Courses Spring 2018

Core Courses

IS104 Forms of Love

AY/BA1/Begin in Berlin Core Course

Module: Medieval Literatures and Cultures

Instructors: Tracy Colony, Geoff Lehman, Katalin Makkai, Daniel Reeve, Hans Stauffacher

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 9:00-10:30

"Love" is a word whose meanings seem to be known to all of us. It names a feeling, an experience, and a value whose importance appears incontestable. But did "love" always mean what we might consider it to mean today? How recent are ideals of romantic or sexual love? What kinds of prototypes did they have in earlier historical periods? To what extent is our word "love" equivalent to the terms used for it in the languages and cultures that have shaped European and so-called "Western" culture? This course explores the other meanings for the word "love" that contributed to our contemporary perspective or apparently diverge markedly from it. We focus on texts and ideas from the place and time that was foundational for the development of European societies, and yet seems distant and strange now: medieval Christendom. We look at the change that took place in the use of Ancient philosophical terms for love in Christian texts, and at the consequences (literary and doctrinal) of the condemnatory view of sexual and erotic love taken by Christian theology. Above all, we examine the ramifications of the primacy of the category of love in Christendom: how could this category become so all-important, and yet at the same time express such a hostility to the erotic and the sensual? The course looks at the norms, rituals and rhetoric that organized the idea of love in the medieval world, attending also to the relationship between Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

IS212 Early Modern Science (a cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

BA2 Core Course

Module: Early Modern Science

Instructors: Ewa Atanassow, Michael Weinman, Rodolfo Garau, Ian Lawson

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 14:00-15:30

The course seeks to introduce the scientific advances of the early modern period (with particular focus on the seventeenth century): the developments that defined the principles, methods and frameworks of modern natural science as it exists today. We not only explore the philosophical basis and conclusions of this historical development, but its experimental procedures, and come to an understanding of their practical form and the meaning of their results. In the first section, we concentrate on the new understanding of space, matter and motion deriving from the cosmologies and mechanical theories of this era (the basis of modern physics). In the second, we consider the remarkable advances in the life sciences at this period (examining anatomical and medical texts), and finally, attend to the emergence of what came to be called "chemistry" out of the mystical practice of alchemy. Included in the course are visits to exhibitions and collections in Berlin, which will help us to reflect on the way in which scientific practices and their discoveries have been historicized, and why we ought to enhance our critical awareness of such historicizing.

IS322 Joyce's Ulysses: A Modernist Epic

BA3-4/PY Core Course

Module: Modernism

Coordinator: Laura Scuriatti, James Harker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 10:45-12:15

Modernism is generally thought of as a period characterized in literature and art by radical experimentation, by the invention and re-invention of new forms, and an aesthetic that privileged the present, the modern, the new. It was, in fact, a complex constellation of phenomena which saw close interaction between the arts, literature, politics, philosophy, science and economics, and which saw the questioning of the most basic categories of aesthetic, political and philosophical thought, leading also to extreme political conflict. The course explores a wide range of aspects of modernism, attempting to understand the period in relation to the broader terms “modernity” and “modernization.”

The course will focus on James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), considered an exemplary, canonical, and yet idiosyncratic “masterpiece.” Ulysses is not only a fundamental text of modernism but also a kind of re-writing of a foundational text of Greek civilization, Homer's Odyssey. Returning to the origins of BCB's core courses, we will read Joyce's novel in full, in dialogue with contemporary texts. We will explore questions concerning its historical context as a novel produced in a colonized country, its allegedly totalizing form based on extreme expansion, and its style and defamiliarizing use of language and traditions. Concluding the course, we will read Derek Walcott’s postmodern epic poem Omeros (1990), a postcolonial re-writing of Homer set largely in the Caribbean.

IS123 Academic Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Module: Senior Core Colloquium

Coordinator: Ulrike Wagner

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 9:00-12:15

This seminar is a training in the methods of academic research. Focusing on representative contemporary research in the humanities and the social sciences, it supports students in proceeding with their own individual research projects by focusing on the essential elements of independent scholarly work: the choice of a topic or object of study; the outline of the main components of an article or scholarly paper; finding, gathering, collating and interpreting the sources needed for the project; correct citation, attribution, and bibliographical documentation, and lastly, the effective presentation of the final work in structure and style, as well as peer review and constructive feedback. Including the participation of thesis supervisors and other faculty members, this course meets throughout fall term and in spring term until the submission of the final thesis project.

Art and Aesthetics Foundational Modules

FA106 Beginners Black and White Photography: Made for a Party

Module: Art Objects and Experience

Instructor: April Gertler

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 15:45-19:00

Using the backdrop of Berlin the Beginning Photo Class titled Made for a Party (*named after the Berlin artist and photographer Hannah Höch) will combine several elements simultaneously: exploring the history of photography by Berlin-based photographers, learning how to use a manual camera, and how to make analogue photographic prints in an analogue darkroom. Participants will be exposed to the rich photographic history of Berlin through presentations, discussions and walks through the city focusing on famous Berlin based photographers. Students will undertake assignments through the semester that will enrich their understanding of analogue photography on as many levels as possible. Camera techniques and black and white printing will be the core substance of the class.

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

Module: Art Objects and Experience

Instructor: John Kleckner

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Thu 15:45-19:00

This is a hands-on studio art course exploring contemporary and historical approaches to drawing and collage. The class projects are designed to exercise each student's skills in visual thinking through the creation of drawings on paper and collages of found printed fragments. Students will gather printed materials from Berlin's famous Flohmärkte (flea markets) to use in creating original collages; students will also draw dynamic object arrangements, make abstractions from nature by working outdoors, work collaboratively on large-scale drawings, develop their own systematic approach for generating compositions, and experiment with the expressive possibilities of combining text and imagery. A central focus will be examining the potential to create new and surprising meanings and contexts resulting from the juxtaposition and layering of image fragments together. The semester culminates in the creation of a body of original artwork that will be shown in a class exhibition. The majority of classes are studio sessions. There will also be a number of group critiques, image presentations, and several artist studio / gallery visits. The ideal student will be highly motivated, with a strong interest in studying and producing art, and must be comfortable with presenting their artistic creations with peers in class discussions.

FM206 Film Narratives-Introduction to Film Studies

Modules: Approaching Arts Through Theory/Theater and Film

Instructor: Matthias Hurst

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 15:45-17:15; weekly film screening Tue 19:30-21:00

The focus of this introductory course is on the analysis of structures and elements of story and discourse. Principles and general ideas of narratology will be explored in their application to film. Plot structure, characters, time, perspective, mise-en-scène and montage are the basic elements of a filmic narration. To read a film properly means to analyze these elements as meaningful aspects of discourse and put their significance in relation. Taking a look at historical, classical and contemporary films, arthouse productions and popular movies -- for example Citizen Kane (1941), Rashomon (1950), Shane (1953), Last Year at Marienbad (1961), A Zed & two Noughts (1985), Dogville (2003) and Star Wars:The Force Awakens (2016) -- we discuss the diachronic development of essential structures that create film narratives. Other works to be considered are: The Woman in the Window (1944, Fritz Lang), Rashomon (1950, Akira Kurosawa), Shane (1953, George Stevens), American Graffiti (1973, George Lucas), and Magnolia (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson).

AH212 German Art and Identity

Module: Art and Artists in Context

Instructor: Aya Soika

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 9:00-12:15

The nineteenth century was the great age of "nationalism," or the belief that the ideal political configuration was the linguistically and culturally unified population formed into a state. Nationalism was in part a progressive movement, reacting to rule by aristocratic hierarchies, imperial control, or conquering foreign powers. It also developed reactionary components, relying on notions of race or of ethnic homogenity that were dangerously exclusionary or even annhilatory. Art has played a contradictory role in regard to nationalism, contributing to or appropriated by it to establish narratives of the history of a "people," yet also attacking such constructs by dismantling the tropes they exploit. The relation between art and nationalism is particularly complex in the German case because of the territorial intricacy of the lands in which vernacular German-speakers or those claiming some kind of German identity lived. It is also complicated by an historical antithesis between German culture and the styles of expression that were defined as most desirable for art and for civilized life. This course traces the relationship between German art and German identity from the period that is seen as the first manifestation of a specifically "German" proto-national identity, the Reformation, through the Romantic movement that arose in the period of Napoleonic occupation, up to the modern critiques (and violent enforcements) of a "national" aesthetic in the twentieth century.

FA283 Research-Creation: New Approaches to the History of Forced Migration in Germany

Module: Art Objects and Experience

Instructor: Marion Detjen, John von Bergen

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 14:00-17:15

This class is a continuation of the Fall seminar “History and Memory: Forced Migration in 20th and 21st Century Germany”. It combines artistic and conceptual approaches, taught jointly by John von Bergen and Marion Detjen. We will start with an introduction to contemporary art works based on forced migration history and memory, as well as other examples of artworks that may offer inspiration for project development . Then we will go through the concept and the experimental possibilities of “research-creation”, an approach that has been developed in social sciences and humanities to introduce creative processes and artistic practices as an integral part of research. The largest part of the class will be spent working on individual projects to visualize, melodize, spatialize or verbalize previously collected knowledge and experience, seeking to advance and enhance our knowledge with new, artistic means. The students should decide at the beginning of the class whether they wish to pursue “creation-as-research”, i.e. work on an artistic project themselves, or whether they prefer to do “research-from-creation”, i.e. analyze and interpret the works of their fellow students in their formation process. The medium of choice should be established as early as possible for logistical reasons. At the end we will produce an exhibition to present our works and to put them forward for public discussion.

Economics Foundational Modules

MA120 Mathematics for Economics

Module: Mathematics for Economics

Instructors: Israel Waichman, Martin Binder

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15

This course focuses on the mathematical tools important for the study of economics: analytic geometry, functions of a single variable, functions of two variables, calculus, integrals and linear algebra (matrices, determinants, systems of linear equations and methods for solving them). A large part of the course will deal with optimization in one or more variables and its corresponding applications in economics (e.g. utility and profit maximization problems). The course will also be useful for any student with a general interest in mathematics, or who does not intend advanced specialization in economics, but wishes to become informed regarding the essential mathematical building blocks of economics as a discipline.

This course fulfills the mathematics and science requirement for humanities students

EC211 Macroeconomics

Module: Macroeconomics

Instructor: Beatrice Farkas

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 9:00-10:30 (Section A) | Tue & Thu 10:45-12:15 (Section B)

This course familiarizes students with the main models that macroeconomists use to analyze the way economies behave. The module begins by examining theories that seek to explain money and banking. We then focus our attention on investigating economic theories that explain short run business cycles, the periods of recession and boom that occur on a regular basis. An important part of the course is to investigate the role of governments in affecting the long and short-term economic prospects of their countries. We apply this theoretical knowledge to a range of current economic issues, including budget deficits and national debt, loans and private sector debt, the current account, and the role of institutions.

MA151 Introduction to Statistics

Module: Statistics

Instructor: Bastian Becker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 9:00-10:30

This course introduces students to quantitative research methods. These methods are fundamental to modern policy analyses and empirical social science research more generally. Knowledge of these methods is indispensable for anyone seeking to conduct, or to critically engage with, such analyses and research. The course covers the basics of descriptive and inferential statistics, with a focus on probability theory, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis. To facilitate students' ability to understand and critically engage with these methods, examples of quantitative social science research are discussed throughout the course. Classes are complemented with exercises to build students' skills in applying the learned methods independently. Many of these exercises use data from public opinion surveys, which cover a wide range of social, economic, and political topics. Working with this survey data, students will also have the opportunity to explore research questions of their own. At the end of the course, students will be able to read and engage with the majority of modern quantitative research. They also will be well prepared to pursue a variety of more advanced quantitative research courses.

This course fulfills the mathematics and science requirement for humanities students

Literature and Rhetoric Foundational Modules

LT251 Poetry and Poetics

Module: Poetry and Poetics

Instructor: Paul Festa

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed & Fri 14:00-15:30

This course will approach poetry from many angles. First, what does poetry do? And what makes poetic language distinct? As we look for answers to these questions, we will think about poetry's relationship to philosophy, rhetoric, prose, and everyday speech. Second, how do we analyze poetry? Throughout the course, we will learn to identify verse forms, meters, and figures and to speak with fluency using the technical language of prosody. The goal is more than that of learning a "technical" vocabulary; it is to learn to discover more in the poetry that we read. Finally, how has poetry changed over time? The course offers a survey of English-language poetry from the English Renaissance to the present day. We will be able to trace the rise and fall-and occasional return-of poetic forms as well as the influence that certain major figures and movements have exerted on succeeding poets. We will also each memorize a sonnet and even try writing in some of the poetic forms we study. All of these approaches are intended to make every phase in the history of poetry more alive, exciting, and relevant.

LT217 Detective Fiction

Module: Theories and Kinds of Narrative

Instructor: Laura Scuriatti

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 15:45-17:15

As he got older, the notoriously misanthropic English novelist Kingsley Amis insisted that he would not read anything that did not begin with the words "a shot rang out." What is it about the detective fiction form that exercises a grip on readers, even when all aesthetic interest or ornament has fallen away? This fundamentally compelling quality has allowed detective fiction to nestle at the heart of even the most intricate and complex literary performances (think of Shakespeare's Hamlet), or alternatively, to explore issues of identity and social codes that might be deemed unpalatable in more demanding guise. Most gloriously (and disturbingly) detective fiction can achieve a vertiginous purity of form, shaping itself around a void, as in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter." The figure of the detective him or herself has become a cultural icon: mysterious, alone, cerebral, aesthete. We will examine the basic components of the genre and its effectiveness, as well as the other kinds of investigation it makes possible beyond the discovery of agents of crime. Our journey encompasses anxieties surrounding massive urban growth in the Victorian era, and reaches the filmic and feminist rewritings of detective fiction tropes in the present. The course includes work by Arthur Conan Doyle, Daphne Du Maurier, Heimito von Doderer, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, John Huston, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Sarah Paretzky; we will also reflect on these in dialogue with texts in philosophy, cultural history, psychoanalysis and narrative form

Politics Foundational Modules

PS114 States, Institutions, and Post-Conflict Societies: Introduction to Comparative Politics

Module: Comparative Politics

Coordinator: Elena Stavrevska

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 14:00-15:30

What constitutes a state and how are nations formed? What are the different systems in which political power can be organized? How do we account for the differences between democracies and autocracies and which institutional forms can they take? And why do some states provide better living conditions for their citizens and are better able to tackle contemporary challenges than others? These are some of the questions at the heart of the study of comparative politics. By the same token, they are also some of the most pressing questions faced by post-conflict societies in their efforts to organize political power anew. Drawing on examples and debates from peace and conflict literature, the course provides an introduction to key theoretical approaches and concepts in the comparative study of politics. The focus will be on core topics in political development, such as state- and nation-building, the role of the state, democratization, economic development, ethnic conflict, and political culture. We will also look at the different types of political regimes, electoral and party systems, the way they affect the structure, functioning, logic, and social role of political institutions, as well as the role of civil society. In exploring these topics from a comparative perspective, theoretical texts are combined with case studies primarily from different post-conflict societies. By the end of the course, students will be able to understand important topics in domestic politics, grasp the diversity of political systems and regimes, and analyze current political developments.

IN110 Globalization and International Relations

Module: International Studies and Globalization

Instructor: Boris Vormann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 10:45-12:15

In the social sciences, globalization is often defined as an increase in the mobility of various factors and actors. This definition includes heightened flows of finance capital, the rise of global production networks and new commodity circuits in expanding divisions of labor as well as the movement of people; whether they be business travelers, tourists, migrants or those seeking political asylum. This course examines how growing networks of exchange and circulation have altered political calculation, economic geographies, and governmental arrangements. A particular focus will be placed on the political processes that have facilitated and increased mobility over time, from the emergence of the interstate system in the late nineteenth century, to the "globalization of risk" in our own historical moment. By addressing these various phases we consider the ways in which the phenomena and levels of globalization (affecting the market, labor, and urban space) challenge the traditional paradigms of the social sciences and prompt a new formulation of the fields of policy development and international relations.

EC202 Public Policy Analysis from an Economic Perspective

Module: Policy Analysis

Instructor: Bastian Becker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 14:00-15:30

Economic theory informs much of contemporary public policy analysis. This course introduces students to the main concepts and fundamental ideas underlying such analyses. While such analyses are not limited to specific policy areas, this course focuses on urban development and politics with the city of Berlin serving as its main case study. The first half of the course encompasses an introduction of the economic perspective to analyzing societies, and in particular markets. We analyze situations in which markets fail, such as public goods provision, natural monopolies, and in the presence of externalities or information asymmetries. Governments can fill this void, but are not immune to failure either, such as in the case of bureaucratic inefficiencies and rent-seeking. The second half of the course focuses on the public policy tools available to address market and government failures, including regulation through laws, incentive setting through taxes, and institutions that serve as checks-and-balances. Such tools are not limited to governmental actors but are influenced by private actors, such as political entrepreneurs, interest groups, and non-governmental organizations. Finally, the import of public policy analysis in implementing these tools is elaborated, focusing on the identification of a problem, the mapping of relevant actors, and the assessment of costs and benefits of different policy options. Students finish the course with a good working knowledge of public policy analysis from an economic perspective, allowing them to maneuver its strengths as well as its weaknesses.

The following courses are cross-listed with Ethics and Politics

PL105 In Search of the Good: An Introduction to Ethics

Module: Moral and Political Thought

Instructor: Tracy Colony

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 17:30-19:00

PT219 Concepts of the Political

Module: Moral and Political Thought

Instructor: Jeffrey Champlin

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Fri 15:45-17:15

Art and Aesthetics Advanced Modules

AR302 Curation: Histories/Theories/Practices

Module: Aesthetics and Art Theory / Exhibition Culture and Public Space

Instructor: Dorothea von Hantelmann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 14:00-17:15

This course includes both theoretical and practical elements. In the theoretical part, we will reflect the rise of curatorial practice in the past decades from a rather scholarly to a creative and individually authored activity. Curators today enjoy an extraordinary presence and a rather prominent position in contemporary culture, while their practice–curating–is not only increasingly taught in numerous curatorial study programs but tends to be regarded as comparable to art. What are the reasons for this change of the curator's status? How can this radical subjectivization, which was hitherto the prerogative of artists, be explained? We will also discuss different styles of curating and the often difficult relationship between curators and artists. A particular emphasis will be placed on emerging forms of transdisciplinary curating in and between the visual and the performing arts, as well as on curatorial practices in the virtual sphere. Can posting online be seen as a curatorial practice? In the practical part of the seminar, that will be held in collaboration with the curator Joel Mu, we develop an applied understanding of curatorial practices based on three different projects that we aim to realize: One will take place in a white cube setting, the second will be staged in a theater context, and the third will be presented online.

AH305 Raphael, Titian, and the Art of Painting

Module: Artists, Genres, Movements

Instructor: Geoff Lehman

Credits: 8 ECTS , 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 14:00-15:30, Fri 14:00-17:15

This course examines the works of two painters central to the Renaissance tradition, Raphael and Titian, and considers the dialogues among them and the larger questions they raise for understanding the art of painting. For Vasari, Raphael's art was the epitome of Florentine disegno (design, drawing) and Titian's of Venetian colorito (coloring). And yet this is only one of a myriad of ways that these two artists, between them, defined the terms of Renaissance painting, and of its long afterlife in the following centuries. Their individual works are exceptional in the complexity of interpretation they demand, in their aesthetic and affective power, in their engagement with the wider humanist culture of the Renaissance, and in the degree to which all these qualities emerge from the use of the medium itself and from the very process of painting. Indeed, the works of these artists not only play a central role in defining the "art of painting" historically within the Western tradition; they also raise the question of the meaning and the power of the art itself, its philosophical (metaphysical, ontological, epistemological) character and its role in responding to and shaping human experience. The course will focus on a small number of major works (among others: Raphael's Madonnas, large altarpieces, and frescoed rooms in the Vatican; Titian's mythologies, portraits, and paintings in sitù in Venice) and will consider the response to Raphael and Titian in the works of the Mannerist generation and of later artists (Rubens, Poussin, Monet, Picasso). Visits to museums to encounter works of art firsthand will be an integral part of the course.

AH302 The Idea of the Aesthetic

Module: Aesthetics and Art Theory

Instructor: Katalin Makkai

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 15:45-17:15

"Aesthetics" and "aesthetic" are terms that are often taken for granted inside as well as outside academic discourse. We speak of aesthetic experiences and judgments and qualities, and we employ "aesthetics" to designate the study of such matters. Although their root is taken from the Greek, the now-familiar terms (in their now-familiar usages) are, however, comparatively new. They are commonly regarded as having been introduced into the philosophical lexicon in the eighteenth century-a few hundred years ago. This course studies some of the texts that were key to the discovery, or perhaps the invention, of the "aesthetic". What work was the "aesthetic" meant to do? How did its evolution retain or reconfigure its original senses and purposes? Is the idea of the "aesthetic" problematic, ideological, or chimerical? Do we need an idea of the "aesthetic" to think about contemporary art? Do we need such an idea to think about nature and our relation to it? Authors addressed include Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, Bell, Beardsley, Bullough, Stolnitz, Isenberg, Dickie, Greenberg, Carroll, Bernstein, Rancière.

FM307 Controversial Films

Module: Artists, Genres, Movements

Instructor: Matthias Hurst

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15; weekly film screening Mon 19:30-21:00

Film history is punctuated by the advent of films that have caused controversy and even scandal, to the point of provoking condemnation and outright censorship. In this course, we will ask what makes a "controversial" film, and what such controversies tell us about the development of film aesthetics and social mores. It is a commonplace that modern art forms rejected the emphasis on beauty and harmony that were the key values of nineteenth-century aesthetics, and also that film itself depends to a large extent on provocation, on re-making the visual world anew or offering visual experiences unavailable to everyday perception. But what do specific instances of notoriety, or apparent flouting of visual and moral convention, suggest about cultural taboos and the state of film aesthetics? How does the shock generated by these artworks, or their conversion to cult status, change culture and film history? Among the films we will view and discuss are: The Birth of a Nation (1915, dir. David W. Griffith), L'Age d'Or (1930, dir. Luis Buñuel), Peeping Tom (1960, dir. Michael Powell), A Clockwork Orange (1971, dir. Stanley Kubrick), Last Tango in Paris (1972, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci), Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988, Martin Scorsese), Natural Born Killers (1994, dir. Oliver Stone), Baise-moi (2000, dir. Virginie Despentes), The Passion of the Christ (2003, dir. Mel Gibson), Antichrist (2009, dir. Lars von Trier).

FA305 Imagined Geographies-Redefining Nationhood through Artistic Practice

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: Heba Amin

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times:Wed 15:45-19:00

This hybrid studio/seminar course examines the wide range of artistic projects that propose new political imaginings of political geographies. Artists have founded micronations, proposed to colonize outer space, even attempted to drain the Mediterranean Sea. The class will examine the role that technology has played in altering our relation to landscape, and how it can be used as a tool to rethink and reconfigure the global frameworks of nationhood. Through creative projects, readings, class exercises and field visits, we will explore alternative possibilities of belonging in the era of digitization. The class will reframe conventional parameters of citizenry within the construct of borders and migration. Can critical geography be used as a method to find alternative ways of organizing current political constructs? We will explore "imagined geographies" as an opportunity to rethink these political configurations and pose the question: what comes after the nation?

FM315 Developing Characters in Video Art: Alter Egos, Doppelgangers and Bootlegs

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: Dafna Maimon

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 15:45-19:00 (NB classes commence Mon, 5 February)

In this advanced video art class, students will work with character development as the basis for creating both narrative and non-narrative fictional video works. Character development in this case may extend from creating personified beings, to considering the city or another backdrop as a character. We will explore three different perspectives in developing one character over the entire semester; the alter ego - an alternative constructed personality, the doppelganger - an existing double, or the bootleg - an unofficial duplicate. These three "frames" allow us to fictionalize narratives from our own lives, but also to explore multiple techniques and entry points for investigating this one character. These entry points all challenge and examine the idea of the original and the real, a subject matter artists and filmmakers inevitably explore when aiming to create believable or effective fiction. We will study works from video artists, who have themselves created alter egos, as well as visit the studios of Berlin artists who focus on related subject matter. In order to explore these variations, and to reach deep into our creative subconsciousness, we will make use of embodiment techniques, role-play, performative improvisation exercises, script writing as well as "speed drawing." The class focus will be on the making of video work, putting the artist's process and experimentation in the foreground. In this approach, an end result will be considered only a momentary pause within a longer trajectory; each work can be seen as an episode or variation in an ongoing series.

FA207 Advanced Photography: Exploring the Photographic Series

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: April Gertler

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 9:00-12:15

This is an advanced level photography class focusing on the development of one body of work over the course of the semester. Students will create a portfolio that includes a minimum of 15 images and a written text that explores the process and concepts behind the work. This is a critique-based class with regular check-ins on the development of work, some involving the feedback of guest photography curators. The class will also involve readings and multiple short written assignments related to the central photographic series. Prerequisites for the class are (for BCB students) an Introduction to Photography as well as an Intermediate level Photography course. Students from other institutions must submit 5 Black and White photographic prints showing that they know how to use a B/W darkroom. Each student must have his or her own camera, digital or other.

TH301 The Personal is even more Political

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructors: Sophia New, Dan Belasco Rogers

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Thu 9:00-12:15

The feminist slogan “the personal is political” was a way to ensure that spaces and experiences not considered effects of political power came to be examined and challenged. Today, the phrase acquires an added significance in the light of the fact that personal information is shared in a vast network of digital interconnection, and is made into an object of economic exchange. This transmission of the personal into the public sphere, and its conversion into a product, has become a source of political disquiet. For artists, artistic creation always begins with issues of personal concern. How does an artist engage with a social space in which personal matters are endlessly transmitted, sold and monetized, and which the structure of this process threatens the very meaning of what might be considered personal or individual? The artist duo plan b (Sophia New & Daniel Belasco Rogers) have explored these issue since 2003 through the collection of personal data and its transformation into performances, objects, animations and drawings. This course encourages investigation through methods such as devising, real-time composition, and play into what is of personal importance to each individual artist as a source of creativity, and of the generation of a performance event. We use on-line and off-line performed identities and autobiography, playing with personal material and fiction in a workshop framework. Our aim is not only to discover the kernel of artistic innovation for each participant, but to consider how what is personal and individual gets altered through embodiment in performance. A further focus will be the relationship between performance and the transactions of the digital world. The workshop culminates in an end of semester showing.

TH310 Bertolt Brecht: The Study and Staging of Epic Theater

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Cross-listed with Literature and Rhetoric

Instructor: Julia Hart

Credits: 8 ECTS , 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 15:45-19:00

Nowhere else can Bertolt Brecht's presence be felt more than in the streets of Berlin. But what really is the Epic Theater he is so famous for and what influence does it have on stage in Berlin's current theater scene? This course will not study the plays of Brecht as literature, but students will be in dialogue with Brecht as one of the most revolutionary theatermakers of the 20th Century. This seminar will introduce students to Brecht's theoretical texts on the epic theater such as A Short Organum for the Theater and The Street Scene. Students will not only analyze these provocative theater techniques, but will learn to use Brecht's specific acting and directing exercises and devices in rehearsal. Throughout the semester, students will act and direct scenes from two of Brecht's classic epic works: Mother Courage and Her Children and The Good Person of Szechuan to investigate how Brecht and his ensemble worked. This course includes visits to several theater productions in Berlin to question Brecht's footprint on German theater today.

Economics Advanced Modules

EC311 Ethics and Economics

Module: Ethics and Economic Analysis

Instructor: Martin Binder

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 17:30-19:00

This course aims at highlighting how economics and ethics intersect in various ways: Is it legitimate to dump our trash in lesser-developed countries because it is, economically speaking, "efficient"? Are high salaries for managers or movie stars justified? Should a company be allowed to bribe officials in foreign countries in order to do business there? Should we encourage markets for organs or blood if they are efficiently allocating "resources"? In this course, seminars deal with these aspects of the economy, where different value judgments may be in conflict. While it is often useful to analyze various aspects of human life in economic terms, there may be spheres where economic calculation might seriously distort our judgments of goodness and rightness and hence might be in need of correction by other forms of measurement. The course balances the positive aspects of economics (such as alleviation of poverty and development of nations) with its negative sides (such as corruption of values and neglect of fairness issues). It elaborates on the value judgments underlying economics (its often utilitarian or libertarian commitments), and the difference between market logic and market ideology.

EC312 Cost Benefit Analysis

Module: Choice, Resources, and Development

Instructor: Israel Waichman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 9:00-10:30

Did you ever ask yourself how economists make practical use of their studies in making real-life decisions? Or more precisely, how microeconomics is related to actual business and government decisions? This course deals with an important application of economic theory to real-life decision making. Cost-benefit Analysis (CBA) is a practical tool used by governments, regulatory bodies and other agencies as an aid to making public policy decisions. More precisely, CBA is a policy assessment method that quantifies the value of policy in monetary terms to all members of society. It is related to financial analysis or capital budgeting as done by private firms, but is distinct in that the goal is not to maximize profits but rather to seek the most beneficial course of action from a larger social perspective. Cost-benefit analysis is a legal prerequisite in several countries, including the U.S.A., U.K., Canada and Australia, before decisions are taken on projects related to the environment, health, transportation, etc. For instance, the question of whether or not to ban smoking in public places, or whether to build a new terminal in Heathrow airport. The goal of this course is to introduce students to cost-benefit analysis. We first study the microeconomic foundations of CBA. Then, we study particular issues in CBA (such as identification of costs and benefits, discounting, dealing with uncertainty, valuing intangibles, shadow prices, etc.).

Prerequisite: Students taking this class should have already have successfully completed the classes Mathematics for Economics, Principles of Economics, and Microeconomics.

Ethics and Politics Advanced Modules

The following courses are cross-listed with Politics

PT328 Dilemmas of Popular Sovereignty - offered jointly with Hertie School of Governance

Modules: Social Theory/Law and Society

Instructors: Helmut Anheier (Hertie School of Governance), Ewa Atanassow, Ira Katznelson (Columbia University)

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 17:30-19:00 (on-campus), Fri 10:00-12:00 (off-campus)

The principle of popular sovereignty posits that, to be legitimate, authority must rest with the people – the very people who are subject to that same authority. Premised on a certain vision of humanity, statehood, citizenship and belonging, popular sovereignty has become the paradigmatic way of legitimizing political power. A subject of long theoretical and historical reflection, it has informed a great deal of empirical and institutional analysis.

This collaborative, upper level course will study contemporary problems of democratic governance related to questions of popular legitimation by illuminating their historical roots and theoretical ramifications. Deploying the complex concept of popular sovereignty and situating its elements in concrete cases (e.g. Catalonia, EU and Brexit, the US Civil war, or Weimar Germany) the course aims to develop analytical and interpretive tools that are applicable across a wide range of present and past instances. The kind of questions it will ask include: What does it mean for a people to be sovereign, and who can belong to a sovereign people? How and when does the people appear in political life, through what institutions or modes of representation? What is the social and cultural basis of popular sovereignty, and how does it evolve? Drawing on different modes of investigation, and comparing diverse historical and geo-political perspectives, our purpose will be to gain a deeper understanding of both current policy challenges and inherent dilemmas of liberal democracy.

SO282 Migration, Gender, and Nationalism

Module/s: Social Theory/Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Agata Lisiak

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15

Some migrants are more equal than others, as just a single look at current political debates across the world demonstrates. The rising popularity of far right-wing parties rests largely on their anti-migrant nationalistic agendas. Not all migrants are perceived as equally threatening, however. In Europe, highly-educated, white, non-Muslim migrants are generally more welcome than so-called “unskilled”, non-white, non-European, Muslim migrants, and governments increasingly make no secret of this preference. On the rare occasions that they are considered an asset to the country to which they move, a migrant’s worth is reduced to the potential economic value they are expected to create. These hierarchies of migrants’ desirability and visibility in host societies are strongly racialized, ethnicized, and gendered. In this class, we will be looking closely at what happens at the intersections of migration, gender, and nationalism. Drawing on feminist, intersectional, and queer interventions into the fields of migration studies, geography, and sociology, we will interrogate the workings of nationalism, homonationalism, femonationalism, racism, and Islamophobia. Aside from theoretical explorations, students taking this class will learn two methods – semiology and discourse analysis – that will help them unpack the images and texts that make up most of our daily media consumption. Making use of Berlin’s history and the local presence of migration and nationalism, we will go on off-campus trips and invite migration scholars and activists to campus.

HI308 Health, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe

Module/s: Movements and Thinkers/ Historical Studies

Instructors: Elaine Leong

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 14:00-17:15

What did early modern European men and women do when they got sick? That is, if they caught a cold, or broke a leg or if mysterious spots suddenly appeared on their body? This course is an exploration into the world of bodily health, sickness and medical care in early modern Europe. Topics covered include an assessment of the general living conditions in early modern cities; contemporary theories of the body, health and sickness; medical encounters; economies of health and medicine; cures, drugs and pharmacy; food, exercise and regimen; communications of medical knowledge; ideas about reproduction and experiences of childbirth; disease and ill health (incl. plague, syphilis and small pox) and gender and medicine. Students will conduct close analytical readings of a selection of secondary sources, as well as examine a range of primary sources including pre-modern recipe books and medical texts. Attention will be drawn to the different interdisciplinary approaches and methods used in the study of the body and health in the early modern period. Students will participate as transcribers and contributors in two international citizen humanities projects: Early Modern Recipes Online and Vernacular Medical Books in Early Modern England.Finally, time allowing, we will try our hand at making one or two simple early modern medical remedies.

This course fulfills the mathematics and science requirement for humanities students

PL305 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

Module/s: Movements and Thinkers

Instructors: Jan Völker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 17:30-20:45

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most formidable and essential works of modern philosophy. Its premises, structure, and ultimate implications are difficult to grasp, but reward patient study. Any engagement with the development of philosophy depends upon such close examination of the text. As the most challenging of the three major works that constitute Kant’s inquiry into the conditions of knowledge, action and judgment, the Critique of Pure Reason aims at nothing less than an analysis of the nature of understanding itself, and of the conditions under which it is achieved. We will consider the treatment of the key categories and phenomena that form the basis for the operation of the understanding—space and time—and the meaning and function of concepts and of judgment in the process of cognizing the objects of the external world. Through this investigation, we will see how the text seeks a completely new outline of the possibility of knowledge, one that overcomes both empiricist and metaphysical approaches. At the same time, we will attend to the way in which the text seeks not only to explain the emergence of knowledge, but also to ensure its increase and development. To this end, we will explore the relation between apriori conditions of knowledge and the operation of synthetic judgments, as well as the role of intuitions in providing a content for the understanding.

PT375 Nationalism

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Michael Weinman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S.

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15

In this course, we will investigate the ideological and material conditions under which individuals and groups contest for political goods through the construction of and resistance to state infrastructures and national identities. In so doing, we will keep close to the conviction that "theory follows practice"; meaning: we shall "discipline" our theoretical discussion by constant reference back to the actual practice of nationalism. This means that our reading of (often critical) theoretical analyses of nationalism, such as those offered by Anderson, Arendt, Gellner, and Brubaker, will be constantly referred back to close descriptive readings of particular national movements that cross both historical eras and geographical boundaries, from the emergence of nation-states in Europe to the (post-)colonial struggles for self-determination and national independence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Through this interplay of theoretical and empirical study, we shall try to encompass something of the breadth and depth of the impact that nationalist movements and their institutionalization in state form have had throughout both the ("long") 19^th century and the ("short") 20^th century. In this way, perhaps, we will learn something about the future valences of nationalism, widely considered to be flourishing as the liberal international order faces an ongoing crisis of legitimacy.

PS381 The European Union and its Challenges

Modules: Law and Society

Instructor: Elena Stavrevska

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 17:30-19:00

Often praised as the most successful peace endeavor in modern times, the European integration project that started in the aftermath of World War II has catalyzed unprecedented widening and deepening of cooperation among sovereign states. In recent years, however, not only has the pace of integration slowed down, but the EU has also been faced with multiple internal and external challenges, including Brexit, the rise of populism, the refugee crisis, migration crisis, enlargement fatigue, terrorist threats, and conflicts in its immediate neighborhood. This course examines the origins and evolution of the EU, the different theoretical approaches to understanding European integration, the functioning of the EU as a sui generis system of governance, the main political institutions and decision-making bodies within the Union, and some of its key policies and related challenges. Particular attention will be paid to EU's foreign, security, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Put in the context of broader theoretical debates regarding the EU, each topic will be analyzed through specific empirical case studies and current developments. Additionally, students will have an opportunity to get better acquainted with EU's policy- and decision-making dynamics through a series of simulation exercises. By the end of the course, students with have foundational knowledge and skills needed for a comprehensive analysis and understanding of the politics and challenges of the EU.

HI301 “Middle of Where, East of What”: A Contemporary Archeology of the Middle East

Modules: Historical Studies

Instructor: Walid El-Houri

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 15:45-19:00

The ‘Middle East’ is drawing much attention in media, popular culture, and academia. However, more often than not it is seen through a decontextualized lens, reduced to narratives of war, violence, Islamic terrorism, and refugee crisis. This course presents an historical overview of the main socio-political transformations that contributed to the production of the contemporary ‘Middle East’. It will provide students with tools to critically understand the present realities and conflicts in this region within an embedded historical cultural context. Popular culture will serve as a window onto key historical moments and movements. Through examples of songs, films, television series, poetry, and literary excerpts we will explore themes such as militarization, power, secularism, masculinity, authenticity, failure, liberation, post-colonialism, spectacle and memory. These cultural artifacts coupled with historical texts will allow students to draw a path stretching from the creation of the Arab nation-states, to the rise of Arab nationalism, the social role of leftist movements, to disillusionment and the rise of political Islam, leading up to the uprisings that swept the region since 2010 and the rise of groups like the Islamic State. By the end of the course, students will be acquainted with some of the main intellectual and cultural currents, as well as have an understanding of the socio-political geography of the region. They will be able to critically navigate the vast amount of decontextualized information that they encounter about the region, and recognize the various ideologies, movements, and geopolitical realities that gave rise to today’s ‘Middle East’.

Literature and Rhetoric Advanced Modules

LT319 Postwar Experimental Narrative

Module: Literary Movements and Forms

Instructor: James Harker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 15:45-17:15

This course surveys formally innovative narratives of the postwar period-novels, short stories, and transmedial narratives-- as well as literary theory that attempts to understand these experimental practices. We will consider fundamental features of narrative as well innovations that challenge those features: standard first- or third-person narration and "you" or "we" narration; the classic story/discourse distinction and metafiction; storyworlds and transmedial narration; chronology and radical experiments in reverse chronology or atemporality; mimesis and expressly anti-mimetic narratives. As we develop a capacity to recognize these formal innovations, we will think about the purposes for which they are put to use and how they contribute to "postmodernism," post-colonialism, and contemporary interests in identity. We will read narratives from Samuel Beckett, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Muriel Spark, John Barth, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson, Lydia Davis, Colson Whitehead, and Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro, as well as others. Theorists will include Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Monika Fludernik, Brian Richardson, Marie-Laure Ryan, Richard Walsh, Jan Alber, and others.

LT212 Reading into Writing: A Fiction Workshop

Module: Literary Analysis and Cultural Production

Instructor: Tom Drury

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Thu 15:45-19:00

This course is designed to develop and enhance your capacity for imagination, empathy, and clarity and originality of written expression via the writing and reading of short fiction.

As a workshop, we will be focusing primarily on your short fiction, supplemented by readings from the text Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers (ed. Joyce Carol Oates).

Written requirements: 4 original short stories, 2500 words minimum, due on a rotating schedule over the course of the semester, to be collected in a portfolio at the end of the semester. In addition you will write short response papers (250 words or so) on assigned readings from the anthology.

Participation requirements: Read all assigned works carefully and come to class prepared to discuss them in detail with regard to sentence structure, phrasing, narrative voice, images, dialogue, etc., and how these function as unifying elements. Analysis should be on a line-by-line, word-by-word level. Show precisely where and how a text is working (or could work better). Be creative, constructive, specific. For your fellow students' stories, I would urge you to write a one-page summary of your take and provide that to the writer along with your line-by-line notes after the story is workshopped. This exercise will help you (and, of course, the writer) to understand what you think about the work.

LT320 European Romanticism: The Spirit of an Age in Literature

Module: Literary Movements and Forms

Instructor: Jeffrey Champlin

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 9:00-12:15

This course studies key authors of German and English Romanticism who wrestle with the legacy of the French Revolution through literary renewal. Best known for its flights of imagination, the Romantic movement also envisions new modes of knowing and living together. Authors such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Hegel envision a bold expansion of Enlightenment promises. Yet the Terror and Napoleonic Wars also violently tested such aspirations. In this context, Wordsworth and the Grimm Brothers take a more concrete path, going to the people for new literary impulses. The formal innovation of writing of the time expresses this rich clash of universal and particular in poetry, aphorisms, fairy tales, essays, and novels. We'll place particular emphasis on authors who lived in Berlin, including Fichte, Hegel, Kleist, Hoffmann, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and the nearby Schlegel brothers (in Jena). English authors include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Percy and Mary Shelley.

GM362 The German Public Sphere

Module: Literary Analysis and Cultural Production

Instructor: Ulrike Wagner

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 14:00-15:30

What are the sources, networks and voices (prominent and minor) that shape the discourses of the German public sphere? This course supports the development of speaking and writing skills in German beyond C1 level through a study of national, regional, and alternative forums for debate. We look at the main figures and institutions that have an influence on the content, tone and direction of argument. Our discussion will be guided by the prevalent issues of concern that have emerged with great urgency in recent times and their current treatment: most notably, the "refugee crisis," the future of Europe, and Germany's role in the world, past and present. In addition to language study the purpose of the course will be to navigate the wide range of platforms for news, comment, and discussion in Germany, and to find what participants in the seminar judge to be reliable and enriching contributions to and interventions in public life. Among the issues we will consider is the question of access to public debate (the issue of diversity of identity, origin, belief, and modes of expression), as well as the part played by new outlets (social media) that have come to complicate the question of reliability and propriety in the public sphere.

NB. Students taking the class should have C1 proficiency level in German.

LT304 Race and the Black Radical Tradition in Contemporary Literature and Art: A Comparative Perspective

Module: Author and Influence / Literary Movements and Forms

Instructor: Kathy-Ann Tan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 12:30-15:45

In this class, we will trace the trajectory of the "Black radical tradition" (Cedric Robinson, 1983, Fred Moten, 2003) in literature and art - from its early beginnings in Black Reconstruction and W.E.B. Du Bois' 1903 essay, "The Souls of Black Folk", via the New Negro/Harlem Renaissance and Black Arts movements of the 1920s and 1960s respectively, to its contemporary manifestations in work inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. We will acknowledge the transatlantic dimension of the Black radical tradition by exploring the writings of Black German scholars such as Maisha Eggers, Peggy Piesche, Fatima El-Tayeb, Sharon Dodua-Otoo and May Ayim, as well as Audre Lorde, a central figure whose work was highly influential on both sides of the Atlantic. Our readings will also include work on Afrofuturism, a visual, literary and musical aesthetic that combines elements of science-fiction, fantasy and post-humanism with Black history and culture. Finally, we will examine how the Black radical tradition is significant not only as a literary or aesthetic movement, but also as a body of critical thought that seeks to bring about a restructuring of political, economic, and social relations.

Please note: This class will be taught as a Webinar (web-seminar). Students will be sent instructions by email ahead of the first session. When it's time to tune in (Mondays, 14:00-17:15), students will "call in" from their respective locations into the virtual classroom. Thus, the basic technical requirements for this course are: a stable internet connection, a microphone (e.g. the computer's in-built one, or earphones with microphone) and a webcam. Readings and other material will be circulated by email. Students interested in joining the class (who are not yet officially enrolled) are kindly asked to email the instructor in advance. Attendance at the first session is compulsory.

TH310 Bertolt Brecht: The Study and Staging of Epic Theater

Module: Author and Influence

Cross-listed with Art and Aesthetics

Instructor: Julia Hart

Credits: 8 ECTS , 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 15:45-19:00

Politics Advanced Modules

PS374 Comparative Public Policy

Module: Public Policy

Instructor: Boris Vormann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 14:00-15:30

This class addresses key public policy fields through a comparative lens. A first part is dedicated to the means and ends of public policy and addresses historical shifts in policy regimes. In the second section of this class we develop an understanding of theory traditions and approaches to analyze the processes and institutional mechanisms by which policy-makers, experts and interest groups can have an impact on policy. The third part of the course shifts gears and zooms in on a series of specific policy fields, notably (1) welfare and labor market policy, (2) higher education, (3) research and development, and (4) urban planning. As such, the different policy fields will serve as ways to address questions of distributional justice, of inequalities and the mechanisms that reproduce them. Overall, this course will enable us to critically rethink the role of the state in globalization processes as well as the uneven development within and between national political systems and regional economic clusters.

SE220 Social Justice and Urban Spaces

Module: Social Commitment and the Public Sphere

Instructor: Cassandra Ellerbe

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 15:45-19:00

Urban spaces have often served as the backdrop for social justice movements and politicized organizing. Racial and ethnic tensions, gender and socioeconomic inequality, forced or voluntary migration etc. are undoubtedly issues that have been at the forefront of many emancipatory movements. However, these issues also play a significant role in how urban space(s) are structured and experienced, and utilised in the struggle for socio-political justice and transformation. In this course we will explore in depth the significance of social justice and politicized mobilization, and how these issues involved in both of these phenomena have taken shape within urban space(s) across the globe. Utilizing an interdisciplinary theoretical perspective (social justice theory, human geography, post-colonial and intersectional theory), we will analyse various historical as well as current contexts that show socio-politically informed social justice movements of marginalized groups in a variety of urban spaces. This course aims not only to discuss the purpose of and necessity for social justice and political activism, but also to assist students in the development of critical thinking of a contextualized understanding of a variety of urban-related social problems. The course entails lectures, in class discussions and presentations, off-campus visits to various Berlin based organisations, as well as guest lectures by local experts & scholars.

PT358 Critical Human Rights and Humanitarian Advocacy/ Scholars At Risk

Module: Social Commitment and the Public Sphere

Instructor: Kerry Bystrom

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed & Fri 9:00-10:30

Scholars, students, and other researchers around the world are routinely threatened, jailed, or punished. Sometimes they are simply trapped in a dangerous place, while in other cases they are deliberately targeted because of their identity or their work. Academic freedom, or freedom of thought and inquiry, is usually considered a basic human right, but its definition and content is essentially contested. This seminar will explore the idea of academic freedom by examining - and attempting to intervene in - situations where it is threatened. In conjunction with the human rights organization Scholars at Risk, we will investigate the cases of scholars currently living under threat and develop projects aimed at releasing them from detention or securing refuge for them. This will involve direct hands-on advocacy work with SAR, taking public positions and creating smart and effective advocacy campaigns for specific endangered students, teachers, and researchers. In order not to do this naively or uncritically, our action-oriented work will be paired throughout the semester with critical reflection on human rights and humanitarian advocacy more generally. Through readings about the historical rise of human rights and humanitarianism as paradigms for creating a better world--as well as the pitfalls of these paradigms--and by engaging with texts that outline the ethical and practical challenges of doing advocacy, we will together work towards creating an intellectual framework that allows us to be more attentive, deliberate and effective advocates for social change.

The following courses are cross-listed with Ethics and Politics

PS381 The European Union and its Challenges

Modules: Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics

Instructor: Elena Stavrevska

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 17:30-19:00

HI301 “Middle of Where, East of What”: A Contemporary Archeology of the Middle East

Modules: Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics

Instructor: Walid El-Houri

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 15:45-19:00

SO282 Migration, Gender, and Nationalism

Module: Social Commitment and the Public Sphere

Instructor: Agata Lisiak

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15

HI308 Health, Medicine and Society in Early Modern Europe

Module/s: Philosophy and Society

Instructors: Elaine Leong

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 14:00-17:15

PL305 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

Module/s: Philosophy and Society

Instructors: Jan Völker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 17:30-20:45

PT375 Nationalism

Module: Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics

Instructor: Michael Weinman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S.

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15

Electives

IS331 Berlin Internship Seminar: Working Cultures, Urban Cultures

Instructor: Agata Lisiak, Florian Duijsens

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits (in combination with an internship)

Course Times: Thu 14:00-15:30

The Berlin Internship Seminar accompanies students' undertaking of an internship or period of practical training, and addresses such issues as: the successful functioning of institutions, the role of guiding principles and values in determining the direction and structure of projects and initiatives, and the relationship between the various spheres of society (the EU, the state, the market, and the individual) in influencing the way institutions operate. Over the course of the seminar we will also talk about contemporary ways of living and working in Berlin and beyond: 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 emerged in Berlin recently? Which of them seem to thrive? How do Berlin's political, artistic, and citizen-activist organizations operate? What can we learn from these institutions?

EL203 Writer/Artists/Activistas!

Instructor: Ariane Simard

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 15:45-19:00

Looking at conscientious action, both large and small, we will look for a way to define an Activista! and try to determine the ways some writers and artists are shifting the dominant paradigm. Through the lens of Trinh T. Minh Ha and others who use their art to question existing social structures, we will survey the work of Rebecca Solnit, James Baldwin, Arundathi Roy, bell hooks, Judith Butler, Martin Luther King, Agnes Varda, Lucy Walker, Cathie Opie, Kara Walker, Shepard Fairey, Robbie Conal and Jayna Zweiman among others as a way to engage and share thoughts on bigger questions about social responsibility, economic justice and cultural engagement.

In this course, we will explore small acts of consciousness and the nexus where the writer and/or artist might achieve this by the dint of their work alone. What happens when conscientious acts move from being merely a political practice to becoming something that resembles works that are more subtle and personal? What happens when an artist's work veers into the political realm?

Building on proven pedagogical methods developed by the Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking, this "Writing to Learn" class will offer students the chance to grapple with the above questions through close reading, focused and private writing, group projects and seminar discussions. The main aim of the course is to improve students' ability to draft successful narrative, descriptive and analytical essays in academic English, as well as to develop skills in verbal argumentation, critical thinking and effective collaborative work needed for success in almost any discipline in the university setting. Because this class is a"blended" learning (part in person and part online) project that brings together students based in Berlin at Bard College Berlin, a Liberal Arts University, with refugee students located across the world studying with Kiron Open Higher Education, students will engage in global learning and cross-cultural negotiation as well as sharpen their digital literacy skills. The class will be held online and on-site simultaneously.

TH243 Dance Lab: Body Space Image. Dance and Visual Arts

Instructor: Eva Burghardt

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 14:00-17:15

In addition to ongoing movement training as an essential base, the focus of this course will lie in exploring the crossover of dance and visual arts, looking at dance and choreography outside of its usual context, the theatre space. Drawing from contemporary dance and improvisation techniques, students will train their body as an “instrument," deepening its awareness, sense of presence and musicality, and practicing listening to oneself as well as others. Starting from this inner awareness, we bring attention to our surroundings, making connections to other bodies, objects, space and architecture. Weather permitting, we will leave the dance floor and take our work out into the neighborhood. How can we refresh our eyes and reshape experiences of known places with our present body? How can the experience of surroundings inspire, inform and bring shape to the dances within us or create relationships with the environment we live in? How does our body relate to forms, lines, textures, colors, sounds, the history or memories of a place? How does it change our experience of a place as a dancer or spectator? Open score improvisations and tasks will be given to be explored individually and with the group. A final presentation, including sketches, experiments and scores created by the participants, will be shown at the end of the semester. Throughout the course, we will look at and discuss works from artists who had a big influence in widening the understanding of dance and choreography. From postmodern artists Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and Anna Halprin to contemporary artists, such as Tino Segal, William Forthythe, Willi Dorner or Anne Imhoff. Two off-site excursions to performances in Berlin, including discussions and a written reflection afterwards, will be an integral part of the course.

Language Courses

GM101 German Beginner A1 (Group A)

Instructor: Narges Roshan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 10:45-12:15

GM101 German Beginner A1 (Group B)

Instructor: Narges Roshan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 14:00-15:30

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group A)

Instructor: Ariane Faber

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 9:00-10:30

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group B)

Instructor: Antonia von Trott

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 10:45-12:15

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group C)

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 14:00-15:30

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group D)

Instructor: Antonia von Trott

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 15:45-17:15

GM201 German Intermediate B1 (Group A)

Instructor: Nina Tolksdorf

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 9:00-10:30

GM201 German Intermediate B1 (Group B)

Instructor: Ulrike Harnisch

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 14:00-15:30

GM251 German Intermediate B2

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Fri 9:00-10:30

GM301 German Advanced C1

Instructor: Ulrike Harnisch

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon, Wed & Thur 15:45-17:15

GM362 The German Public Sphere(In German)

Instructor: Ulrike Wagner

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 14:00-15:30

NB. Students taking the class should have C1 proficiency level in German.

Beginner German A1
Emphasis on familiar vocabulary building, listening comprehension and speaking with gradual introduction to grammar and writing skills.

Beginner German A2
Continued emphasis on listening comprehension and routine communication. Students read and write short, simple texts.

Intermediate German B1
Emphasis on communication skills including comprehension of standard speech and descriptive reading passages, topical conversation and simple, descriptive composition.

Intermediate German B2
Continued emphasis on communication skills including comprehension of extended speeches and lectures, reading of newspapers and general periodicals, spontaneous conversational interaction with native speakers and writing clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects.

Advanced German Language C1
Development of listening and reading comprehension levels to include extended speech and some literary texts. Emphasis on conversational and writing skills to express ideas and opinions and present detailed descriptions expressing points of view.

Advanced German Language C2
Development of comprehension skills to allow for understanding of all forms of spoken language and written texts. Emphasis on communication skills for the fluent expression of ideas and argument both orally and in written form.

Bard College Berlin typically offers students three levels of language instruction, beginning, intermediate and advanced. Placement tests determine each student's enrollment level.