All News by Date
May 2022
BCB was honored to have Kenneth Roth as our commencement speaker this year. Kenneth Roth has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations, which operates in over 100 countries.
During his tenure, Human Rights Watch has worked tirelessly to bring justice to victims of the worst abuses, documenting war crimes from Syria to Yemen and from Iraq to Congo, and has expanded its work on the rights of women, children, refugees, migrant workers, LGBT people, and people with disabilities.
Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Kenneth Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington.
A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, he has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world and has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses. Kenneth Roth joined the Board of Governors of Bard College Berlin in 2018.
In his speech, Kenneth Roth urged the graduates to force “our democracies . . . to do better. They must be more responsive to the big problems before us, and to all the people who live in our nations. As you leave the comfort of the classroom, that is your task. It is an urgent task if we are to retain the world for which your Bard education has prepared you. The most dangerous position is to say that democracy will never fade. Complacency is the friend of tyranny.”
Read his full speech The Future of Democracy Depends on You >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Event,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the AIAS Conference description: This conference gathers scholars with expertise in diversity in various scientific disciplines and policy areas, ranging from biodiversity conservation and the protection of cultural heritage, to affirmative action and civil rights legislation. While diversity is central to a variety of scientific debates and has a substantial impact on a number of different policy areas, comparatively little research looks at diversity across domains. The conference wishes to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue on diversity and trace both differences and communalities in the theoretical conceptualization, empirical measurement, and political implementation of this topic.
For more information on Diversity: Concept, Measurement, and Application, visit the AIAS Conference website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The book "centres on the London Fishmongers’ Hall attack of November 2019, when Usman Khan, a paroled terrorism convict, stabbed five people at a conference on offender rehabilitation, killing two of them," through the lens of the author's personal connection with the event. "Khan had been a participant in one of the creative writing classes taught at Whitemoor Prison by British novelist Preti Taneja. Invited to the conference, Taneja happened not to attend." In her review, Prof. Dr. Toal says Taneja "avoids typical ‘trauma’ memoir and instead makes trust her subject." She continues that Taneja "weaves a mesmerising blend of recollection, theory, aphorism, poetry and, yes, fact."
Continue reading on The Irish Times >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Faculty | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In their acknowledgements, the authors note that "part of the content of this article has been stimulated and refined in the context of the university course 'What is an analogy? A journey from the sciences to the humanities and back' designed and held by the authors at Bard College Berlin." They express their thanks to the students in the class.
Continue reading on Science Direct>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Faculty | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In her essay, Prof. Soika examines Dieckmann's attempts to position himself during the "Third Reich".
Prof. Soika participated in a podium discussion in which she discussed Dieckmann. Watch it here (in German):
More information on the exhibition catalog can be found on Lehmanns Media >>
For more information on the Berlin Museum of Applied Arts exhibition >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the blurb: While home is often theorized as a category of space, the question of home for migrants is a complicated one. It brings to the forefront complex relations beyond the reductive dichotomies of ‘home’ and ‘away’, place of origin and place of residence, which postcolonial and diaspora studies often focus on. With the upsurge in migration rates in the past years, it becomes crucial to reflect on how to define home or the process of homemaking in an attempt to explore the experience of ‘home’ for mobile individuals.
This two-day symposium will explore experiences and narratives of home and/or homelessness in literature, art, and film. By focusing on expression as a process of homing; on home as an open, ongoing process; on its temporal and spatial dimensions; on its existence as a set of relations with objects, people and the world at large; and on its imagined and imaginary dimensions in defining such relations, the symposium tackles questions about home, home making, belonging, migration, memory, nostalgia, and affect.
Find out more about the Haunted by Homes symposium at ICI >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Commencement Speaker Bio:
Ken Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, he served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, DC. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Ken has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of major powers, and the work of the United Nations. His articles and reviews have appeared in such publications as The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, and The New York Times Book Review. He frequently addresses audiences around the world, including at the United Nations in New York, universities, and conferences, including the Munich Security Conference and the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Learn more about Ken Roth and Human Rights Watch >>
To read the enlightening transcript of his interview with The Octavian Report "Playing handball: Kenneth Roth on His Three Decades Leading Human Rights Watch" >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Studienstiftung is granted through the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, Germany's largest and most prestigious scholarship foundation, and is open by nomination only.
Once he was nominated, Erick prepared and submitted his application materials in German. His application was selected, and Erick went through a lengthy interview process with the selection committee. It included two interviews with two different professors from other universities, and presentation and a moderated debate with the other applicants– some of the best and brightest students in Germany. Erick credits BCB’s seminar based program, which requires students to debate their ideas in the classroom, for his success in that part of the selection process. Erick's presentation was based on an essay he wrote for his class African Narratives of Migration taught by Dr. Fatin Abbas, his thesis advisor. In the end, only 25% of the invited applicants were accepted.
As part of the interview section, Erick talked about the Latinx club he founded at BCB, which he established to bring more Latinx representation into the university.
Erick was eager to study at BCB, not only because he received a scholarship, but because he was unable to attend a German public university, because his Venezuelan high school diploma isn't recognised in Germany. After graduation, Erick will go on for a Master’s in Migration Studies. He has been admitted into University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, and will be making his final decision soon.
For more information about fellowships and post-graduate study, Career Services is available for questions and assistance.
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article, Ibrar discusses the profound impact taking courses with the Socrates Project at Central European University had on him. His decision to enroll in classes with the Socrates Project ultimately led him to study full time at Bard College Berlin. Ibrar has been studying Economics, Politics, and Social Thought (EPST) on a full scholarship at BCB since Fall 2020. At BCB, Ibrar “appreciates the experience of being in small, discussion-based classes with students from various parts of the world. And he values the way that, like in the Socrates Projects, knowledge is co-created in the classroom instead of being passed down from a professor. 'It provides me the opportunity to discuss ideas and also dispute ideas,' he says. 'It recognizes that ideas are not absolute.'”
The Socrates Project is a collaborative educational outreach program of the Civic Engagement Initiative at Bard College Berlin and the Community Engagement Office at Central European University. It offers free university-level courses in the humanities and social sciences to adults in the wider community who have been denied educational opportunities in the past, including those who have not completed secondary school. All courses are discussion-based and tackle the big questions of life and society in a friendly atmosphere yet with academic rigor. By engaging in conversations with peers and teachers on a variety of interconnected topics, the participants are empowered to keep educating themselves and deepen their involvement in the cultural and civic lives of their communities.
Read Ibrar’s story in the full Clemente article >>
To learn more about the Socrates Project >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
April 2022
Translated from the press release:
Urban planning and architecture have always been steadfast witness to the social and political constitution of societies. But what happens when this architecture is decontextualized or fragmented? When architectural elements are reinterpreted and used as symbolic and meaningful vehicles of a building's function? Noa Heyne and John von Bergen devote their work to this new, different use of space and spatial experience. In their works, they take fragments of architecture or objects of everyday use and suspend their strict interpretive principles and concepts. Their work is thus, as it were, a call to rhapsody, to the disobedience of thought to urban, architectural space.
John von Bergen (born 1971 in Connecticut, USA) received his BFA with honors from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2003. Numerous of his works have been presented in exhibitions in museums, galleries and cultural institutions - in Germany, among others, in the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, in the Wilhelm-Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen, in Halle 14 in Leipzig and in the Galerie Schmela in Düsseldorf.
Von Bergen has received numerous awards and residencies, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Prize, the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Foundation (for an acquisition by the Berlinische Galerie), and most recently a research grant from the Berlin Senate. He is currently working on an art-in-construction project for an extension of the German Bundestag, which is scheduled for completion in 2025.
Von Bergen has been Director of Studio Arts at Bard College Berlin since 2017. The artist has his studio in a former Stasi building in Hohenschönhausen.
Read the full press release and reserve tickets from the Kommunale Galerie >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the brochure: The goal of this conference is to synthesize current research and present new results that inform the debate surrounding the role of various stakeholders in improving working conditions and compliance with global labor standards and national law in supply chains.
Stubborn persistence of poor working conditions in supply chains keeps compliance with national law and global standards at the forefront of policy debates. In order to address poor working conditions in a widespread and sustainable way, it is important to have a solid understanding of the potential success of various approaches in different sectors of the economy, the root causes of poor conditions, and the economic forces that either inhibit or facilitate the spread of good practices. Solid policy-focused academic research can fill those needs.
This conference will bring together policymakers, representatives of inter-government organizations, and academics to discuss the latest advances in our understanding of these persistent challenges and create the opportunity to discuss effective solutions and policy options.
The conference is sponsored by the International Labour Organization Office for the United States and Canada (ILO-USAC) and the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy.
For more information >>
For conference registration >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
For students from Ukraine, the application deadline has been extended until June 1 and applications for both first-year and transfer admission will be considered. We can accept transcripts and recommendation letters in English, German and Ukrainian. The Admissions Office is available for further guidance and advising. Please visit our website or contact [email protected] for details on how to apply.
Bard College Berlin is a private, nonprofit, German-American liberal arts college offering four-year BA degree programs taught in English. The university is accredited in Germany through the Wissenschaftsrat and in the United States by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. On a residential campus in Pankow, 300 students from 60 countries study the social sciences, arts and humanities. A faculty-to-student ratio of 1:5 allows the college to provide an education of the highest quality, based on small-group teaching and individual advising. Students have access to global study opportunities through the Bard and OSUN networks.
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Admission | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read the full article in Moment >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article calls for a “mosaic of efforts to support students around the world in areas of crisis.” Becker writes that the global rise of authoritarianism is an ongoing threat to the liberal education and liberal arts teaching institutions. In his role as Vice Chancellor of the Open Society University Network, Becker has played a key role in supporting and relocating students displaced by conflict.
Becker’s article outlines the historical role that liberal arts institutions have played in supporting scholars during times of conflict and political unrest, and lessons learned.
He writes, “a fundamental design principle of OSUN, is that transnational networks, built on horizontal linkages and shared values, can provide substantive support and resilience to educational institutions in times of disruption and crisis.” He continues with four ways that liberal arts institutions can support scholars whose research and studies have been threatened.
Read the full article from in Liberal Education here >>
Read more about Bard College Berlin’s partnership with the Open Society University Network (OSUN).
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The symposium will take stock of how pandemic time has moved from state of exception to new normality between viral outbreak and containment and what that means for theatrical production. The symposium consists of three days of workshops, roundtable discussions and a VR performance. International theater practitioners and scholars join together to discuss aesthetics, infrastructures, and hybrid as well as digital artistic practices. Among the participants are Anna Krauß (HAU Hebbel-am-Ufer), Rainer Simon (Komische Oper Berlin), Sarah Ellis (Royal Shakespeare Company), Magda Romanska ([email protected]), Christian Rakow (nachtkritik.de), Fintan Walsh (Birkbeck) and the two performance collectives Turbo Pascal und punktlive. In addition, the independent performance group Interrobang will be showing Deep Godot, a one-to-one performance with an AI that explores the ambivalences of artificial intelligence. The performance collective Fevered Sleep will present their project This Grief Thing.
"Viral Theatres" was created by Nina Tecklenburg, Ramona Mosse, Janina Janke and Christian Stein who, together, documented new forms and contents of pandemic theater making and audience experience by creating a Living Archive of interviews, rehearsal shadowing, video documentation and digital interactions in order to chart the ways in which the pandemic shaped the form of theater. The Living Archive includes a section created by Bard College students from Berlin and Annandale, who participated in the network course "Post/Pandemic Theatre in Berlin and New York" in the Fall 2021 semester.
This event is a cooperation of the Research Project “Viral Theatres” (a collaboration of the Free University, the Humboldt University and Bard College Berlin) with the Research Project “Extended Audiences” at the EXC2020 “Temporal Communities,” the [email protected], the Harvard University Mahindra Humanities Centers, and the Open Society University Network. The Project “Viral Theatres” is funded by the VolkswagenFoundation and led by Ramona Mosse, Janina Janke, Christian Stein and Nina Tecklenburg.
Find out more about the symposium and exhibition from the program >>
Register for the symposium via Eventbrite to attend in-person or on Zoom to attend remotely.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Aisha was studying law and politics at the American University of Afghanistan, when the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021. A successful and civically engaged student at her university, Aisha was part of the "Youth Thinker Society" and initiated international conferences and mediations with liberal and conservative forces in the country. In November 2019, she participated in the Model United Nations and won a national UN competition in Afghanistan that lead her to speak before the UN in New York.
With the takeover of the Taliban in 2021 it became apparent that she was no longer safe in Afghanistan and she managed to escape the country via Iran. She is now enrolled full-time at Bard College Berlin with a fellowship from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung.
The article discuses how Aisha and other women are involved in grass-roots initiatives in Afghanistan. With international eyes focused on the war in Ukraine right now, the Taliban have seized the opportunity to increase pressure on the civil society in Afghanistan, making life especially hard for women. Aisha and other women continue to forge ties to young girls and teenagers who are still in Afghanistan and to those who escaped - helping each other distribute information and building networks. Her very big goal, Aisha says, is that at one day “this turns into a revolution”.
Read the full article from the Tagesspiegel (in German) here >>
Read more about the Program on International Education and Social Change at Bard College Berlin.
Photo: Tagesspiegel
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read the full article on Zeit-Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Description of Kant’s Critique of Taste: The Feeling of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2021):
Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment is widely recognized as a founding document of modern aesthetics, but its legacy has fallen into disrepute. In this book Katalin Makkai calls for the rediscovery of Kant's aesthetics, showing that its centerpiece, his investigation of the judgment of taste, paints a compelling portrait of our relationships with works of art that we love. At its heart is a scene of aesthetic encounter in which one feels oneself to be 'animated' - brought to life - by an object, finding there to be something in one's experience of it, beyond what there is to know about it, that one wants to explore and articulate. Tracing Kant's insight that to judge is to reveal one's sense of what bears judging, and hence of what matters, Makkai situates Kant's aesthetics within his larger study, begun in the first Critique, of judgment's fundamental role in the life of the mind.
For the full American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting program >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Per the abstract, “This document offers an overview of the artistic research project Viral Theatres, which documents the radical changes in theatre aesthetics and infrastructure during the Covid-19 pandemic by building an online multimedia living archive that tracks these developments in interviews, video documentaries, rehearsal residencies, and case studies.” The paper examines five of these case studies to show the radical ways in which theater has had to be reconceptualized in order to cope with the given circumstances of the pandemic.
The Viral Theatres Research Project is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
Read the whole article in the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
March 2022
From the brochure: Hildegard von Bingen conceives the concept of viriditas to counter the understanding of creation and the human body as obstacles to salvation that was taught by Christianity during her time. This theological notion outlines a dualistic understanding of humanity and nature that with the help of Humanism and Descartes’ worldview would later grow into a definition of humanity in opposition to the rest of the natural world, that is at the root of our ecological crisis and the core topic of the Wellbeing Culture Symposium.
The Hildegard von Bingen Wellbeing Culture Symposium takes place at the Disibodenberg monastery between April1st and 3rd, 2022.
For more information read the brochure >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Benjamin Hochman is a musician of exceptional versatility who regularly appears in multiple guises as orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. In recent years he has ventured into the orchestral repertoire as a conductor. His wide range of partners and projects is matched by his curiosity, focus, and ability to communicate deeply with audiences.
Since his Carnegie Hall debut as soloist with the Israel Philharmonic under the baton of Pinchas Zukerman, Hochman has enjoyed an international performing career, appearing as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, and Prague Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestras under conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Trevor Pinnock, John Storgårds, and Joshua Weilerstein.
Benjamin will be performing the following pieces:
Christopher Trapani: Four Canons (2021-22, partial World Premiere)
Berg: Sonata, Op. 1
Brahms: Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 119
Schubert: Sonata in B-flat major, D. 960
For tickets at the Piano Salon Christophori >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
This event takes place at the Met on Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 2:00 pm EDT.
From the announcement:
From their earliest encounters in the New World, Europeans and Anglo Americans were mesmerized by the Indigenous peoples of North America. French artist Eugène Delacroix painted a Native American family forced to flee up the Mississippi River after the massacre of their tribe. American composer Ferruccio Busoni’s Indian Fantasy (1913–14) is based on indigenous melodies and rhythms, and the second movement of Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony (1893) was inspired by Longfellow's poem "The Song of Hiawatha."
For more information and for tickets: The Met >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The exhibition showcases a collection of letters and photographs from the early to mid 1900s of and by mostly unknown but influential Americans and Germans who shaped Transgender histories.
The Amerikahaus promotes the exhibition as follows: Turning medical-scientific history on its head, the exhibition documents the driving role that trans* individuals played in the development of medical concepts and treatments and in the fostering of supportive communities for those seeking affirmation of their gender identities. The exhibition reconstructs personal connections that unfolded across the Atlantic, and it follows the ways in which photographs and other images were made by trans* individuals and that were sent to magazines or doctors for publication, creating communities and making visible their identities in public and private spheres.
Accompanying the exhibition is the book Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories, co-written by Taylor and his colleagues. The book was recognized as a Choice 2021 Outstanding Academic Title. Of the nearly 17,000 titles submitted for review in 2021, Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories was one of under 3 percent of books to receive this award.
For more information on the exhibit at the Amerikahaus >>
For more information on Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article, Blankenberg and Binder explore the correlation between job satisfaction and occupational identity. They use a novel occupational identity measure that captures identity more broadly by aso considering “personal and relational elements inherent in one’s work.” Through surveying a large sample size of crafts and tradesmen working in Germany, they found that “higher job satisfaction is related to a stronger sense of occupational identity.”
The full article can be found in Kyklos >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the podcast blurb:
The world is a troubling place, but we hope you can still find some inspiration out there, and in honor of International Women’s Day, we wanted to bring you the story of a woman who fought, loved, and sacrificed, in troubling times of her own — the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. Rosa was a Polish-born Jewish intellectual, socialist, Marxist philosopher, and anti-war activist, whose evocative writing contributed to her legacy.
The Dead Ladies Show is a podcast and live show celebrating the lives of women throughout history. Find out more on their website >>
Listen to the full podcast on The Dead Ladies Show >>
Photographer unknown
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the abstract:
"The aim of this essay is to examine the ways in which Caminantes are silenced by official United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports. For this purpose, [Erick Moreno Superlano] establishes a dialogue between Liisa Malkki's idea of “speechlessness” (1995; 1996) and Walter Mignolo’s idea of “the right of enunciation” (2009). Adopting Mignolo’s argument that the racialized subject has no right of enunciation in a modern/colonial world-system, [he] argues that the UN refugee agency (re)produces a modern/colonial narrative that perpetuates the racialization of Caminantes, and thus the silence referred to by Malkki."
Erick is a fourth-year Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought student, pursuing a concentration in Literature & Rhetoric.
Read the whole article in In:Sight >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
“Assad has taken a large portion of our land. He has taken many of our lives. But he will never win the trust of Syrians, and—most importantly—he can never take our stories. This emboldens my belief that art is also a source of hope on the journey toward a free Syria.”
Karam is a photographer, editor, journalist and activist. He received his Bachelors in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought from Bard College Berlin in 2020. Karam is currently completing a Masters in Public Policy at Yale University.
Read the full article on Newsweek >>
Bard College Berlin’s Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC), is a scholarship program for students from areas of crisis and conflict. Find our more on the PIESC webpage>>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Even as he suggests the worst of the war is yet to come, Roth believes there is still potential to de-escalate the conflict and achieve justice for Ukraine. He postulates the Russian people are our biggest hope for peace as there is still a chance that Putin might listen to his own citizens. As hundreds of protests happen across Russia and thousands of protestors are arrested, it’s only a matter of time until the Kremlin feels internal pressure. In a time of fear and xenophobia, Roth challenges us to stand with the Russian people as they “may be the best tool we have for preventing Kyiv and Kharkiv from becoming the next Aleppo and Grozny.
Read the full article in The Guardian >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the abstract:
"Exogenously manipulating choice architectures to achieve social ends (‘social nudges’) can raise problems of effectiveness and ethicality. Giving individuals control over their nudge (‘self-nudge’) is a possible remedy, but the trade-offs involved are poorly understood. We examine how subjects self-nudge in a social dilemma setting and whether outcomes differ between the self-nudge and two exogenous nudges (perfect free-riding and full cooperation). Participants recruited from the general population played a ten-round linear public good game online with one daily contribution decision. The nudge is implement by a default choice in case a participant does not log to the experiment in a given day. We find that the average self-nudge is 44% of the endowment and only 7% of participants choose one of the two exogenous defaults. Yet, there is a hard trade-off between ethicality and effectiveness: Self-nudging groups do not perform better than groups under the perfect free-riding nudge. The reason is that non-defaulting subjects contribute less. Groups under the full cooperation default (social nudge) exhibit no reactance against the nudge and outperform both alternative choice architectures."
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the organizers:
"How is it possible to theorize not only on the so-called Global South, but also in, from, and through it? What appears as the universal often involves a gesture of generalization, flattening and dominating the particular, predominantly from a Eurocentric perspective.
This workshop will discuss ways to unsettle the very distinction between the general and the particular that underlies claims to universality and simultaneously retain the claim to the universal that makes theorization generative and relevant. In this vein, it will reflect on the following questions: How are theoretical affinities transformed through contexts in the Global South? How can theoretical work be made relevant to the larger audience beyond particular region or area studies? What are possible strategies to present the theoretical impact of one’s work despite its constant peripheralization as a case study? How can one maintain a critique of the Eurocentric gaze without falling into the traps of ethnocentrism? What are the affordances that particular disciplines and institutions could offer to tackle such theoretical and methodological challenges? What methodologies can be employed to expand, if not transform, current understandings of the universal?
Scholars from a variety of fields who undertake such inquiries are invited to jointly develop novel methods, approaches, and styles of knowledge production and circulation."
Dates: March 10-11, 2022
Place: Institute of Cultural Inquiry and online
Full Program here.
Please register here.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
His contribution to the new book is an essay called “No Country For Old Men: Alter(n) im Westernfilm als Spiegel individueller und kultureller Transformationsprozesse" ("No Country For Old Men: Old Age in Western Films as Reflection of Individual and Cultural Transformation Processes"). The essay explores the theme of aging and age as recurrent topics of Western and Post-Western films that do not only refer to individual characters (in films like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Shootist, Unforgiven and Buffalo Girls) but also to an ideological reading of American history and the myth of the frontier and thus play important parts as symbolic representations in a greater discourse of cultural, social, and political transformations in the modern age. At the same time the phenomenon of aging, used in particular films and novels as a dramatic aspect, can be interpreted as a self-reflective comment on or account of the genre itself, its ideological and revisionist functions, and its development as a part of popular culture in general.
For further information, check the publisher: Transcript Verlag >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Carbonneau and Jiménez-Salcedo’s article addresses “one-way bilingualism,” a concept developed in Canadian political science to tackle the issue of unequal power relationships between speakers of different languages in multilingual states. The two authors examine “the Spanish constitutional framework and the corresponding legislation and case law to see how they have contributed, since the 1980s, to a one-way bilingualism, with Castilian as the ‘common’ and default language of Spain.” The authors hope that the Spanish State of the Autonomies will adapt its language policies to the needs of its different language groups in order to create a more balanced situation and thus lay out a path other countries may follow.
Read the full article on Journal of Language and Law >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
February 2022
The paper analysis case studies of apparel workers in Cambodia and Vietnam, as part of global value chains, to understand how worker strikes alter the power dynamic between worker and the state and lead to improvements in working conditions. The authors “build on critiques of the concept of social upgrading in global value chain (GVC) research.” By arguing that worker power is shaped by state–labor relations and the intersectionality of worker identities linked to gender, household and community relations.
Read the full article on Development and Change >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The exhibition brings together sculptures, early paintings and drawings of the Swiss artist HR Giger (1940-2014), who is known as the creator of the creature from the film Alien, with graphic works and photographs of the German Surrealist Hans Bellmer (1902-1975).
The Schinkel Pavillion promotes the exhibition as follows: "The Schinkel Pavillon presents a second volume of the exhibition dedicated to HR Giger, this time entering a dialogue with the work of an artist who inspired him throughout his lifetime: the subversive German Surrealist Hans Bellmer. Their provocative aesthetics, depicting at times explicit sexual acts and repulsive creatures, was for both a form of political resistance and rebellion. The exhibition space turns into a forbidden cabinet of nightmares and taboos which seduce the curious viewer with their alluring poetics."
The exhibition is a follow up to 2021’s show HR Giger & Mire Lee. Curator Agnes Gryczkowska selected the HR Giger works for both shows.
Find out more on the Schinkel Pavillion website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Faculty,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In their book Profs. Lammert and Vormann question the assumption that modern democracies are built on a foundation of societal equality, posing the question whether it is possible for liberal democracies to deliver on their promise of equality without exploitation.
The US, a state that is often held up as a pioneer of the democratic principle, serves the authors as a case study, a reputation which they aim to reassess based on the US’s colonial legacy.
Das Versprechen der Gleichheit, Legitimation und die Grenzen der Demokratie is published in German by Campus. An English translation is planned for the future. More information on the Campus website >>
Listen to Profs. Vormann and Lammert discuss the book on the podcast Campus Chat >>
Read Prof. Vormann discussing his book and the crisis of liberal democracy in the article “Le crépuscule des démocraties” (The Twilight of Democracies) in Le Temps >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article Prof. Scuriatti explores the complex intertextual presence of George Moore's Confessions of a Young Man in Van Vechten's novel. Drawing on Adriana Cavarero's and Lucia Boldrini's studies on auto/biographical selves, and on Rebecca Walkowitz's and Homi Bhabha's theories of cosmopolitanism, she argues that Peter Whiffle's emphasis on dialogic subjectivity questions the notion of authorship and creates a problematic, parodic form of cosmopolitanism.
You can access the article on the Edinburgh University Press website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
January 2022
The volume collects work by artists, scholars, curators and museum administrators discussing the role of reenactment in contemporary artistic production and theoretical discourse as a strategy to engage with history and memory. Its contributions discuss the mobilization of archives in the struggle for inclusiveness and cultural revisionism; the role of the body in the presentification and rehabilitation of past events and (impermanent) objects; the question of authenticity and originality in artistic practice, art history, as well as in museum collections and conservation practices.
Dr. Nicastro’s contribution is titled “Unintentional Reenactments,” and speaks about different levels of reenactment in the film Yella directed by Christian Petzold. In her essay “Everyday Aesthetics and the Practice of Historical Reenactment. Revisiting Cavell’s Emerson” Dr. Wagner uses the philosopher Stanley Cavell’s readings of Ralph Waldo Emerson as a starting point to explore Emerson’s engagement with contemporary debates concerning the historical reading of sacred and secular literature such as the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare.
The entire book is available as an open access pdf from the ici Berlin website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Chanel Next prize is a new biannual award initiated by the French fashion label as part of the Chanel Culture Fund, which aims to support cultural innovators in advancing new ideas and greater representation in culture and society. 10 artists who are deemed to be redefining their respective fields receive 100,000 EUR prize money and also benefit from access to a network of mentors selected by the brand. The winners hail from a wide range of disciplines, including: music, dance, film, visual arts, and theater.
Marie Schleef completed her bachelor's in Theater and Performance at Bard College and spent the spring of 2013 at Bard College Berlin as part of the Study Abroad Program. She went on to study directing for theater at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. Schleef directs and produces innovative and unconventional performance theater pieces. Her most newest piece: Die Geschichte einer Stunde//The Story of an Hour recently showed at the Ballhaus Ost in Berlin.
Read more on ARTnews >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
End of November 2021 Steve McCurry announced that Sharbat Gula had been evacuated from Afghanistan with the help of the NGO Future Brilliance, the Italian government and the NFT Platform Metagood.
In his article Ido Nahari reflects critically on McCurry’s 1984 portrait of Gula well as the commercial success he has enjoyed thanks to the image, arguing that that this has resulted in the glamourizing of Gula’s hardship. He questions involvement of private companies such as Metagood in humanitarian actions stating that it was fame of Gula’s image which motivated her evacuation.
Read the full article on taz.de >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the BBC audio documentary titled Gone but not forgotten: Syria's missing persons, Wafa speaks about her father Ali Mustafa who she believes is being forcibly detained by the Syrian regime and how his fate motivates her activism in campaigning for justice in Syria. She also recounts the story of her and her family’s flight from Syria and the journey that lead her to study in Berlin.
The interview with Channel 4 News was broadcast on the day of the verdict of the Al-Khatib Trial in Koblenz which saw a member of Assad's secret police sentenced. In the interview Wafa speaks about how the verdict validates Syrians experiences and confirms that Assad's Syria is a "torture state."
Wafa is a 2020 Humanities, Arts, and Social Thought graduate and a former PIESC Program scholar. She is a journalist and activist, who works together with the organization Families for Freedom, campaigning for the freedom of those who have been detained by the Syrian regime.
Listen to the full BBC World Service documentary here >>
Listen to the interview with Channel 4 News here >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Capitol Riots saw a mob of supporters of Donald Trump storm the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election victory of Joe Biden. Professor Vormann spoke to Tagesschau and RBB about the event as a symptom of a democracy in crisis and what the aftermath will mean for American politics.
Watch Professor Vormann's Tagesschau interview on YouTube >>
Listen to Professor Vormann's RBB interview on their website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The piece is titled Die Geschichte einer Stunde//The Story of an Hour and is based on a short story by Kate Chopin and includes themes from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story The Yellow Wallpaper.
The Story of an Hour centers around Louise Mallard, who has just learned of her husband’s sudden death in an apparent train accident. In the span of exactly sixty minutes, Kate Chopin’s short story unpacks and determines a utopia of self-determined transformation.
First published in 1894, The Story of an Hour, exemplifies this American writer’s work, but is still little known to readers outside of the United States. It will be performed for the first time on the German stage. For Marie Schleef and her team, the short story, in the form of an hour-long silent piece, becomes the basis for examining new narrative and dream spaces void of the spoken word
Together with the adaptation of the novel To the Lighthouse (Volksbühne Berlin, 2018) and Name Her (Ballhaus Ost, 2020), Die Geschichte einer Stunde // The Story of an Hour completes Marie Schleef’s trilogy dealing with “rooms of emancipation,” in which literature and history are investigated in terms of new and forgotten spaces of possibility.
Marie Schleef completed her bachelor's in Theater and Performance at Bard College and spent the spring of 2013 at Bard College Berlin as part of the Study Abroad Program. She went on to study directing for theater at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” in Berlin.
Die Geschichte einer Stunde//The Story of an Hour is showing at Ballhaus Ost from January 13 to January 16, 2022.
Further information and tickets on the Ballhaus Ost website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sohaib writes that one of the main challenges at the beginning of the pandemic was the uncertainty and the loss of connection with his fellow students, when he no longer had the opportunity to see them in person every day. Despite the original estrangement caused by only connecting with his peers online Sohaib saw some advantages in virtual learning:
“The ability to divide students into rooms gave more time for group discussion and interaction. Our college’s whole curriculum is based on discussion, argument, and talking.”
The article is titled: "Students navigate the Uncertainty of the Pandemic, Reflections on lessons learned in a time of disruption" and was put together by Nancy Budwig and Emily Schuster.
Read the full article on the AACU website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The exhibition translations / مشاع showcases artistic, architectural, performative, multimedia and literary works relating to the theme of “translation as a practice of invention/transformation, memory-making, (dis-)location, and healing. It provides a performative space for critical reflections on “translation” as a question that cuts across and undergirds a wide range of realms: linguistic and literal, epistemic and representational, political and social, as well as architectural and artistic. It is hoped that the exhibition will act as a site for performing radical translations and weaving and extending rhizomatic connections.
The exhibition is based on the works of over 30 individuals who were first assembled during the Critical Practice Studio / مشاع للممارسة الناقدة in the summer of 2021. It is supported by the Open Society University Network and is institutionally hosted at Al-Quds Bard College in Jerusalem, Palestine.
translations / مشاع is running at the Haus der Statistik, Berlin from January 8 to 11, 2022. The lecture performance Translations on Hospitality will take place on January 11 at 5 pm.
Further information and tickets on the Critical Practice Studio website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Previous research on labor governance in GPNs has mainly focused on private measures, in their article, Prof. Raj-Reichert and her collaborators initiate discussions on the role of the state in governing labor conditions in GPNS by focusing on the less well-known public governance instrument – Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP).
SRPP is the inclusion of social criteria on working conditions in public procurement contracts. Revised European Union (EU) directives on public procurement widened the space to exercise SRPP including for outsourced and offshored production. Understanding how states can exercise SRPP as a labor governance instrument requires a conceptualization of state powers.
The authors present a conceptualization of the hybrid regulator-buyer state and show that an effective SRPP approach requires both strong regulator powers, differentiated as legislative, institutional, judicial and discursive, and buyer power which depend on purchasing volumes and supplier and market characteristics.
Read the full article in Wiley Online here >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
December 2021
The reviews were published on Saturday December 18, 2021.
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The workshop discussed the contribution made by higher education institutions in Vietnam in compensating for the deficiencies in governmental resources by supporting vulnerable communities during the pandemic and beyond.
As part of the workshop Prof. Lisiak held a presentation titled: “Engaged teaching and international collaboration during the pandemic” and participated in a panel discussion titled “Challenges and achievement of HEIs in Vietnam and International in the time of crisis.”
Read more on the Vietnam Campus Engage website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The episode was titled: “Präsident in der Krise: Implodiert Joe Bidens innenpolitische Agenda?” (President in Crisis: Will Biden’s Domestic Agenda Implode?). The guests spoke about Biden’s efforts to strengthen and bring together a divided country through domestic reforms and ambitious infrastructure developments and his difficulties with passing his reforms in Congress despite a Democratic majority. They also discussed what the future holds for Biden’s presidency and the Democratic Party post-Biden, as well as the likelihood of Trump running for office in 2024.
Listen to the episode on Spotify >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Prof. Toukan and Dr. Zoubi discussed the entanglement of art and cultural practices, international politics, and neoliberal cultural capital in the context of Palestine and Palestinians. Their conversation centered around the question of the possibilities and limitations of subversive and dissonant practices that are animated by global market economies that reach well into the urban sites of colonial subjugation and anti-colonial resistance, shaping aesthetical and cultural discourses around each. Highlighting the two different, yet also interrelated, Palestinian contexts of the 1967 Occupied Territories and of the 48-Palestinians, the speakers grappled with how artists and activists from those contexts navigate the global and more localized challenges they ultimately must confront.
Read more on the ACMES website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Sociological Review is the UK’s oldest sociology journal. With an international and interdisciplinary focus, it publishes studies that look at issues of the social world through the lens of the sociological imagination. The editorial board members support the work of the journal by refereeing papers, reviewing proposals, participating in events and public engagements as well supporting the organizations mission of building up early career researchers.
Read more on the Sociological Review website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The documentary chronicles the travels of expressionist painters Emil Nolde and Max Pechstein to New Guinea and the Palau Islands, which were inspired by visits to the ethnological museums in Berlin and Dresden as well as the work of Paul Gauguin. The documentary takes a critical look at Nolde and Pechtstein’s motivations for their travels and their romanticized view of the landscape and its inhabitants as “wild” and “primitive” which did not match the colonial realities at the time.
The exhibition at the Brücke museum looks more broadly at the careers, travels and artistic production of the artists of Brücke in the context of German colonialism. It also presents for the first time the ethnographic collection of Brücke Museum founder Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, on display at the Kunsthaus Dahlem in the exhibition Transition.
Watch the documentary on arte until the February 11, 2022 >>
Find more about the exhibition on the Brücke Museum website >>
© Pechstein – Hamburg/Preetz
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The DAAD Prize is conferred annually to an outstanding international student who not only has an excellent academic record, but also through their civic and campus involvement demonstrates engagement and responsibility towards their community. Students were first nominated by faculty and then a selection committee involving the Civic Engagement Office as well as the members of the university’s leadership was tasked with selecting a winner among an already outstanding group of nominees.
In choosing Vala, the committee especially praised Vala’s many public outreach activities on campus as well as her unique ability to “think and write across disciplines and methodological divides” that bring together the BCB community.
Vala is an avid creator in a range of different media - analog painting and drawing, video work and podcasts, and poetry and fiction.
She has been writing for the BCB blog Die Berliner since her first year at the College and is now a co-editor of the blog, reaching the BCB community every week by carefully curating blog articles on academics, campus life, current events, and happenings in Berlin. She also organizes the blog’s poetry month and creative writing events, as well as a campus film series. About the decision to move the film series online in the early phase of the pandemic, Vala said she wanted to “create a modicum of community in the oppressing distance of those early lockdown days.”
This fall she initiated an oil painting nature workshop for current students and recent alumni that combined observational drawing and color-mixing theory.
During the summer, Vala is a tutor for the Language and Thinking Program at BCB. For her, this is a way to give back, where she endeavors to “recreate the experience I had with my own L&T tutor way back when, who took my ideas and my writing seriously, an invaluable boon to my confidence entering the academic environment at BCB.”
The socially distanced award ceremony was held on December 9 and Managing Director Dr. Florian Becker awarded the certificate.
Congratulations to Vala on behalf of the entire BCB community.
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
November 2021
In her article Prof. Detjen uses this incident as a jumping off point to comment on the difficulties of the German public sphere with dealing with memories and identities that don’t fit into accepted narrative of atonement for the Holocaust, which results in the hiding and suppressing of Palestinian experiences. She calls for engaging with such individuals as El-Hassan in shared learning processes about German-Palestinian entanglements in the history of antisemitism and Germany’s historical responsibility in this matter.
Read the full article on Zeit Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Prof. Giamattei’s research in the context of his habilitation preoccupies itself with limited rationality and macroeconomic group decisions. His work combines economic questions with psychological and ethical aspects and is grounded in experimental methods.
Aside from his research, the prize committee praised Prof. Giamattei’s long-standing contribution to teaching in higher education as well as the development of classEx, a digital tool for conducting interactive surveys and classroom experiments.
Prof. Giamattei was presented the prize during the University of Passau’s Dies academicus celebrations on Nov 12, 2021. Read more on the university's website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The essay considers this classic work of journalism and modernist myth as a displaced examination of the legacy of British imperialism.
Access the article on Sage Journals Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The essay is an edited excerpt of Prof. Toukan’s book The Politics of Art: Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy in Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan (Stanford University Press, 2021) and deals with the concept of cultural funding, the term’s translation into Arabic and the discourses about art and its relationship to society that it is embedded in.
Read the full article here >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The documenta played a key role in rebuilding the reputation of the artists they chose to show, the panel will question why certain artists were preferred over others and the narrative that was built up surrounding the persecuted artists under the Nazi regime.
The discussion is titled “Die Ermorderten und die Verdrängten: Die documenta und der NS“ (The Murdered and the Displaced: The documenta and the National Socialists) and is part of the German Historical Musuem’s event series accompanying their exhibition on the history of the documenta, a prestigious art exhibition which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.
The talk will take place on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, at 6:30 pm at the German Historical Musuem. The event is free and open to the public
Register on the museum’s website here >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The documentary examines how Nolde himself contributed to constructing the image of himself as a defamed artist. It touches not just on his political ideology but also on themes in his work and questions of artistic practice. Attempting to provide a comprehensive introduction, the film also draws on the findings of a research project conducted by Prof. Soika and Dr. Bernhard Fulda which examined the artist's involvement with National Socialism and deconstructed the one-sided Nolde "myth" of being exclusively a victim of Nazi politics due to his prominent position in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition in 1937.
The full documentary is available on the arte website until January 14, 2022 >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The GfeW is the world’s oldest association of experimental economics. They aim to further establish experimental research as an important methodology in economics and provide a forum where young researchers have the opportunity to gain experience and connect with their more experienced peers.
As Managing Director Prof. Giamattei will be part of the GFeW leadership team, who are responsible for awarding the dissertation prize, sponsoring young researchers, and providing ethical approvals for research projects.
We congratulate Prof. Giamattei on this exciting opportunity!
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
October 2021
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article is titled "La normalisation du catalan vue par les partis pan-espagnols" (The normalization of Catalan as seen by pan-Spanish parties). In the context of the decentralization of the Spanish state in 1978 and the associated policy of revitalizing minority languages, the article discusses how this issue is seen in the Spanish political landscape and whether this process is seen as compatible with a pluralist political project or as an affront to a Castilian-speaking nation-state. It first examines the legislation that has facilitated the normal use of Catalan in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Aragon. The article then looks in greater detail at how linguistic normalization is conceived within the main Spanish political formations and their regional branches through an analysis of public policies and party discourses.
Access the article on the publisher's website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Simona Baldelli’s book is a fictional account of the life of pioneering female cyclist Alfonsina Strada, the first woman to have participated in the Giro d’Italia. Prof. Scuriatti will be discussing the book with the author and professional Swiss cyclist Marlen Reusser.
Further information on the Zurich liest website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The event series preoccupies itself with the question: how the community can shape public space, housing, transport, and resources in a city such as Berlin. The first installment is dedicated to the street, not just as a means for transportation but also a public, and sometimes political space. Prof. Lisiak will participate in the panel discussion titled: „Kritik des bürgerlichen Blicks auf die Straße“ (Critique of the Bourgeois View of the Street) together with the writer Nadire Biskin, and members of the Friedrichshain – Kreuzberg team of the street work organization Gangway.
The event will take place on October 30 from 2:00 to 6:00 pm. Register on the Berliner Landeszentrale für politische Bildung website here >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
Prof. Hantelmann’s talk is titled: “Die documenta als Dokument ihrer Zeit“ (The documenta as a Document of its Time) and will give an overview of the past, present, and purpose of the exhibition.
The talk will take place on October 27, 2021 at 6:30 pm at the German Historical Museum in Berlin. The event is free and open to the public.
Register on the museum’s website here >>
All talks in the series will be recorded and are available to listen to on soundcloud >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The event was part of a series organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation discussing how the stories of migrants and displaced people hold up a mirror to the conflicts of an era and shape the memory cultures of cities. The event series coincides with the opening of the Documentation Centre for Flight, Displacement, and Reconciliation and the development of an Exile Museum.
Read more on the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the interview Prof. Toukan explains how The Politics of Art discusses the entanglement of art, society and international politics: “it centers it’s analysis on the practices of contemporary art and culture in specific parts of the of the Arabic-speaking world at the turn of the millennium, to uncover how counter-hegemonies are constructed, reproduced and above all understood by the publics from which they emerge. Specifically, it grapples with the site of contemporary art’s making and its circulation and reception, to understand how art and what I refer to as “neoliberal cultural funders”, as well as art critics and artists, feature in our thinking about the role of resistance and dissent in cultural production.”
Read the full interview at openDemocracy >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Professor Vormann will speak together with panelists Prof. Dr. Fabian Schuppert (Universität Potsdam) and Prof. Dr. Gary S. Schaal (Bundeswehr-Universität Hamburg) on the panel: “Democracy in Crisis? Challenges, Paths for Action, and Opportunities.”
The event is sponsored by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community.
October 25, 2021: 10 am - 5 pm
Hessische Landesvertretung, In den Ministergärten 5, 10117 Berlin
Watch the livestream on youtube >>
Find Prof. Vormann's book (written together with Chrisitan Lammert) Democracy in Crisis, The Neoliberal Roots of Popular Unrest (2019) on the Penn University Press website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the first of a two part episode, titled: “Travel and the Imagination” Prof. Lehman discusses how our dreams and internal life, including our response to art and media, influence us our travel choices and experiences.
Listen to the first part on Spotify here >>
Find out more about Dikte’s work on travel and tourism on the On The Green Track website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The workshop series titled “The Pen and the Beat” and running from October 8 to 10, 2021, was part of a series of events dealing with migration, asylum, and exile, coordinated by the HKW to run alongside its oral history installation Archiv der Flucht (Archive of Refuge).
The first two workshops “Listening Critically” and “Between Weimar and Now” involved reading and free writing exercises and focused on creating space for the exchange of migrant and refugee narratives and the (re)definition of legal terminology surrounding asylum. In the third workshop “Refubeats” participants produced audio compositions on their smartphones inspired by the stories from the Archiv der Flucht installation.
The workshops were co-hosted by Sam Zamrik, BCB faculty member Ariane Simard, BCB alumnus Anas Maghrebi (Humanities, Arts, and Social Thought '21), and Syrian journalist Dima Kalaji.
Sam works as a freelance writer, poet and musician. Find out more about his work here >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The conference explores the diplomatic challenges presented by the global climate crisis as well as the strategies and solutions being proposed and employed by practitioners and scholars of diplomacy.
Prof. Toukan is speaking on the panel “Diplomacy and the Arts in the Age of the Anthropocene” together with Jessica Horton (University of Delaware, Newark), and Hameed Khasawnih (Über den Tellerrand, Berlin).
The conference will be taking place from October 13 to 15, 2021. Prof. Toukan’s panel begins at 8 pm CEST on October 14.
Register with Eventbrite here >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Deep Godot is an AI developed by Interrobang which participants interact with through microphone and headphones in a one-on-one booth. Through the performance, Interrobang explores the limits and possibilities of individual agency and social solidarity in a world increasingly shaped by A.I. What is the relationship between profit-oriented promises of progress and emancipatory potentials? At the same time, communication with Deep Godot enables a personal and poetic confrontation with one’s own transience.
Deep Godot can be experienced on October 9, 2021, on the hour: 4:00 - 10:00 pm and October, 13 -17 2021, on the hour: 6:00 to 10:00 pm.
Further information and tickets on the Sophiensaele website >>
More projects from Interrobang on their website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Prof. Raj-Reichert is participating in the fourth seminar of the series titled: “Business and human rights: governance challenges in an era of transition” which will take place on Wednesday, October 6, 2021 from 12:00 am to 1:30 pm.
Further information on the event series and registration on the University of Dundee website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In The Politics of Art Prof Toukan discusses the intersection of art and politics in the Arab Middle East. Read more on the Stanford University Press website >>
Further details on the seminar on the Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Published on the eve of the election and titled “Es kostest nichts mit Empathie zu wählen” (It costs nothing to vote with empathy), Sam’s article in the Frankfurter Rundschau is addressed to the voting population. Writing from the perspective of a migrant living in Germany, unable to vote, but who because of his refugee status is profoundly affected by the political decisions resulting from the elections, Sam encourages those that have a vote to make use of it. He appeals to those that vote, to “vote with empathy,” bearing in mind the precarity and stigma that many displaced persons in Germany live with.
In “Wenn sich nichts ändert“ (When nothing changes) published on the front page of the culture section of the Tagesspiegel on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, Sam gives his take on the outcome of the election. Sam sees in the outcome of the election a continuation of the centrist stability orientated politics, which have governed Germany for generations, for him a sign of stagnation: “We don’t live today like we did a hundred years ago. The ideologies haven’t kept up. That’s why its not just ill advised but dangerous to put forward the same solutions for new problems.” He voices his concern, that this stagnation means that the situation for displaced persons such as himself will not improve with the next government.
Sam Zamrik is originally from Damaskus, Syria. He writes prose and poetry in English and German, amongst others for the creative writing project Weiterschreiben.jetzt. His first poetry collection “Sophistry of Survival is set to be released with Hanser Berlin Verlag in 2022. Sam is currently completing his master's at the Freie Universität Berlin in Interdisciplinary Studies of the Middle East.
Read “Es kostest nichts mit Empathie zu wählen” in the Frankfurter Rundschau here >>
Read “Wenn sich nichts ändert“ in the Tagespiegel here (restricted access) >>
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Dead Ladies Show is a podcast and live show celebrating the lives of women throughout history. Find out more on their website >>
Get tickets for the live recording on eventbrite >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
September 2021
In the panel “Audiences at play – the role of gaming in the making of digital spectatorship” Prof. Tecklenburg and Dr. Mosse and their co-panelists explored how the relationship between performer and spectator is altered through gamification and participative formats when theater is moved from the physical into the digital realm.
In the discussion the co-panelists drew on examples from their research project Viral Theaters, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, which is building a living archive of post/pandemic theatre realities.
Further information about the EASTAP conference on their website >>
Find out more about on the Viral Theaters Project on the project website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Alongside a research platform which will gather range of resources including art works, artists and multimedia tools, the project will include a series of zoom seminars. Under the themes of “Currents,” “Underwater,” and “Waves” the seminars will are designed to bring scholars and artists in conversation with each other around water and its political, ecological, and artistic dimensions.
Dr. Mosse is co-organizing the event with Prof. Dr. Anne Laure Fourtin-Tournes, Dr. Anna Street, and Kamila Mamadnazarbekova of Le Mans University (France).
The next seminar is titled "Waves" and will take place on December 14, 2021 at 6:00 pm CET.
Find out more about the project and sign up to the seminars on perfomingwater.org >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The evening courses in English or German are taught in various academic disciplines, such as history, literature, philosophy, sociology, or political thought. In small discussion groups participants explore the theme ‘Freedom and Society’ from the different perspectives and receive guidance in academic writing.
The project is supported by the Open Society University Network and is a collaboration between Bard College Berlin and the Central European University (CEU). Courses are offered in Berlin, Vienna and Budapest.
Find out more about the Socrates Project here >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The event titled “Supporting Afghanistan’s scholars: Information for higher education institutions in Europe,” aims to provide answers to the practical questions institutions may have about hosting an at-risk scholars from Afghanistan. The event brings together experts from organizations specialized in supporting at-risk scholars, including Dr. Kölemen who is responsible for coordinating the OSUN Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative.
The InSPIREurope (Initiative to Support, Promote and Integrate Researchers at Risk in Europe) initiative brings together ten European institutions who aim to work together to coordinate and develop their activities in supporting scholars at risk.
The event takes place on September 30, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm CEST. Registration is available over InSPIREurope partner Maynooth University (Ireland) >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta:
Inspired by Alex Ross's new book Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, Festa embarks on a project of listening to Wagner’s eleven major operas in succession. He chronicles these encounters in a listening and reading diary that combines history, contemporary controversies, and his own personal conflicts over art, politics, and identity.
Read the full article in the Los Angeles Review of Books >>
Listen to Paul Festa discuss Wagner on the Trilloquy podcast >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The volume investigates the cultural sites of the Cold war, and the encounters that took place between writers, artists, filmmakers, and intellectuals from or aligned with the Third World as they navigated the ideological and material constraints set by superpowers and emerging regional powers.
Pushing forward recent scholarship that tracks the Cold War in the Global South and draws on postcolonial approaches, the contributors use archival, secondary, and ethnographic sources to trace the afterlives and memories of key figures and to explore meetings that performed cultural diplomacy.
The Cultural Cold War and the Global South: Sites of Contest and Communitas is published by Routledge, find out more on their website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In his contribution, titled: "Global city networks and the nation-state: rethinking a false tradeoff," Prof. Vormann challenges contemporary discussions which state that city networks have a greater importance for global flows of trade than states, arguing instead that the relationship between city and state is complementary and not a tradeoff.
Access the article on Elgaronline >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The paper is motivated by the argument that differences between actors (i.e. countries) in factors such as wealth and potential damage caused by environmental catastrophes represent a major obstacle to a cooperative climate policy.
Prof. Waichman, Prof. Requate, Mr. Karde, and Prof. Milinski conducted an experiment with human participants in a simplified environment to experimentally study the effect of differences in wealth and potential damage from a climate related catastrophe on success in preventing such a catastrophe. The main finding is that heterogenies per se do not necessarily hinder cooperation in preventing a catastrophe.
Read the full paper on Science Direct >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Students reflected together with their peers from Dadaab on science fiction as a genre and how it can enable hidden experiences to be seen and different futures to be imagined. Warscapes editor Bhakti Shringarpure and writer Kiprop Kimutai helped students develop future-orientated creative responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The project was funded by the OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning initiatives and the Open Society University Network Center for the Human Rights and Arts.
Warscapes is an independent online magazine that provides a lens into current conflict across the world. Read the students’ pieces on the Warscapes website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Following on from his debut novel Mrs Engels, a fictional account of the life of Frederick Engel’s wife, The Sisters Mao continues with Dr. McCrea's literary account of the development of communism in the 20th century, whilst also covering the everyday familial struggles of the women at the center of the plot.
The Sisters Mao is published by Scribe and released on September 9. Dr. McCrea is currently working on a memoir titled Cells about the relationship with his mother, which is set to be released in September 2022.
Further information about The Sisters Mao on the Scribe website >>
Interview with Dr. Gavin McCrea in the Irish Times >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Student Life complements students' academic experience, aiming to sustain and further develop an open, vibrant, intellectually curious, supportive and diverse community atmosphere. Student Life comprises several areas, including Residential Life & Housing, Orientation, Career Services, Student Organizations and Clubs, Internships, Student Wellness, and more. The Student Life team supports BCB students and foster their growth and independence.
Dr. Maria Anderson-Long received her Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in Higher & Postsecondary Education. She received her Master's in Higher Education Student Affairs from The Ohio State University and her Bachelor’s in Women & Gender Studies and Theater Arts from Clark University. Her primary research interests focus on how higher education responds to societal changes, specifically focusing on the creation of policies that better serve marginalized students. Her dissertation utilized organizational theory to understand institutional responses to normative disruption of the gender binary to better support transgender students. Maria has worked in student life for over a decade, with most of her career focused in residential life, academic advising, and student activities. She has also been an assistant adjunct professor at Teachers College for the last several years teaching courses on student development theories and the history and policies of American higher education.
Further information about the Student Life department on the BCB website >>
Meta: Type(s): Staff,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Context
Set in the city’s leafy Pankow neighborhood, the former East Berlin embassy district, and arraying 39 apartments that will be home to 120 students, the twin red and gray brick buildings reflect the heterogeneous architectural character of Berlin, and create permeable connections with their surroundings. The buildings delineate the corner lot on which they are erected, forming a spacious patio that serves as an informal community gathering place and providing a gateway between the adjacent Intelligenzberg Park and Bard College Berlin’s campus. Working closely with development manager DBI Projects and their local partner AVP, Civilian has overseen the architecture, interiors, furniture and landscape design for the project together with a team of local professionals.Architecture

The lounge and study areas on the ground floor of each building are connected by a landscaped courtyard creating a spatial social hub between the two residences and the recently converted former embassies that are now academic buildings adjacent to the project.
Interiors

Mindful of creating a flexible environment for open social exchange, living and learning, Civilian has made a suite of custom furniture that takes inspiration from the pared down utility of 1920s furniture by Dutch designers Gerrit Rietveld and Ko Verzuu, as well as artists Donald Judd and Andrea Zittel. In the private living spaces, multifunctional bedroom furniture made from European birch plywood maximizes storage and comfort, while incorporating high quality materials. The beds contain drawer storage for clothing, a back and armrest to be used as a chair and a pull-out night table with a power source and lockable compartment. Individual mirrors have an adjustable light source and lip to house family photos or postcards. Desks have an additional built-in shelf and a wardrobe provides additional open storage. Each piece of furniture has been CNC cut, flat packed, and can be easily assembled or adapted for future use. Refinished vintage furniture from the 70s and 80s contrasts with the custom millwork and paneling that has been placed throughout the public lounge and cafe spaces.

The new residences provide students with a thoughtfully-designed living and studying environment that has incorporated the rich local history and that will further enhance the shaping and functioning of the close-knit intellectual community that is Bard College Berlin.
"By partnering with developers, Bard College Berlin was able to leverage its land assets with private investment to ensure that its growing international student community could continue to reap the benefits of a residential campus that offers students the opportunity to study and live together. Characteristic of a liberal arts education, it is a trait that is rare to find in Europe. The newly constructed student residences will be home to 120 international students who are enrolled in one of the two four-year BA programs that Bard College Berlin offers,” said Florian Becker, Managing Director of Bard College Berlin in Berlin.”
“The project shows that functional student housing can tackle sustainability concerns, be aesthetically advanced, and act as a community and social hub all at once. Designed with a nod to both Bauhaus and the "Kreuzberg brick" in their modern facades, these highly energy efficient units aim to honor the past while fully incorporating today's environmental requirements. In a city that is a palimpsest of European history, this is a project truly coming full circle, as former East-German embassies are flanking two brand-new residences that will serve a student community of over sixty nationalities," added Taun Toay, Bard College Berlin’s Managing Director based in Annandale.
“Civilian is honored to work with Bard College Berlin on this project, which we hope will serve as a dynamic new gathering place that facilitates the exchange of ideas on campus,” said Civilian’s principal and co-founder Nicko Elliott. “Our goal was to create a range of convivial public lounges across both buildings for both individual study and collaboration while designing flexible private living spaces for maximum comfort and personalization.”
“We partnered with Bard College Berlin to develop high-quality yet affordable facilities for the college that address their need for more student housing while creating significant added value through intentional design and thoughtful execution," said Ofer Ohad, Managing Partner at DBI Projects. "We are excited to see students now accessing housing that stimulates learning and socialization and enhances their overall academic experience.”
For further information visit the civilian projects or dbi projects website.
Media Coverage
"Minute On Design," in Monocle >>
"Berlin student housing designed with co-working spaces", in Icon >>
"Apartment interior design: outstanding spaces around the globe", in Wallpaper* >>
"Berlin student residences by Civilian foster wellbeing and togetherness", in Frame >>
"In Berlin, A Student Residence That's Far from Sterile," in Azure >>
"Bard College Berlin – dieses Studentenwohnheim setzt auf starke Farben und gutes Design," in AD-Magazin >>
"Bard College Student Housing in Berlin by Civilian," in Yellow Trace >>
"Der Kontext im Kaleidoskop, Das Bard College ist Berlin's schönste studentische WG," in baunetz id >>
"How to design a humane dorm," in Fast Company >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
August 2021
The talk will take place on September 2, 2021 at 6:00 pm CEST.
Further details on the IWM website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Outside of Afghanistan the largest Hazara group can be found in Pakistan. Originating from Pakistan herself, Maheen feels a strong affiliation to Afghanistan and the Hazara.
In the article Maheen outlines the history of the Hazara diaspora in Pakistan, discusses the challenges facing them in other countries, and lastly draws attention to the imminent danger facing them due to Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.
Maheen Atif is a 2019 BCB Economics, Politics, and Social Thought graduate. Her thesis titled: “Migration Culture and Survival Memory among the Hazaras of the World” is dedicated to the Hazara people.
Read the full article on Zeit Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
We wish to express our deep concern for our Afghan students and their families at Bard College Berlin, Bard College (USA), the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), Bard’s long-time dual-degree partner, and the American University of Afghanistan (AUAf), our partner institution in the Open Society University Network (OSUN).
The leadership of Bard College in New York is now working to find safe havens for students and graduates. President Leon Botstein has offered that Bard would immediately take in as many as 100 students in Annandale, as well as threatened scholars. Vice President Jonathan Becker has arranged for The American University of Central Asia to offer scholarships through OSUN to up to 120 graduates, in addition to its 120 Afghan undergraduates, and a home to another 100+ AUAf students. Several other OSUN partners have stepped forward and offered to take students and faculty through OSUN’s Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative (TSI), of which Bard College Berlin is a member.
Bard College Berlin is committed to providing scholarships for Afghan students at risk and to offering these students a personal and academic sanctuary here in Berlin.
While most Afghans are trapped at the moment, we need to be prepared to act as soon as possibilities to leave the country become available. We are urgently inviting donations now so that Afghan students will be able to enroll at our college once pathways are clear. Donations will be matched with funds from the OSUN Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative.
Sincerely,
Dr. Florian N. Becker
Managing Director, Bard College Berlin
Meta: Type(s): Student,Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
July 2021
Titled Sidesteps: Roughly Edged, this is the first show in which Kleckner and Arnold have exhibited together. The two artists share many formal and conceptual ideas about painting and through the process of selecting works for the exhibition it can be said that they are holding a visual conversation, the topics of which range from formal issues of color, texture, and shape to more conceptual themes, such as: the imprecision of memory, illusionism of surfaces, (dis)locations, interior/exterior, and the joy of ambiguity and not knowing.
The vernissage of Sidesteps: Roughly Edged will be taking place on Friday, July 23, from 6:00 to 10:00pm and is open to the public. The exhibition will be showing a the goeben gallery from July 24 to August 28, 2021.
John Kleckner’s works have been exhibited internationally and can be found in prominent public and private collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Charles Saatchi Collection in London.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the interview she reflects on how this family tragedy has affected her activism as well as her personal life. She also speaks about her experiences protesting during the Syrian revolution in 2011 and being detained in a Syrian government prison herself.
Wafa is a 2020 Humanities, Arts, and Social Thought graduate and a former PIESC Program scholar. She is a journalist and activist, who works together with the organization Families for Freedom, campaigning for the freedom of those who have been detained by the Syrian Regime.
Read the full interview on the Guardian website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The essay is called "How The West Was Lost: Don't Come Knocking und der lange Abschied vom Amerikanischen Traum" and explores Wenders's ambivalent relation to, and perception of, the American myth and the American Dream, and the specific presentation of this topic in the Post-Western Don't Come Knocking (2005), co-written by Sam Shepard and starring Shepard, Jessica Lange, Sarah Polley and Tim Roth.
Wenders has been influenced by American pop culture and American movies since his youth ("Is 'America' not an invention of the movies? Would there be the dreaming of America, all over the world, without the movies?" -- Wim Wenders) and in many of his films we see his critical vision of the American Dream in contrast to social reality in the US. In Don't Come Knocking Shepard plays an aging cowboy actor of trite Western movies who realizes the superficiality and meaninglessness of his hedonistic lifestyle and wants to reconcile with his 'family' that he actually never had. Inspired by classical Western films and road movies, the visual art of Edward Hopper, and a bitter sense of fate and irony, Wenders presents a postmodern meta-Western of a very special kind that shows both his love and his critical, disillusioned stance towards America, and "the Western's double movement of yearning and mourning" (Neil Campbell).
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Prof. Raj-Reichert joins BCB from the Queen Mary University of London, where she held a lectureship in economic geography. She received her PhD in development studies from the Manchester Global Development Institute.
Prof. Raj-Reichert comes with a research background in labor governance in global production networks, specializing in the Asia Pacific region. In the fall semester, students at BCB will be able to attend her seminar on "Global Public Policies and their Impact on the Global South."
We are looking forward to welcoming Prof. Raj-Reichert on campus!
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Bard College Berlin was able to nominate Sohaib through its DAAD sponsored Integra Program that provides support for displaced and international persons in the form of academic workshops and seminars.
The Studienstiftung is one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious scholarship foundations in Germany that supports young scholars with exceptional talent who can be expected to make a meaningful contribution to society.
As the standard application process is geared towards German speakers, the Studienstiftung initiated a cooperation with the DAAD in 2017, through which Integra course leaders would be able to nominate their students for the selection process, therefore giving those with refugee status a fair chance at winning the coveted fellowship.
Congratulations to Sohaib on this tremendous achievement!
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
June 2021
The other discussants were Diana Abbani (EUME Fellow of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation 2020/21), Amal Eqeiq (Williams College/EUME Fellow 2029-21), and Zeina Maasri (University of Brighton).
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Through its individual artist grants, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation supports working artists by providing the financial resources to cover expenses, such as: art supplies, studio space, exhibition preparation etc. Since its founding in 1985, the foundation has awarded 5,000 grants, totaling $82 million, to recipients in seventy-eight countries.
John Kleckner’s works have been exhibited internationally and can be found in prominent public and private collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Charles Saatchi Collection in London. Kleckner will be opening the exhibition: Sidesteps: Roughly Edged together with Maximilian Arnold at the goeben gallery in Berlin. The exhibition will be showing from July 24 to August 28, 2021.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The event will investigate the changes to theater infrastructures and aesthetics during the pandemic. The three sessions will be an exploration of how the shift to digital forms has affected the notion of liveness, what constitutes participation in the digital sphere, and how the current moment can be creatively documented.
The focus will be on putting specific pandemic projects by Berlin theater institutions and performance makers in dialogue with a series of international guest artists and scholars, in order to capture and compare the forms of attention brought to digital theaters.
Viral Theatres is a practice-based research project and a collaboration between the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt University Berlin, and Bard College Berlin. It is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.
The event wil take place on July 1, 2:00 - 8:00 pm CEST.
Further information available on the Viral Theatres website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The nomination announcement notes how the residences' stacked maisonette apartments seek inspiration from Le Corbusier's “Immeuble Villa.” Despite the functional design, the buildings' apartments are spacious, the large windows and surrounding trees making for a peaceful and pleasant living environment.
Henry Koerner Hall was designed by Rotterdam-based Atelier Kempe Thill, the inauguration took place in May 2019. The residences have previously been nominated for the Architekturpreis Berlin.
Further information on the prize nomination on the DAM website >>
Download brochure on Henry Koerner Hall here >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Architecture | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgment is widely recognized as a founding document of modern aesthetics, but its legacy has fallen into disrepute. In this book Katalin Makkai calls for the rediscovery of Kant’s aesthetics, showing that its centerpiece, his investigation of the judgment of taste, paints a compelling portrait of our relationships with works of art that we love. At its heart is a scene of aesthetic encounter in which one feels oneself to be “animated”—brought to life—by an object, finding there to be something in one’s experience of it, beyond what there is to know about it, that one wants to explore and articulate. Tracing Kant’s insight that to judge is to reveal one’s sense of what bears judging, and hence of what matters, Makkai situates Kant’s aesthetics within his larger study, begun in the first Critique, of judgment’s fundamental role in the life of the mind.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read Leon Botstein's message to the College community here.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
WIRWIR joins the Berlin project space scene in 2021 with the inaugural exhibition series WIR BAUEN EINE NEUE STADT (June 10 - September 10 2021). Taking its title from the eponymous song by the Palais Schaumburg, the exhibition/event series considers how community can be built, supported and understood and examines metaphorical and lyrical ideas of creating a city through the three chapters of the series, titled BUILD, IDENTIFY and ACTIVATE.
WIRWIR is part of DÉRIVE UG, which is an umbrella organization that has hosted a wide variety of projects over the years, such as: SONNTAG, PICTURE BERLIN, DETLEF, and IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS.
Upcoming Events:
BUILD
June 23, 7:00 pm: Soydivision - Jendela Sonorama: Listening session
June 26, 7:00pm: Onur Ceritoğlu - 7m3: Sound performance
June 27, 7:45pm: Andrew J. Burford - I think I’m done with the kitchen table, baby: Artist walk
Find out more about WIRWIR's upcoming events on their website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The event is titled: “Curating Art of Curating Artists, the Thorny Question of an Artists Biography” and will be discussing the question: “How much should an artist’s life be used to frame our understanding and experience of their artwork?” As well as examining the role and responsibilities of the curator in engaging with artist’s biographies in their work.
Further panelists are: Eleanor Nairne: Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, Bernhard Fulda, Fellow and Director of Studies in History, Cambridge University, Oscar Murillo: Turner Prize winning artist, and Louisa Buck: art writer and broadcaster.
The Association for Art History leads the collective effort in the UK to advance the study and practice of art history.
Further information here.
The event will take place on June 22, 2021 at 8:30 pm CEST, further information on the Association for Art History website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The seminar "Lirica & Teoria" is coordinated by Francesco Giusti and Christine Ott (Goethe University Frankfurt). The seminar brings together a group of scholars based in different countries to discuss questions of lyric as well as new approaches to the lyric, with a particular focus on the Italian poetic tradition. On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, the seminar will also host events open to the public and related to Dante’s lyric poetry.
Join the event on Zoom >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In his questions Ahmad focused on what role youth and education could play in the transition to renewable energy sources. Further guests on the panel were Nobel Prize Laureate in physics David Gross and Beatie Wolfe, artist and innovator for UN Women.
Originally from Syria, Ahmad completed his Bachelors in Economics, Politics ,and Social Thought at Bard College Berlin in 2019 and is now enrolled in a Masters of Public Policy at the Hertie School in Berlin. During his studies Ahmad has worked for Kiron, an NGO that offers free online learning opportunities to displaced persons and underserved communities. He is co-founder of the Syrian Youth Assembly, who work to empower young people to participate in the peace process in Syria.
Read more about Ahmad's story on the Hertie School website >>
Watch a recording of the Nobel Prize's YouTube channel >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The contentious discourse around world literature tends to stress the ‘world’ in the phrase. This volume, in contrast, asks what it means to approach world literature by inflecting the question of the literary. Debates for, against, and around ‘world literature’ have brought renewed attention to the worldly aspects of the literary enterprise. Literature is studied with regard to its sociopolitical and cultural references, contexts and conditions of production, circulation, distribution, and translation. But what becomes of the literary when one speaks of world literature? Responding to Derek Attridge’s theory of how literature ‘works’, the contributions in this volume explore in diverse ways and with attention to a variety of literary practices what it might mean to speak of ‘the work of world literature’. The volume shows how attention to literariness complicates the ethical and political conundrums at the center of debates about world literature
Dr. Giusti contributes the essay: Transcontextual Gestures: A Lyric Approach to the World of Literature to the volume. The Work of World Literature is published by ICI Berlin Press and is available as an open access download here>>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Impulse-Phone can be accessed through a smart phone or a computer and allows users to navigate through 31 years of archive sound material from the Impulse Theater Festival. The online archive will grow during the course of the festival and can be expanded and shaped by user contributions.
The Impulse-Phone will be available throughout the duration of the Impulse Festival 2021 which runs from June 2 to June.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
This year’s commencement speaker was Arjun Appadurai, Goddard Professor in Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. Addressing approaches to issues like climate change, forced migration, and inequality in his commencement speech, Professor Appadurai stressed that learning is a collective endeavor: “…because one joins a conversation between minds, books, works of art and music and literature, which bridges continents, centuries and cultures,” Appadurai said and encouraged graduates: “You are now part of this ceaseless conversation. You will never be alone.”
For a second year in a row, friends and family were invited to join the BCB Community online to honor the achievements of the graduating cohort of OLIve students, Academy Year students, and Bachelor students. While we could not share a physical space to mark the occasion, the virtual gathering drew attendants of all ages from near and far to reminisce about the past four years and cheer graduates on for all their future endeavors. Families had prepared heartfelt video messages, fellow students contributed musical performances, and faculty recollected moments of hard work, joy, and shared learning.
Congratulations to the graduating class of 2020/2021!
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
May 2021
Titled “Community living projects and the New European Bauhaus: what role will they play in the future?”, the panel will discuss co-housing and communal living projects in Berlin, what role they play in the city society, what participatory structures make new housing projects possible and what cooperation models the city of the future needs.
Guests are Wenke Christoph, State Secretary for Housing of the State of Berlin, Dr. Michael LaFond, expert on communal living communities and Caroline Rosenthal, Consultant for “Mietshäuser Syndikat”. The event will be broadcast live from the Spreefeld Cooperative.
Natalia Irina Roman completed the Visual Arts graduate program at Bard College Berlin (then known as ECLA) in 2008. She now works as a visual artist as well as an art consultant to the Hertie School.
You can register for the Hertie Summit by May 31, 2021 on their website >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article charts Karam’s career in Syria as a photographer, editor, journalist and activist. After obtaining his Bachelors in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought from Bard College Berlin in 2020, Karam will be completing a Masters in Public Policy at Yale University.
Karam also has a great passion for technology: he is CEO of Ze.Fi, a blockchain-centric media, marketing and education company and recently co-founded Phoenix.io, a blockchain strategy, advisory, solutions and investment collective. He sees great potential in blockchain as a tool in the rebuilding process in Syria: “blockchain might be one of the strongest pillars that helps Syria stand again after we get rid of the dictatorship, decentralization is the answer for all our struggles”.
Read the full article here>>
Bard College Berlin’s Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC), is a scholarship program for students from areas of crisis and conflict. Find our more on the PIESC webpage>>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
PAF Campus during the 2021 Berlin Performing Arts Festival is organized by LAFT – Landesverband freie Darstellende Künste Berlin e. V. in cooperation with Bard College Berlin, the Free University of Berlin, the Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin, the Technical University of Berlin and the Berlin University of the Arts.
PAF Campus is an innovative format situated between art and education open to students from all participating universities.
Preceding the festival, students attended half-day workshops with artists from the independent performing arts community in order to become acquainted with the working methods of artists from various performative genres. During the festival week the students will attend performances together and reflect artistically upon the productions they have seen.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the festival is planned to take place entirely online, with the option for a hybrid itinerary if realizable.
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Event,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
This article analyzes the resurgence of a mainstream white nationalism following the 2016 presidential election using data drawn from websites, interviews with and publications by the alt-right. Through the concept of metapolitical whiteness, it argues that a new conjuncture of white racial politics has emerged since 2016. This is predicated on the normalization of white supremacist discourse which utilizes novel forms of disseminating its message to a younger demographic. Ultimately, it contends that white supremacist discourse is re-entering mainstream political discourse and popular culture through ironic comedy and differentialist discursive strategies borrowed from the French new right.
Access to the full article on Taylor & Francis Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Published in the Winter 2021 issue, the forum brings together exclusively commissioned articles from ten German writers, among them, winner of the Deutscher Buchpreis 2020 Anne Weber, American-born translator and novelist Isabel Fargo Cole, as well as Matthias Nawrat, recent recipient of the EU Prize for Literature, critically acclaimed multilingual poet and essayist Uljana Wolf, and Deutscher Buchpreis 2019 and 2020 nominees Emanuel Maeß and Roman Ehrlich.
In their contributions, the authors reflect on their own aesthetics in relation to experiences of writing in German in a globalized literary sphere and marketplace. Widmann’s own essay “Global schreiben: Deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur und ein Sense of Planet” contextualizes voices and positions within the global literature paradigm, the rise of English, and links forms of storytelling aimed at multinational audiences to the possibility of a new ecological awareness through writing.
You can access all articles on Wiley Online>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Familiodrome is inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, or On Education and explores the greater fundamental questions of humanity and empowerment behind our ideas on education. During the live stream Interrobang raises a child together with the online-audience, who have the option to intervene, vote to influence the development of the child, ensuring a different outcome for every performance.
Soulmachine is a mobile interactive game in which six passengers steer a specially adapted people carrier through an artificial intelligence program on a tablet. The computer creates the journey based on the collective decisions and behavior of the passengers taking them on an allegorical life journey, from childhood to old age. The Soulmachine’s next stop will be the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin in fall 2021.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the episode “Zwischenbilanz Biden – Ist der Interventionsstaat zurück?“ ( Assessing Biden – Has the interventionist state returned?) Boris Vormann looks back on President Biden’s first 100 days in office as well as his ambitious future plans to invest large sums in infrastructure, the employment sector and housing whilst also funding subsidies for childcare, paid parental leave and expanding the care sector.
Quo Vadis USA? is a bi-weekly podcast produced by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies touching on topics surrounding American society, politics, culture, economy and science. Listen to the episode featuring Boris Vormann on the Heidelberg Center for American Studies website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Politics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In The Politics of Art Hanan Toukan offers a look into the entanglement of art and international politics in Beirut, Ramallah, and Amman to understand the aesthetics of material production within liberal economies. Hanan Toukan outlines the political and social functions of transnationally connected and internationally funded arts organizations and initiatives, and reveals how the production of art within global frameworks can contribute to hegemonic structures even as it is critiquing them—or how it can be counterhegemonic even when it first appears not to be. In so doing, Toukan proposes not only a new way of reading contemporary art practices as they situate themselves globally, but also a new way of reading the domestic politics of the region from the vantage point of art.
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics |
April 2021
“Self-Employment and Subjective Well-Being” discusses the evidence and explanations as to why self-employment is positively associated with job satisfaction, despite often going hand in hand with longer hours, less pay and more stress.
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the talk Dr. Tugendhaft focused on the key point of his book: that through the destruction of ancient artifacts at the Mosul Museum in 2015, the so-called Islamic State were not just fulfilling their mission to cleanse the world of idolatry but creating new images with which to spread their ideas online.
Read more on the taz >>
Watch the talk on YouTube >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In his essay "The Judge With no Name and Rebels Without a Cause? Uncanny Evil in The Blood on Satan's Claws" Professor Hurst offers sociological and psychoanalytical interpretations of the film that is about "a cult of young people involved in wicked games, sexual frenzy and sacrificial rituals" in the English countryside of the early eighteenth century.
Read the article on Horror Homeroom >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Studienstiftung is one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious scholarship foundations in Germany that supports young scholars with exceptional talent who can be expected to make a meaningful contribution to society. Noor was first nominated by the College and then passed through several rounds of a very competitive selection process.
“As a non-native German speaker, the application process was rather distressing,” Noor said. “But the support of my peers encouraged me to persevere through the uncomfortable and daunting parts of the process.“
Noor is a third-year Literature and Rhetoric student in the HAST program, who joined BCB in 2018. “I came to BCB because of its wonderful interdisciplinary, highly communicative, and deeply enriching approach to education.” In her free time, Noor likes to write, interweaving her wide range of interests from opera, literature and philosophy, to quantum physics.
Congratulations, Noor!
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The issue brings together over forty renowned scholars, writers, and poets from both sides of the Atlantic to examine the legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency in a wide variety of contexts. BCB faculty is strongly represented: Aysuda Kölemen discusses the power of the left wing discourse in the Democratic Party in "No, Your Other Left! The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party;" John von Bergen proposes a radical restructuring of the Democratic Party in "74 Million Questions;" and Michael Weinman negotiates the relationship between US memorials and American exceptionalism in "Twilight of American Idols? Statue Politics between the Movement for Black Lives and Trumpisms."
In the form of short contributions (essays, poems, and interviews), the volume probes how the Trump Presidency has crystallized histories of injustice and inequality that still characterize the current state of U.S. democracy.
They tackle questions such as: How do enslavement and settler colonialism continue to impact the democratic order? In what ways can the master narrative of American liberal democracy be reconceptualized along intersecting lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, and ecology? How does the outcome of the 2020 elections change domestic and international political agendas? Can a new, more equitable social contract be negotiated and a “common ground” be recovered and re-invented—and at what cost?
Read the full issue at the Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
According to Dr. von Hantelmann the trend is a sign of “the shift from object to experience”, which results from the excess of material goods in western society, as well has a younger generation with a different aesthetic and way of thinking: “a new kind of thinking which one might call ecological thinking, which is to think in connections, in relations”.
Read the full article on the Economist >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
BCB Professor for Comparative Literature Laura Scuriatti will be speaking to Ulrike Ulrich on the parallels of her book to Mrs Dalloway on Tuesday, April 27, at 8pm.
Registration details on the initiative's website>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Philipp-Schwartz-Initiative was founded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in cooperation with the German Foreign Office in 2015 with the aim to assist academics facing persecution in their home countries, by enabling them to continue their research in Germany.
Dr. Kölemen is one of the 175 academics to receive a fellowship, allowing her to continue her university career at Bard College Berlin after she was let go from the Altinbas University in Istanbul for signing a peace declaration criticizing Erdogan’s attacks on Kurdish settlements.
Today aside from her teaching duties, Dr. Kölemen coordinates the newly launched Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative. The initiative is funded by the Open Society University Network (OSUN) and provides scholars that are threatened by persecution in their home countries with fellowship at OSUN institutions, thus widening the global support network for academics at risk. The program offers 25 fellowships in Europe but also other countries such as Columbia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh, hence also creating positions open to non English and German speaking academics.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The closure of theaters in the wake of the pandemic has prompted theater and performance makers to experiment with new theatrical formats, one of which is currently practised under the label of "Hybridtheater" (hybrid theater) and combines digital and analog elements.
The workshop focuses on such formats in relation to dramaturgical and technical questions: How does the dramaturgy change when switching to digital? How do you address the audience, which is partly sitting in the room and partly watching via live stream? How do you get both together, or has it long since become irrelevant that there are multiple dramaturgies and events happening simultaneously?
What possibilities does hybrid theater offer for questioning traditional theater, social interaction, and political implications of digital culture?
The participation slots are fully booked but the workshop can be watched live on the website Nachtkritik >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The book discusses the destruction inflicted by the Islamic State on the artifacts of Iraq’s Mosul Museum, unpacking three key political facets of the event: idolatry as a political charge, the museum as an institution that produces political meaning, and the internet as a space for both image circulation and algorithmically governed iconoclasm.
Drawing connections across the millennia, with discussions ranging from Assyrian palace reliefs, to medieval Islamic philosophy, to first-person shooter video games, the book investigates the perennial impulse to destroy images and the concomitant practice of producing images that depict that destruction.
The Idols of Isis compels readers to reconsider the political power of images from multiple perspectives and ask whether political life is possible without idolatry.
Register for the event on the Einstein Forum website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Politics,Event | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Müller-Phone brings the legendary GDR poet, writer, essayist and theater director Heiner Müller back to life. Through the analysis, sound montage and digitalization of the extensive Müller audio material Interrobang, have created an artificial Müller intelligence who the audience can phone up from a virtual telephone box.
Callers can decide on a topic by selecting a key and then listen to Müller’s comments on a wide variety of topics from social inequality to the current theater landscape.
Callers can reach Heiner Müller on the Müller-Phone website until April 30 >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Prof. Vormann discusses the political challenges facing Biden when implementing the scheme and sheds a light on the historical background over large scale infrastructure undertakings in the US.
Watch the full interview on the Deutsche Welle >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Politics,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
This book is a revised translation of Neue Welten in der Neuen Welt: Die transnationale Geschichte des Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbundes, 1897-1974 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), which was awarded the Humanities International Award in 2016.
Further details on the Brill website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
weiterschreiben.jetzt is a project run by the non-profit Wir Machen Das, which collects work from writers from regions of crisis and conflict.
Sam is a student of the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC) which enables students from areas of crisis and conflict to earn a bachelor's degree in the humanities or social sciences.
Read Sam's essay on the weiterschreiben.jetzt website >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sean Scully will be discussing his belief that the “dry, linear thinking” behind conceptual art has detached the natural world from the world of art. Scully is an American-Irish artist. His work is displayed in museum collections worldwide and has twice been nominated for the Turner Prize.
“Sean Scully: By Hand” will be hosted online by the American Academy in Berlin on April 26 at 7:00pm CET.
Further details on the American Academy in Berlin website >>
Meta:
March 2021
Sam speaks to Deutschland Funk about the roles that metal music and writing poetry play in his life as well as his experiences studying in Damascus during the Syrian Civil War.
Read the full article on Deutschlandfunk Kultur >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read the full essay on the Heinrich Böll Foundation >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the interview Wafa speaks about her involvement with the protests and the impact the Syrian revolution has had on her and her family, as well as her disappointment in the international community for not intervening in the conflict to prevent human rights abuses.
Wafa is a journalist and human rights activist. She is involved with Families for Freedom who aim to find and free those who have been detained by the Syrian Regime. Wafa’s work is motivated by the disappearance of her father Ali Mustafa, a human rights activist who was detained in July 2013.
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Inspired by the satirical Media Award the Goldene Kartoffel and the pejorative use of the word “Kartoffel” to refer to Germans, she reflects on how the image of the potato ties to subjects of German identity and immigration as well reminiscing on her own childhood culinary memories.
Read the article on Zeit Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read more about the al-Khatib Trial on France24>>
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On the first day of the event Ehab Badwi will be on a panel discussing higher education initiatives in the Americas and Europe. Ehab is a current Economics, Politics, and Social Thought student (class of ‘22) and CEO of the Syrian Youth Assembly.
Karam Alhamad will be holding the opening remarks on the second day of the of the event, which focuses on higher education initiatives in the Middle East and Africa. Karam is a 2020 graduate of the EPST program at BCB. Karam is a Syrian entrepreneur, international development professional, and policy advocate.
Further Information about the event can be found on the IIE Peer website >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Politics,Bardians at Work,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The report highlights Bard College Berlin's Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC) that “offers pathways to reduce barriers to higher education.”
Bard College Berlin currently provides full scholarships to 32 students from areas of crisis and conflict, which includes full tuition, room and board, health insurance and a public transportation ticket. The College provides 70% of the tuition funding and raises the remaining costs with the help of individual donors and partner organizations.
“Most importantly,” the report notes “ the branch campus in Germany has provided an alternative safe, legal pathway around the travel ban that prevented displaced students whose education has been disrupted by war from getting into Bard in the U.S.,” and praises the psychosocial support the College provides beyond a mere tuition waiver.
Read the full UARRM publication on the Higher Ed Immigration Portal >>
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In her assignment Prof. Toukan asked students to produce an essay reflecting on the visual politics of the Covid-19 Pandemic and how it has affected issues such as border security, right wing nationalism and neoliberalism. She asked the students to think critically about the significant moment in history they were witnessing and their role in shaping its narrative. The resulting essay is titled “Thinking Solidarity in a Global Pandemic: What the Crisis Uncovers and What Remains Unseen.”
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
February 2021
In Viral Theatres, Nina Tecklenburg, Ramona Mosse, Christian Stein and Janina Janke combine digital making, creative practice and scholarly research in a highly interdisciplinary project that investigates the current radical transformation of theatrical performance. It does so by building a living archive, consistent of an online platform and a performance installation that documents and creatively reflects the current pandemic and newly emerging interactions between digital and analog worlds. The living archive addresses a novel split: while the consumption of creative content via digital media has accelerated due to lockdown, the production of such content in standard modes of presence and collaboration has undergone a drastic arrest, threatening particularly the performing arts in their dependence on embodied exchange. Viral Theatres considers how these substantial shifts change work processes, institutional infrastructures, and the future of going to the theater.
Nina Tecklenburg and Ramona Mosse will also co-teach a practicing arts seminar at BCB in the Fall 2021 as part of the project to include students in the processes of creative archiving and reflecting the post/pandemic culture.
You can find the project summary at the Volkswagen Foundation >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the piece Scuriatti gives an account of the life of Mina Loy and the reasons she has remained forgotten as a Modernist for such a long time. She also analyzes Loy’s poems on Florence, as well those covering the subjects of giving birth and the aging female body, showing how Loy gives original accounts of the objects of her poetry and the radical way Loy puts the female body at the center of lyrical discourse. The piece is accompanied by audio recordings of Scuriatti reading some of Loy’s poems in English.
Laura Scuriatti has published a book on Mina Loy’s Critical Modernism, in which she focuses on the influence of the Italian avant-garde on Loy’s work.
Access the full article on l'Orique >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Future Fossil is a public artwork located in Oxley Park, Milton Keynes. The installation features a section of an ordinary house rising from the ground as if excavated, “fossilized” through the passing of time. The intention is to create a new public space around the art work, where community activities and cultural programs can take place.
Tickets available on eventbrite >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read the full article on France24 >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Politics,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the interview he explained the procedure and possible political consequences of the impeachment process set into motion by the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Watch the full interview on tagesschau.de >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Theatertreffen takes place every May in Berlin and is one of the most prominent German speaking theater festivals. The festival showcases remarkable productions from German speaking countries as well as international young talent. At the heart of the festival program is the “10er Auswahl” (selection of 10). Every year an independent expert jury visits hundreds of productions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and chooses the ten best to be shown in Berlin.
In her piece Marie Schleef unearths a hidden female history. Forgotten women are called to the stage by their name, independent of their social and cultural background, in encyclopedic fashion from A-Z. Schleef and her collaborator Anne Tismer tell their stories through video, music, dialogue and dance, shedding a light on the erasure of women and opening up discussions around the relation between given names, gender, power, and stigma.
Marie Schleef completed her bachelor's in Theater and Performance at Bard College and spent the spring of 2013 at Bard College Berlin as part of the Study Abroad Program. She went on to study directing for theater at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. NAME HER. Eine Suche nach den Frauen + is her first independent theater production.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
January 2021
"When the British-born Mina Loy (1882-1966) moved to Florence from Paris in 1907 with her husband, the painter and illustrator Stephen Haweis, she was a budding young artist who had made it into the Salon d'Automne. She lived in Florence until 1916, at first with her husband and then just with her children, and in this period she developed into an extremely original avant-garde poet and writer, whose work was published in the most renowned literary magazines in the US. She learned to speak Italian and responded in her works both to the politics and aesthetics of the vociferous Futurists and to the vital intellectual debates internal to the Anglo-American expatriate community."
Laura Scuriatti will discuss Loy's aesthetic and feminist commitment to the nascent avant-garde in the context of her life in the Tuscan capital, and show how Florence functioned as a vibrant international nexus for the exchange and elaboration of modernist art.
To join this lecture with Zoom (no reservation necessary), simply click on this link at 6:00 pm on Wednesday, February 3.
There is no charge to attend the event on Zoom, the British Institute asks that you consider making a donation to support the Institute and its beautiful library if you wish to attend an event.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Event: Thursday, January 28, 7.30 pm CET, Literaturhaus Köln, online
Please register for a ticket to the online conversation between Marion Detjen and Bettina Fischer.
The Book: Helen Wolff, Hintergrund für Liebe, edited and with an essay by Marion Detjen, Weidle, Bonn 2020 >>
For a review of the book please see:
"Julia Schröder empfiehlt Helen Wolff: Hintergrund für Liebe" - Clip and article on the "Lesenswert Quartett" on SWR2 >>
"Die Priesterin" - Article in Süddeutsche Zeitung >>
"Nach Saint Tropez, der Liebe wegen" - Article on Deutschlandfunk >>
"Ein Sommerhaus für sich allein" - Article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Dr. Vatansever’s work has a particular focus on precarious academic labor. At Bard College Berlin she will conduct research on recent mobilizations of precarious scholars asking: What are the main types of academic anti-precarity movements across Europe? How do migration trajectories and academic mobility figure in the constellations of academic labor activism? How do the various anti-precarity initiatives respond to forced internationalization and occupational migration?
Her books include Ursprünge des Islamismus im Osmanischen Reich. Eine weltsystemanalytische Perspektive (Hamburg: Dr. Kovač, 2010), Ne Ders Olsa Veririz. Akademisyenin Vasıfsız İşçiye Dönüşümü (Ready to Teach Anything. The Transformation of the Academic into Unskilled Worker, Istanbul: İletişim, 2015 – co-authored with Meral Gezici-Yalçın), and At the Margins of Academia. Exile, Precariousness, and Subjectivity (Brill: 2020).
Dr. Vatansever will co-teach the Internship Seminar in the Fall Semester 2021 and will also be available as a thesis supervisor for senior students at Bard College Berlin.
The Philipp Schwartz-Initiative
Named after the Austrian Jewish pathologist who lost his professorship in 1933 in Frankfurt, the Philipp Schwartz-Initiative was founded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Federal Foreign Office. It supports scholars at risk who are unable to work in their home country because of prosecution and enables them to continue their work and research at German institutions.
The Initiative works closely together with the Scholars at Risk Network, the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund, and the Council for At-Risk Academics and has been made possible through generous support from the Federal Foreign Office, the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Stifterverband, and the Stiftung Mercator.
Scholars at Risk Network
Bard College Berlin is a founding member of the German chapter of the "Scholars at Risk," together with 19 other German academic teaching and research institutions. Kerry Bystrom, Associate Dean of Bard College Berlin and Professor of Human Rights & English Literature, is a member of the German SAR's Steering Group.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lucas came to Bard College Berlin looking for an environment that encourages open discussion and an approach to education that pushes beyond the boundaries of a narrow major. Thanking his classmates for the numerous discussions they have had since he started at the college, Lucas said: "my admission to the Studienstiftung is due in no small part to our spirit of critical examination and the inspiration that comes with the pursuit of a broad base of knowledge.”
The Studienstiftung is one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious scholarship foundations in Germany that supports young scholars with exceptional talent who can be expected to make a meaningful contribution to society. Lucas was first nominated by his Professor Boris Vormann and then passed through several rounds of a very competitive selection process.
Congratulations, Lucas!
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
Join the discussion on Facebook Live>>
For more information visit Centrala and Centrala Berlin>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In her book-length project, Professor Lisiak proposes to radically rethink migration with the help of two exceptional scholars, teachers, and activists: Rosa Luxemburg and Doreen Massey. As the conceptual and political commonalities in their work have not been recognized to date, this project will not just be the first attempt to bring Luxemburg and Massey into conversation, but also the first exploration of the profound possibilities that their complementary theorizations of space, capital, and power provide to rethink migration in the 21st century. Rejecting neat, linear theories of development, both Luxemburg and Massey repudiated binary models that juxtaposed the West and the rest, reform and revolution, global and local. Rooted firmly in feminist epistemologies, the project considers Luxemburg’s and Massey’s intellectual contributions in their full scope, reading their work in light of their positionalities and life stories. In doing so, Professor Lisiak will focus on how their vivid examinations of economic exploitation, structural inequalities, solidarity, and democracy can help us rethink migration in ways that go beyond the usual focus on human mobility, and acknowledge the importance of movements of capital, goods, and ideas.
Prof. Lisiak will update and share her findings throughout her year of research (2021-22) with the BCB Community.
Read the German project description at the Volkswagen Stiftung >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
"Students are put in the perspective of the decision maker, they interact and they relate their decisions to emotional feedback about the outcome which is shown live,” says Giamattei, who regularly uses the tool in his own teaching. "This allows an interactive approach to models, problems or polls. Rather than just discussing the results of others, students are confronted with their own behavior and decisions.”
Currently, the tool is used in 68 countries around the world at over 500 institutions and is expanding. The team is working on more companion material for the ready-made experiments (e.g. with CORE Econ in the UK and at https://econclassexperiments.com/) and they have expanded the use to high school teaching in Germany under the name [email protected] Instructors can make use of the experiments and surveys that are already available but they can also adapt the tool and develop their own games with a simple click-together environment. The tool is free of charge and can be used by signing up at classEx.de.
Prof. Giamattei will offer introductory workshops on classEx for interested faculty from all disciplines at on January 14 and January 20.
More information about the January 14 and the January 20 events>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In a roundtable on SWR2 with Dr. Josef Braml (German Council on Foreign Relations) and Prof. Dr. Christiane Lemke (Universität Hannover) he discussed the current situation, its causes, and its consequences.
Listen to the full discussion on SWR2 Forum>>
In a conversation with the WDR aktuell, Vormann assesses the role of the capitol police during the attack.
Watch the conversation at WDR Aktuell>>
Vormann talked to RBB and discussed the possibility of removing President Trump from office.
Listen at the RBB Radio Eins>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
December 2020
The award goes to an international student who has demonstrated academic excellence and has shown initiative for civic and cultural engagement beyond their studies. Students were first nominated by faculty and then a selection committee that involved the college’s leadership as well as the Civic Engagement Office had the difficult task of choosing one winner.
In selecting Adam, the committee was especially impressed with his impeccable academic record and the testimonies of his professors that reveal Adam to be not only a hard working but als a very interested and attentive learner, who goes to great lengths to help others in the BCB community strive. Besides having been involved in several community outreach activities in the Pankow neighborhood to teach English, Adam volunteers several hours each month at BCB to review essays and schoolwork from other students, providing constructive feedback, improving their language skills, and helping them with math and programming.
Managing Director Florian Becker awarded the DAAD certificate during a private and pandemic friendly award ceremony.
The award comes with a monetary prize of 1000 EURO that is part of DAAD funding in the STIBET program.
Congratulations, Adam!
Meta: Type(s): Student,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Wafa Mustafa’s father disappeared in 2013, when he was arrested and detained. She has been actively campaigning ever since and joined the Families for Freedom group in Berlin that advocates for the release of detainees held by the Syrian government.
Driving political change from exile, Ameenah works with the international organization The Syria Campaign that raises awareness about the crimes of the Assad regime and supports the Civil Society in Syria by collecting donations.
Ameenah and Wafa have both studied at Bard College Berlin through the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC). The program provides full four year scholarships to outstanding students from regions of crises or conflict to complete a BA degree at BCB.
Read more about both women’s experience in the Neue Züricher Zeitung >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The show will be performed at Sophiensaele and transmitted via interactive livestream:
"In Familiodrom, Interrobang gives birth to a child together with the online audience. Immediately the freshly baked parents' collective is stuck in the ideological swamp of cloth diapers, ready-to-eat porridge, sleep training, shame and guilt. Does our child go to the multicultural day care center, or to the white Waldorf kindergarten with individual talent development? Is our child allowed to decide for itself when it wants to brush its teeth? In the moral war about the pacifier, it's all about the whole: What is the human image behind our idea of education? Inspired by Rousseau's classic Emil or About Education, Interrobang advocates a performative empowerment in which basic social questions are negotiated. At crucial points in the narrative, the online audience can intervene, vote and influence the child's development. The outcome of this educational experiment is different every evening. Does it lead to a new family hell or to a better society? And how does the child feel about it?"
Performances will take place on:
Dec 8 + 9, 7:30pm
Dec 12 + 13, 4pm
Tickets can be bought through Reservix>>
INTERROBANG include Till Müller-Klug, Nina Tecklenburg, Lajos Talamonti and Guests. The group develops new theatre formats in order to discuss current social phenomena and questions. In installative theatre spaces and participative game settings, the audience can experience, test and reflect on new scenic communication models. Playing with theatrical community thus becomes playing with present and possible future social forms and value systems.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
November 2020
Read the full article on the IWM website >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Hesham uses his own personal experience of displacement to show landmarks in Berlin and parallel the historical displacement of 15 million people during WWII with the current, ongoing conflict in Syria. ⠀
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“When I arrived, the discourse changed from a sympathy-based discourse of ‘People are fleeing war, they are as human as we are, they are in need of our help,’ into the securitization narrative of ‘Our security is the priority, they are all Muslims, extremists with terrorist backgrounds,” says Hesham. But “[c]onflict is not exclusive to Syrians from Muslim backgrounds … Germany witnessed such migration with people fleeing from it – and moving to it – in different historical periods of time.”⠀ ⠀
Read the full article on Lonely Planet>>
Article on the Deutsche Welle >>
Coverage on I am Expat>>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read more about the even here >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article she reflects on the causes and consequences of forced migrants having to witness the suffering and sometimes dying of their loved ones at home without being able to help them. She searches for the traces of that experience in German memory culture, literature and politics, including her own family history.
Read the article on Zeit Online>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Toroţcoi’s paper analyses curriculum and educational environments that alienate minority students by reinforcing false narratives and stereotypes, and standardizing social interest and values of the dominant society. Textbooks represent a fundamental element in the educational process - they have the ability to instill attitudes, values, and models of behavior. Toroţcoi argues that experiences in the educational system that create a separation of Roma students’ values and backgrounds from that of the dominant society, will limit Roma students’ ability to develop higher educational aspirations, and their overall academic and social integration both in the school environment and in the society.
The study is part of a larger research project coordinated by the Council of Europe, the Roma Education Fund and Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research that investigates Roma representation in European lower und upper secondary education systems.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Erick based his story on the essay "The Laugh of the Medusa" by Hélène Cixous that he used in Clio Nicastro’s Critical Theory seminar last semester. The story takes the form of a fictional film review in which a woman’s silent public protest draws a violent attack by the men in her town.
Read more about the contest and its winners in the Colombian publication Las2Orillas >> [in Spanish]
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
After the war, Breker’s student, Bernhard Heiliger, took over the space for his abstract sculptures. Soika comments that like unlike any other space, the Kunsthaus Dahlem embodies the "continuities and ruptures of Germany's history of sculpture, the history of Berlin and the artistic production. It is now run by Dorothea Schöne, who has taught classes at BCB in the past.
Watch the full video on rbb kultur >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
October 2020
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sohaib’s paper, entitled "Deraa Province: Conflict Dynamics and the Role of Civil Society," analyzes the war dynamics in Syria, and focuses on Syrian civil society organizations. Using primary and secondary data, the report explains the organizations' roles and how they developed within the dynamics of the conflict in order to provide the necessary conditions to ensure their sustainability in the future.
The paper then presents a set of suggestions for developing local governance mechanisms in Syria. After analyzing the main weaknesses in the existing governance systems, the providence Daraa Governorate is used as a case study for government recommendation.
Sohaib studies at Bard College Berlin through the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC) and has been working with Syrian civil society organizations like Citizens for Syria and Olive Branch since 2011.
The full paper can be downloaded at LSE Research Online >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On October 30, 2020 at 12:00am CET/October 29, 6:00 pm CT Tugendhaft is in conversation with Bruce Lincoln, Professor Emeritus of the History of Religions at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore.
More information and registration for the virtual event>>
On November 1, 2020 at 6pm CET Tugendhaft will be joined by artist Michael Rakowitz, writer Rijin Sahakian, and art historian Wendy Shaw to discuss the book in an event organized by Cabinet Magazine and co-sponsored by the Vera List Center.
More information and registration for the virtual event>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Listen to the podcast here>>
The Emergence of Illiberalism>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The dutch architecture magazine Architectenweb especially stresses the flexibility of the apartments - both in terms of design and layout as well as its functionality.
"The design of the façade follows a very marked rhythm, added to the large windows placed in most of the front, seeking to generate an interior-exterior connection that is clear throughout the project," marvels Metalocus, and architecture magazine based in Madrid.
Read the full interview with André Kempe on german-architects.com >> (in German)
Read the full article on architectenweb.nl >> (in Dutch)
Read the full article on metalocus >> (in English)
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sam was recently signed by WEITER SCHREIBEN, where he published his poem "Patchwork" as part of a collection of poetry called Sophistry of Survival.
Watch Sam's feature on arte (start at 22.20) >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Together with writer and filmmaker Emily Dische-Becker and human rights attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, Detjen discussed the legal and historical conditions of reparations.
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Event | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
You can read the original version of the essay on the Critical Muslim website and its Arabic translation at Mada Masr.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
September 2020
The study that interviewed 2000 craftsmen and -women in Germany found that unlike other employment sectors, manual workers feel a strong sense of satisfaction for their work, which positively influences their wellbeing and happiness. 79 % of participants indicate that their job is an important part of their identity; 84 % are proud of their work; 66 % are passionate about their job; 65 % affirmed that their job is a vocation.
Workers in trade and crafts professions can see the finished product of their work as a whole - and not just in parts -, which is why they perceive their work as useful and valuable. Since in a lot of employment sectors, work is increasingly perceived as meaningless, it is significant to understand, which facets of work allow to identify with an occupation so that work is perceived as meaningful and satisfying.
A summary of the study (in German) can be found at the University of Göttingen >>
The full study (in German) can be downloaded here >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article she outlines the historical background for the concept of intersectionality and portrays how it has been used and adopted in German and in international discourse. Asking how an intersectional analysis would have to look like, Detjen negotiates the interaction of privilege and discrimination and discusses issues of justice, inequality and identity.
Read the article on Zeit Online>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
“The exhibition WÄNDE | WALLS, brings together works from 1966 to today, in which the special boundary of the wall is thematized on various levels of meaning. In their works, artists such as Monica Bonvicini and Yoko Ono highlight the most fundamental functions of walls - that of inclusion and exclusion. On the one hand, walls stand for the protection of the individual, while on the other hand they can confine and deny access. As a space-creating architectural element, they help to determine our living spaces and are involved in identity-forming processes. Artists such as Ernst Caramelle and Bruce Naumann visualize this by giving it human characteristics. In turn, works by Jeewi Lee and Sol LeWitt, among others, address the so-called white cube as a common form of presentation of modern and contemporary art. They demonstrate how the white walls of the exhibition space influence the effect and perception of art.”
WÄNDE | WALLS
September 26, 2020 - January 31, 2021
Participating artists:
William Anastasi, Mel Bochner, Monica Bonvicini, Daniel Buren, Ernst Caramelle, Maurizio Cattelan, Elmgreen & Dragset, Parastou Forouhar, Robert Gober, Douglas Huebler, Sophie Innmann, Anne Marie Jehle, Emily Katrencik, Joseph Kosuth, Jeewi Lee, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, Brian OʼDoherty, Yoko Ono, Charlotte Posenenske, Klaus Rinke, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Michael Sailstorfer, Martin Bruno Schmid, Felix Schramm, Thomas Schütte, Ulay / Marina Abramović, John von Bergen, Lawrence Weiner
In addition to this exhibition, John von Bergen has also recently been awarded the Rechecherstipendien Bildende Kunst 2020 (Fine Arts Research Grant 2020) from Berlin's Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, which involves project research in collaboration with scientists from the Museum für Naturkunde.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
His recently published poem “Patchwork" (edited by Patty Nash and translated into German by poet Monika Rinck) provides a first glimpse into his longer collection of poetry Sophistry of Survival. He is represented by the Elisabeth Ruge Agentur.
Sam will also be featured in an upcoming episode of Twist, a new arte production on culture, urbanism and current events, where he will discuss his poetry, his music, and how his work in Berlin differs from his work in Damascus.
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
SOULMACHINE at autofreier StadtTraum 2020, Bremen, Sep 19 - 22, 2020:
“Soulmachine is a mobile interactive game with a group of passengers and artificial intelligence. Six passengers take a seat in a specially adapted people carrier, controlling the automobile together with an artificial intelligence program on a tablet computer with voice recognition. … SOULMACHINE probes the micro-political situation between passengers and machine, asking questions about which direction this (auto)mobile society will take in the future. The passengers are confronted with the moral consequences of delegating and giving up their moral responsibilities as active and liable subjects. What ethical standards do we adopt as a society in the face of transferring more and more agency to artificial intelligence?"
Event information>>
Project information>>
EMOCRACY - A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT at Meyerhold Center Moscow, Sept 29 - 30, 2020:
"In these times of populist challenges, fundamental social questions are revised. How do we want to live together in the future? … In Emocracy, the audience can feed its feelings, desires and convictions directly into the gameplay. Two performers develop a panorama of lifestyle possibilities and scenes of everyday precariousness. The audience can react in real time, directing and assessing the narratives through voting and direct action. What resonates with me? What aggravates me? What repels me? What am I swept along with? By interacting with everyone present, a different emotional/political micro society is created every night.
Event information>>
Project information>>
Nina Tecklenburg will also be speaking at Contagion, an online series of curated conversations and presentations that is hosted by the Pickle Factory. Together with Firenza Guidi (Wales) and Samik Bandopadhaya (India) she will discuss: How does performance connect the social, the political, and the human? And why do we need it?
Sept 26, 2020, 7pm IST, Kolkata time / 3.30pm CET, Berlin time
Please register in advance to participate online.
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On Thursday, September 17, BCB Widmann will speak at the panel »VISIONS OF BIOECONOMY: The Economization of Nature«, where he will present a literary essay commissioned by the Wissenschaftsjahr. Widmann will be joined by Barbara Unmüßig (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung) and Steffen Richter (FU Berlin) to discuss how more and more institutions are using the conservation of species and their habitats as financial offsets.
More information >>
On Friday, September 18, Widmann will read from his novel “Messias” (Rowohlt, 2018) as part of the “Literatures of the World” series at the internationales literaturfestival berlin. For the event hosted by the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek Widmann will be joined by the editor and translator Milena Adam to talk about the writing process as well as the novel’s depiction of the global advertising industry and the protagonists’ search for redemption.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
You can watch the full video on Deutsche Welle >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
August 2020
Assimilating to and expanding the style of the former embassy buildings that mark the majority of the BCB Campus, Henry Koerner Hall is a highly streamlined and standardized building with a generous structure that features two story tall ceilings. The adaptable and open floor plan offers grand views over Waldstraße for students and serves as a space to connect and to think, to cook and to discuss.
You can vote here for public choice award that is issued in addition to the jury prize.
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Tugendhaft discusses in his book the role of images in our life, the political importance of museums, and the efficacy of videos in furthering an ideological agenda through the internet, asking whether there can be any political life without idolatry at all.
In her review in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Erin L. Thompson, praises the breadth of Tugendhaft’s analysis that draws on theorists from Max Weber to Plato to the 10th-century Baghdadi philosopher Abu Nasr al-Farabi, and points out how timely the topic is: The book “comes at a time when the media is once again flooded with images of destruction of art — this time, of the statues being toppled by protestors around the world.”
Aaron Tugendhaft, The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet, University of Chicago Press, 2020 >>
Read Erin L. Thompson's review "Smashing Statues, Building Community" in the Los Angeles Review of Books >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Analyzing liberal democracies from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the first part of the book provides a historical perspective on the roots of illiberal tendencies. In the second part, the contributions discuss in several case studies whether populist movements have a common core or whether they differ from one another in kind.
BCB Professor Ewa Atanassow, Dr. Aysuda Kölemen, and Roger Berkowitz, Professor of Political Studies and Human Rights at Bard College, contributed with articles on Tocqueville, on Electoral Autocracy in Turkey, and on Technocratic Prejudice, respectively.
The Emergence of Illiberalism. Understanding a Global Phenomenon, edited by Boris Vormann and Michael Weinmal, Routledge, London 2020 >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
July 2020
Talking to Gesa Ufer at the Deutschlandfunk Kultur about the novel, the author, and her life, Detjen explains that Wolff was an excellent linguist, who – together with her husband Kurt Wolff – brought authors like Max Frisch, Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson and Jurek Beker to American audiences. Wolff took on a nurturing role for the authors that she published and admired. At the same time, Wolff worked in four languages and was responsible not only for a textual but also a cultural translation of the texts and their authors.
Her autobiographic novel takes place in the early 1930’s and tells the story of a young woman and her lover, who is twenty years her senior. According to Detjen, the charmingly written text provides intricate insights into the time, but also presents contradictions of Wolff’s earlier self-representations. It paints the picture of a “woman who works and wears the pants, but who ultimately subordinates herself to a man in her conception of a love-relationship… which ultimately allows her to exercise influence."
Listen to the interview with Marion Detjen on the Deutschlandfunk Kultur >>
Helen Wolff, Hintergrund für Liebe, edited and with an essay by Marion Detjen, Weidle, Bonn 2020. >>
For a review of the book please see:
"Julia Schröder empfiehlt Helen Wolff: Hintergrund für Liebe" - Clip and article on the "Lesenswert Quartett" on SWR2 >>
"Die Priesterin" - Article in Süddeutsche Zeitung >>
"Nach Saint Tropez, der Liebe wegen" - Article on Deutschlandfunk >>
"Ein Sommer in Saint Tropes. Helen Wolffs Hintergrund für Liebe" - Article on Der Spiegel >>
"Ein Sommerhaus für sich allein" - Article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Watch the full recording of the briefing here - Wafa's statement starts at 0:16:14.
http://webtv.un.org/watch/the-situation-in-the-middle-east-syria-security-council-open-vtc/6174480033001/
The link below summarizes Wafa's testimony:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/07/1068931
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Berlin,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In "'Wir schaffen das' oder 'revolutionäres Bewusstsein'? Überlegungen zur Willkommenskultur 2015” (“'We can do it’ or ‘revolutionary consciousness’? Thoughts on the Welcome-Culture in 2015”), Detjen reports on volunteer and welcoming structures for asylum seekers in the 1990’s and compares the political and cultural landscapes that enabled such structures to institutionalize during the so called "refugee crisis" in 2015. Discussing the relationship between state authorities and civil society, reaching back to the 1990s, and also drawing on experiences at Bard College Berlin, Detjen asks under what conditions such a culture of inclusion is „mainstream“ or „revolutionary“ and how migration pushed Germany to reexamine the scope of its constitution.
You can read the article online at the Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung >>
(Text in German)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
June 2020
Ehab, who studies at BCB with the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC) thanks to a scholarship from the Institute of International Education (IIE), founded the Syrian Youth Assembly - SYA to connect Syrian youth around the world and amplify their voices.
Reed the full interview at IIE PEER >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,PIESC,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
"There Will Be Blood" is the story of a middle-class Venezuelan's attempt to write a film script about the crisis in his homeland and alleviate his difficult economic situation in his adopted home of Argentina. He has met a European producer who seeks to capitalize on Venezuela's grim situation. In the process of scriptwriting, however, an ethical question gives the young writer pause: is it ok to commercialize the suffering of the people?
The jury especially praised the “inventive use of meta narrative and cinematographic discourse as a distancing mechanism to narrate the painful reality of the mass exodus of Venezuelans.”
Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
You can read the interview in the yearly reports of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Watch the coverage on channel4 >>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On the SWR2, Vormann discussed the precarious situation of US democracy and provided insight into the historical roots of racism in the US. Listen to the interview on SWR2 >>
On Tagesschau24, Vormann elaborated on the structural and systemic reasons of the violence and the role of US President Donald Trump in the conflict. Watch the interview on Tagesschau24 >>
On the RBB Inforadio, Vormann analyzed how the current violence is a result of three overlapping crises and weighs what effects the situation might have for the upcoming US presidential election in the fall. Listen to the interview on RBB >>
On the Deutsche Welle Vormann comments on US president Donald Trump’s handling of the ongoing protests and the reactions in his own party as well as the military. Watch the interview on Deutsche Welle >>
Meta: Type(s): General,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
May 2020
Read More>>
Meta: Type(s): General,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the interview, Vormann discusses the importance of the position for intercultural communication and mediation between the US and Germany and reflects on how the transatlantic relationship might change with a new appointment.
Listen to the interview on radioeins >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Comparing the debates around the confederate flag in the US and its usage in Germany that reminds her of a requisite rather than a political symbol, van den Berg asks whether the German Cowboys trivialize US history and racist ideology or whether there is (also) something that we can learn from an approach to history that imagines new, more complex and ambiguous orders and more self-determined forms of communal interaction.
Read the article in the Zeit >>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Von Hantelman presents art as a form of experiment and exploration, as an “applied philosophy of open and liberal society” that "offers suggestions and models on how societies may evolve.” Do we go to the museum in order to look at images or to produce images ourselves?
Listen to the interview on the Deutschlandfunk >>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On Saturday May 16, the Bard College Berlin Community came together to celebrate the achievements of the Class of 2020. Graduates and fellow students, faculty and staff, and families and friends gathered online to take a trip down memory lane. With heartfelt speeches, live music performances, picture collages, videos and lots of shout outs and toasts by family members young and old, the community congratulated the 46 seniors from 21 countries on completing their coursework and Senior Projects in the midst of the pandemic.

Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The differences between the American and German approach to the Corona crisis, female leadership, and the challenges of being the partner of a diplomat are some of the topics being discussed.
Meta: Type(s): Staff,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
April 2020
Waichman studies a specific collective-action problem, where those individuals who bear the cost of cooperation do not benefit from it (which, for example, is the case with global climate change). The experiment analyzes whether contemporaneous peer punishment can facilitate successful cooperation with the future. The results of an experiment with human participants show that (i) in the absence of punishment, cooperation with the future is difficult, and (ii) punishment is only partially successful in sustaining future generations.
Read the article in Nature Communication>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
You can order a printed version of the journal here.
For a previous review of Scuriatti’s book in the Times Literary Supplement, please follow this link.
In the same edition of Letteratura e Letterature Scuriatti published a review of the edited volume Shattered Objects. Djuna Barnes's Modernism (edited by Elizabeth Pender and Cathryn Setz), in which she emphasizes the “significance of unfitting authors” that is discussed in the volume.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
BCB student Karam Alhamad's essay on walking in Berlin (originally submitted as an assignment for Lisiak’s All That Is Solid Melts Into Air class in Fall 2019) is featured in the special issue alongside contributions from international scholars including Jin Haritaworn, Linda McDowell, Naaz Rashid, and Sara Abbas. The authors aim at overcoming the polarity between viewing urban space as necessarily disabling or enabling for young people of various genders and draw attention to the complex dynamics in which urban belonging is negotiated through daily practices.
The articles were written and are based on research conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak, and thus do not engage with the new lived realities of urban youth in a global pandemic. Yet Lisiak and Vacchelli hope and believe that the discussions presented in the collection will continue to be relevant in rethinking urban futures in the years to come.
Read the introduction here>>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
March 2020
The jury praised the Emil Nolde show for its “meticulous research effort” and for being “impressively prepared.”
Earlier this year, the Emil Nolde exhibition was considered the best Berlin art show by a jury of nine journalists for a top created by tip Berlin. Seven of the nine journalists rated the show as “exceptional.”
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Hannah was proposed for the award by her advisor Prof. Dr. Agata Lisiak and then successfully passed several rounds of assessment and selection. The fellowship will support Hannah through her entire academic career and in addition to a monthly stipend, it will allow her to share her ideas and projects with a community of scholars through summer academies, research groups, workshops and mentoring opportunities.
Please join us in congratulating Hannah for her tremendous achievement!
Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sabrina is the first-ever student from a Bard Network campus other than Annandale to win a Watson. Her project, “"Outing" Orthodoxy: Religious, Jewish, Queer Histories and Futures,” will explore crossovers of queerness and Orthodoxy in Jewish social life, in Austria, Greece, Ukraine, Argentina, and Turkey.
More about the Watson Fellowship>>
Meta: Type(s): Student,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article, Soika discusses the recent controversy regarding Expressionist painter Emil Nolde in the German public sphere, in particular the debate surrounding the removal of Nolde's paintings from Angela Merkel's office in the Federal Chancellery in April 2019. Soika stresses how closely the history of the reception of Nolde's art was connected to post-war German history, and to what extent it mirrored attempts to come to terms with the nation's Nazi past. Up until recently, Emil Nolde was regarded primarily as a victim of Nazi art policies, whilst Nolde’s firm belief in Hitler and his antisemitism were largely ignored.
Nolde's role during the Third Reich and his post-war legacy were presented in an exhibition at the Neue Nationalgalerie/Hamburger Bahnhof in 2019, co-curated by Soika together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring. Together with the show Flucht in die Bilder at the Brücke Museum, also co-curated by Soika, the exhibition was credited to have revised previous narratives regarding early 20th century German modernism, as stated in the annual review of the art journal monopol, entitled "Deep Scars in the Picture of Modernism."
Read more about Historical Judgement>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
"Soulmachine" is a mobile interactive game with a group of passengers and artificial intelligence. It probes the micro-political situation between passengers and machine, asking questions about which direction this [auto]mobile society will take in the future.
Upcoming performances
Schauspiel Leipzig: March 11 (premiere), 19, 20, 25, 26 - more info>>
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin: May 7, 10, 16, 17 - more info>>
More information about "Soulmachine">>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The novel, which focuses on the beginning of a love story against the backdrop - which the protagonists try to escape - of the rise of Hitler in Germany, could not be published at the time of its writing due to its autobiographical character and to the historical circumstances.
Detjen discovered a version of the novel among the papers that Helen Wolff had left to her son, and a second version in the Zurich Central Library. She edited the work with an audience in mind and added an essay about the material, cultural and political conditions of writing for a young woman who didn’t want to compromise in times of fascism and war, at the intersection of the private and the public.
Read more about the novel>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
February 2020
In his essay, Hurst discusses the "Star Trek" franchise with all its incarnations in TV, cinema, and literature as a "multimedia megatext" and highlights its origins in a concept that preceded the modern categories of "quality TV" (Robert J. Thompson) and "auteur series" (Christoph Dreher). A special focus is on the idea of utopia and how "Star Trek" - in its different appearances - has promoted its agenda of progress, tolerance, diversity and inclusivity through a pattern of thematic and narrative repetitions and variations and within the transformation from an episodic style of storytelling to a more serialized format of TV entertainment/streaming. An important part here is played by the latest series in the franchise, "Star Trek: Discovery," a series that has provoked both enthusiastic praise and harsh criticism for its new interpretation of typical "Star Trek" themes and motifs and its unusual representation of the utopian idea that is inherent in "Star Trek." Does "Star Trek" still convey a utopian vision of our future or has it become grittier, more "realistic" and darker in the light of our contemporary political and social reality?
Read more about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The interview focused on the Sudan uprising, the unique cooperation in Sudan between civilians and the military, the pending trial of Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir, and the future of Sudan-Germany relations.
Watch the interview>>
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the paper's abstract:
The purpose of this research note is to inform the scholarly community on rebel incentives to remobilize for violence, a topic which has been underexplored in the literature, using evidence from an ongoing conflict: the case of volunteer ex-combatants in the Syrian civil war. In late 2014 to early 2015, we conducted surveys with 196 ex-fighters who served with different rebel group brigades linked to the Free Syrian Army as well as moderate Islamist and jihadist groups. […] Our results illustrate how rebel fighters might quickly remobilize when disciplined, well-organized rebel groups emerge on the scene, as evidenced by the rapid ascent of the Islamic State (ISIS).
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Berrigan will present her video installation “Imaginary Explosions, episode 2, Chaitén" (USA/Germany, 2019).
The work investigates how deep time and interspecies communication could assist us in radical planetary transformation. Artists and scholars whose real-life work pushes the limits of science and culture depict fictionalized versions of themselves in the videos and collaborate on the scores, narratives, and sculptures.
More info>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In this free webinar, Gallagher will share advice on obtaining a Student Services position abroad, drawing on his own experience of working in Student Affairs roles in multiple countries.
The webinar is part of the series “Around the Globe” co-hosted by the American College Personnel Association’s Commission for Global Dimensions of Student Development, the Association of College Unions International, and the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools.
Learn more / register>>
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Entitled "Platonic Repercussions: Deleuze’s Film-Thinking," the event will bring together Biderman, Alexandra Heimes, Noa Levin and Weinman to discuss and expand upon some of the key arguments regarding Plato, cinema and philosophy developed in the book.
Event description from the diffrakt website:
What might Plato – one of the deadest of the “dead white men” that (still) largely constitute the canon – have to say about some open questions in cinema studies? And what might film-philosophy, a discourse that is still emerging and remains (for some) at best marginal to the real work of cinema and of philosophy, teach us about rethinking Plato as a canonical figure? These were the questions that motivated Shai Biderman and Michael Weinman in Plato and the Moving Image. The conversation, building on but also extending and challenging key arguments developed there, explores how the readings of Platonic anamnesis in Meno offered by Benjamin (prologue to the Trauerspiel book) and Deleuze (in Difference and Repetition) relate to the ways in which each thinker mobilizes cinema for purposes relevant for ethics (especially pedagogy) and ontology. Anamnesis (literally, remembering again) is what has generally been canonized as “Plato’s theory of recollection.” But is it a theory at all? Or is it rather a practice? A practice of re-membering, in which real and virtual (after-)images are decomposed and recomposed in the construction of new possibilities?
Exploring these Platonic themes, Benjamin’s as well as Deleuze’s work will be carefully connected to the role of virtuality and the actualisation of memory in their philosophising of the moving image, specifically their conceptualisations of montage. In this way, the conversation will open up new vistas for a radically different determination of what Platonism as a form of constitutive idealism might yet come to be, after Benjamin and Deleuze.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The panel participants will discuss two recent publications that address how the post-war narratives about divided Germany came about: a book by Stefanie Eisenhuth (Leibniz Center for Contemporary History Research Potsdam), which discusses the divide from the point of view of the transatlantic relations between West Germany and the USA, and a book by Frank Wolff (University of Osnabrück), which argues that the Wall defined two countries and two populations, and was not just a boundary.
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sow the Wind is set near IIva, one of Europe’s largest steelworks that has been continuously poisoning Apulia’s environment for years. Nica, a young passionate scientist, is fighting to save her family’s olive grove. She searches for a sustainable solution going against the wishes of her profit-oriented father.
More about the Panorama program>>
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the article’s abstract:
Our well-being is influenced by our notion of what constitutes a good life, a vital part of our identity. While pro-environmental behavior is often found to be positively related to individuals' well-being, our research delves into the extent to which this relationship is influenced by individuals' identity, measured both as green self-image and their notion of the good life in general. Using survey responses from Spanish university students (n= 640) and paying close attention to the subjective perception of what it means to be “satisfied with their lives”, we find that green behavior is negatively related to life satisfaction in our sample. In contrast, green self-image is positively related to life satisfaction.
Link to article>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Considered a landmark in the European higher education environment, the conference aimed to provide a unique forum for dialogue between researchers, experts and policy makers in the field of higher education.
Crăciun’s paper, “Does international student mobility increase graduate employability? The labor market outcomes of Erasmus students,” co-authored with Kata Orosz (CEU, Austria) and Viorel Proteasa (West University of Timisoara, Romania), was presented in a panel on the internationalization of higher education.
Read more about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
January 2020
Chaired by Richard Brown (Leeds University), the event will bring Scuriatti in conversation with Juliette Taylor-Batty (Leeds Trinity) and Gigliola Sulis (Leeds).
From the book's description:
Mina Loy’s Critical Modernism provides a fresh assessment of the works of British-born poet and painter Mina Loy. Laura Scuriatti shows how Loy’s “eccentric” writing and art celebrate ideas and aesthetics central to the modernist movement while simultaneously critiquing them, resulting in a continually self-reflexive and detached stance that Scuriatti terms “critical modernism.”
Offering new insights into Loy’s feminism and tracing the writer’s lifelong exploration of themes such as authorship, art, identity, genius, and cosmopolitanism, this volume prompts readers to rethink the place, value, and function of key modernist concepts through the critical spaces created by Loy’s texts.
Read more about the event>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Von Hantelmann’s presentation will explore the pertinent and expanding power of art in global societies.
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article argues that, in the context of the rise of nationalism and increasing inequalities across European metropolises, developing an attentiveness to the sounds of the city can be utilized to unpack individual and collective claims to entitlement and belonging. Focusing on London and Berlin, and using the concept of xenophonophobia - the fear of foreign sounds - the authors examine racism beyond words to understand how belonging and boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are created in these cities.
Link to article>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Spearheaded by Bard College and the Central European University, the Open Society University Network will function as an international platform of universities involving partner institutions around the world, including Bard College Berlin and other campuses in the Bard network.
"Open societies around the world are facing grave threats, and climate change threatens our very civilization. Global education can help us address these challenges," commented Soros on social media in advance of his speech at Davos.
Access to education, public space, and civic engagement are some of the pillars of OSUN, which plans to develop in the next phases network courses as well as joint degree programs and research projects.
Watch George Soros's announcement of the founding of OSUN>>
OSUN website>>
Media features
Soros Commits $1 Billion to Educational Initiative, Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2020
Soros gives $1bn to fund universities 'and stop drift towards authoritarianism, The Guardian, January 23, 2020
Soros university network ‘to build resilience and sustainability’, Times Higher Education, February 11, 2020
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Telephone conversations with philosophers of the 20th century: The "Philosophy Machine" is an artificial intelligence device that brings to life dead thinkers. Utilizing algorithmic original voice* montage, the past and present collide and merge. The audience can enter into lively dialogues by telephone with Hannah Arendt, Karl Jaspers, Jeanne Hersch, Theodor W. Adorno, James Baldwin, Ernst Bloch and others, deliberating over urgent topics such as freedom and censorship, dissidence and utopia. What playfully emerges is a spectrum of collective social discourse and action, transmitting philosophical strategies of the 20th century into the present.
Read more about the performance>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Two small wooden figures made of wood were lying out in the sun one day on an old newspaper. One was short, fat, and painted pink; the other was straight, thin, and painted yellow. They wake up wondering and singing about who they are and where they come from. "Yellow and Pink" transforms one of the biggest philosophical questions into a theatrical debate that invites children and adults alike to ponder these questions with them.
Watch a trailer of the performance>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): General | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
HelloBetter was founded as a university spin-off in 2015 under the name GET.ON Institut and has since become a pioneer in the field of evidence-based digital interventions, providing access to online courses for people with various mental health conditions. It is currently one of the leading providers of online psychological health trainings in German-speaking countries. Klöpper joined the company in January 2019 to scale the business, investing heavily in product, tech, sales and marketing.
More about HelloBetter >>
Handelsblatt feature >>
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
December 2019
The media contributions include:
- a panel discussion with Vormann, Benjamin Wolfmeier (Republicans Overseas Germany), Emily Lines (Democrats Abroad Germany), and Sudha David Wilp (German Marshall Fund of the United States) moderated by Anke Plättner on the German public broadcast service phoenix
- an interview for Deutsche Welle in which Vormann outlines the process & timeline of the impeachment case, and its potential effects on the US presidential elections in November '20 (source: dw.com)
- an interview for RBB Inforadio in which Vormann focuses on the divided political & media landscape in the US, and on the loss of confidence in US politics
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The selection committee reviewed the nominations that were handed in by faculty members and after an intense deliberation decided to offer the Award to Bíborka whose academic as well as civic engagement achievements reveal an excellent, hard-working, academically and civically deeply committed student. Bíborka’s studies, free time, life and work are connected through the thread of being engaged, alert, and always in exchange with both the near and greater outside world.
Bíborka has been working as one of the Civic Engagement Office’s student assistants at Bard College Berlin. In this role, she organizes events around current issues in the political, social and humanitarian realm, and assists with student projects while bringing the Bard College Berlin community into closer contact with Berlin as well as a more global community. She also explores these issues in her academic work as she writes papers and engages in research revolving around these topics. To complement these efforts, she further participates in numerous conferences that enable her to contextualize and advance her knowledge in an international and interdisciplinary context.
Florian Becker, BCB’s Managing Director, awarded the DAAD certificate to Bíborka during “Winterzauber,” the traditional end-of-year celebration held on December 16, 2019 and open to the entire campus community.
The DAAD Award is a monetary award of €1000 that is part of DAAD funding in the STIBET program. It honors outstanding international students in Germany with an exceptional record of engagement for social, political, cultural or humanitarian causes.
Meta: Type(s): Student,General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article sheds light on the paradoxical findings of Giamattei’s study, namely that accurate forecasts by financial analysts play a role in stock price increases and equity market bubbles.
Read the article here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The talk will focus on understanding museums and exhibitions as modern ritual places with a social function, due to the values and concepts they help bring into society. By situating museums in the context of Western liberalism, von Hantelmann argues that we can grasp the transformations which currently affect the ritual of exhibition and performance, and we can discuss whether our present asks for a new type of ritual.
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Among those who spoke in praise of Berkowitz and Kohn was Antonia Grunenberg, Professor Emerita of Politics at the University of Oldenburg, who noted that the prize is thus returning to its origins. Ellen Ueberschär, President of the Böll Foundation, further commented, in light of the German-US relation, that the awarding of the prize to two US scholars is a sign. Funded by the state government of Bremen and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the 10,000 EUR prize recognizes the crucial role the work of Berkowitz and Kohn plays in preserving the political ideas of Hannah Arendt.
Read more (Bremer Nachrichten)>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article traces the extensive research carried out by Fulda and Soika in the archives of the Nolde estate in Seebüll. Their revised narrative of the painter’s life challenged entrenched postwar myths about Nolde and prompted a fervent discussion in the German chancellery, where two of Nolde’s paintings had been previously displayed.
You can read the review here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
You can watch a recording here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Crăciun's workshop aimed to survey a family of research methods for systematically extracting information from textual data for scientific purposes known as content analysis.
The event brought together participants from several international academic institutions to discuss quantitative text analysis, more specifically the conceptual, analytical and visual tools to systematically extract meaning from text for social research.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
November 2019
Based on a book originally published by Bergstrom and Miller, the experiments collected as web resources start from the authors’ observation that ”conducting economic experiments in the classroom, with discussions before, during, and after the experiments, is an effective way of getting students to use economics to think about the world around them.”
Resources for each experiment include instructions for faculty & students, exercises, warm-up quizzes, and tools to evaluate participation & performance. They are freely available at https://econclassexperiments.com/.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Listen to the interview>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Von Hantelmann will be joined in conversation by artists, activist and art professionals to debate the ways in which action can transform communities much more effectively than noisy rhetoric.
More info about the event>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
They received the award together with 23 other GDR civil rights activists and former opposition figures from Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue on Wednesday October 2, the day before German Unification.
For more information, please visit the site of the Bundespräsident.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The topic of this year’s meeting is “The Corrosion of the Liberal Democratic Order? Transatlantic Perspectives in Perilous Times.” Participants will aim to address current challenges to the democratic order with a focus on the USA or in a comparative perspective.
Vormannn will present in a panel on the “Faultlines of Liberalism? Democracy in the Age of Trump” whose further speakers include scholars from Charles University (Prague), Schiller University Jena, and Hamburg.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the chapter, Crăciun discusses the rise of internationalization in the recent years in higher education around the world and argues this has resulted in a proliferation of conceptual labels through which scholars attempt to understand the diverse manifestations of internationalization. She further suggests that strategic internationalization documents could be used to understand how higher education systems and institutions engage with internationalization.
Read more about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read the essay>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
You can listen to the interview here>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
October 2019
The event is part of Volksbühne’s performance series ASSEMBLE, which commissions new live artwork for cultural institutions throughout Berlin. The discussion zooms in on Wary Mary, a performance which Maimon recently created for ASSEMBLE and which was followed by a solo exhibition Mutating Mary at Künstlerhaus Bremen. For both pieces, Maimon has been researching contemporary forms of social pressure on women to reproduce and care, a research process inseparable from personal contemplation of motherhood and experiencing the environment’s treatment of women who are not mothers.
More information and tickets>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The festival runs from October 24 to November 2, 2019 and is dedicated to questions of coming to terms with the past, contemporary analysis and visions of the future in social times of transformation and upheaval.
In the frame of the festival, Interrobang will also participate in a discussion on the current potential and reception of Heiner Müller’s texts and political thinking on October 27.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The panel aimed to discuss today's views on East German border guards who were killed in the line of duty, beginning from the case of Egon Schultz, who was accidentally shot dead by a colleague during an escape action and whose story had been concealed by the SED leadership until 1989. The panelists reflected on the controversies that surrounded these situations in the past and how they have transformed in the present.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The volume investigates America’s transforming democracy as it faces the challenges and developments of the 21st century—challenges and developments that have brought deep dissatisfaction, cultural fragmentation, and economic indignation.
In their chapter, Lammert and Vormann shift their attention from the macro factors of democratic crises to the micro level. They seek to develop an analytical model to better understand how trust in politics, as a central pillar of democratic legitimacy and stability, is not simply imposed from the top down, but built from the bottom up.
Read more about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured,General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
September 2019
In the interview, Vormann notes how the Democrats are trying to speed up the development of the situation, in comparison with the slow tempo of the Mueller Report. If the impeachment procedure is initiated, Vormann further comments, the process could be a lengthy one and could pose certain risks to the Democracts due to the possibility of it backfiring.
Listen to the interview>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Scuriatti's chapter discusses how Mario Praz's attention for the baroque and mannerism, expressed in particular, but not exclusively, in the collection Il giardino dei sensi (1971), is linked to the renewed interest, in the second half of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century, in two connected and problematic stylistic labels: Mannerism and the Baroque. The chapter maps the way in which Praz's writings present the subtle interdependence of mannerism, the baroque and a specific version of modernist aesthetics; it also positions Praz's dialectic versions of modernism and the baroque in relation to the early twentieth-century perspectives on the art, literature and culture of the late 16th and 17th century.
Read more about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The topic of the conference was "The Romantic Fantastic," offering a critical look into the relationship between Romanticism and the Fantastic in its many different forms and expressions. Romantic ideas and themes, poetics and images, and their relation to or repercussions in fantastic literature, film, TV, games, etc., were explored in order to analyze the enduring fascination of romantic notions and aesthetics in contemporary (popular) culture as well as the intentions and effects of the Romantic and the Fantastic regarding the political, economic, and ecological realities of our world today in a wide ranging aesthetic and ideological spectrum between escapism, criticism, subversion, and creative rethinking. Keynote presentations were offered by David Sandner and Dame Marina Warner.
Hurst's presentation, "Roboter, Halbgott, Doppelgänger: Romantische Motive in Saturn 3 (1980)," focused on the interpretation of an almost forgotten Science Fiction film of the 1980s, Saturn 3 (dir. Stanley Donen), in the light of romantic ideas and motifs, namely the ideas of "Waldeinsamkeit" (Ludwig Tieck) -- the (ambivalent or even futile) attempt to escape from the bleak realities of modern civilization into a paradise-like isolation--, the dream of eternal, self-sufficient romantic love (Friedrich Schlegel), and the concept of the uncanny Doppelgänger/double, embodying inhibited and repressed feelings or unwanted desire. The futuristic story of a cyborg prototype ("the first of the demigod series") that gets out of control on a remote research station on the third moon of Saturn features obvious elements of Mary Shelley and the "Frankenstein complex" (Lisa Zunshine) with its criticism of radical enlightenment and rationalism and its clash of cognitive concepts of sentient life vs. artificial life, but allows for a more refined reading by virtue of an intriguing convergence of dystopian, romantic and psychoanalytical discourses.
More info about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lisiak and Vacchelli’s stream titled “Cities for girls, boys, and everyone else” explored how urban youth engage with, modify, manipulate, and negotiate the structures of urban control in their everyday life, how young people’s access to the city and their sense of belonging therein are gendered, and how this gendering is classed and racialized, how it intersects with sexuality, religion, migration status, and caste. The contributions included in the stream presented research conducted in Dar es Salaam, Lahore, Helsinki, Dehradun, and Mumbai, among other cities.
Read more about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The conference invites to identify, raise, and discuss critical issues of contemporary European university education by re-reading, re-considering, and re-invigorating the thinking of Hannah Arendt on the Conditio Humana, on the plurality of Man, and the philosophical roots of education.
In a panel devoted to Bard College Berlin, Bystrom, Weinman, and Tugendhaft will give presentations on "Creating a World in Common: The Program for International Education and Social Change at Bard College Berlin," "Our Educational Institutions between Past and Future: The Crisis of Education as a Crisis of Authority," and, respectively, "Teaching Thinking without a Banister."
Bard College Berlin representatives will also participate in a round table discussion on "Hannah Arendt's Legacy and Liberal Arts Curricula" with delegates from Bard College NY, EHU Vilnius, LCC International, Oldenburg University, University Klaipeda, and UNI-Y.
Conference program>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the article's abstract:
"This article is about the ways in which counter-hegemony is expressed in performance art dealing with notions of public space and the publics. The article examines two works of art from Lebanon: Rabih Mroué and Lina Saneh’s Photo-Romance (2009), produced and performed before the initial heady days of the Arab uprisings of 2011 unravelled, and the Dictaphone Group’s This Sea is Mine (2012), produced immediately after the onset of the uprisings. Each of the pieces interrogates public space and citizenship in Beirut in very different ways to express dissent and perform resistance.[...] By drawing on theories of aesthetics and their relationship to radical democracy in public space, the article highlights the different iterations of counter-hegemony that circulate in the work of these contemporary Arab artists to argue that, like the momentous Arab uprisings of 2011–12, resistant works of art may only be understood within a longer history of strife and popular protest in the region that have produced differing forms of dissent at various points in time."
Link to article>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The 14 meter-high architecturally integrated concrete relief is planned to be finished in 2021.
More info about the Kunst am Bau competition and von Bergen's proposal>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Vormann commented that this development reflects Trump's lack of vision for the US foreign policy, which is full of contradictions as Trump prefers to focus on domestic policy. While there were some policy overlaps between Bolton and Trump, Vormann noted that the contradictions between them were very apparent as Trump consistently turned away from foreign policy.
Watch the interview>> (source: dw.com)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
OLIve-Access will offer intensive Academic English & Academic Preparation classes as well as Academic Seminars in order to raise students' Academic English from B1 to B2 level (required for university study).
Successful graduates of the program are expected to apply to OLIve-UP, a 10-month preparatory program for MA studies in English at Central European University, Vienna.
OLIve-Access at Bard College Berlin plans to accept six students with a refugee background in its first cohort. Scholarships are available.
The program is funded by Erasmus+, the EU's program to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe, and by the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Foundations and implemented at Bard College, Berlin.
The deadline to apply for OLIve-Access is September 29, 2019.
Open call and eligibility criteria>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Detjen will be joined in conversation by Dilek Güngör, author of the novel Ich bin Özlem, and by Stephan Detjen, senior correspondent for Deutschlandradio.
The proceeds from the ticket sales will go to the Flüchtlingspaten Syrien, an organization which helps Syrian refugees with the retrieval of family members.
More information about the event>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
August 2019
The event is a presentation of the recent volume Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds. Modernist Aesthetics and the Utopian Lure of Community [Peter Lang, 2019] edited by Scuriatti, which features essays by Wagner ("Utopias of Purposelessness: Sacred and Secular Sociability around 1800"), Schöne ("Modernism and Pan-Europeanism: Utopian Concepts and Visions of the Porza Group") as well as Scuriatti ("Together, on Her Own: A Survey of Mina Loy’s Textual Communities.")
Joined in conversation by Reinhold J. Fäth (HKS Ottersberg) and artist Jenny Michel, the panel participants will discuss the role of art in troubled times and the type of political projects that art can convey. They will focus specifically on the first half of the twentieth century, when the avant-garde on both sides of the Atlantic aligned to search through radical experiments and utopian visions alternatives to the political present. The essays collected in the Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds volume examine the social and artistic projects of those times as expressions of various forms of utopia based on an ethos of community and friendship.
Date&time: Friday, September 6, from 7:00pm
Venue: Kunsthaus Dahlem, Käuzchensteig 12, 14195 Berlin
Admission free
The language of the event is German
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The first such program, OLIve-Plus, will be hosted by BCB between September 2019 and January 2020, and is a full-time course of study for individuals with refugee status in Germany.
Six students with a refugee background are currently enrolled in the first cohort of OLIve-Plus at BCB. The program prepares them to make competitive applications to Master’s degrees at Central European University. Students take courses in Economics and Business Studies, Human Rights or Public Policy, and additionally in Academic English and Graduate Writing.
More info about the program>>
Meta: Type(s): General,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
According to Vormann, the division between the Republican and Democratic parties is currently doubled by a split within the parties themselves, which makes any predictions very difficult. The split within the Democratic party could however be used as an indication of what sort of presidential candidates are expected. Vormann further commented that the results of the primary debates are usually volatile and that by September, as the number of candidates reduces, it will be clearer which of them have viable chances.
Watch the full analysis here>> (source: dw.com)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
July 2019
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lisiak argues that girlhood's political potential does not lie in the power of individual girls, but in acknowledging the commonalities and multiplicities of girls' experiences. A non-heroic approach to girlhood that rejects the individualistic 'girl power' paradigm opens up new, sometimes contradictory narrations and representations of contemporary girlhood and reveals not only the intricate workings of exclusion mechanisms, but also the various inclusive tactics and resistance strategies at work.
You can read the full article in Polish here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The annual award was created to honor individuals who identify critical and unseen aspects of current political events and who are not afraid to enter the public realm by presenting their opinion in controversial political discussions. The Hannah Arendt Award is a public prize, and therefore not based solely on academic achievement. Funded by both the state government of Bremen and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the prize is endowed with 10,000 Euros and is awarded by an international jury.
Berkowitz shares the 2019 award with fellow recipient Jerome Kohn, trustee of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust and editor of many volumes of Arendt's posthumous work.
The jury praised Berkowitz’s merits as a constitutional theorist and for his work as director of the Arendt Center, a place where “students from all over the world are encouraged to learn to politically think and to study the writings of a political philosopher who never respected the restraints of philosophical thinking.”
More info>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The conference aimed to historically analyze perception and categorization practices which emerged in dealing with refugees in Germany since 1945 and to contextualize these in an interdisciplinary exchange.
In the frame of the conference, Detjen participated in the concluding panel on „Deutschland nach der 'Flüchtlingskrise'“ ["Germany after the 'Refugee Crisis'"].
More information on the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic find themselves approaching a state of emergency, beset by potent populist challenges of the right and left. But what exactly lies at the core of widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo? In Democracy in Crisis, Christian Lammert and Boris Vormann argue that the rise of populism in North Atlantic states is not the cause of a crisis of governance but its result.
Read more about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): General,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Widmann’s presentation “The Days of the Nuthatch: Imagining Ecological Coexistence in the Anthropocene” links observations on patterns in bird behavior to both ecocritical theory and harmful land use by humans causing habitat loss through urban sprawl. In discussing the practice of nest-reusal common to nuthatches, the paper also thinks about how “looking at animals” can result in anthropomorphical projections as well as in unexpected visions of alternative housing and ways of living for humans.
Literature and environment, the field of the conference, is related to a new literature course Widmann will be offering in Spring 2020. Widmann received a DAAD conference travel grant for the trip.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In their chapter, Lisiak and Kaczmarek discuss how inventiveness, creativity, and, above all, hope-driven refusal to give into what seems to be a failure, are the driving force behind community activism and research. While not exactly a manual, the chapter discloses practices, mechanisms, and tactics that have emerged during the design and application of creative and collaborative methods in social activism and research. The chapter, as well as the entire book, are available as free downloads from the UCL Press website.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
June 2019
Meta: Type(s): PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the aftermath of the closing of Open Society Foundation and the Central European University in Budapest, as well as similar situations that threaten liberal democracy in Europe, the two authors turn their attention to Berlin and its status as a safe haven for civil society institutions and initiatives. Emerson and Smidt urge that, with the support of the federal government, Berlin plays “a pivotal role in shaping civil society in Germany, Europe and the world at large. It is our hope that it acts on this opportunity.”
Read the contribution>>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the book's description:
This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato’s dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato’s account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato’s deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato’s deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist.
Weinman also contributed a chapter to the book on "The Myth of Er as Rationalizing Recording Device."
The book is available both in print and in e-book edition and can be found here.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Watch the interview>> (source: dw.com)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
The conference aimed to strengthen collaboration between higher education stakeholders in countries where displaced individuals live to ensure that generations of young people do not lose their opportunity to lead productive, engaged and independent lives today and in future. In panel discussions, workshops and world-cafés, participants explored opportunities to expand access to higher education for displaced individuals, identified good practices, partnership opportunities and possible actions in the areas of financing and partnerships, inclusion and access, research and data, connected learning, internationalization and transition to employment.
Bard College Berlin was represented at the conference by Associate Dean Kerry Bystrom, who gave a presentation in a workshop on “Research and data” moderated by economist and peace researcher Tilman Brück; by Civic Engagement Manager Xenia Muth, who introduced BCB’s Program for International Education and Social Change in a poster exhibition on the inclusion of qualified refugees in German universities; and by student Ehab Badwi (BA 2022, Syria), who participated in a student panel discussion on “Refugee student experiences at higher education institutions worldwide” and in the workshop "Student-led Initiatives."
Read more about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Berlin,General,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
The radio show draws on two current exhibitions co-curated by Soika - A German Legend. Emil Nolde and the Nazi Regime at the Hamburger Bahnhof and Escape into Art? The Brücke Painters in the Nazi Period at the Brücke Museum in Berlin, which both grapple with the question of whether the Brücke artists were victims of the National Socialist cultural policy in light of their inclusion in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition. In the radio show, Soika highlights that the exhibitions are trying to go beyond the scope of this question, to look at the case of each painter individually and also in relation to the changes in their painting style and their actions after 1933.
Listen to the show>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lisiak spoke about her work on Eastern European migration to Western Europe, the experiences of migrant mothers in particular, and the relationship between gentrification and language in European cities.
Listen to the podcast>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The course of study includes workshops on how to make a successful university application, classes in academic writing and academic skills, a regular academic seminar, auditing degree level classes at Bard College Berlin, and preparation for standardized exams in English such as TOEFL.
The deadline to apply for the program is July 5, 2019.
More information about the program>>
Open call and eligibility criteria>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The lecture focused on the trials that took place in the US against the publication of Joyce's Ulysses. Scuriatti discussed the role of small magazines in the promotion and dissemination of modernist literature, and the impact of the arguments developed during the time of the first trial (1921) on the structure and style of the book, as well as on its reception.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the book’s description:
The essays in this volume analyse the significance (and failures) of literary coteries as spaces of aesthetic and political freedom. They explore the internationalist and interdisciplinary practices of the Porza Group, the abstrakten hannover and the anthroposophical group Aenigma; the utopian efforts of the artists’ communities at Dornach (Switzerland) and Farley Farm, in England; the political and aesthetic implications of collaborative practices of cultural mediation, criticism and translation within the Bloomsbury group, the «Young American Critics», and of single individuals in relation to networks and avant-garde coteries, such as Mina Loy, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Djuna Barnes. The volume offers an evaluation of the roots and ethos of sociability in the Enlightenment, as the basis of modernist utopias of community; it also reflects on the problematic notion of individual authorship within artistic groups, as in the case of the early-modernist Finnish author Algot Untola, who created around forty fictitious author-names.
The volume includes essays by faculty members Ulrike Wagner ("Utopias of Purposelessness: Sacred and Secular Sociability around 1800") and Dorothea Schöne ("Modernism and Pan-Europeanism: Utopian Concepts and Visions of the Porza Group"), as well as an essay by Scuriatti entitled "Together, on Her Own: A Survey of Mina Loy’s Textual Communities."
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The talk was based on a paper co-authored by Binder with Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg (University of Goettingen) and Heinz Welsch (University of Oldenburg). The paper grapples with several explanations offered in literature for the positive relationship between green lifestyles and subjective well-being, more specifically with the effect that social or group norms may have on such behavior. Using panel data from the UK, the paper authors demonstrate that the relationship is a positive one, and their findings support the idea that “the relationship between a green lifestyle and subjective well-being relies (in addition to conformity with a moral norm) on group identity rather than conformity with a society-wide green norm.”
More information about the Cournot seminar series>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Vormann noted that Trump's visit to London, which had been planned shortly after Trump took office, coincides with a critical moment in UK's history. One of Trump's goals, in Vormann's view, is to endorse Boris Johnson as successor of Theresa May, given their mutual support of key issues. Vormann further commented on the economic interests of Trump given the Brexit trade deal.
View the interview>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
May 2019
For SWR2, Vormann highlighted that the Trump-led US administration departed from the soft power politics that had characterized the post-war years and had centered on cooperation, military & financial support. Under Trump, the policy has been to re-negotiate everything, Vormann commented, including transatlantic relations and more pressing international conflicts. Listen to the interview>>
On Tagesschau, Vormann focused on the discussions that Pompeo carried out with Angela Merkel and Heiko Maas in Berlin. Vormann commented that the current relation of US to Germany marks a departure from the times of transatlantic alliances; this departure began during Obama's presidency (with the re-orientation of USA towards Asia), and accentuated in Trump's time. Vormann also added that there are aspects in which the USA and Germany hold opposing views, for example in the case of Iran, but this will not affect the current relation between the two countries. Watch the interview>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The conference brings together international scholars in political and social sciences, history, philosophy, and anthropology to examine how the concepts “popular sovereignty,” “majority rule” and “electoral politics”—which over the last three hundred years were constitutive of the democratic project—have in recent decades evolved into threats to the spirit and norms of democracy everywhere.
In the frame of the conference, Atanassow will give a presentation on “Popular Sovereignty on Trial” in a panel discussion on “Popular Sovereignty and Neo-Liberalism” chaired by Dilip Gaonkar (Northwestern University).
Conference poster>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Vormann’s talk was entitled “Urbanization and Infrastructural Statecraft in the American Century.”
The research group City Scripts explores the imaginative strategies and narrative scenarios which the centers of old industries (steel, coal and cars) in the United States and Germany are devising to forge paths into their futures. The public colloquium held between April and July 2019 invites researchers to present their ongoing projects.
More info>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Between May 28 and June 2, 2019 Bard College Berlin students can participate in a variety of workshops on performance-based practices and discourses related to Berlin’s vibrant independent performing arts scene, from set design to writing, performance-making and performance analysis.
Running for the fourth year, the Berlin Performing Arts Festival will present six days of theater and performance, puppet and music theater, new circus, installation as well as site-specific performance on stages and in unusual locations throughout the entire city. The PAF Campus of Berlin’s Independent Performing Arts Community will be created for the first time in 2019: students and faculty members from a variety of institutions of higher learning are invited to become acquainted with the working methods and aesthetic discourses of Berlin's independent performing arts community in seminars, workshops, presentations, conversations with artists and, of course, by attending performances.
The Berlin Performing Arts Festival is organized by LAFT - Landesverband freie darstellende Künste Berlin in cooperation with the performance venues Ballhaus Ost, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Sophiensæle and Theaterdiscounter and is funded by the State of Berlin – Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
PAF Campus is created in cooperation with the Berlin institutions of higher learning Bard College Berlin, Berlin InterUniversity Center for Dance, Berlin University of the Arts, FU Berlin, and TU Berlin.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
A scholar of medieval culture and literature, Reeve was one of the instructors in the core courses Plato’s Republic and Its Interlocutors (Fall 2018) and Forms of Love (Spring 2019) at Bard College Berlin. In 2018-2019 Reeve has been affiliated with the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, after serving as a fellow in 2016-2018.
Reeve’s profile on the ICI Berlin website>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Bringing together young researchers, cultural producers, and the general public, the conference will both explore and perform new media narratives, thus aiming to push contemporary digital culture to its analytical and expressive limits.
In the frame of the conference, Lisiak will moderate the presentation of VR explorations, multimedia & multimodal ethnographic projects, and will participate in a roundtable with scholars from Bard College (New York), KEAE, the University of the Aegean, and the University of Thessaly. Von Bergen will give a presentation on "Exploring VR in the Studio Arts Classroom."
The conference is organized by the Laboratory of Social Anthropology and the Department of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology of the University of Thessaly.
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On the first day of the conference Mohamad Othman will guide a tour titled “Why We're Here” which offers a unique comparative take on conflict and uprising in Syria and Berlin. Mohamad will engage with recent Syrian history by drawing parallels to selected events from Berlin’s past. The two-hour tour will start at U-Mohrenstrasse in Mitte.
The speakers in the panel “Re-Writing the City Through Engaged Walking” co-organized by Agata Lisiak will explore various political efforts centered on the idea of walking, which aim to re-write hegemonic narratives of cities. The speakers (academics and activists from Istanbul and Berlin) will also closely consider walking as an ethnographic and activist method of engagement with the urban and discuss with the audience how we can make cities more inclusive through walking and how we can make walking more inclusive.
More about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,PIESC,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The international conference brought together experts in National Socialism and early 20th century Art and Culture to introduce and discuss the latest findings from research and exhibition practice. The participants aimed to examine the motivations of artists, art historians, and art dealers in connecting the forms of expression of modernism with National Socialism, as well as to explore how the multifaceted and contradictory image of the German art world in 1933-1945 could be presented in the institutional context of a museum.
In the frame of the conference, Soika was invited to speak on co-curating the exhibitions A German Legend. Emil Nolde and the Nazi Regime (Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin) and Escape into Art? The Brücke Painters in the Nazi Period (Brücke Museum, Berlin), and to moderate a panel on the "Persecution Narrative and Heroic Stories of Modernity in Post-war Germany."
Read more about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Detjen, who is co-author of the volume Die Deutschen und das Grundgesetz: Geschichte und Grenzen unserer Verfassung [The Germans and the Basic Law: The History and Limits of our Constitution], was invited to speak about the Germans’ perception of the Basic Law around its birth. Detjen noted that in the aftermath of the Second World War, feelings such as freedom or self-determination were far from the German population, and it took a while to realize the constitutional and liberal potential of the Basic Law. Detjen also discussed the constitutional experiments that took place before the reunification and the organic character of the Basic Law.
Listen to the piece here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Named after the Austrian-born American painter and graphic designer Henry Koerner (1915-1991), the building was designed by the renowned Rotterdam-based Atelier Kempe Thill.
The festivities began with a ribbon cutting ceremony which featured short addresses from Leon Botstein, President of Bard College; Peter Baldwin, Co-founder of the Arcadia Fund and Member of the Board of Governors of Bard College Berlin; André Kempe, Co-founder and Partner at Atelier Kempe Thill; and Sӧren Benn, Mayor of Berlin-Pankow. Two exhibitions were on view at Henry Koerner Hall following the inauguration. The first presented a group of prints by Henry Koerner, including My Parents based on an iconic painting by the artist. Also on view was a selection of issues of TIME magazine featuring portraits by Koerner on the cover. The second exhibition, The Skin of the Law. European Migration Regimes and their Global Realities, showed works created by students from Bard College Berlin and was curated by professors Dorothea von Hantelmann and Marion Detjen.
The day continued with a series of discussions at St. Maria Magdalena Church, located in the proximity of Henry Koerner Hall. Joseph Leo Koerner, Harvard art historian, author and son of Henry Koerner, gave a presentation on the work and life of his father. The college was delighted to host keynote speeches by Sigmar Gabriel, Member of the German Bundestag, and the artist, architect, and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar. The closing event was a panel discussion and open forum with Tracey Emin, artist; Barbara Haskell, curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Orwa Nyrabia, Artistic Director of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam; and Joseph Koerner, moderated by Leon Botstein.
The college wishes to thank Arcadia, A charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, for making the construction of Henry Koerner Hall possible.
Booklet on Henry Koerner Hall>>
Press features
Im Geist von Hannah Arendt, Der Tagesspiegel, May 13, 2019
Wiener Emigrant Henry Koerner wird Namenspatron eines Berliner Studentenheims, Der Standard, May 14, 2019
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Article abstract:
Renewed efforts at empirically distinguishing between different forms of political regimes leave out the cultural dimension. In this article, we demonstrate how modern computational tools can be used to fill this gap. We employ web-scraping techniques to generate a data set of speeches by heads of government in European democracies and autocratic regimes around the globe. Our data set includes 4740 speeches delivered between 1999 and 2019 by 40 political leaders of 27 countries. By scaling the results of a dictionary application, we show how, in comparative terms, liberal or illiberal the leaders present them-selves to their national and international audience. In order to gauge whether our liberal-ness scale reveals meaningful distinctions, we perform a series of validity tests: criterion validity, qualitative hand-coding, unsupervised topic modeling, and network analysis. All tests suggest that our liberalness scale does capture meaningful differences between political regimes despite the large heterogeneity of our data.
Read more here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The exhibition offers a detailed examination of the artistic practice, scope and everyday life of the initial members of Brücke - Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Pechstein and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - during the Nazi period. It seeks to take a multifaceted view and approaches the complexity of the Brücke history – between recognition and ‘defamation’ – by means of artworks and extensive documentation.
The exhibition runs through August 11, 2019.
More information>>
Reviews
Wer hat hier „entartet“ gesagt?, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, May 4, 2019
Das Ende der verklärten Bilder, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 24, 2019
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
April 2019
A student-organized conference, this year's LESC welcomes approximately fifty student participants from liberal education institutions all over Europe to consider the central theme "Liberal Education: In Conversation with Today's World of Tomorrow." The student participants are themselves international and come from institutions in Poland, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia, the UK, Belgium, and Lithuania.
LESC 2019 seeks to understand the tone and content of the conversation between a Liberal Education and the world at large, asking how current model(s) of Liberal Education interact with the spheres of politics, technology, society, the global economy, and education historically, today, and into the future. It asks what supports and what stifles Liberal Education and how Liberal Education can help us as individuals and on an institutional level accomplish the needed change in each of these fields.
Lectures in the scope of the conference program will be open to the Bard College Berlin community with advance registration.
The LESC organizing committee wishes to express its gratitude to the Bard College Berlin faculty & community, as well as to Bard Center for Civic Engagement and ECOLAS (The European Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences) for their invaluable financial support.
More information about LESC 2019>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Vormann was reluctant to offer a prognosis at this point in time, especially considering the current split in the US Democratic Party, which is reflected in similar splits beyond the US. He noted that, while Biden is popular with unions and workers, he would have to fight to win over the nonvoters from the previous election, and also to straighten the legacy surrounding his name.
Watch the video>> (source: dw.com)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Part of the event, B.I.R.D.S. had the great pleasure to introduce a surprise guest of honor - Greek social politician Theodore Stathis. As a trustee of Andreas Papadremos, he helped overthrow the Hunta in 1973, was a member of the Greek parliament for over 30 years and has as of recent earned much appreciation for his work at the national bank of Greece, as well as in music composition. Stathis is also an advocate of sortition and, during the discussion, he provided valuable input on electoral parties controlled by sortition (a system he had helped developed in the 70s together with Papadremos).
The event took place in connection to the course Introduction to Comparative Politics led by Boris Vormann, and also featured Jonas Kunz and Hans Kern from B.I.R.D.S., as well as Dr. Andreas Schiel and Tom Wohlfarth from denkzentrum|demokratie.
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the book’s description:
This book provides a fresh assessment of the works of British-born poet and painter Mina Loy. Laura Scuriatti shows how Loy’s “eccentric” writing and art celebrate ideas and aesthetics central to the modernist movement while simultaneously critiquing them, resulting in a continually self-reflexive and detached stance that Scuriatti terms “critical modernism.”
Offering new insights into Loy’s feminism and tracing the writer’s lifelong exploration of themes such as authorship, art, identity, genius, and cosmopolitanism, this volume prompts readers to rethink the place, value, and function of key modernist concepts through the critical spaces created by Loy’s texts.
Read more about the book>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
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>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
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>>
Media features in connection to Soika's research on Emil Nolde
To the Bitter End, in London Review of Books (December 5, 2019)
Hängt sie auf, in Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 14, 2019)
Die angepassten Expressionisten, on SWR 2 (June 7, 2019)
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)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read all the contributions here>>
Meta: Type(s): Featured,General,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
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!
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
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).
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article can be accessed here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
March 2019
The aim of the conference was to examine “a wide range of practical developments and theoretical dimensions of the changing position and role of cities in international law and governance.”
Vormann’s talk was part of a panel on “Practice Areas: How Cities are Reshaping Legal Fields.”
More about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The reviewer considers Messias more “ambitious” and “polyphonic” than Widmann’s first novel Die Glücksparade (Rowohlt, 2012), and praises Widmann’s writing skills as well as his approach to the narrative.
Read the review here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Makkai was also invited to lead a discussion, together with Richard Eldridge and Michael Fischer, following a screening of Preston Sturges’ film "The Lady Eve" (1941) at the Sie Film Center on February 23. The screening and discussion, under the heading of “Exploring Stanley Cavell on Film,” were open to the public. Co-sponsored by the American Society for Aesthetics and the Denver Project for Humanistic Inquiry (D-phi) at MSU Denver, the discussion drew the largest audience to date to such events.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The book discusses the relation between government intervention and globalization, and how this can influence democracy. The contributions provide a historical comparative perspective of the sustained, central role of the US state in the smart economy.
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Similar to last year, the STIBET funding will be used to support the advanced seminar “The German Public Sphere” (in German) that brings together students with guest speakers and faculty to discuss the key themes of migration, populism, artificial intelligence, and gender equity, and to visit German media outlets.
Recent guest seminar leaders included Johanna Luyssen from the Libération on current Franco-German relationships, Sebastian Kenn on projects of the European Democracy Lab and Alexander Sängerlaub from Stiftung Neue Verantwortung on media and fake news; together with Caroline Kent from Tactical Technology Collective, students discussed the organization’s work at the intersection of technology, human rights and civil liberties, and hosted a Glassroom Experience exhibition on campus.
Bard College Berlin will also use the funds to continue last year’s conference series on the topic of antisemitism in cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch. And through the financial support of STIBET I, supervised student tutors will assist students to advance their German language skills in individual meetings, tailored to their needs and questions.
The DAAD's STIBET initiative is a combined scholarship and support program offered to universities using funding from the Federal Foreign Office. STIBET’s overarching objective is to make a contribution towards improving the academic success rate of foreign students.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The aim of the conference is to engage the participants “in conversation about the state of their debate programs, their strategic plans for the future of their programs, and best practices for competitive debating, public debates, and debate outreach projects.”
The conference will feature workshops on best practices for running campus debate societies, staging and executing public debates, public speaking, research methods, as well as a number of full adjudicated practice debates and a concluding public debate entitled “Is nationalism always dangerous?”.
The BCB students selected for the Debate Conference are Jillian Igoe (BA ’22), who was the director of the debate team at her high school and participated in a range of debate events, and Shreya Shukla (BA ’22), who held leadership positions in her high school and is keen to examine how civic discourse can foster cross-cultural understanding.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The Get Engaged Conference “is an effective forum to strengthen the Bard network/intercampus collaborations among students, faculty, and administrators, and acts as an inspiration to participants whose aspiration is focused on addressing complicated social issues.”
The 2019 edition will include workshops on public speaking, active listening, securing project funding, student leadership, and networking. The welcome address will be delivered by Chrys Margaritidis (CEU’s Dean of Students).
The students representing BCB at the 2019 Get Engaged Conference are Adeeb Hadi (BA ’21) with the documentary film project Homesick, Between Death and Death, Maria Jose Sarmiento-Bose with Clowning Workshops, Danny Dubner (BA ’21) with the Emancipe Initiative, Elena Müller (BA ’21) with the community project BCB Sparrows, and Mohamad Othman (BA ’21) with the role-playing workshop In Somebody Else’s Shoes.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Bystrom’s paper, “Imagining Planetary Refuge,” looks at two contemporary novels to map “the literal and metaphorical walls that divide our current political landscape" and calls for educators to rethink the meaning of the classroom and professional engagement so as to enable newer generations of students to become engaged in the act of shaping more ethical migration regimes by "inventing the world for themselves.”
Lisiak’s paper, “At Home in the City? The Persistence of the Ethnic Lens in Everyday Urban Encounters,” examines the ethnicized and gendered meanings and practices of belonging produced and encountered by migrant women in German and British cities, and argues that "the persistence of the ethnic lens in migrants’ understanding of their experiences tends to obscure other important power dynamics at play.”
More about the EuropeNow special feature>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Professor Toukan earned a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London with a thesis that won the Middle Eastern Studies Association Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award for the best PhD in Social Studies in 2012. This work is now forthcoming as the book A Global Political: Art, Diplomacy and Dissent in the Arab World. She was Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University and most recently Visiting Professor at University of Bamberg, in addition to having held fellowships here in Berlin at EUME and the FU. She currently holds an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship related to her second book project on visual cultures and politics of refugee camps and migration.
Professor Toukan will be teaching Comparative Politics of the Middle East and Origins of Political Economy in Fall 2019. The position is funded through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, which was awarded to the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education, of which Bard College Berlin is a member.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
For the first time, Bard College Berlin additionally received an Integra grant, to organize workshops and seminars that aim to provide students with skills and tools that will help them to enter the public and professional world in Germany.
The Welcome and Integra grants are two important financial initiatives developed by DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service) to encourage and support the inclusion of students with a background of forced migration in the German educational landscape.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
February 2019
Weinman's discussant will be Charles Mathewes (Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture).
The Hannah Arendt Working Group seeks a renewal of social and political thought through a connection of the present moment of crisis to the long arc of scholarship, wisdom, and intellectual tradition—a commitment to “thinking in dark times.”
Flyer with further info>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Atanassow is currently spending six months at the Institute for Human Sciences as a Józef Tischner Visiting Fellow, working on a research project for a book on liberal democracy and Tocqueville.
Read more about the event>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Irish and Celtic Studies | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Toal's keynote, "Women Writing Irish Literature," was published in full by The Irish Times. You can read it here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Aysuda Kölemen is a political scientist whose current research focuses on populism and democratic backsliding in Turkey. She examines the structural and psychological factors that contribute to the populist surge in Turkey from a comparative perspective.
In 2015, Aysuda Kölemen became a signatory of the Petition for Peace, which was signed by over 2000 academics from Turkey. The petition called for an end to the armed conflict in Turkey. Subsequently she lost her job as an assistant professor at Istanbul Kemerburgaz University (currently Altınbaş University) and was sued by the Turkish government for signing the petition. She moved to Germany in 2017. Her trial continues.
Aysuda Kölemen received her PHD in political science from the University of Georgia, Athens in 2010.
The Philipp Schwartz Initiative
The Philipp Schwartz Initiative was launched by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation together with the German Federal Foreign Office. It enables universities, universities of applied science, and independent research institutions to grant threatened researchers fellowships for research stays in Germany. The initiative has been made possible through generous support from the Federal Foreign Office, the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Stifterverband, and the Stiftung Mercator.
Scholars at Risk
Bard College Berlin is a founding member of the German chapter of the "Scholars at Risk," together with 19 other German academic teaching and research institutions. Kerry Bystrom, Associate Dean of Bard College Berlin and Professor of Human Rights & English Literature, is a member of the German SAR's Steering Group.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In an interview for Tagesschau, Vormann commented that, while Trump's speech brought little novelty, it demonstrated how much he has consolidated his power within the Republican party.
For Radio Eins / RBB, Vormann highlighted that Trump's speech shows his readiness to reach a compromise with the Democrats.
Vormann provided a close analysis of Trump's speech together with Obama campaign veteran Julius Van de Laar for Deutsche Welle's "The Day with Brent Goff." You can watch the full analysis here (source: dw.com).
Vormann also provided a commentary for the German-language Deutsche Welle (source: dw.com), in which he noted that Trump's speech was reconciliatory and highly rhetorical, but that it also stood in contrast with his policies and agenda in the past two years.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The demonstrators urged to “wake up,” as “coal destroys our planet, put an end to it!”
Watch a video here>>
Read more here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On January 24, 2019, Vormann gave a talk on Trump’s first two years as president at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum/James-F.-Byrnes-Institut (DAZ) in Stuttgart. Entitled “Ist der „Sumpf” trockengelegt? Präs. Trumps Agenda zur Halbzeit” ["Is the ’swamp’ drained? Trump’s agenda at halftime"], the talk examined the outcome of Trump’s campaign promises, his priorities for the second half of his term, as well as the general outlook of liberal democracy in this context.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
January 2019
Weinman and Reed describe the group and its mission thus: "We seek answers—not an answer—to two related sets of questions: (1) How, after what Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt identified as twentieth-century barbarism, is it possible to articulate a critical assessment of “the Western tradition” that does not amount to a Nietzschean or Heideggerian rejection? And why is it worthwhile, even necessary, to do so? (2) When we engage that tradition, can we articulate a deep history and philosophy of civil engagement and democratic decision-making? What are the moments in the democratic tradition that articulate how the polity can be made more ethical and less prone to violence and the untrammeled use of instrumental advantage? And on what basis, and through what worldview, do we wish to offer a robust defense of democratic norms of action and interaction?"
More details about the Working Group can be found on the IASC website.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Roland Klick is an outsider among the auteur directors of 1960s and 70s New German Cinema. The essay traces Klick's life and career ahead of his 80th birthday. Klick's approach to making films which combine compelling storytelling with artistic credibility is discussed with regard to underrated masterpieces such as Bübchen, Deadlock and Supermarkt. In the biographical essay, Widmann analyzes these films against the historical background of postwar Western German society.
Read the essay here (subscription required)>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Hurst’s presentation was entitled "Fiktionen des Fast-Menschlichen. Roboter, Androiden und Künstliche Intelligenz im Science Fiction-Film" (“Fictions of the Almost Human. Robots, Androids, and Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction Films”) and examined the origins of modern robot and android fictions in mythology, Enlightenment philosophy (La Mettrie's Mechanistic Materialism), romantic / gothic literature (Doppelgänger motif, problematic subjectivity), and the development of modern technology and robotics. Hurst also discussed the diverse approaches to human-robot interaction, based on these cultural and historical discourses, phenomena like the ‘uncanny valley’ and machine eroticism, as well as the different depictions or expressions of hopes and fears related to artificial intelligence in science fiction films (such as Metropolis, Saturn 3, Blade Runner, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, Her, Ex-Machina, Alien Covenant, Transcendence).
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the paper’s abstract:
Soft paternalists claim to respect individuals’ preferences by trying to nudge them towards actions that would satisfy said preferences if they were suitably informed and debiased. This paper argues that soft paternalists neither respect preferences nor credibly improve individuals’ welfare through their nudges, as these are based on ad hoc judgements of what individuals’ informed preferences would look like.
Read the article here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The essay uses experimental walking and writing methods to examine the experience of modernity in contemporary Berlin, aiming through its collaborative and experimental format to provide new perspectives on urban modernities and urban methods.
From the abstract:
"Our reflections—some captured through photography, some expressed in prose—give way to essential questions: How does walking help us interrogate the experience of modernity? Can it help us understand what it means for Berlin (or any other city) to be “a city coming into being”? How do we make it come into being? Even when walking the same route, each person is bound to experience the city differently, and so we find it makes little sense to try to impose a single reading of contemporary Berlin. We invite the reader to walk through the city with us, but we do not insist on holding hands. Our text quite literally reflects various points of view on the city and should be considered a series of occurrences, reflections, and impressions that work both in contrast and concert."
Access the article here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In his contribution entitled "Was die Demokraten bewegen können" ("What can the Democrats do"), Vormann argues that the "shutdown conflict" signals a U-turn in US politics and that Trump takes advantage of the blockade situation in order to build political pressure on his opponents.
Listen to the interview here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Weinman's chapter has two central aims. First, to introduce the the rivalry between philosophy and epic, beginning from "the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry" reported by Plato Republic 10 and continuing right until today. Second, to argue that epic remains relevant for philosophy for essential, not merely accidental or historical, reasons; chief among these, as Weinman argues, is one Plato identifies: the peculiar power of imitative poetry in which the poet’s voice is hidden directly in one or more speaking characters within the literary work.
Read more about the handbook>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
December 2018
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Their lecture was entitled "Virtual Reality and Humanitarian Campaigning: Childhood, Empathy and Immersion in Clouds Over Sidra" and was part of the series “Children Crossing Borders” co-organized by Bystrom with Dr. Suncica Klass and Dr. Carly McLaughlin from the Institute for English and American Studies, University of Potsdam.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read more about this talk on the organizer’s website>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the volume’s description:
The Globalisation of Urban Governance makes an important scholarly contribution by linking the narrative on globalisation of good urban governance in various social sciences with legal discourse. It considers global governance and connects the existing debate about cities and their place in global governance with some of the most pertinent questions that lawyers face today.
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Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The DAAD Award is a monetary award of €1000 that is part of DAAD funding in the STIBET program. It honors outstanding international students in Germany with an exceptional record of engagement for social, political, cultural or humanitarian causes.
Following the review of many qualified applications, the DAAD Award was offered to senior student Margarethe Hattingh (BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought). The committee was impressed not only with Margarethe’s excellent academic and civic engagement record, but also with the recommendations she received from BCB faculty.
Margarethe Hattingh is currently an editor and writer for Bard College Berlin’s student blog “Die Bärliner,” a member of the organizing team of the upcoming Liberal Education Student Conference, as well as a math tutor for her BCB peers. She previously worked as an assistant in BCB’s Civic Engagement Office, as a teacher of English to sixth-graders at a school in Berlin, and interned with the Berlin-based NGO Office for the Implementation of Equal Treatment.
“What this award means is that somewhere out there someone cares about the engagement of students in not just academics, but in the society around them; it means that this sort of engagement is valued, and that non-German students are also seen as valuable to Germany,” stated Marga upon receiving the award, noting that “the deserving [students] are too many to count”. She added that “the award means I can feel optimistic about the value I have contributed in my time here, and that I can continue to do more meaningful and impactful work with the money I have received.”
Florian Becker, BCB’s Managing Director, awarded the DAAD certificate to Margarethe during the traditional end-of-year celebration held on December 17, 2018 and open to the entire campus community.
Photo (left to right): BCB's Director of Public Affairs and Development Bendetta Roux, senior student and DAAD Award recipient Margarethe Hattingh, and Managing Director Florian Becker
Meta: Type(s): General,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article puts forth a view of urban reform movements as “‘long waves’: consistently patterned technological and economic cycles that repeat over time.” The two authors examine the case of the United States to show that their proposed view reveals similarities in different historical contexts. “We use this analytic to historicize the contemporary ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’ city, arguing that it is only the latest in a series of beauty and efficiency solutions to urban problems, and its promises should be taken with more than a grain of salt.”
Read more>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In her talk “At home in the city? Migrant mothers navigating the urban,” Lisiak discussed the different ways in which the meanings and functions of migrants’ homes help us better understand the intersection of migration, gender, and the urban.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
“Life Writing” encompasses all written accounts of actual individuals, from biography and autobiography and memoir to letters, diaries, testimony, essays and hybrid genres such as autofiction and biofiction. Presentations approached life writing from many perspectives: the historical development of its forms, the limits of life writing genres, the use of life writing in political contexts, and the relationship between life writing and fiction.
BCB faculty participants included Ulrike Wagner, Jeffrey Champlin, Kerry Bystrom, Catherine Toal, Laura Scuriatti, and James Harker.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the article, Vormann contends that, contrary to mainstream economic thought, the various types of market failure (notably externalities, public goods and information asymmetries) are not separate descriptions of distinct empirical phenomena, but simply offer different perspectives on the same problem. Because these types of market failure do not stand in an orthogonal, equidistant relationship to one another, if, when and how a market failure occurs is by no means objectively clear. Using the cases of higher education and the global financial crisis, Vormann argues that the conditions in which markets fail, like markets themselves, are socially embedded, context-specific, and the result of often unrecognized political decision-making.
Link to article>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
This experimental study centers on the effect of a delay in peer punishment on public good provision. It finds that, even under a delay in the effect and feedback of punishment, peer punishment is very effective in facilitating cooperation. However, peer punishment is only efficient (in terms of the overall group's welfare) when a salient link between received punishment and past contributions is established.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
December 5, 2018: Sara Mardini Released on Bail
Berlin – Sara Mardini, a first-year student at Bard College Berlin, humanitarian worker and Syrian refugee, was released from Korydallos prison in Athens earlier today. Bail was set at EUR 5,000. Mardini’s request for release from pre-trial detention was granted yesterday, after 106 days in prison. Sara and Sean Binder, a German citizen who was also released, worked as sea rescue volunteers on Lesbos. They were arrested on August 21, 2018 on accusations of human smuggling, membership in a criminal organization, spying, and money laundering. Sara and Sean still face charges and a possible prison sentence.
Kondylia Gougou, Amnesty International’s Greece Researcher commented: “Whilst we welcome the news that these dedicated humanitarians will be back with their families after more than 100 days behind bars, the fact that they still face absurd charges and potentially long prison sentences is an outrage … People who selfless[ly] act in these ways should be lauded, not imprisoned. These baseless charges should be dropped.”
“We are very happy and look forward to welcoming Sara back home in the next few days,” said Florian Becker, Managing Director of Bard College Berlin. “However, our student’s release came only after the presentation of copious evidence which, in our view, disproves the allegations against her in their entirety. Much damage has already been done. We will continue to press for the charges to be dropped.”
Sara and her sister Yusra Mardini, who participated as one of 10 athletes on the “Refugee Olympic Team” in Rio in 2016, became internationally known because they saved the lives of the other 18 forced migrants in their life raft by swimming their water-logged boat to the Greek coast during their own flight across the Mediterranean in 2015.
Sara Mardini became a student at Bard College Berlin in August 2017 when she was awarded a full scholarship under the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC), aimed at students from regions of crisis or conflict. Currently there are 32 PIESC students enrolled at Bard College Berlin from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Greece, Eritrea and Brazil.
Sara Mardini Released on Bail (press release)>>
Sara Mardini gegen Kaution freigelassen (Pressemitteilung)>>
Amnesty International: Smuggling charges against humanitarian workers who saved refugees in Greece must be dropped>>
Human Rights Watch: Saving Lives at Sea Should Not Earn Time in Jail>>
Sara Mardini's case in the international press and in statements from other organizations>>
November 27, 2018: Sara Mardini receives finalist prize of the 2018 MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award
BCB student Sara Mardini, imprisoned in Greece since August 2018 for refugee aid work, and her sister & Olympic swimmer Yusra Mardini have recently been selected among the finalists of the 2018 MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award.
The Disobedience Award was created in 2017 and recognizes individuals and groups "who engage in ethical, nonviolent acts of disobedience in service of society."
The award committee praised Sara and Yusra's gesture to rescue their fellow refugees when their boat capsized during their journey to Europe in 2015 as well as their subsequent efforts in helping other refugees. The value of the finalist prize is $10,000.
Read more about the award>>
November 5, 2018: Human Rights Watch issues statement about Sara Mardini and fellow volunteers
In a recent coverage of BCB student Sara Mardini and her fellow volunteers' arrest in Greece for refugee aid work, Human Rights Watch considers the accusations brought against them "entirely unfounded."
Greece: Rescuers at Sea Face Baseless Accusations>>
October 20, Berlin: Demo in solidarity with BCB student Sara Mardini and her fellow volunteers currently detained in Greece
Bard College Berlin in cooperation with Nadja López, the initiative #FreeHumanitarians, Seebrücke - Schafft sichere Häfen! and Seebrücke Berlin held on October 20, 2018 a demonstration in solidarity with Sara Mardini and her fellow volunteers Nassos Karakitsos and Seán Binder, currently held in detention in Greece for their refugee rescue work.
The crowd marched from Alexanderplatz to Brandenburger Tor, where participants held up signs against the criminalization of rescue workers and demanded Sara, Nassos, and Seán's release from prison. Stage performances were offered by musicians Gülina, Monolink, among others, as well as Theater X / JugendtheaterBüro Berlin.
Videos from the demonstration>>
More information (PDF)>>
Link to the Facebook event>>
August 29, 2018: Syrian Refugee Student from Bard College Berlin Arrested in Greece for Rescuing Refugees from Aegean Waters
Berlin - Sara Mardini, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee student and scholarship recipient of Bard College Berlin, was arrested in Greece last Tuesday, August 21, 2018. She was on her way back from Lesbos to Germany to resume her studies after a period of several months’ service as a volunteer rescuing refugees in Greek waters. Sara and Sean Binder, a German citizen and fellow volunteer, who was also arrested, are in detention and have been accused of human trafficking, membership in a criminal organization, spying, and money laundering.
Sara and her sister Yusra Mardini, who participated as one of 10 athletes on the “Refugee Olympic Team” in Rio in 2016, became internationally known because they saved the lives of the other 18 forced migrants in their life raft by swimming their water-logged boat to the Greek coast during their own flight across the Mediterranean in 2015.
“We are in close contact with Sara’s legal counsel and these charges seem more about halting the operations of the NGO in question than about any actions of Sara or her fellow volunteer,” said Dr. Florian Becker, Managing Director of Bard College Berlin. “A long period of imprisonment in Greece awaiting a potential trial would be devastating for Sara and her life plans. We will leave no stone unturned to get Sara released from prison, so that she can spend this time in Berlin and continue her studies, which she has earned with so much difficulty.”
After their arrival in Germany, Sara and Yusra continued to be engaged as volunteers, demonstrating great personal commitment to the interests of refugees. Sara was invited as a speaker by Harvard University and Dartmouth College; her sister spoke before the UN General Assembly and with personalities like Pope Francis and Barack Obama.
Sara Mardini became a student at Bard College Berlin in August 2017 when she was awarded a full scholarship under the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIE-SC). The PIE-SC scholarship program is aimed at promising students from regions of crisis or conflict. Currently there are 30 PIE-SC students enrolled in the two B.A. degrees at Bard College Berlin – 27 Syrians, one Iraqi, one Afghan and one Greek student.
Link to press release>>
Meta: Type(s): General,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The students presented their own activities working with and for civil society in those areas in Syria that were/are not (yet) controlled by Assad. In light of the current cutting of Western funds for civil society structures in these areas, the students highlighted these structures’ desperate struggle for survival. Brantner and the students also discussed the criminal prosecution of Syrian war criminals in Germany and how to communicate in Germany that an opportunistic “peace“ with Assad will eventually rebound upon Western societies.
Meta: Type(s): PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
November 2018
The appeal provides statistical data from the UN Refugee Agency to highlight the vulnerability of displaced populations, the growing need for refugee resettlement programs, as well as the shared responsibility of the international community to support the reception and accommodation of displaced people. The expansion of safe and legal pathways is put forth as a fourth durable solution in addition to the three already developed by the UN Refugee Agency.
Signers of the appeal thus call on national governments “to take steps to expand access and facilitate procedures to implement complementary pathways” through a variety of approaches, such as improving the legal framework, facilitating access to education, encouraging the development of sponsorships and of public engagement, issuing humanitarian visas, or strengthening the labor mobility scheme.
Read the call to action>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the symposium's description:
The issues of documentation and representation of past performance art have dominated the debate over this art form, both in scholarly and museum-related contexts, for several decades. In recent years, the discussion has undergone a crucial shift, in that no longer is it concerned with whether a performance may or may not be reproduced and documented, but how multiple materialisations and representations in effect re-produce an artist’s work over and over again in the course of its history. The symposium Re-Constructing Performance Art, while upholding this new approach, offers a new and original perspective within it.
In the frame of the symposium, Dorothea von Hantelmann will take part in a roundtable on "Methodologies of Performance Art Research" along other scholars from various research fields.
Read more about the symposium>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The volume focuses on the changes to the US political establishment brought about by Trump’s election. By looking at the effects of Trump’s methods on the electoral process, governability and social cohesion, the various contributors analyze whether US democratic institutions could still serve their purpose and whether the US might be facing a relapse into authoritarianism.
Vormann and Lammert’s chapter is entitled "The Heavenly Chorus Sings with a Strong Upper-class Accent: Geld und Lobbyismus in der US Politik."
Read more about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The lecture, “Unnatural Characters in Contemporary British Fiction,” examined recent approaches to fictionality and character that have borrowed heavily from cognitive science in efforts to explain how authors create characters and how readers understand them as such. The talk focused on how cognitive models for the generation and reception of character account for “unnatural” characters—ones that seem purposely to break with narrative conventions. Looking to examples from Muriel Spark, John Fowles, Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro, the talk surveyed a variety of “unnatural” characters in efforts to show both what cognitive approaches to character have to offer and where they find precedents in the theory of the novel.
The lecture was part of a multi-format exchange between BCB’s LT102: The Contemporary Novel and Smolny’s course Reading Ian McEwan: An Introduction to Narratology.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Engaging with critiques of liberalism from both the left and the right, Liberal Dilemmas argues that global democracy’s liberal prospects depend on how political thinkers and actors tackle three hard-wired modern dilemmas concerning the institutionalization of popular sovereignty, the meaning of nationhood, and the possibility of global governance. As these are significant, if neglected, dimensions of Alexis de Tocqueville’s thought, his writings provide a powerful framework to help understand and address the crisis of liberal democracy in the twenty first century.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Currently a PhD student at Cambridge University, Maria examined through her project how theater can help teenagers understand their identity. Using the technique of "autobiographical theater," Maria and the high schools students reinterpreted Goethe's Faust and Marlow's Faust in the context of their own lives.
Watch a short video about the project here>>
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The workshop’s aim was to discuss potential research collaborations as well as applications of behavioral science research on climate change actions in particular.
Binder’s keynote was entitled “Peer influences on green behavior and green self-image and their impact on subjective well-being.”
Read more about the workshop>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Among other topics, Widmann discusses the beginnings of his literary career, the success of his most recent novel Messiah, and his teaching at Bard College Berlin.
Read the full interview (in German) here: https://www.allgemeine-zeitung.de/panorama/leben-und-wissen/was-haben-sie-von-grass-gelernt-schriftsteller-andreas-martin-widmann-im-interview_19174661
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Professor of Politics Boris Vormann is a 2018 DAAD Visiting Scholar at NYU Deutsches Haus in New York. His schedule includes the following presentations:
- November 15, 2018: “Building the Global Economy: Infrastructural Statecraft and American Genesis." EES Colloquium, CUNY Graduate Center
- November 12, 2018: “Logistics and Power: Europe from a Global Perspective." Guest Lecture, Fordham University
- November 12, 2018: “Administering Infrastructural Regimes: The Case of the US." Guest lecture, Urban School at Sciences Po Paris [via skype]
- November 9, 2018: “The Death of Liberalism and its Rebirth: Civil Society and Political Engagement." Panel with Sheri Berman, Claudia Wiesner, Mark Blyth and Boris Vormann. NYU Deutsches Haus
- November 6, 2018: “Part 1: The Crisis of Democracy so Far." Hannah Arendt Center, Bard College
The Deutsches Haus at NYU is New York’s leading institution for culture and language of the German-speaking world.
More information>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
October 2018
Meta: Type(s): Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In her chapter, entitled "'Like diamonds in the sky': Imaginaries of urban girlhood,” Lisiak discusses how urban girlhood is made, and how it, in turn, makes the city. Drawing on examples from popular culture including Celine Sciamma’s film Girlhood, Lisiak explores the collective nature and shared experiences of girlhood as a site of resistance.
Image: the poster for Celine Sciamma’s film Girlhood
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The seminar was moderated by criminologist Brendan Dooly and included sessions on ethics in sociology, economics, history, and business. It brought together participants from various disciplines including political economy, philosophy of economics and business, and at various levels of their academic or professional careers, with the majority currently completing their PhD or Master’s theses. In the frame of the seminar, participants also had the opportunity to read a paper on the ethics of establishing a regulated market for kidneys by the Institute’s post-doc fellow Luke Semrau and discuss it with Semrau afterwards.
Clara Canales is a fourth-year student in the Economics, Politics and Social Thought B.A. Program at BCB, with a concentration in Politics. Her participation in the seminar stems from her interest to explore the ethics behind the construction of the rational actor in economics.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Read the article here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the article’s abstract:
This essay identifies conceptual and institutional approaches within the Anglo-American liberal tradition for meeting security challenges without compromising constitutional and ethical principles. From its seventeenth century beginnings, political liberalism has confronted the problematic of the ‘state of exception,’ and has elaborated a repertoire of ideas and institutions for governing exigencies that remain instructive. […] The solutions proposed by such figures as Carl Joachim Friedrich and Clinton Rossiter no longer seem adequate to present conditions of prolonged emergency. Fresh institutional imagination is needed. The article concludes by offering four broad guidelines for allaying today’s tensions between security and liberty.
Read the article here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the symposium's program:
"The aim of this international symposium, which features world-leading experts on modern German art, is to consider the inception, reception and reverberations of the notion of ‘Entartung’ (Degeneration), whilst challenging and updating existing orthodoxies in the field."
In her lecture "Emil Nolde and National Socialism," Soika will focus on German Expressionist Emil Nolde, his prominent role within the 'Degenerate Art' exhibitions and the confiscation of a high number of his works (more than for any other painter). Soika aims to highlight the peculiarity of Nolde's case as both a victim and a loyal supporter of the Nazi regime.
Read more about the symposium>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In this contribution Vormann discussed the likely outcomes of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court and his overall suitability for this position. Vormann noted the polarization of politicians around this case, reflective of the polarized political system in the US as a whole, and argued that the two-party system also leads to a split media landscape. Vormann further analyzed how the Kavanaugh case may be used by the two parties to mobilize support for the upcoming midterm elections.
Listen to the interview>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
September 2018
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the platform’s manifesto:
Rather than attempting to rehabilitate the term “avant-garde,” we offer a new, more inclusive term: en dehors garde. Taking a cue from classical ballet rather than warfare, we propose the term en dehors garde to describe the strategies of writers and artists whose mode of experimentation does not conform to the “martialised,” oppositional stance associated with the historical avant-garde.
“En dehors” means “toward the outside,” implying that artists are turning away from the center or norm, moving in a circular motion, with an eye toward the center. Upon return, the center is transformed, adjusted, and reformed by the arc of the revolution.
Rather than assuming a militant position at the forefront of culture, women, people of color, and queer or disabled artists often came from the outside and circulated on the margins. They rarely enjoyed the power, privilege, or authority derived from membership in the institutions of art. Instead, they worked and moved strategically to transform gendered, racialized literary traditions and visual cultures that excluded or objectified them.
Our proposed feminist theory pivots on the notion of “turning outward,” as we seek to engage YOU—students, scholars, artists, writers, and the general public—in the work of reimagining the avant-garde as a more inclusive en dehors garde. We’re not just proposing a new theory of the en dehors garde; we’re proposing a new method of production.
Scuriatti’s contribution is entitled “Greetings from another side of the avant-garde” and is a visual representation of the exchanges and influences that characterize Loy’s work in the larger context of the European literary avant-garde. The postcard is designed by Irina Stelea.
You can view Scuriatti’s contribution here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the paper’s abstract:
While there is little doubt that innovations drive economic growth, their effects on well-being are less clear. One reason for this are ambivalent effects of innovations on well-being that result from pecuniary and technological externalities of innovations, argued to be inevitable. Another major reason lies in the fact that, as a result of innovations, preferences can change over time. Under such conditions, a time-consistent measuring rod for changes in well-being is hard to construct. Existing conceptions of well-being are shown not yet to solve the problem in a way that provides an unambiguous answer to the question in the title.
Read the working paper>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the presentation Weinman will seek to sketch out two pairs of questions that set out an agenda for research into "life after postmodernity" on the basis of Arendt’s practice of “thinking without banisters.” The first pair is: (A) How, after what Adorno and Arendt identified as 20th-century barbarism, is it possible to articulate a critical assessment of "the Western tradition" that does not amount to rejectionism? (B) Why, can it be argued, is it worthwhile or even necessary to do so? The second pair is: (A) When we do engage the tradition in this way—as did, among others, Kantorowicz and Strauss—how and where do we find the points of continuity between earlier forms and institutions of late-modern civil society not subject to the critique of modern barbarism? (B) On what basis, and through which Weltanschauung, is it possible to offer a robust defense of such forms and such institutions?
Read more about the talk>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On September 27, Maerz will give a paper co-authored with Carsten Q. Schneider (Central European University, Budapest) at the conference Frontiers of Democracy, held on September 25-28, 2018 at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Entitled “Out of democratic bounds? An automated text analysis of speeches by European heads of government,” the paper surveys thousands of speeches to argue that the language used by some heads of government inside the EU is more similar to the language used by their authoritarian counterparts.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
“We can, and this is the perspective of art history, understand museums and exhibitions as places, as repositories for art objects, which classify and present important treasures of a cultural heritage. Or we can, and this is a more sociological and anthropological approach, see them as institutions that derive their social function from the fact that they carry specific values and concepts into society. My lecture both explores and demonstrates certain aspects of this second perspective. It analyses the cultural format of the museum and the exhibition as a specifically modern ritual in the historical and contemporary context of Western liberalism. Art institutions are deeply connected to core socio-economic parameters of their time, which they symbolically cultivate and ritually enact. Looking at art spaces as a series of decisive moments of transformation, I will pose the question if the transformations of our epoch are asking for a new kind of ritual, after that of the exhibition.” - Dorothea von Hantelmann
The lecture takes place within the series "What Could/Should Curating Do?" which aims to offer new perspectives on the theories and practices of exhibition-making.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Entitled "A Rectilinear Propagation of Thought," the exhibition "addresses the ways in which the colonial imagination has objectified vulnerable bodies, especially women, through the invasive gaze of optical tools. The artworks invoke mechanisms of domination and control through methods of surveying land and systems of surveillance. The exhibition interrogates the politics of technology, particularly on the African continent, and examines the mechanics of observation in relation to technological mediation."
The show is based on a project started by Amin in 2014 which has at its core an 11th century geography text and survey of major trade routes in West Africa - Al-Bakri’s The Book of Roads and Kingdoms.
Gallery website>>
Facebook event>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The article addresses the relationship between subjective well-being and life span from a less common angle: subjective well-being and the impact of concrete diseases on survival. Drawing on empirical data from the British Household Panel Survey, the two authors examine whether subjective well-being predicts longer survival in the case of severe health conditions like cancer or heart problems. Once certain methodological pitfalls are avoided, the authors conclude, the data suggests that subjective well-being does not play a role in how specific illnesses decrease survival and the overall effect of subjective well-being in such cases is at best protective rather than curative.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the paper’s abstract:
Discussions on cities and citizenship often focus on the level of neighborhoods, local government, and socio-economic relations within cities. As such, questions of exclusion, of diversity and integration, are often posed with view to interpersonal relations between ethnic communities, citizens and municipal state agents. By contrast, a recent literature in urban political economy has emphasized the importance of understanding urbanization as a set of processes that transcend the local scale. This paper seeks to flesh out how questions of citizenship and difference can be informed by an analysis of the political-institutional dimensions of extended urbanization. I use the United States as a context to explore urbanization in such a broader perspective and to point out that historically specific urban regimes are actively shaped by political actors on multiple scales.
Read more about the conference>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): Featured | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
August 2018
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Sara and her sister Yusra Mardini, who participated as one of 10 athletes on the “Refugee Olympic Team” in Rio in 2016, became internationally known because they saved the lives of the other 18 forced migrants in their life raft by swimming their water-logged boat to the Greek coast during their own flight across the Mediterranean in 2015.
“We are in close contact with Sara’s legal counsel and these charges seem more about halting the operations of the NGO in question than about any actions of Sara or her fellow volunteer,” said Dr. Florian Becker, Managing Director of Bard College Berlin. “A long period of imprisonment in Greece awaiting a potential trial would be devastating for Sara and her life plans. We will leave no stone unturned to get Sara released from prison, so that she can spend this time in Berlin and continue her studies, which she has earned with so much difficulty.”
After their arrival in Germany, Sara and Yusra continued to be engaged as volunteers, demonstrating great personal commitment to the interests of refugees. Sara was invited as a speaker by Harvard University and Dartmouth College; her sister spoke before the UN General Assembly and with personalities like Pope Francis and Barack Obama.
Sara Mardini became a student at Bard College Berlin in August 2017 when she was awarded a full scholarship under the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIE-SC). The PIE-SC scholarship program is aimed at promising students from regions of crisis or conflict. Currently there are 30 PIE-SC students enrolled in the two B.A. degrees at Bard College Berlin – 27 Syrians, one Iraqi, one Afghan and one Greek student.
Reactions from the international press and other organizations>>
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lisiak was invited by the editors to provide a commentary on the fifteenth anniversary of Berlin’s former mayor Klaus Wowereit’s infamous slogan. In response to the editorial question "Berlin is no longer poor, but is it still sexy?” Lisiak observes that the city remains poor and is now facing several new challenges. Lisiak also unpacks the myth of Berlin's much-hyped “sexiness" and elaborates on the local cultures of resistance and protest.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
From the paper’s abstract:
With more processes of public concern running on private data and proprietary business models, we need to pay more attention to the menial ways in which infrastructures reshape the definition of public goods. What are the new infrastructures of publics and how do they remodel concepts of power, participation and equality? The presentation is a joint exploration of how cities, global networks and digital communication assume infrastructural functions for publics, which are increasingly beyond the control of elected governments and citizens.
SummerPIT 2018 is organized by Aarhus University’s interdisciplinary research centre for Participatory IT, which aims to study how people experience, understand, design, and shape information technology as part of their lived experience.
Read more about the paper>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
For his first public reading from the book the author will be joined by fellow Berlin writer Hanna Lemke to talk about the writing process.
The reading will be followed by a drinks reception.
Read more about the event>>
Read more about the novel>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lisiak and Krzyżowski’s chapter “With a Little Help From My Colleagues: Notes on Emotional Support in a Qualitative Longitudinal Research Project” explores the strategies and tactics employed by researchers when dealing with emotionally challenging situations, both in the field and in academia in general. The authors discuss interview situations they found particularly emotionally challenging and the different ways they supported each other during and after fieldwork, for instance, when faced with situations in which research participants say things that are racist, Islamophobic, homophobic, xenophobic, classist or misogynist. They reflect on their use of electronic media, especially email and messenger applications, as tools which not only allow them to unpack the emotions that emerge in fieldwork, but also enable them to collaboratively reflect on their own positionalities in the field.
More information about the volume>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
On August 22, 2018 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was a guest on several news shows on German and Austrian media channels to comment on the conviction of Trump aides Manafort and Cohen.
For Deutsche Welle and the Austrian public broadcaster ORF, Vormann discussed the consequences of the frauds committed by Manafort and Cohen on Donald Trump and his future as President. Vormann commented that US democrats are hesitant to take the impeachment approach for fear of not mobilizing Trump’s supporters before the upcoming congressional elections.
Watch the interviews below:
- Deutsche Welle News in English (Source: dw.com)
- Deutsche Welle News in German (Source: dw.com)
- The Day with Brent Goff (Source: dw.com)
- Politologe: Trump in der Ecke - ORF
Vormann further analyzed the reaction of the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas to the convictions, who pleaded that Germany needs to articulate a vision of its strategy towards the USA.
- Trump unter Druck - Brauchen wir eine neue USA-Strategie? - WDR
- Deutschlands neue USA-Strategie: Was ist von den Plänen von Außenminister Maas zu halten? - RBB
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
As the abstract describes:
In this article, we propose a new direction for social theory, based on a distinction between action and agency, a reconsideration of sociological theories of power, and a rereading of the transition to modernity. Drawing on Aristotle, Carole Pateman, Hannah Arendt, and Ernst Kantorowicz, we propose a conceptual model of power centred on the sending and binding of another to be one's agent in the world, and the varying representation of this relation and what it excludes. This approach allows a different understanding of modernity than is offered by accounts of power derived from the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault. With reference to the French Revolution and twentieth and twenty-first century presidential politics in the USA, we manifest the utility of the framework for the construction of a research programme in historical and political sociology.
For a short time, full access to the article is available here>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
After a screening of her award-winning documentary, Paris is Burning (1991), filmmaker Jennie Livingston talked to students about her current projects, how filmmaking and the funding of filmmaking have changed since the 1980s to the contemporary era of streaming television, and how to tell your story. One of the most influential documentaries of the last fifty years, Paris is Burning “depicts a New York fashion subculture. Shot in the late 1980s, the film examines how a community of Black and Latino gay and transgender New Yorkers build sustenance, creativity, and family. Exploring ballroom culture – and defining and re-defining words like “house,” “mother,” “shade” “voguing” and “Realness” – Paris is Burning draws a series of incisive character portraits. The movie writes a complex essay on class, race, identity, and the transformative powers of dance and performance.”
More about the film and Livingston’s work can be found here>>
Meta: Type(s): Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Entitled "Putting the Money Where Your Mouth Is? Comparing the Discourses of (Illiberal) Democrats and Autocrats Using Automated Text Analysis," the paper compares the public (online) speeches of European heads of government with those of leaders from several authoritarian countries, e.g. North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Russia, in order to asses how far some European governments have already moved their discourses towards such autocracies. Based on their data of over 5000 speeches, Maerz and Schneider illustrate that some heads of government inside the EU use language more similar to that of authoritarian rulers than their democratic peers.
Read the paper’s abstract here
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In the piece, Detjen begins with the observation that current debates (on any topic) often lead to misunderstandings, falsities, and conflict. She therefore suggests to first and foremost work on clarifying the concepts at stake in a debate and to define how these concepts can be used.
As an example, she tackles the terms “nationalism” and “patriotism”: Detjen points out that, in the attempt to properly define and rethink these terms, “nationalism” should be regarded as being historically determined (especially in relation to the nation state), while “patriotism” should be regarded as a universal concept (in relation to a community where one feels they belong).
Read the piece here
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Bystrom’s paper, Temporalities of the "Border War," used South African photographer Jo Ractliffe's trilogy of exhibitions on apartheid South African military involvement in Angola and Namibia as a jumping off point to discuss the lasting impacts of imperial violence on Southern African peoples and landscapes.
Read more about the Tübingen Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies>>
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
July 2018
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Steered by the 2018 theme, “Memory and Material,” students will explore and question how the languages of form, material, and light inform the manifold narratives of Berlin, and will use their observations as inspiration for creating their own works. The activities include weekly field trips, discussion groups, visits to artists’ studios, sculpture, photography and bookmaking workshops, as well as studio work.
Read more
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Lisiak’s paper titled "Reflections on a Mixed Methods Approach to Researching Immigrant Mothering” is part of a session on Creative, Collaborative and Participatory Methods for Researching Racism, Migration and Indigeneity organized by Umut Erel of The Open University and chaired by Elena Vacchelli of the University of Greenwich. The session is hosted by the Research Committee on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity.
View the full session program here.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Atanassow will give a presentation titled "Constitutional Ethos? Reflections on Pluralism and Democracy" in the frame of a panel chaired by Felix Petersen from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
June 2018
In her contribution, Detjen focused not only on patriotism in relation to the World Cup, but also on patriotism in general in Germany. She emphasized that the German Willkommenskultur and the recent taking in of over a million refugees are something Germans could be proud of, as much as the German social system, the Mittelstand industry and some other good things that they have been contributing to lately. Nationhood is always constructed, and whether to be proud of it or not depends on the purposes for which it is being constructed, and on the effectiveness and inclusiveness of the construction process. She noted that being proud of Goethe and Bach has, among other things, against it that emigrant writers and artists like Thomas Mann took care of wrenching them from the encroachment by "Germany" once and for all.
Watch/listen to a recording here
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Organized by Fundacja Bec Zmiana, Lisiak’s lecture will be part of Dr. Ewa Majewska’s public seminar on feminist counterpublics held at the Faculty of Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw.
Read more about the event
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Amin’s project puts forth an alternative geography, that of a supercontinent which merges Africa and Europe and in which the distribution of goods and money happen very differently compared to our contemporary reality. The project is based on historical European colonial proposals to drain the Mediterranean Sea; the narratives are flipped and proposed from the opposite perspective.
"The project Operation Sunken Sea (The Anti-Control Room) (2018) blurs the lines between history, the present, and the future; between truth, fiction, and megalomania. Amin leaves us with an uneasy feeling of insecurity about the kind of a world we are currently inhabiting—and the world we might wish (or not wish) to inhabit," notes Yvette Mutumba, a member of the Biennale’s curatorial team.
The following Bard College Berlin students and alumni were involved in the production of the installation:
Studio assistance and concept development: Isabella Lee
Photography Assistance: Matthew Praley
Set crew: Andrea Riba, Arthur Yongebloed
Operation Sunken Sea is on view at the ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics.
More information
Artforum article
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Noting the divisive G7 summit, Vormann commented that Trump took the meeting with Kim as an opportunity to leave a historic mark and to demonstrate his foreign policy skills in light of the upcoming congressional elections. Vormann further asked to what extent is Trump's North Korea strategy a sustainable one, given that his foreign policy agenda lacks an overall vision for the long run.
Listen to the interview
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Initiated in September 2012, Sonntag is a monthly event which gives “an individual artist a platform to share not only their work, but also their memories and experiences.” The artist exhibits their work in a private apartment, with Gertler and Schiesser preparing each time the artist’s favorite cake. This adds a personal component to the Sunday meetings and creates a connection between the viewers and the artist. Sonntag has worked with 56 artists and besides moving nomadically throughout the city of Berlin, the project has also traveled to 5 other countries.
The Project Space and Initiative Prize of the Berlin Senate is given annually to 20 project spaces and initiatives run by artists and curators as a reward for their contributions to the Berlin art scene. In 2018 the prize consists of a one time monetary amount of €37,000, which will serve to help Gertler and Schiesser produce a book which will be an overview of the last 6 years of Sonntag.
Sonntag’s webpage
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
In this article, Detjen gives a condensed historical account of how "diversity" as a value system has been part of the liberal tradition and how it has been interpreted and misinterpreted since the Second World War. She warns of certain abuses of diversity in the attempt to implement and recognize it, and calls for those in power and for the existing power relations to properly acknowledge diversity, pointing to daily life as a good example of putting diversity into practice.
Link to full piece
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
Led by Jonathan Rosenberg (Artist-in-Residence at Bard College) and Dawn Akemi Saito (performer and Butoh dancer, winner of the Uchimura Prize), the program will welcome this summer new or returning faculty such as Marco Brosolo (sound and visual artist), Eva Burghardt (dancer and choreographer), Julia Hart (theater director), Helgard Haug (Rimini Protokoll), Yuko Kaseki (Butoh dancer), Anna Kohler (performer and director), Henrik Kuhlmann (dramaturge), Ilia Papatheodorou (She She Pop), Gob Squad (arts collective), Aya Soika (BCB arts history faculty), Nina Tecklenburg (Interrobang, Gob Squad, She She Pop), and Christina Wheeler (singer, composer, and sound artist).
Through the workshops and courses, students will devise and create original theater works and performances, which will be presented at the end of the program.
Read more: https://berlin.bard.edu/academics/summer-programs/summer-theater-intensive-program/
Meta: Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |
The starting point of the exhibition is Bergen’s direct interaction with various objects made at or around Zentralwerk (a cluster of former factories and industrial buildings), as well as with the site’s architecture.
As noted in the description, "this exhibition differs from those displays one may come to expect from an archive or a museum, as this is not a survey of objects for historical or educational purpose, nor any celebration of paraphernalia. There is, on the one hand, an interest to explore the potentially ambiguous relationship one may have with artifacts – relationships that may provoke sentiment, curiosity, fetish, or disdain. On the other hand, this unique space, and its uncanny history, becomes the catalyst for absurd intervention."
The result is a "group of site-specific projects that echo their historical transience while energizing the space with yet another, new chapter of production."
The show’s production benefited from the support and help of BCB students Lena Kück (BA 2018), Tiana Marsh (Arts & Society, Spring 2018), Magnus Hendersen (Arts & Society, Spring 2018), Zoe Lambez (BA 2020), Anna Zakelj (BA 2020), and Rafat Alkotaini (BA 2021).
Exhibition opening times:
Opening Reception: Friday, June 15th, from 7pm
Opening Times: Thursday - Sunday from 5 - 8pm, or by appointment: [email protected]
Address:
Zentralwerk “Kabinett”, Riesaer Str. 32, 01127 Dresden
Read more here