkers who made long-lasting contributions to their respective disciplines, shaped the political movements they supported, and inspired new generations of scholars and activists. Both were staunch supporters of internationalism and critics of global capitalism. Both conducted research on and advocated for workers’ rights, and both left behind incisive reflections on the potential of solidarity. Rejecting neat, linear theories of development, both also repudiated binary models that juxtaposed the west and the rest, reform and revolution, global and local. Last but not least, both were women in spaces coded masculine – women who refused to conform to the heteropatriarchal gender norms of their social worlds. Considering that “there is no capitalism without migration” (Casas-Cortes et al. 2015), Luxemburg’s and Massey’s critiques of capitalism yield inspiring insights on migration because they engage with political and economic dependencies, colonial legacies, and what Massey called power geometry: the uneven positioning of different individuals and different groups within global interconnectedness. In dialog with Massey’s notion of a global sense of place, Luxemburg’s theory of the accumulation of capital can help us reframe the sticky connections between migration and capitalism in its current neoliberal guise. Following Massey’s observation that “mobility, and control over mobility, both reflects and reinforces power” and Luxemburg’s insistence that we consider inequality globally and not just locally, we will examine the wide-reaching consequences of capitalism’s expansion into social activities hitherto unclaimed by the market (such as sharing and solidarity), as well as its enduring impact on both lived realities and popular perceptions of migration. In addition to selected texts by Luxemburg and Massey, we will also read a range of complimentary writings on migration, space, and power including the works of Gurminder Bhambra, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Maria Lugones, Gloria Anzaldúa, Walter Rodney, Stuart Hall, among others.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Written Arts

LT142 Writing Fiction Workshop

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Fri 1230-1545
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Clare Wigfall

With over seventeen years experience of teaching creative writing, British author and BBC National Short Story Award Winner Clare Wigfall has developed a method that guarantees to inspire your imagination. Whether you are a total beginner, or a writer with some prior experience keen to work on your craft in collaboration with other writers, her intention is to break down the barriers that inhibit so that the creative process can come naturally. Her maxim for teaching is that in creative writing there are no rules. You’ll be challenged to experiment with new writing techniques and different genres, such as dystopian fiction and reversioning fairytales, as well as exploring how to mine your own experience for inspiration. You’ll also be introduced to inspirational and thought-provoking fiction by established authors, from Roxane Gay to Vladimir Nabokov, and will have a chance to hone your critical skills through discussion of these texts. Encouragement and guidance will be given to help you with shaping your ideas into fully developed writing, and of course you’ll gain invaluable feedback from the group through sharing your work in class. This course will work you hard and provide challenges and surprises, but it also promises lots of laughter, as well as much stimulation and encouragement from the others in the group. As per tradition, Clare’s workshops always conclude with a lively public reading to which other BCB students and faculty are warmly invited, offering a chance for the group to share their new work with the world.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Literary History

LT226 Tutors of History: Narrating South Asia in Fiction

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Tue 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Saskya Jain

This course introduces the multi-layered postcolonial histories of South Asia through its recent literature, moving beyond the names of the few well-known figures from these literatures typically familiar to a Western readership. Through fiction, we will explore key moments such as Partition and its aftermath in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, the civil wars in Nepal and Sri Lanka, the insurgency in India’s Northeast, the displacement of indigenous populations and the Naxalite movement in India, and the migration of labor from South India to the Middle East. Making sense of this world through stories, we will read our way into the region’s own modernity—made even more complex by economic shifts, climate change and urbanization—which brings with it a new understanding of global dynamics. The reading list will include texts (written originally in English or translated from South Asian languages) by writers such as Geetanjali Shree, Akhtaruzzaman Elias, Manjushree Thapa, Shehan Karunatilaka, Aruni Kashyap, Mohammad Hanif and Sheela Tomy. We will consider how these authors offer an intimate access to individual and collective experience through close reading and attention to elements of literary form and style, such as structure, character, narrative voice, dialogue, sentences and paragraphs, profluence, etc. Concomitantly, this course also introduces students to the vibrant world of publishing, with a special focus on South Asia and translation, by exploring the dynamics of publishing and circulation, as well as the formats, forums and opportunities available (or not) to aspiring writers.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Writer and World

LT253 The Medieval Scholar: From Manuscripts to Modern Fantasy

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Eleonora Andriani

The Middle Ages endure as a primary source of imagery in contemporary fantasy. From novels such as The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, along with their screen adaptations, to games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Assassin’s Creed, and Kingdom Come, many of today’s most influential fantasy narratives are set in real or imagined medieval worlds. Within this imaginary, the medieval scholar emerges as one of its most compelling figures: philosopher and magician, trained in the astral sciences, and repeatedly invoked to decipher enigmas beyond ordinary understanding. In contemporary fantasy, this figure is almost invariably staged within vast libraries of leather-bound codices, dense double-column texts, intricate diagrams, and desks crowded with astronomical instruments. Yet how far does this seductive image depart from historical reality? In Western Latin Europe, medieval scientific culture was shaped by a dense interplay of astronomy, astrology, magic, and divination, which together constituted a coherent system of knowledge grounded in shared methods, instruments, and practices. This course examines the libraries, manuscripts, and intellectual frameworks of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century erudites, including: Michael Scot (13th), advisor to Frederick II, supervisor of the mathematician Fibonacci, and renowned medieval diviner and magician; Antonio da Montolmo (14th), a university master esteemed by the mathematician Johannes Regiomontanus, who taught in northeastern Italy and practiced the astral sciences alongside magic; and Amplonius Rating de Berka (15th), owner of the largest surviving late medieval scholar’s library, where technical astronomy coexists with astrology, magic, and divination. By engaging in close analysis of manuscripts, texts, diagrams, and computational tables, students will develop core palaeographical and codicological skills and receive an introductory overview of the multifaceted nature of medieval science. In parallel, by bridging medieval science and modern fantasy, the course fosters critical thinking about representations of the Middle Ages in contemporary popular culture.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Literature and Rhetoric
Module: Writer and World

LT334 From Modernismo to the Present: Contemporary Latin American Literature in Short Fiction

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS credits, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Luis Miguel Isava

It is often stated that Latin American Literature acquired a definite identity with its first original literary movement: El Modernismo, initiated by the Nicaraguan writer Rubén Darío (1867-1916). This course begins with that foundational moment and traces the development of the Latin American short story from the early 20th century to the present, setting out from these guiding questions: Is it possible to speak of Latin American literature as a whole? Is there a common trait among so many national literatures? What is the relation between Latin American Literature and Western (European, North American) Literature? Through the semester we will explore the evolution of the literary fields as well as the texts’ themes and formal features from both an aesthetic and historical perspective. Beginning with Rubén Darío’s short fiction, the syllabus will include foundational authors, such as Horacio Quiroga (Uruguay, 1878-1937), Julio Garmendia (Venezuela, 1898-1977), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1899-1986) and Felisberto Hernández (Uruguay, 1902-1964). Then we will focus on mid-century figures, such as Julio Cortázar (Argentina, 1914-1984), Juan Rulfo (Mexico, 1917-86), Clarice Lispector (Brazil, 1920-1977), Rosario Castellanos (Mexico, 1925-1974), Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia, 1927-2014), followed by authors from the next generation, Cristina Peri Rossi (Uruguay, b. 1941), Ricardo Piglia (1941-2017), Ana Lydia Vega (Puerto Rico, b. 1946) and Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003). Finally, we will examine short stories from what could be considered a “new boom” of Latin American literature, this time led predominantly by women writers: among others, Lina Meruane (Chile, b. 1970), Mariana Enríquez (Argentina, b. 1973), Samanta Schweblin (Argentina, b. 1978), and Mónica Ojeda (Ecuador, b. 1988).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Literature and Rhetoric
Modules: Literary Movements and Forms, Theories of Literature and Culture

LT370 What Was Romanticism?

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Credits: 8 ECTS credits, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Christian Wollin

Romanticism is rarely mentioned in intellectual or cultural discourse today except when it is a direct object of study. Yet as a European movement stretching from the 1790s to the mid-1850s, it had a decisive and far-reaching influence on aesthetic forms, ideas about art and the artist, and even on modes of thought and feeling. The tropes of Romanticism permeate our assumptions about creativity and taste, even when we are not aware of their influence. Equally, the kinds of narrative, image or concept generated by Romantic poetry, theory, or experiments in the novel often resurface in contemporary popular entertainment. By exploring central texts and dialogues of Romanticism, this course seeks to recapture the deep sense of rupture that originally marked the emergence of this complex and wide-ranging movement. We will examine and compare works across the genres of poetry, narrative prose, epistolary writing, and non-fiction by British, French, German and Russian authors: Anna Barbaud, William Blake, Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Thomas De Quincey, Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley, Dorothy and William Wordsworth, Chateaubriand, Louise Colet, Olympe de Gouges, Victor Hugo, Gérard de Nerval, Germaine de Staël, Bettina and Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Novalis, E.T. A. Hoffmann, Friedrich Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck Heinrich Wackenroder, Mikhail Lermontov, and Alexander Pushkin. We will also consider paradigms of Romantic classical music and visual art. Lastly, we address critiques of Romanticism – in philosophy (Hegel, Nietzsche), and in the aesthetics and poetics of Modernism (Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Module: Elective

HI215 History of Modernities in Eastern Europe

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1545-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Ostap Sereda

The course should serve as an introduction to the key issues of the modern intellectual, social, and cultural history of the region broadly defined as Europe’s East. It will provide a broad overview of the East European reactions to the challenges of modernity. In the initial phase, these range from the incorporation of regional agrarian economies into emerging European capitalist modernity in the 16th century, to the continent-wide repercussions of the French Revolution. They then take in the contested modernizing agendas of imperial reform, the demands of modern nation-building, and the largescale transformations wrought by fascist and communist regimes in the twentieth century. As the concept of Eastern Europe itself appeared on the mental “map of civilization” in the time of the Enlightenment, we will discuss how the contested understanding of “modernity” and “backwardness” shaped the mental geography of the region. The course will explore the key competing modernizing visions and policies in the region, highlighting the role of intellectual transfers, adaptation, and revision of general developmental paradigms. We cover the broad ideological spectrum, from utopian socialism, agrarian populism, and Marxism to liberalism and conservatism, and consider the emergence of right-wing authoritarian nationalism in the region. We will also analyze how the East European experiences of predominantly peasant societies and of the “new Soviet society” influenced global concepts of developmental pathways. The course will introduce postmodern and postcolonial critiques of East European modernities.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Modules: Elective, Moral and Political Thought

PL250 Ethics and Aesthetics in the face of Ecological Crisis

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Thur 1400-1715
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Manuel Gebhardt

Fulfills GHEA21 Human Rights Certificate requirement

The debate about climate change and the resulting contemporary ecological crisis has brought into prominent focus the relation between humankind and the environment. Over the past decades, artists and thinkers in the field of environmental ethics have developed various ways of determining ethical forms of human action in relation to nature. In order to grasp and evaluate these positions, we will – in a first step – study traditional ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics). We will discuss their premises and the conclusions they suggest in regard to moral commitments. Building on this foundation, we will evaluate the soundness and validity of contemporary artistic and theoretical approaches to the field of environmental ethics. The seminar aims for students to acquire the competence to develop their own ethical stances and to advocate for their moral judgments. On our way, we will analyze the implication of anthropocentric and physiocentric arguments (caring for nature for the sake of humankind or for the sake of nature itself?), touching on the realms of human rights, animal rights, (global) justice, sustainability, ecopolitics (e.g. sumac kawsay, a concept of the “good life” alongside nature), ecofeminism and moral psychology (how can we bridge the gap between knowing what is right and doing what is right?). Readings will include Immanuel Kant, David Hume, J.S. Mill, and Martha Nussbaum (part I) as well as Donna Haraway, Vittorio Hösle, Hans Jonas, Christine Korsgaard, Angelika Krebs, Bruno Latour, Catriona McKinnon, Peter Singer, and Val Plumwood (part II).

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Modules: Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics, Public Policy

PS271 US Foreign Policy

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1400-1530
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Aaron Allen

This multidisciplinary course explores the structural evolution of the United States’ role in the world and the institutions shaping elite policy-making. Through an interactive approach, students will be able to contextualize contemporary American foreign policy challenges from their geographic, material, and ideational roots. Furthermore, course activities and assignments are tailored to assist students in becoming foreign policy practitioners fully capable of applying national security decision theories. The curriculum threads together historical cases, international relations scholarship, and security studies in order to provide a holistic understanding of all the constituent parts influencing America’s external posture. How did a nation once known for its relatively isolationist disposition become a global superpower and key enforcer of the liberal international order? What are the unique attributes of American-style foreign policy that have remained consistent across presidential administrations since the end of World War II? Can we discern a coherent approach in the recent emergence of a determination to disengage from global alliances while maintaining a right of intervention and interference? A critical appraisal of topics such as hard and soft power, alliances, globalization and multilateralism, bureaucratic politics, and the rise of the military industrial complex offers students the necessary tools to answer these core questions. The complementary emphasis on professional development will allow participants to garner practical skills through simulations, seminar debates, and presentations.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Module: International Studies and Globalization

PT250 Global Citizenship

Fall 2026
Level: Foundational

Day/Time: Tue & Thur 1730-1900
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Nassim AbiGhanem

Fulfills Civic Engagement Certificate requirement

Citizenship is traditionally a concept associated with nation-states, and at base signifies the status of belonging to a bounded political order and the rights and duties this entails. Yet economic, legal, and technological globalization increasingly call state boundaries into question. Transnational challenges such as climate change, forced migration, epidemics, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism also require collective action on a global scale. In this context, global citizenship has been promoted both as a sensibility and as an emerging reality. This course explores the notion of "global citizenship" from its philosophical foundations. We also address cultural and political perspectives, thinking critically about what global citizenship can and should mean. Building on these investigations, we explore the contemporary experiences and movements through which a future idea or reality of global citizenship might be shaped. The heart of the course will be in an interdisciplinary exploration of two of the transnational problems already noted above – climate change and ethno-nationalist conflicts – through readings and discussion of novels, historical work, film, social theory, social scientific research, and policy documents. We present and compare rising political and social movements relevant to the definition of the category of the citizen across the globe. Texts will include essays by Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, Edward Said, Martha Nussbaum, Craig Calhoun, along with Amitav Ghosh's The Shadow Lines, Tayib Salih's Season of Migration to the North, Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and Michael Winterbottom's In This World.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Module: Public Policy

PT315 Democracy in the European Union

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Thur 0900-1215
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Berit Ebert

The institutions and political processes of the European Union (EU), namely the concept of supranationality, offer a unique construct of international collaboration that was developed with clear goals by founding members. However, Brexit, the war in Ukraine, the financial crises, and the rise of populist movements and the outcome of the 2024 European Parliament elections, among others, seem to challenge this concept. At the same time, the political and legal framework of the EU provides its citizens with new opportunities for political participation in multilevel political system, as the cases of Poland and Hungary have vividly displayed. All of this underlines the dynamic development of the EU, which started with the establishment in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) geared towards securing peace and long-term economic growth. Today, the Union is much more than that. Article 2 of the Treaty of Lisbon specifies: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.” How is this done? How do the institutions work? Where do citizens come into play? What is the relationship between the nation state and the supranational institutions in what political science refers to as “multilevel system”?
The course analyses the institutions that have developed over this 70-plus year history: the European Council, the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the Committee of the Regions. It will also compare the institutions’ supranational characteristics with those of the nation-state and of international organizations with a focus on governance structures in the EU. Major cases tried in the European Court of Justice and key legal principles that have shaped the Union’s political advancements will be interpreted. Furthermore, we will discuss some of the European Union’s policies and current political developments, among them the European electoral-law reform, the rule-of-law mechanism, gender equality, digital policy, and foreign and security policy. Students will engage with original EU policy documents to acquire the skills of analyzing and interpreting them. At the end of the seminar, students will have a solid knowledge about the functioning of the Union’s institutions, and the evaluation of legal texts, treaty provisions, and policy approaches, enabling a clearer assessment of the future of the European project as well as a more astute understanding of broader political processes. At the end of the seminar the class takes a trip to Brussels.

Programs: Academy Year, BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Certificate in Civic Engagement, Certificate in Human Rights, Study Abroad
Concentration: Politics
Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

PT358 Critical Human Rights Advocacy / Scholars at Risk

Fall 2026
Level: Advanced

Day/Time: Mon & Wed 1545-1715 (Online)
Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Professor(s): Kerry Bystrom

This is an GHEA21 Online Course (OC) and fulfills the Human Rights Certificate and Civic Engagement Certificate requirements

This seminar serves as an introduction to human rights advocacy, with a practical component. Half of the course focuses on the history and theory of human rights. What is it to make claims for human rights, or to denounce suffering or rights violation, especially on behalf of others? How and when and why have individuals and groups spoken out, mounted campaigns, published reports and exposés? How do they address, challenge, and sometimes work with governments and international organizations like the United Nations, particularly through transnational advocacy networks? What allows some campaigns to succeed while others fail? As we look at human rights advocacy from the campaign to abolish the slave trade to the founding of Amnesty International and the advent of digital activism, this half of the course serves as an introduction to human rights work as a mode of legal, political and cultural practice. The other half of the course involves hands-on work with the human rights organization Scholars at Risk (SAR) to support detained and disappeared scholars connected to the SAR Scholars in Prison Program. We will research events and individuals, communicate with families and lawyers and other advocates, write country and case profiles, propose strategies and tactics for pressuring governments and other powerful actors, and develop appeals to public opinion -- all while recognizing the ethical and political risks this work may involve. The course will be run as a GHEA21 Online course connected with Network Collaborative Course sections at Bard College Annandale (US) and National Sun Yat Sen University (Taiwan).

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AH162 Modernism in the Visual Arts: Experiment, Conflict, and Crisis

AH207 Feminist Art in the 20th and early 21st Centuries

AH224 Beyond Crisis: South American Memory Politics and Art

AH236 Critical Perspectives on Berlin's new Cultural Venue, the Humboldt Forum

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

AR315 Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric

EC110 Principles of Economics

EC235 Feeding the Planet, Eating the Earth: The Modern History and Future of our Food Systems

EC275 From Barter to Bitcoin: Philosophy and History of Money

EC313 Environmental Economics

EC320 Econometrics

EC325 Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory

FA103 Found Fragments and Layered Lines: mixed-media techniques for drawing and collage

FA106 Beginners Black and White Photography Class: The Slow Photo

FA107 Ceramics

FA112 Marble Stone Sculpture

FA113 Introduction to Glassmaking

FA114 Beginning Painting

FA115 Introduction to Digital Photography: Identity Construction and Representation

FA223 (Re)Imagining Realities: Experimental Documentary

FA223 (Re)Imagining Realities: Experimental Documentary

FA245 Intermediate Painting: Oil Paint

FA250 Immersive Spatial Experiences

FA260 Dance it Out! Freedom Tactics & Channeling on Film

FA287 Audio Documentary

FA319 Advanced Drawing: Drawing and Installation

FA325 The Photo Zine: A Subversive Phenomenon

FA366 Game changers in 20th and 21st century Art

FA370 Advanced Painting: Color Archaeology

HI109 Global History Lab

HI215 History of Modernities in Eastern Europe

IN110 Globalization and International Relations

IS331 Berlin Internship Seminar: Working Cultures, Urban Cultures

LT142 Writing Fiction Workshop

LT205 Theory and Literature

LT226 Tutors of History: Narrating South Asia in Fiction

LT237 The Odyssey

LT253 The Medieval Scholar: From Manuscripts to Modern Fantasy

LT308 Autofiction

LT326 Advanced Fiction Writing Workshop

LT334 From Modernismo to the Present: Contemporary Latin American Literature in Short Fiction

LT353 Historical Fiction

LT370 What Was Romanticism?

MA120 Mathematics for Economics

MA120 Mathematics for Economics

MA151 Introduction to Statistics

MA151 Introduction to Statistics

PL115 Foundations of Political Theory

PL170 Falsafa: Introduction to Arabic Philosophy

PL203 Seeing and Being Seen

PL250 Ethics and Aesthetics in the face of Ecological Crisis

PL320 Nietzsche: Philosophy at the Limit

PS129 Understanding Politics

PS185 Introduction to Policy Analysis

PS215 Arab Politics

PS271 US Foreign Policy

PT250 Global Citizenship

PT315 Democracy in the European Union

PT358 Critical Human Rights Advocacy / Scholars at Risk

SC215 Reflecting Human-Environment Relations (Through Sound)

SE301 Making the Case: Human Rights Research and Reporting

SO203 Qualitative Methods in Social Sciences

SO240 Science, Sea, and Society

SO245 Violence, Peace, Justice

SO285 Migration, Space, and Power

TH207 Intensifying Reality: A Survey and Staging of 21st Century German Drama

TH384 Self-Instructions: Creating Autobiographical Performance with She She Pop

AH162 Modernism in the Visual Arts: Experiment, Conflict, and Crisis

AH207 Feminist Art in the 20th and early 21st Centuries

AH224 Beyond Crisis: South American Memory Politics and Art

AH236 Critical Perspectives on Berlin's new Cultural Venue, the Humboldt Forum

AH255 Palestine at the Exhibition

AR315 Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric

FA103 Found Fragments and Layered Lines: mixed-media techniques for drawing and collage

FA106 Beginners Black and White Photography Class: The Slow Photo

FA112 Marble Stone Sculpture