Courses Spring 2020

Core Courses

Generally not open to visiting students

IS104 Forms of Love

AY/BA1/Begin in Berlin Core Course

Module: Medieval Literatures and Cultures

Instructors: Francesco Giusti, David Hayes, Geoff Lehman, Katalin Makkai, Hans Stauffacher, Aaron Tugendhaft

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

"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.

Syllabus

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, Katalin Makkai, Ross Shields, Aaron Tugendhaft, Michael Weinman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

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.

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IS322 Joyce's Ulysses: A Modernist Epic

BA3-4/PY Core Course

Module: Modernism

Instructors: Caroline Patey Laura Scuriatti

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Groups A & B: Tue & Thu 9:00-10:30 | Group C: Tue & Thu 10:45-12:15 (NB Group C particpants will need to attend a number of joint sessions with the other groups on Tue & Thu 9:00-10:30)

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 that saw close interaction between the arts, literature, politics, philosophy, science and economics, and which questioned the most basic categories of aesthetic, political and philosophical thought. The course explores a wide range of aspects of modernism, seeking to understand the period in relation to the broader terms “modernity” and “modernization.” We 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. As well as returning to this first text of BCB's core curriculum, we will read Joyce's novel in dialogue with contemporary works. Issues considered include 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.

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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 accompanies the first semester of preparation for the thesis project.

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Art and Aesthetics Foundational Modules

AH210 Modern Movements in the Visual Arts

Module: Art and Artists in Context

Instructor: Aya Soika

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S.

Course Times: Fri 9:00-12:15 (NB due to frequent off-campus excursions in the course, participants will not be able to sign up for any Friday afternoon classes beginning before 14:00)

By the second half of the 19^th century artists across Europe and Northern America not only began to question previous practices and conventional modes of presentation, they also sought to gain public attention in new ways, through the organization of exhibitions, the foundation of artists’ associations, and – later on – the publication of manifestos and staging of performances. These efforts were an attempt to redefine art’s role within society and were often accompanied by an agenda of cultural and social renewal. This course will focus on the rapid transformations in the art world within the century from the 1860s to the decades after the Second World War. Artistic movements which emerged in Paris, Moscow, Milan, Berlin, London or New York – from Impressionism through Futurism, Expressionism, Constructivism, Dada or Surrealism - will be discussed with regard to the shaping of new languages of expression and the development of ambitious aims which went far beyond the boundaries of the picture frame. Attention will be paid to the tension between the national and transnational aspirations of many of these undertakings. The course ends with a discussion of post-war developments such as Pop Art, Neo-Dada or Fluxus with Joseph Beuys and his notion of “social sculpture,” which present a continuation of the earlier debates concerning the potential of art to transform society. Visits to the Berlin collections of late 19^th- and 20^th- century art and the discussion in front of originals are an important part of the seminar.

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FA106 Beginners Black and White Photography Class: The Slow Photo

Module: Art Objects and Experience / Artistic Practice

Instructor: April Gertler

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 9:00-12:15

This beginning Black and White photography class, titled The Slow Photo, will focus on learning how to use a manual camera and finding one’s way in an analogue darkroom. Students will be exposed to the rich photographic history of Berlin through presentations, discussions and a historical walk through parts of Berlin. The historical component of the class will cover works by Berlin based photographers from Helga Paris to Michael Schmidt. Assignments throughout the semester will mirror various photo techniques used in the historical examples discussed. Camera techniques and black and white printing will be the fundamental basis of the class. A few classes will meet on Saturdays to have concentrated darkroom time. Students will leave the class fully understanding and able to complete the process required to produce black and white analog images.

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TH190 The Threepenny Opera: A New Musical Theater

Module: Art Objects and Experience / Artistic Practice

Instructor: Julia Hart

Credits: 8ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Thu 15:45-19:00

Today The Threepenny Opera remains one of the world’s most performed musical dramas. We will take an in-depth look at the creation, the dramatic structure, the music, and the staging of this work in readings, discussions, and rehearsals. Why has it been so successful and how can it be staged in new ways? This practicing arts theater course explores the collaboration between Bertolt Brecht, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Kurt Weill, studying the original production at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in 1928. We also visit the Brecht archives to view original production photos, tour the Berliner Ensemble, and attend a performance of Robert Wilson’s Threepenny Opera. The seminar includes readings of Brecht's theoretical texts on the epic theatre such as “A Short Organum for the Theater” and “The Street Scene.” Students will not only analyse epic theatre techniques, but will try to use Brecht's specific acting and directing exercises and devices in rehearsal. Musicologist and vocalist Meredith Nicoll will visit throughout the semester to discuss the music of Kurt Weill and rehearse selected songs from The Threepenny Opera with us. Students will act, sing, direct, and study scenes from the work which will be presented at the end of the semester.

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AH113 Introduction to Aesthetics

Module: Approaching Arts Through Theory

Instructor: Thomas Hilgers

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Thu 15:45-19:00

According to its most general conception, aesthetics is a discipline that investigates the nature of sensory experience and cognition. According to a more narrow conception, it investigates the nature of aesthetic experience and judgment. Finally, aesthetics is often conceived of as an enquiry concerning the nature and value of art, or rather of the fine arts. In this course, students will become familiar with aesthetics according to all three of these conceptions. That is, we will discuss questions such as: what is sensibility? What is beauty? What is an aesthetic experience? Do we need to have aesthetic experiences in order to live a good life? Do we need to have them in order to criticize society and initiate political change? What is an artwork? Are our judgments about art always subjective? Is taste always a tool for social distinction and possibly oppression? Can (or must) art be politically relevant? What could it mean to call a work “modern,” “postmodern,” or “contemporary”? In order to find answers to these questions, we will discuss texts by Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Schiller, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Heidegger, Arendt, Wittgenstein, Adorno, Greenberg, Danto, Dickie, Bourdieu, Foucault, Lyotard, Butler, Rancière, Shusterman, Nehamas, and Carroll.

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AH215 Exceeding the Frame: Approaches to the Contemporary Sublime in Art

Module: Art and Artists in Context

Instructor: Laura López Paniagua

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 9:00-12:15

As Edmund Burke suggested in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), there is a type of intense aesthetic experience that cannot be described as merely beautiful, and that, despite it involving a certain form of pleasure, is much darker and psychologically complex – it can be horrible, disorienting, unsettling, it can take you beyond the limits of the imaginable or the bearable…
Starting with a revision of the main ideas around the sublime established in the Romantic era, this course will explore how the art and theory of the last third of the twentieth century have revisited it and finally speculate on the possible emergence of a new form of sublimity in the latest art-forms. In what way are the works of Caspar David Friedrich, Frederic Edwin Church, or William Blake, sublime? How are theoretical concepts such as transcendence, the unpresentable, and the uncanny associated to this category? How do theoreticians from different fields, such as the art historian Barbara Novak or the post-modern philosopher Jean-Françoise Lyotard approach it? How is the concept of the sublime reflected in the neo-marxist, pychoanalytically informed writings of Slavoj Žižek? Finally, how do contemporary artists such as Mike Kelley, John Miller, Bill Viola, Marina Abramović, or Walter de Maria relate to the sublime? And could we say that artists today like Hito Steyerl, Ed Atkins, or Slavs and Tatar are defining a new form of sublimity? Though this course will delve into the theory and artistic practice around this topic, it does not require specific prior knowledge on contemporary art and philosophy.

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

Module: Art Objects and Experience / Artistic Practice

Instructor: John Kleckner

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 14:00-17:15

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. They 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 to peers in class discussions.

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FM208 The Age of Film: The Human Condition Through Visual Representation

Module: Approaching Arts Through Theory / Art Objects and Experience

Instructor: Matthias Hurst

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 14:00-15:30; weekly film screening Tue 19:30-22:00

“The process of film joins a deep psychological reality and satisfies our desire to understand the world and each other in a powerful way. The aesthetics of film is based on this psychological truth and need. And so cinema is the greatest of the arts because it meets this need by showing us the process of the transformation of the world. The other arts can show us merely the end result of such transformation, the humanized art world. In cinema human beings tell each other what reality means to them, yet they do so through reality itself, which surrounds their work like an ocean.” (J. Mitry). This course is an introduction to Film Studies addressing the basic ideas of film history and theory, film styles and cinematic language, while at the same time exploring the function and the aesthetics of film as a means of profound visual expression that reflects and comments on reality, i.e. historical and cultural experiences as well as the human condition in the 20^th and early 21^st century: industrialization and technological progress, war and revolution, social conflict and social change, subjectivity and identity, existential crisis and personal development. Thus it will focus on films—by Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Elem Klimov, Yasujiro Ozu, Francois Truffaut, Orson Welles—that both mirror and shaped the sense of life and the critical consciousness of the modern and postmodern age.

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TH191 Making a Performance: Devised Theater as Artistic Research

Module: Art Objects and Experience / Artistic Practice / Approaching Arts Through Theory

Instructor: Nina Tecklenburg

Credits: 8 Credits, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-12:15

This course combines two elements: first, it offers a critical introduction to devised theater – a specific practice of performance-making in which the performance originates from a collaborative work rather than a pre-existing script as a starting point. What exactly distinguishes devised theater from traditional theater-making? What are the possible histories of devised theater? How is devised theater currently being practised? In order to answer these questions, we will study the different working methods of contemporary, mostly Berlin-based theater makers (Gob Squad, She She Pop, Rimini Protokoll, Turbo Pascal, Interrobang, Monster Truck, andcompany&co, Showcase Beat Le Mot, etc.) and use them as inspirational sources to devise our own performance pieces. Second, the course provides a space for a different kind of research, namely artistic research. Students are encouraged to bring their current research interests, personal and political concerns into the class and to take a closer look at their own areas of interest from the perspective of devising performance. What happens to our topics and questions when we look at them through the lens of performance? What kind of knowledge and insight do we get from “performance-devising our concerns”? Internal showings, feedback sessions and critical reflections will be an integral part of our devising processes and performance-based artistic research. No previous experience in performance or theater is necessary. An interdisciplinary approach and interest is encouraged.

Syllabus

The following course is cross-listed with Ethics and Politics

PL205 The Gaze

Module: Approaching Arts Through Theory

Instructor: Katalin Makkai

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

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Economics Foundational Modules

MA120 (S) Mathematical Foundations

Module: Mathematics

Instructor: Marcus Giamattei

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course focuses on the (basic) tools important for the study of political science and economics: analytic geometry, functions of a single variable, and calculus. The course will also be of interest for any student with a general interest in mathematics, or who does not intend advanced specialization in economics. This course is highly recommended for students who want to specialize in Economics, but do not have a strong background in mathematics. In case of strong math background, students can test out of this course at the beginning of the spring semester. After successfully completing this course (or testing out) they will have to take (the more advanced) Mathematics for Economics course in the fall semester.

This course also fulfills the mathematics and science requirement for humanities students.

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EC210 Microeconomics

Module: Microeconomics

Instructor: Israel Waichman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Microeconomics is the study of how individual economic units (households and firms) interact to determine outcomes (allocation of goods and services) in a market setting. This course further develops principles and analytical methods introduced by the Principles of Economics course. The first part of the course deals with consumer behavior, market demand and the extent to which a consumer’s decisions can be modeled as rational. The second part of the course deals with the theory of the firm and the positive and normative characteristics of alternative market structures—perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, pure monopoly, and, in resource markets, monopsony—are studied in depth. Finally, the efficiency of market outcomes is studied as well as conditions (e.g. the presence of externalities) under which markets are not efficient. Part of the course is devoted to problem solving, in which students present solutions to specific case studies.

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EC211 Macroeconomics

Module: Macroeconomics

Instructor: Irwin Collier (Section B), Marcus Giamattei (Section A)

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue & Thu 9:00-10:30 (Section A) | Tue & Thu 15:45-17:15 (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.

Syllabus (Section A)
Syllabus (Section B)

MA151 Introduction to Statistics

Module: Statistics

Instructor: Martin Binder (Section A), Marcus Giamattei (Section B)

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 10:45-12:15 (Section A) | Tue & Thu 10:45-12:15 (Section B)

The goal of this course is to introduce students to quantitative methods in political science and economics. The course covers the basics of descriptive and inferential statistics, including 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 also fulfills the mathematics and science requirement for humanities students.

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Ethics and Politics Foundational Modules

PL140 Philosophy of Friendship

Module: Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Instructor: Sinem Derya Kılıç

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 9:00-12:15

What is the nature of friendship? This question is one of the most frequent and fundamental in philosophy. Friendship has even been considered constitutive of philosophy as a practice. We explore the history of philosophical ethics in regard to this theme: how do the pleasures, social meanings, obligations, and limits of friendship illuminate moral issues and dilemmas more generally? What role do reflections on friendship play in philosophical systems and theories? How would we revise or update such reflections in the light of new, virtual forms of human interaction? Is the familiar opposition between sexual desire and friendship altered by an understanding of varieties of gender identity? Readings are from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, Aelred, Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne, Bacon, Hume, Kant, Emerson, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Arendt, de Beauvoir, Derrida, and Nehamas.

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PT140 Emancipation: Theory as Liberatory Practice

Module: History of Political Thought

Instructor: Hans Stauffacher

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

"Emancipation" originally had a passive, purely descriptive meaning, referring in Roman law to the release of a son from paternal authority. In the Enlightenment, it became a spur to intellectual responsibility and reflection, denoting the emergence from "self-incurred immaturity" (Kant), as well as a political clarion-cry, heralding the self-determination and empowerment of individuals, suppressed social classes, and even of all humanity. Its status as a fundamental ideal of modernity developed further through its application to the condition of groups disenfranchised by property-relations defended on the basis of religious, racial, ethnic, or sexual hierarchies, or by territorial forms of administrative and economic subordination (colonialism, imperialism). Precisely because it is so inextricably interwoven with Enlightenment however, the ideal of emancipation has been radically undermined by "post-metaphysical thinking," which is skeptical about the inherent value, identity, or existence of the essence to be emancipated. In this seminar, we will address the history of the theory of emancipation and its expansion beyond the category of person it originally addressed, as well as examining contemporary critiques. Our question will be: is it possible that these critiques renew and revivify rather than dismantle the notion of emancipation as a political resource?

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SO102 Methods in Social Studies

Module: Methods in Social and Historical Studies

Instructor: Tamara Kolarić

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

The aim of this course is to give students the theoretical and practical skills needed to conduct research in social sciences using qualitative data and methods. Designed as a combination of interactive lectures and hands-on practical exercises, this course is meant to provide students with the opportunity to learn from experience by inviting them to try out different methods of data collection and analysis – through both in-class work and homework assignments. The course will start with discussing the logic of qualitative data analysis, and the different questions that can (and cannot) be answered through it. Students will learn how to conduct the pre-analysis process: formulating a good research question, using theory (and writing a literature review), and selecting cases for investigation. The central part of the course will cover various methods of qualitative data collection and analysis. We will try out different methods of data collection, including participant observation, interviewing, focus groups and using/reusing archival data. We will then move on to the different ways data can be analyzed, starting with thematic analysis in order to grasp the practicalities of the researchers’ interaction with data, as well as the process of coding textual data (on paper and using available software). The final part of the course will be dedicated to interpretive methods for data analysis, with a particular emphasis on discourse-analytical approaches, as well as to strategies for writing-up work based on qualitative data analysis. By the end of the course, students will be able to formulate a research question, select a suitable method, collect their data, analyze it and write up their results. Students are invited to use the course as a starting point for gathering and analyzing materials for their thesis project.

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The following course is cross-listed with Literature and Rhetoric/Politics

PL259 Short Dialogues of Plato

Module: Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Instructor: David Hayes

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

In his shorter dialogues, Plato takes up questions such as “What is beauty?” “What is courage?” and “What is a friend?” Most of us are likely to care about such fundamental questions. What are the challenges involved in trying to answer them? (How) could we live better or more happily if we knew the answers? What does making progress with such questions look like? As “short dialogues” indicates, why (in Plato’s depictions) do these conversations end so quickly? Why was Socrates put to death for having them? Readings will include: Plato’s Charmides, Laches, Hippias Major, Cleitophon, Lysis, Euthyphro, and Apology. Some attention will also be given to the reemergence of these Platonic questions in modern philosophic virtue ethics.

Syllabus

The following courses are cross-listed with Politics

PL205 The Gaze

Module: Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Instructor: Katalin Makkai

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course explores a range of ways in which human relationships—with each other, with society at large, with the world in which we live—have been conceived as structured in terms of a “gaze” or “look”. We begin with the idea of the human being as (in part) constituted by a need—or desire—for recognition in the eyes of another (Rousseau and Hegel). We then turn to analyses and critiques of modern Western society as based on a pernicious culture of seeing, drawing from work in philosophy (e.g., Sartre), cultural criticism (e.g., Foucault), feminist theory (e.g., Mulvey), psychoanalysis (Lacan), and film (Hitchcock).

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PS186 Culture and Resistance

Module: Political Systems and Structures

Instructor: Hanan Toukan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

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PS185 Introduction to Policy Analysis

Module: Political Systems and Structures

Instructor: Daniela Crăciun

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

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PS119 Nation-States and Democracy

Module: Political Systems and Structures

Instructor: Boris Vormann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S credits

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

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Literature and Rhetoric Foundational Modules

LT146 Feminism and the Avant-Garde

Module: Literary History

Instructor: Laura Scuriatti

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

What we now describe as "first-wave feminism" was a complex and varied international phenomenon, emerging from different political and cultural movements across the world, and focused on equal civil and political rights for women, including the right to vote, to own property, to have equal standing within the family, and to receive equal pay. In the first decades of the twentieth century, this political struggle, with all its contradictions, was also carried out within the major artistic avant-garde movements and by intellectuals and activists working in the areas of art or literary production. The cluster of movements associated with feminism in this period did not only include what we would nowadays consider progressive forces, but also comprised activists advocating social positions for women which relied on conservative notions of sex and race, supporting exclusive notions of emancipation. The course will address the extremely complex panorama of early feminism and reflect on its contradictions in relation to political, social and scientific theories of the time; it will also attempt to draw connections to current debates.

The second part of the course will explore the historical avant-garde’s artistic responses to and interventions into the contemporary debated on women rights issues. The relation between forms of living and collaboration peculiar to avant-garde circles will also be addressed in connection with wider-world transformations and expectations regarding the impact of feminism on social and private existence. Among others, students will read texts by Clara Zetkin, Alexandra Kollontai, Rosa Luxemburg, Ellen Key, Valentine de Saint Point, Mina Loy, Dora Marsden, Emma Goldman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Margaret Sanger, Mary Stopes, Virginia Woolf, Havelock Ellis, Joan Riviere, Otto Weininger, August Bebel, Djuna Barnes, Virginia Woolf.

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LT120 Introduction to Critical and Cultural Theory

Module: Critical and Cultural Theory

Instructor: Clio Nicastro

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

The course introduces the key concepts and methodological approaches from different traditions of Cultural Studies and Critical Theory, including perspectives from feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism and black studies, covering work by thinkers including - amongst others - Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes, Lauren Berlant, Andrea Long Chu, Lee Edelman, Michel Foucault, Roxane Gay, Chris Kraus, Sigfried Krakauer, Donna Haraway, Saidiya Hartman, Amy Hollywood, Sianne Ngai, Paul Preciado, and Susan Sontag. By a close reading of a selection of texts and film excerpts (including fiction films, documentaries, tv and web series, videoart) we will consider these sources under three main headings: the question of human subjectivity and its social, institutional and political arrangement: how might different forms of writing, reading or filming reflect, bolster or protest power relations? How does the culture we inhabit inform both how we write and read and how we see and perceive reality? Is there such thing as a stable and coherent subject?
Our second section will delve into the question of bodily expression by looking at different narrative forms to account for health issues, symptoms and those bodily experiences that can exceed and challenge the limits of language: What role does empathy play when authors choose the first-person narrative to tell these biographical, bodily stories? How do the non-linear temporal dimensions of some conditions that involve chronicity or relapses (like self-immune disease, cancer, eating disorders) sabotage the narrative need to end a story? What happens when these stories bring up incompatible forms of reason?
Our third theme, which is deeply intertwined with the previous ones, will be the role of media and mass culture in our efforts to understand the world: what does the analysis of seemingly trivial cultural phenomena, everyday commodities or popular culture tell us about the world? Where is meaning located and how is it produced in a world of commercialised mass media, pervasive advertising, globalised markets and rampant consumerism?

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LT140 Close Reading

Module: Close Reading

Instructor: Paul Festa

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

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 periodic 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.

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LT142 Fiction Writing Workshop

Module: Written Arts

Instructor: Clare Wigfall

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 12:30-15:45

British Faber & Faber author and BBC National Short Story Award winner Clare Wigfall offers a fiction writing workshop that guarantees to inspire your imagination. Whether you are an experienced writer or a total beginner, her intention is to break down the barriers that inhibit, so that the creative process can come naturally. You’ll be challenged to experiment with new writing techniques and different genres, such as dystopian fiction and writing in a historical context, 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.Interested students are invited to write a short statement on why they are keen to be accepted on to this course.

Syllabus

The following courses are cross-listed with Art and Aesthetics

TH190 The Threepenny Opera: A New Musical Theater

Module: Literary History

Instructor: Julia Hart

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Thu 15:45-19:00

Syllabus

FM208 The Age of Film: The Human Condition Through Visual Representation

Module: Critical and Cultural Theory

Instructor: Matthias Hurst

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon & Wed 14:00-15:30; weekly film screening Tue 19:30-22:00

Syllabus

The following course is cross-listed with Ethics and Politics

PL259 Short Dialogues of Plato

Module: Close Reading

Instructor: David Hayes

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

Politics Foundational Modules

All courses are cross-listed with Ethics and Politics

PS119 Nation-States and Democracy

Module: Comparative Politics

Instructor: Boris Vormann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S credits

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

Why do political systems differ from one another? Which processes have led to the formation of distinct political regimes? And how do these historical variations affect politics today? In addressing these questions in a wide set of contexts, this 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 in the economy, its relationship to civil society and processes of democratization. We will also look at different types of political regimes, electoral and party systems—and the ways in which they affect the structure, functioning, and social role of political institutions. We explore these topics from a comparative perspective in combining theoretical texts with case studies. 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.

Syllabus

PS185 Introduction to Policy Analysis

Module: Policy Analysis

Instructor: Daniela Crăciun

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course will introduce students to the definition of policy problems, the identification of alternative solutions to these, and the criteria governing the choice between these alternatives. Students are exposed to the various sources of evidence upon which assessment of alternatives is carried out as well as to the basis for considering policy impact. Through case studies, presentations and reviews of professionally-conducted policy analyses, students will receive a first-hand exposure to both the basic steps of this undertaking, and will have an opportunity to critique real-world policy decisions. Cases for analysis will include government policies on aging populations and social policies relating to housing and community development. The course will involve both individual and team work. Key outcomes will include an introductory knowledge of policy analysis, an ability to engage with policy problems and decide on the best policy solution. The courses fosters an ability to articulate policy recommendations both verbally and in writing.

Syllabus

PS186 Culture and Resistance

Module: International Studies and Globalization

Instructor: Hanan Toukan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course critically examines the various manifestations of counter-hegemony, resistance and dissent with particular focus on the Arab region. Taking as its starting point the fact that much of the literature on politics, culture and society in the region emphasizes the region’s various hierarchies of power, dogged ideologies and prevailing hegemony in ordering identities and experiences, the course proceeds to study the ways in which these dominant forms are in reality countered in cultural production and every day cultural practices. The course will analyse how subcultures, social movements and individuals throughout the region have tried to negotiate with, subvert and resist these forms of social and political hegemonies through the use of various art forms such as writing, poetry, music, political film, political posters and pamphlets, performance art and public art. The readings are organized thematically covering major issues in postcolonial studies, cultural theory, cultural studies, subaltern studies, and many of the key readings in Middle Eastern Studies.

Syllabus

PL205 The Gaze

Module: Moral and Political Thought

Instructor: Katalin Makkai

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

PL259 Short Dialogues of Plato

Module: Moral and Political Thought

Instructor: David Hayes

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

Art and Aesthetics Advanced Modules

AR314 Painting as Object

Module: Artists, Genres, Movements / Exhibition Culture and Public Space

Instructor: Dorothea von Hantelmann, Nina Schallenberg

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 14:00-17:15

In art history and in exhibitions paintings are mostly addressed with regard to their visual, formal and representational qualities. Much less attention is drawn to their objecthood, to their qualities as objects. Yet, from 1910 until today, the search for new directions in painting has always been closely linked to the objectification of painting. Attention centers on the particular significance of materials and color, the shaping of surfaces, and physical-haptic qualities. These discourses lead to fundamental reconsideration of the relationship between painting and a putative outside reality. From the Russian Avantgardes to the present, and through the works of artists such as Josef Albers, Lynda Bengalis, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, El Lissitzky, David Hammons, Robert Rauschenberg, Kurt Schwitters, Otto Piene and Cy Twombly, this seminar will discuss the meaning of painting as object. It is taught in collaboration with Dr. Nina Schallenberg, Curator of the Nationalgalerie at Hamburger Bahnhof, who is preparing an exhibition with the same title that will open in fall 2021. About half of the sessions will happen on-campus, where we discuss artworks and texts by authors such as Aleksej Gan, Warwara Stepanowa, Clement Greenberg, Michael Fried, Jasper Johns and Maria Gough. The other half will take place in the offices and storage places of Hamburger Bahnhof, were students will gain insight into the preparation and curation of the exhibition.

Syllabus

FA211 Photography and Social Practices

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: April Gertler

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 14:00-17:15

Social practice is an art medium which aims to facilitate discussion and interpersonal interactions. Although socially engaged art typically focuses on creating social and/or political change through collaboration with individuals, communities, and institutions in the creation of participatory art, this class will focus on the interaction between the audience, social systems, and the artist through aesthetics, collaboration, methodology, media strategies, and activism, using photography as a primary tool in those explorations. This course will concentrate on research development while at the same time focusing on image making. The class will use the city as a backdrop - many class meetings will take place outside, in the city itself. This photography class is for the student who has a clear understanding of how to use a 35mm analogue film camera, has their own camera, and is able work in the darkroom, mix chemistry, and print their own images. A precondition of enrollment is a beginner’s photo course at BCB or at the student’s home institution.

Syllabus

AR312 Contemporary Narratives in New Media: Systems, Mechanisms, and the Instruments of Power

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: Heba Amin

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 14:00-17:15

This course will examine the domain of critical social practice and the broad range of art and artists who scrutinize systems of power and data-gathering methods utilized by current industries and governments. Who has control over information? What role do artists play in maintaining sovereignty of information? How can they contribute to the protection of data and privacy? Students will explore works of art that utilize forms of hacking, intervention, cloning, surveillance, and parody to critique and challenge pre-existing systems, mechanisms, and instruments of power. They will address “new media” as a medium that critically questions the influences of contemporary technology and explore ownership of identity within the context of contemporary technological constructs. This course will help students nurture their skills in social analysis and criticism through their art and design practice. Lectures and regular exercises will introduce students to conceptual works of art that relay new meanings through the manipulation and social re-engineering of techno-semiotic structures. Students may work with graphics, computer hardware, software, video, the body, and public space among other things.

Syllabus

FM304 The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of John Carpenter

Module: Artists, Genres, Movements / Aesthetics and Art Theory

Instructor: Matthias Hurst

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 14:00-17:15; weekly film screening Wed 19:30-22:00

“In France I’m an auteur, in Germany I’m a filmmaker, in the UK I’m a horror director, in the US I’m a bum.” This course explores the films of John Carpenter – winner of the Directors’ Fortnight Carrosse d’Or Award at Cannes Film Festival 2019 – who started his career as film director (of mostly horror and science fiction films) in the 1970s and was at that time as popular, successful and promising as Steven Spielberg. But his work since the mid-1980s is increasingly tainted by critical and financial failures, although many of his films are today considered cult classics. In this class we will discuss the topics, style and aesthetics of Carpenter’s films and his contested reputation as both auteur and genre director with a focus on contemporary film reviews and media coverage as specific way of practicing film criticism.

Syllabus

AR315 Through the Looking Glass: Art and the Oneiric

Module: Artists, Genres, Movements / Aesthetics and Art Theory

Instructor: Geoff Lehman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-10:30 & Fri 9:00-12:15

“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, meditation, schizophrenia, nightmare, 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 Fan Kuan, Fra Angelico, Mirza Ali, Goya, Redon, Picasso, Ernst, Miller, Kahlo, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Woodman, and Kentridge. Readings will be from Carroll, Nietzsche, Woolf, Freud, Jung, Borges, Lacan, Bachelard, Krauss, and others.

Syllabus

FM318 Claiming your voice; Moving images that speak

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: Dorine van Meel

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

Course Times: Tue 9:00-12:15

Each of us is here now because in one way or another we share a commitment to language and to the power of language, and to the reclaiming of that language which has been made to work against us. (Audre Lorde)

This course will combine the production of moving images with writing practice and takes as its starting point one of the most important contributions of the radical feminist tradition: that the personal is political and the political is personal. Through various types of artistic exercises, collective readings and discussions, we will investigate the ways in which our personal lives are entangled with larger-scale structures and dynamics of power. In these seminars, our personal stories, lived experiences and the various kinds of knowledge we possess as individuals will be understood as working material for the investigation of broader social problems and the collective responses they demand. In the first part of the course, students will be invited to produce scripts and letters, voice-overs and poems, manifestos and prose; in the second part, these texts will be elaborated and reworked into the medium of the moving image, ranging from video installations to films essays and vlogs.

Syllabus

FM319 Living Double Lives: Art & Virtuality

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: Caitlin Berrigan

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

Course Times: Mon 14:00-17:15

In this studio course, which is informed by theoretical frameworks, we will engage with imaginative worldbuilding through students’ chosen media, drawing on introductory methods to integrate mixed reality with other artistic forms. We will focus on theoretical discourse around phenomenology and virtuality, while gaining new skills for creative practice. How does a writer such as Ursula K. LeGuin build an imaginative world through landscapes, seasons, tactile descriptions of costumes, gender relations, and political conflict? How do the social structures in her imaginative world reflect the worlds we know? What material and narrative means are used by an artist such as Cauleen Smith to invent alternate worlds and subjectivities that escape familiar forms of social violence? We will think through how we as visual artists use similar techniques of worldbuilding in installation, long-term ethnographic portraiture, or emerging media. Non-linearity, three-dimensional photographic capture, and augmented reality are not only the tools of games, but are also increasingly the media and discourse of visual artists. We will learn the first steps for building worlds by creating original environments from spatial photographic capture known as photogrammetry, and how to combine augmented reality with artistic media. We will examine and discuss works by contemporary artists, alongside readings from science and technology studies, philosophy, and media theory. Open to writers, visual artists, filmmakers, and performers who would like to experiment with their practice. While no prior experience in augmented reality is required, this course will rely upon your curiosity for critical discourse, and will build upon your experience with digital tools and camera capture.

Syllabus

TH322 Expanded Narration: Telling Stories in Contemporary Theatre and Performance

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: Nina Tecklenburg

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 14:00-17:15

Collecting objects, reading traces, mapping memories, tailoring identities, gaming autobiographies: artists in contemporary performance and theater have developed a whole range of new narrative techniques and formats. Considering the large variety of participatory theatre installations, autobiographical performances, immersive role-playing games, game-performances, audio- and video-walks that have emerged in the recent years it seems remarkable that there are hardly any discussions on the topic of narrative in theater, especially in the context of a so-called postdramatic theatre from which these new theatrical formats arise. It’s time to talk about narrative! This course takes a close look at current, contemporary theatre productions and their narrative implications. We will question how those new theatrical formats tell stories. What does it mean to tell stories in contemporary, often non-literary theater? What do these narrative practices tell us about narrative itself and its cultural function in general? What does telling a story really mean anyway? The course aims at stimulating a fruitful dialogue between critical reading, thinking, discussing and practical performance work. Texts will include classic narrative theory as well as performance theory. We will look at works by theatre artists and performance groups such as Forced Entertainment, She She Pop, Bobby Baker, SIGNA, Eva Meyer-Keller, plan b, Lone Twin, Janet Cardiff and we will experiment with new narrative formats in creative response to their work. This course will serve both as an unorthodox introduction to narrative theory as well as contemporary performance practice.

Syllabus

FA302 Advanced Painting: Oil Paint and After

Module: Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: John Kleckner

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 9:00-12:15

This advanced studio course is designed to connect the gamut of materials and techniques in contemporary painting with the development of an individual aesthetic style. Weekly sessions will expose students to a wide range of experimental painting techniques with the aim of synchronizing chosen materials and methods with personal expression and content. Classes will feature technical demonstrations of airbrushing, marbling, masking, projecting, stamping, stencils, collaging, and inkjet printing on canvas. Students will gain experience working with oil, acrylic, enamel, vinyl, and gouache paints. Material demonstrations will be augmented by readings, slideshows, gallery tours, and studio visits. The syllabus begins with directed assignments that become increasingly more personalized and independent as the course progresses. The ideal student will have prior painting experience and be highly motivated to make a body of original work. The semester culminates in an “Open Studios” group exhibition.

IMPORTANT: This is an advanced studio art course, it is not recommended for beginners. Students should have prior experience with painting materials & concepts. Prior to registering, the instructor requests that students interested in this course submit a portfolio of their work to [email protected].

Syllabus

FA315 Advanced Studio: Tools Beyond the Studio

Module: Exhibition Culture and Public Space / Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructor: John von Bergen

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 14:00-17:15

This 300 level advanced studio arts course is designed to fully engage in the opportunities of experiencing Berlin through the eyes of an artist, while exploring each student’s individual production. We will examine different strategies and skills relating to ones practice inside and outside the studio while discussing the pragmatic decisions relating to ones arts career. Supported by a dialogue with artists and critics in Berlin, we will also explore strategies for developing ones career, discussing the art market and the viable options independent of the art market.

All interests in visual art are welcomed, including sculpture, installation, drawing, collage, photography, painting, video, performance, digital media, etc. Individual and group critiques will happen throughout the semester in connection to reading and writing assignments as well as presenting projects that are responsive to prompts and class discussions. We will also engage in off-campus excursions that may include, galleries, museums, artist studios, project spaces, fabrication facilities, and possibly art events such as Berlin Gallery Weekend.

A public presentation of our accomplishments will be arranged for the end of semester Open Studios event at BCB.

Please note: This course is designed for 3rd and 4th year students whose practice involves studio arts. Off-campus appointments outside of class-time may also be expected.

Syllabus

The following courses are cross-listed with Ethics and Politics/Politics

FA284 Research-Creation: Artistic Approaches to German History, Memory of Forced Migration and the War

Modules: Exhibition Culture and Public Space / Media, Practices, Techniques

Instructors: Marion Detjen, Dorothea von Hantelmann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-12:15

May 2020 will see the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe. While Germany's unconditional surrender on May 8 1945 brought a halt to the mass extermination and warfare that had killed between 40 and 50 million people, overwhelmingly large movements of forced migration continued well into the post-war period and eventually led to the “making of the modern refugee“ (Peter Gatrell), the international refugee regime of our day. Flight and expulsion have since then attained an integral place in collective memory in Germany, being represented in museums and memorials, as well as family verbal and artifactual archives. These memories were reactivated in the “summer of migration“ in 2015, when German society welcomed a large number of migrants with surprising openness and willingness to help, a public mood that was regarded by some as unsustainable. Through methods of research-creation this course examines the connections between the history and memory of wartime and postwar forced migration in Germany, and the history and memory of contemporary forced migration from the Middle East and elsewhere. At museums and memorial sites we experience sources from the German post-war period (films, literature, music), asking what assumptions they convey, and what stories they tell about German and non-German refugees, expellees and displaced persons after the war. Participants then develop their own individual projects, artistic in spirit and relating historical sources to today’s phenomena of forced migration, finding parallels, contradictions, and fruitful references. These projects shall in the second half of the semester be visualised, performed, translated into “art,” experimenting with new ideas and new forms to discover the underlying relationships between the histories and memories of forced migration, of war and revolution, that compete with each other and/or complement each other in today’s Germany. The resulting projects will be exhibited to a broader audience in a public event at the Centre Marc Bloch.

Syllabus

FM321 Screening the ‘90s: Politics, Memory and Film in the Post-Yugoslav Countries

Module: Artists, Genres, Movements

Instructor: Tamara Kolarić

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

PS298 Ways of Seeing: Visual Politics and the Middle East

Module: Aesthetics and Art Theory

Instructor: Hanan Toukan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

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 15:45-17:15

This course aims at highlighting the various ways in which economics and ethics intersect: 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.

Syllabus

EC312 Cost Benefit Analysis

Module: Choice, Resources, and Development

Instructor: Israel Waichman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Did you ever ask yourself how economists make practical use of their studies in making real-life choices? 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.

Syllabus

EC316 From the Study of Political Economy to the Science of Economics

Module: Ethics and Economic Analysis

Instructor: Irwin Collier

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

The course will focus on the issues of the “proper” scope and methods of economic research as seen by different economists from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Students who have successfully completed the Core Course “Origins of Political Economy” have the opportunity in this course to further follow the arc of social scientific analysis of economic affairs starting from the end of classical political economy (John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx). This will be followed by the early uses of so-called “marginal analysis” to the subject of consumer demand. The last third of the nineteenth century was also notable for the controversy that erupted between the advocates of the use of formal theory vs. those advocating historical study, i.e., the Menger-Schmoller Methodenstreit . Finally, the Keynesian and econometric revolutions of the mid-twentieth century with a glimpse of the more recent neoliberal counterrevolution in economic policy as well as a sampling from the varieties of heterodox critics of mainstream of economic science will round out the required course readings.

Besides having completed IS303 “Origins of Political Economy”, students should have taken EC110 “Principles of Economics” or their equivalents before taking this course.

Syllabus

Ethics and Politics Advanced Modules

All courses are cross-listed with Politics

PS291 The Cultural and Political Origins of Biology

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Flavio D’Abramo

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 15:45-19:00

This course explores the way in which biological knowledge has been produced by specific historical, cultural and economic contexts. We focus on how key terms such as “health,” “mechanism,” “inheritance,” “reproduction,” “species,” “nature,” and “ecology” have been constructed, and on the role they play in shaping medical practice. We also consider the influence of other domains—natural-scientific, cultural and artistic, and religious—on the formation of biological knowledge. Throughout, we pursue our investigation with reference to case studies, and consider how these can be analyzed with reference to fundamental dichotomies that have emerged in the natural and human sciences: mechanistic versus vitalistic conceptions of life, preformation versus epigenesis, causal versus purposive explanations, descriptive versus normative knowledge, form versus function, social versus epistemic value. Our aim is to reflect critically on the use of biology and medicine within political, cultural and economic regimes. The seminar includes off-site work in museum archives.

This course also fulfills the mathematics and science requirement for humanities students.

Syllabus

PS298 Ways of Seeing: Visual Politics and the Middle East

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Hanan Toukan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course examines visual politics and the politics of seeing in and about the Middle East. It contextualizes material within wider debates and scholarship on the construction of subjectivities, the distribution of power and the formation of identity and belonging. This advanced module will place particular emphasis on decolonization theory, gender theory and postcoloniality to study issues of image-making, circulation, translation and reception, in a global context and transnational frame. Thematic areas of focus include the aesthetics and politics of states and security, violence and memory, dispossession, displacement, and revolution.

Syllabus

PT319 Tocqueville's Democracy in America

Module: Global Social Theory / Law, Politics and Society

Instructor: Ewa Atanassow

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Alexis de Tocqueville's magisterial two volume Democracy in America provides perhaps the most profound analysis of modern democratic societies and the challenges they face. First published in 1835 and 1840, Tocqueville’s volumes vividly portray the nascent American republic as perceived by a young French aristocrat seeking to make sense of politics in the emergent modern world. Tocqueville was not only a profound thinker of social and political life, but also an accomplished prose stylist, whose writing deftly combines historical narration, empirical data, theoretical reflections and policy analysis into a vivid essay punctuated with charm and wit.

Through close study of both volumes of Democracy in America, students will obtain a solid understanding of Tocqueville’s ideas and methods while exploring how they may be applied to contemporary concerns. Key themes to be addressed include how democratic societies come into being; the contours of such societies as compared to earlier social formations; the significance of identity and race in modern democratic life; the necessary conditions for popular self-government and its limitations; the relationship between nationhood and democracy; and the patterns of thought and feeling required for bolstering liberal democratic institutions. We will also consider how Tocqueville’s writings laid the foundation for modern social science, and can be used as a lens through which to consider the prospects of democracy in an increasingly globalizing and interdependent world.

Syllabus

SO202 A Lexicon of Migration

Module: Global Social Theory

Instructor: Agata Lisiak

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

As one of the most important features of today's globalized world, migration remains highly debated on local, national, and international levels. Migration is assigned various meanings and statuses (high-skilled and low-skilled, legal and illegal, documented and undocumented, forced and voluntary, restricted and unrestricted), which are, in turn, contested in multiple ways through grassroots activism, academic and artistic interventions, as well as the work of local and international NGOs. Today, migration affects everyone regardless of their own migratory status, and many contemporary societies – especially but not exclusively their urban centers – have been described as postmigrant or superdiverse. The course critically explores migration from global and local perspectives, emphasizing the postcolonial and neocolonial power geometries that produce specific forms of mobility. Drawing on a range of primary texts (UN documents, first-person narratives, poetry) and secondary texts from migration studies, cultural studies, anthropology, urban sociology, human geography, and philosophy, students will examine diverse social experiences of migration, as well as a range of related concepts such as belonging, border, citizenship, and solidarity, among others. The in-class discussions, guest lectures, off-campus visits, as well as group and individual assignments aim at deepening students’ understanding of migration regimes, migration discourses, and migrant infrastructures in various geographical and historical contexts. Designed by scholars and educators from across the Bard International Network (AlQuds University in Palestine, American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, Bard College in the United States, Bard College Berlin in Germany), as well as faculty and students from the Mellon-funded Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement, and Education (Vassar College, Sarah Lawrence College, Bennington College, Bard College, and Bard College Berlin), the course aims at advancing students’ understanding of migration both in the specific local contexts in which they study, as well as from international perspectives. Through a series of joint assignments, students will have a unique opportunity to engage with their peers and professors from other campuses.

Syllabus

PL211 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Jan Völker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 17:30-20:45

This course focuses on perhaps the most challenging among the works of Theodor Adorno. Like his collaborators in the Frankfurt School of philosophers and analysts of culture, Adorno sought to think Hegel, Marx, and Freud together in relationship to the problem of modernity. Negative Dialectics (1966) is considered to form part of a triumvirate of critique that includes the Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) and Aesthetic Theory (1970). Negative Dialectics can be understood to elaborate the fundamental conceptual parameters of Adorno's method and convictions. Dealing especially with the philosophical implications of Marx's description of "exchange value," the text centers on the concepts of "totality" and "identity," discovering in its exploration of the relation between these terms the philosophical response to the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and a way of grasping the predicament of philosophy itself "after the moment to realize it was missed" (an allusion to Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach), or after the non-eventuality of the kind of Communism Marx and Engels had envisaged. Negative Dialectics pursues the consequences of its reflections to the point of surpassing philosophical "system" as such, which it finds to be enmeshed in the categorical oppressions it seeks to remove. Due to its place in Adorno's endeavors, and its connections with the projects of his interlocutors, Max Horkheimer and Walter Benjamin among others, as well as its own open-ended form and intellectual dauntlessness, it remains the vital reference point for critical theory today.

Syllabus

SE224 Social Justice: The Transnational Feminist Perspective

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructor: Cassandra Ellerbe

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 14:00-17:15

This course introduces students to the contributions of transnational feminist practices to social justice movements and politicized organizing across the globe. We will address the issues of gender and socio-economic inequality, lgbtiq rights, environmental racism, neo-colonialism and the geopolitics of forced migration. Utilizing an interdisciplinary theoretical approach (social justice theory from an intersectional perspective, human/social geography, critical whiteness studies, transnational feminism and queer theories), we will examine various historical as well as current case studies that are linked to the call for social justice. This course aims not only to discuss the purpose and necessity for a theoretical understanding of social justice and political activism, but also to assist students in the development of critical thinking and the ability to recognize the global connection of various social problems. The course entails lectures, in class discussions and presentations, off-campus excursions, and guest lectures by local experts & scholars.

Syllabus

SE221 Digital Politics: Theories and Practices of Surviving in the Age of Algorithms

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructors: Magdalena Taube, Krystian Woznicki

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-12:15

The seminar “Digital Politics” is an introduction to the field of critical Internet studies and it will provide a toolbox for students to maneuver more securely through the vast digital networks of our times. We will learn how to verify news online, how to communicate safely with each other and how to build stories that attract attention. We will try to shed light on the buzzwords that form our digital landscape: big data, algorithms, artificial intelligence, leaks, post-privacy and post truth. The seminar will focus on recent case studies and draw out their lessons both for individuals and for larger social and political forces. We will address cases of alleged hacking and their potentially far-reaching consequences, as well as the social media strategies of political parties and social movements, from those described as "populist," to others that have long been a part of the establishment landscape. Our aim will be to arrive at a clear grasp of the reach of the impact of digital technology on politics and society; to develop a practical, personal ethic of response to this transformation; and to discover ways of influencing it in a positive direction.

Syllabus

PL212 Religion and Philosophy in the Arab-Islamic Philosophical Tradition: Averroes as an Example and a Point of Reference

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Abed Azzam

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 15:45-19:00

Securing the harmony between philosophy and religion constitutes a major issue in the history of philosophy, especially within the Abrahamic philosophical tradition, and continues today to play a role in relation to the modern project of secularization. In this course we shall concentrate on the problem of the harmony between philosophy and religion within the medieval Arabic-Islamic philosophical tradition. The course shall explore historical developments from of al-Muʿtazila until Ibn-Rushd, to concentrate in the end on a close reading of Ibn Rushd’s treatise Fasl al-Maqal (Book of the Decisive Treatise). This reading will allow us to proceed with a critical evaluation of the modern use and abuse of the tradition of this influential book within the rationalist modern project of the secularization of the Arab-Islamic transition.

Syllabus

PT321 Freedom of Expression

Module: Law, Politics and Society

Instructor: Michael Weinman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

In this course, we investigate a very old and quite foundational question in political thought; namely: what, if any, are the possibly justifiable limits to the freedom of expression? In so doing, we will keep close to the conviction that “theory follows practice,” meaning: we shall “discipline” our theoretical discussion through constant reference to actual legal, political, and cultural practices of restricting or regulating speech. Our reading of theoretical reflections defending or questioning an absolute right to free expression, from the classical (Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes, Cicero, Seneca) to the modern (Spinoza, Montesquieu, Tocqueville, Mill), to the contemporary (Butler, McKinnon, Matsuda, Rancière) will closely follow case studies of constitutional and criminal law in the United States and Germany. Through this interplay of historical and normative study, we shall try to encompass not only the range of controverting views concerning this fundamental right within the liberal order that have existed and continue to persist until today, but also to understand something about the future valences of the very notion of “basic rights,” widely considered to be under attack as the liberal international order faces an ongoing crisis of legitimacy.

Syllabus

PT375 Nationalism

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Aysuda Kolëman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

The following courses are also cross-listed with Art and Aesthetics

FA284 Research-Creation: Artistic Approaches to German History, Memory of Forced Migration and the War

Modules: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructors: Marion Detjen, Dorothea von Hantelmann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-12:15

Syllabus

FM321 Screening the ‘90s: Politics, Memory and Film in the Post-Yugoslav Countries

Module: Movements and Thinkers

Instructor: Tamara Kolarić

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

The following course is also cross-listed with Literature and Rhetoric

GM362 The German Public Sphere

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructor: Michael Thomas Taylor

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 15:45-19:00

Syllabus

Literature and Rhetoric Advanced Modules

LT302 Writing for the Anthropocene

Module: Writer and World / Producing Literature

Instructor: Martin Widmann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course examines literature by looking at connections between writing and ecology in the “Anthropocene” – a term advanced by the Dutch Nobel-Prize winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen. Throughout the semester, we will be investigating how literary texts can suggest new ways for thinking about nature, ecology and environmental issues, notably climate change and extinction. We trace the theoretical approach of “ecocriticism” through seminal works like Lawrence Buell’s The Environmental Imagination (1996) and Ursula Heise’s Sense of Place and Sense of Planet (2008). We will then consider the question of the role of literature in reflecting on the Anthropocene or human-made geological epoch, including the newly emerging literary genre of climate fiction (CliFi), and its furthering or incorporation of political criticism and activism. In the latter connection we address works like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) or Edwards Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975) , T.C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth (2000) and Nell Zink’s The Wallcreeper (2014). The course will also pay special attention to the German environmental movement and its literary repercussions, e.g. in former Pankow-resident Christa Wolf’s Chernobyl-memoir Accident. A Day’s News (Störfall. Nachrichten eines Tages, 1987), or more recently, in the ecofeminism of Karen Duve’s The Prepper Room (Macht, 2016).

Syllabus

LT306 Literature and Revolution: Classic German Rogues

Module: Writer and World / Literary Movements and Forms

Instructor: Jeff Champlin

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 14:00-17:15

Many of the greatest German writers initially responded to the French Revolution with enthusiasm for its ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In many ways, this revolution claimed to positively appropriate the broader break of modernity and its attendant social, political, and economic traumas. As the years of the revolution went on however, their work confronted the problems of translating these broad ideas into specific practices. This course tracks this literary history up to the next European period of revolution in 1848 through works of such authors as Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hölderlin, Heine, Hegel, and Marx. Marked for exclusion but evading power, the figure of the rogue will challenge us to engage literary creation as both a reaction to, and model for, attempts to create a better world in the face of violence. A loosening of genre boundaries at this time parallels social upheaval, which encourages the examination of essays, short stories, poems, and dramas that engage questions of politics, philosophy, and literature. Within this field, topics to be covered include the place of the individual in society, the relationship between law and justice, the demands of the excluded other, and the progress of history.

Syllabus

LT208 Poetry and Community

Literary Movements and Forms

Instructor: Francesco Giusti

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

From choral poetry in archaic Greece, through medieval love songs and Renaissance sonnet writing, up to modern elegy and contemporary poetry of protest, poems are linked to communal practices not only insofar as these practices can provide the content of a poem, but more importantly through the performance and experience of the poem itself. Indeed, poetry seems to invite repetition even across diverse socio-cultural contexts, which make for different meanings and provide different ends. Moreover, repetition appears to be relevant not only at the level of words (diction), but also at the deeper level of gestures (action). The course will explore notions and communal practices in Western and non-Western poems (in English translation) across history, while at the same time engaging with the role of poetry in contemporary theories of community, for example in the philosophical work of Maurice Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Rancière, and Giorgio Agamben. By reflecting on the repetition of language in poetry, the course will engage with theoretical approaches to a specific literary genre, to its peculiarities with respect to other literary genres, and to various processes of community formation. The course will also ask to what extent poetry allows us to think critically about the functions of verbal repetition in society.

Syllabus

LT212 Reading into Writing: A Fiction Workshop

Module: Producing Literature

Instructor: Rebecca Rukeyser

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 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 contemporary and canonical readings. Written requirements: You'll write two short fictional pieces, 1500 words minimum, due on a rotating schedule over the course of the semester. You'll also revise these pieces post-workshop, and will hand in the revised drafts along with a revision key that explains what changes were made (and why). In addition, you're required to write and overview of a literary journal and hand in short, 250-word workshop letters as part of the peer review process.
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. Participate in peer workshops, giving both encouragement and specific suggestion, as well as speaking about the larger goals of each piece. Give a ten-minute presentation on a work of fiction you recommend to your fellow workshoppers. All reading material supplied, both in hard copy and PDF form.

Syllabus

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

Module: Writer and World / Literary Movements and Forms

Instructor: Kathy-Ann Tan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Fri 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.

Syllabus

The following course is cross-listed with Ethics and Politics/Politics

GM362 The German Public Sphere

Module: Theories of Literature and Culture / Writer and World

Instructor: Michael Thomas Taylor

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 15:45-19:00

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 an advanced proficiency level (B2 or higher) in German

Syllabus

Politics Advanced Modules

PS378 Cities, States and the Division of Labour

Module: Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics

Instructor: Boris Vormann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course focuses on urbanization patterns to explore changing divisions of labor and state capacities in three distinct historical moments. In the 19th-century context of accelerating industrialization processes, we examine how economic geographies changed with the rise of national states and markets—and how visions of work and urban living were revisited with them. Our discussions about the Fordist period in the mid-20th century will deal with critiques of state technocracy, political hopes for entrepreneurial revolutions, and dystopias of stagflation and suburban uniformity. In the last section on the post-industrial era we will discuss the rise of global city networks at a planetary scale and how they reshape the capacities of public authorities and patterns of state intervention.

Syllabus

PS393 Labor Movements and Public Policy

Module: Public Policy

Instructor: David Braneck

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

This course will look at the labor movement in the United States, using organized labor as a lens through which to analyze the convergence of the state, shifting institutional frameworks, and social movements. Students will be able to assess the role of organized labor within US politics generally, grappling with the opportunities and limits of labor as a means for enacting change and how labor fits into, shapes, and is affected by institutional arrangements. A historic perspective will be taken in order to mark developments within the state and how this context has affected and been affect by organized labor. Students will be tasked with employing and sharpening existing understanding of state and policy structures while gaining critical knowledge and analytical skills that they will be able to apply to analysis of the state and other actors.

Syllabus

SO324 Quantitative Text Analysis: From Manual to Computer-Assisted Methods

Module: Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences

Instructor: Daniela Crăciun

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 15:45-19:00

An ever-increasing proportion of political, social and cultural activity is recorded as digital text. How can we analyze these texts to answer salient questions about the societies we live in? This course aims to survey a family of research methods for systematically extracting information from textual data for scientific purposes known as content analysis. It will cover different approaches to text analysis: from traditional manual content analysis to contemporary state of the art computer-assisted content analysis methods. Using empirical research from a variety of fields, students will learn both the theoretical groundings of content analysis methods and how to apply them in practical research projects. Classes will contain a combination of lectures and hands-on seminars aiming teaching students how to (1) acquire a corpus of texts, (2) prepare the texts for analysis, (3) code texts manually and with software, and (4) interpret the results. By the end of the course students will be able to categorize, compare and use different approaches to text analysis.

Syllabus

The following courses are cross-listed with Ethics and Politics

FM321 Screening the ‘90s: Politics, Memory and Film in the Post-Yugoslav Countries

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Tamara Kolarić

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

In this course, we will discuss the intersections between film and politics on the example of the 1990s conflicts in the newly independent states of the former Yugoslavia (following the country’s breakup). The aim of the course is to explore the ways films entered dialogues around those conflicts (and broader political changes surrounding them) in order to ask the question: how can concepts central to political science – such as power, nation, sovereignty – help us interpret films, and how can films serve as a gateway to better understand politics? We will start by discussing the political narratives of the 1990s, observing how the past is told and retold and the different roles film played in shaping narratives about national history and who is included in the nation. Then, we will look at how the post-1990s cinema played a role in the collective remembrance: how are the '90s narrated in different countries through film? How are some of the consequences of the conflicts – trauma, PTSD, war crimes and related trials (ICTY), slowed-down processes of democratic, economic and social transition – processed through or embedded in the films, and what are the strategies (escapism, Yugonostalgia) that some films take in an attempt to re-tell the past and the present, moving away from the familiar stories and agendas? Finally, we will take a step back to look at how the 1990s in the region have been imagined from abroad: use the tools of social science (and its concepts, such as post-colonialism and Balkanization) to understand how cinema helped create a particular image of “the Balkans.” All course discussions will revolve around assigned readings and selected films which we will watch together – from award-winning festival favorites (Zvizdan/The High Sun, 2015; Dubina Dva/Depth Two, 2016) to those less-known outside of the domestic context.

Syllabus

PT375 Nationalism

Module: Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics

Instructor: Aysuda Kolëman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

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") 19th century and the ("short") 20th 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.

Syllabus

PL211 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Jan Völker

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 17:30-20:45

Syllabus

PL212 Religion and Philosophy in the Arab-Islamic Philosophical Tradition: Averroes as an Example and a Point of Reference

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Abed Azzam

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 15:45-19:00

Syllabus

PS291 The Cultural and Political Origins of Biology

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Flavio D’Abramo

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Tue 15:45-19:00

Syllabus

PS298 Ways of Seeing: Visual Politics and the Middle East

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Hanan Toukan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

PT319 Tocqueville's Democracy in America 

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Ewa Atanassow

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

PT321 Freedom of Expression

Module: Philosophy and Society

Instructor: Michael Weinman

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

SE221 Digital Politics: Theories and Practices of Surviving in the Age of Algorithms

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructors: Magdalena Taube, Krystian Woznicki

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-12:15

Syllabus

SE224 Social Justice: The Transnational Feminist Perspective

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructor: Cassandra Ellerbe

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 14:00-17:15

Syllabus

SO202 A Lexicon of Migration

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice / Advanced Topics in Global and Comparative Politics

Instructor: Agata Lisiak

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

The following course is also cross-listed with Art and Aesthetics

FA284 Research-Creation: Artistic Approaches to German History, Memory of Forced Migration and the War

Modules: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructors: Marion Detjen, Dorothea von Hantelmann

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 9:00-12:15

Syllabus

The following course is also cross-listed with Literature and Rhetoric

GM362 The German Public Sphere

Module: Civic Engagement and Social Justice

Instructor: Michael Thomas Taylor

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 15:45-19:00

Syllabus

Electives

TH150 body/material

Instructor: Maria Francesca Scaroni

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 9:00-12:15

body/material is a dramaturgy of dances, where dance is intended primarily as a movement of attention and a technology of ecstasy, practiced alone yet together. The work invites the participants to look and treat the body as material, addressing its organic functions and spiritual potential as well as its cultural implications. The nature of the approach is eclectic, and it weaves techniques that will promote alignment, awareness and strength: In this class, we’ll experiment a variety of bodily and mental practices, such as ‘chi’ cultivation techniques such as Qi Gong (energy circulation technique) and Pranayama (breathing techniques), spine and limbs patterns explorations (body connectivity, proprioceptive systems) and Contact Improvisation/hands-on work/experiential anatomy (touch and imagination to feel how the body functions). Improvisation, fiction and free movement play are central to access physical states of enhanced consciousness. We will use journeys and extended duration to flirt with the notion of ritual and personal/collective transformation, relying on trance and exertion, boredom, frustration and contemplation as tactics. Dancing offers itself as a playground where concepts can be digested and embodied; dancing can be a lived place of speculation, ideal to test forms of thought especially around otherness, borders, mind body spirit, identity paradoxes, togetherness and difference, coexistence, interdependence. The intention is to come to an understanding or to a state of questioning of the body’s borders, acknowledging it as multiple and idiosyncratic: codified, yet desirous of ecstasy and play, and seeking grounding and tenderness.

This laboratory suits anybody who is interested in the body as a site of knowledge, as a problem or a hoax or mystery, as a forest of symbols or simply as a phenomenon to be felt, visually, kinesthetically and sonically. A certain stamina is required, but no specific skill, therefore is open to any moving body.

Syllabus

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 10:45-12:15

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?

Syllabus

EL203 Writer/Artists/Activistas!

Instructor: Ariane Simard

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Mon 14:00-17:15

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.

Syllabus

PL160 Introduction to Analytic Philosophy

Instructor: Robert Martin

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Analytic philosophy, growing largely from the work of Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore at Cambridge University in the late 1890s, has remained a vibrant force in Western philosophy. We will study five classic and formative texts: G. E. Moore “A Defense of Common Sense”; Bertrand Russell “On Denoting”; A. J. Ayer Language, Truth and Logic; J.S. Austin How to Do Things With Words; Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity. There are no prerequisites. A comprehensive overview of the course is available here.

Syllabus

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

Syllabus

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

Syllabus

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

Syllabus

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group B)

Instructor: T. Weitz

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group C)

Instructor: Christiane Bethke

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

GM151 German Beginner A2 (Group D)

Instructor: Christiane Bethke

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

GM201 German Intermediate B1

Instructor: Ulrike Harnisch (Mon); Ulrike Wagner (Wed & Fri)

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

GM251 German Intermediate B2

Instructor: T. Weitz

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

Syllabus

GM150 German Conversation

Instructor: Narges Roshan

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

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

The course is designed to help students boost their speaking skills and communicate in German with ease and confidence. Understanding and responding to what people speak on the street and in everyday situations poses challenges for many language learners; the course will tackle these challenges hands-on and from multiple angles, always with an eye toward what is most useful for students stepping beyond the “English language bubble” on campus. Classes will be structured around topics of student interest and combine vocabulary building and pronunciation exercises with the creation of various speaking scenarios where students practice expressing themselves spontaneously and explore dialects, accents and modes of intonation. The course is open to students who have completed A1 or have at least a basic understanding of the German language; the objective of the course is to create a comfortable speaking environment for beginners to advanced learners.

Syllabus

GM362 The German Public Sphere

Instructor: Michael Thomas Taylor

Credits: 8 ECTS, 4 U.S. credits

Course Times: Wed 15:45-19:00

All Bard College Berlin language courses address the development of skills in reading and listening comprehension, conversation and writing within the context of the European Framework of Languages from level A1 through C2.

Syllabus

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.

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