News & Events

On April 18, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave an interview to rbb's Inforadio on the expected release of a redacted version of the Mueller report. 

Bormann commented that he expects the content of the report to be controversial and also prone to interpretation. He pointed to previous declarations that may suggest the report should be read with a certain dose of skepticism. 

Vormann also noted that it is a common practice to redact passages in such reports, but that the Ministry of Justice's free hand in deciding what should be redacted constitutes a dilemma given the way the US institutional system is set up.

Listen to the interview here>> 

On April 12, the exhibition A German Legend. Emil Nolde and the Nazi Regime curated by Bard College Berlin's Professor of Art History Aya Soika opens at the Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof.

The exhibitions looks at the Expressionist painter's role during the Third Reich and asks how Nolde’s ostracism and occupational ban fit with our knowledge that he was a Nazi Party member, and that he kept faith with the regime until the end of the war. To accompany the exhibition, a richly illustrated volume of essays and pictures (also in an English edition), as well as a separate volume with a timeline and more than 100 documents, will be published. The show is curated together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring, and made possible by the Friends of the Nationalgalerie and supported by the Friede Springer Stiftung.

The exhibition Emil Nolde – A German Legend. The Artist and the Nazi Regime is based on the results of a multi-year academic research project which for the first time was able to analyse the extensive holdings of the Nolde estate in Seebüll, uncovering so much new material that the conventional Nolde narrative must be revised. Thus, for example, the exhibition will present the famous Unpainted Pictures – the small-format watercolours Nolde was reputed to have secretly painted at Seebüll during his occupational ban – in a completely new light, explaining them as part of a long-standing practice of self-stylisation. The importance of this self-stylisation – and how strongly it has influenced our view of Nolde – will be demonstrated to visitors through a reconstruction of the ‘painting gallery’ in Nolde’s studio house in Seebüll. This reconstruction will display the paintings and watercolours just as the ageing artist himself arranged them during the wartime winter of 1941/42. The exhibition will present over 100 originals, some of which have not previously been shown, with references to Nolde’s writings and in the historical context of their creation, in order to reveal the multi-layered relationships between paintings, the artist’s self-presentation, his ostracism, and development of his legend. What impact did the ‘Third Reich’ have on Emil Nolde's artistic work? To what extent do some of his works, such as his depictions of mythic sacrificial scenes or Nordic people, correspond with his sympathies for the regime? What effects did Nolde’s defamation and occupational ban have on his artistic practice and political outlook? And how did the myths about Nolde develop in the post-war period?

The exhibition will run through September 15.

More information>>

Press features in connection to Soika's research on Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde, der Nazi, in Süddeutsche Zeitung (April 11, 2019)
Le passé trouble d’Emil Nolde, une ombre au tableau in Le Monde (April 11, 2019)
Der entartete Nazi, RBB (April 10, 2019)
New Berlin exhibition exposes Emil Nolde’s Nazi ties in The Art Newspaper (April 10, 2019)
Stripping Away Lies to Expose a Painter’s Nazi Past in The New York Times (April 10, 2019)

On May 18, 2019 the students, faculty, staff, alumni/ae, and friends of Bard College Berlin will celebrate the conclusion of the academic year 2018-2019.  

The ceremony will be held at the Ballhaus Pankow, which has been the venue of the past two Commencements. The Ballhaus was built during the Belle Époque (1880) as a recreation & ball structure and is nowadays considered a historical monument. 

The 2019 Commencement speaker will be lawyer, civic leader, and human rights advocate Kimberly Marteau Emerson. From 2013 to 2017 she lived in Berlin with her husband, U.S. Ambassador to Germany John B. Emerson (ret.). Here, she worked both with the Embassy and independently to drive projects on multiple platforms, including the promotion of German immigration and integration efforts related to the 2015-2016 refugee “crisis" and addressing the issue of bringing women to the economic and political decision-making table. She now divides her time between Los Angeles and Berlin. She serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, the Advisory Board of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Kimberly holds degrees from UCLA (B.A.), UC Hastings College of the Law (J.D.) and l’Université de Droit d’Aix-Marseille (D.E.S.U.).

The ceremony will feature a musical introduction by BCB students.

Bard College Berlin’s eighth graduating BA cohort consists of 51 students from 29 countries, including Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Georgia, India, Israel, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey, and the USA. 

The faculty and staff congratulate the Class of 2019 for their achievements! 

On April 14-15, 2019 faculty members Geoff Lehman and Michael Weinman will participate in a series of alumni-organized events in Chicago centered on their recent volume The Parthenon and Liberal Education (SUNY Press, 2018).

On April 14, Lehman and Weinman will participate in a reading followed by a discussion with David Shiner (The Shimer Great Books School at North Central College) at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore. 
More information>>

On April 15, the University of Chicago will host a day-long workshop bringing together philosophy scholars, art historians, classicists, and historians of science to discuss the questions raised by Lehman and Weinman in their volume. 
More information>>

The events are organized by BCB alumni and current PhD students at the University of Chicago Ena M. Gojak (BA 2012), David Kretz (BA 2016) and Xinyue Zhang (BA 2018) together with Pirachula Chulanon (PhD student, the University of Chicago).