News Archive

BCB alumnus and former PIESC scholar Ahmad Mobayed helped lead Q&A with 2019 Nobel Prize Laureate in chemistry Stanley Whittingham as part of the 2021 Nobel Prize Summit: "Our Planet, Our Future" (26- 28 April).

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 here>>
Watch a recording of the event here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

In an event hosted by the international online seminar Lirica & Teoria, William Franke (Vanderbilt University) will discuss his book Dante’s Paradiso and the Theological Origins of Modern Thought: Toward a Speculative Philosophy of Self-Reflection (New York, Routledge 2021) with BCB Faculty member Francesco Giuisti. The event takes place on June 25 at 5:00 pm CEST, online. The opening conversation will be held in Italian, but questions in English or German are welcome. 

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 here >>

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB faculty member Francesco Giusti and Benjamin Lewis Robinson co-edit the recently published volume of essays: The Work of World Literature.

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 |

Last Saturday, on May 22, 2021, Bard College Berlin celebrated the graduating Class of 2020/2021 in an online Commencement ceremony.
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 |

The theater project Interrobang ( a cooperation between BCB Professor of Theater and Performance Nina Tecklenburg, Till Müller-Klug and Lajos Talamonti) has created a new interactive digital piece for Impulse Theater Festival.

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. Further information here>>

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB alumna Natalia Irina Roman (Visual Arts ’08) has developed and will be moderating a discussion panel as part of the Hertie Summit 2021 online conference.

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 here >>
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB alumni and former PIESC scholar Karam Alhamad has been profiled on the online media outlet Influencive.

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 here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB students are participating in the cross-university campus program PAF Campus run by the Performing Arts Festival Berlin 2021.

PAF Campus is an innovative format situated between art and education open to students from Bard College Berlin, Free University of Berlin, Berlin Inter- University Center for Dance, Technical University of Berlin and Berlin University of Arts.

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. 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.
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Event | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB faculty member Joshua Paul has published the article: “Because for us, as Europeans, it is only normal again when we are great again”: metapolitical whiteness and the normalization of white supremacist discourse in the wake of Trump, in the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies.

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.

Get access to the full article here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB German Studies instructor Andreas Martin Widmann has compiled a forum on contemporary German literature in a global context as guest editor for the journal German Quarterly.

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 here>>

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

The theater project Interrobang (a cooperation between BCB Professor of Theater and Performance Nina Tecklenburg, Till Müller-Klug and Lajos Talamonti) showed their interactive livestream Familiodrome at the Internationales Figurenfestival Erlangen and WUK Verein zur Schaffung offener Kultur- und Werkstättenhäuseron, Vienna on May 14 and 15 and their interactive digital game Soulmachine at FFT (Forum Freies Theater), Düsseldorf from May 5 to 8, 2021.

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 |

BCB Professor of Politics Boris Vormann appeared as a guest on the Heidelberg Center for American Studies’ Podcast “Quo Vadis USA?”

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 here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Politics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor of Politics and Middle Eastern Studies Hanan Toukan has published a new book: The Politcs of Art, Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan (Stanford University Press, 2021).

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 |

BCB Professor of Economics Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg and former BCB Professor of Economics Martin Binder have written a chapter in Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics (Springer, 2021).

“Self-Employment and Subjective Well-Being” discusses the evidence and explanations why self-employment is positively associate 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 |

German news outlet taz reports on BCB Faculty Aaron Tugendhaft’s talk at the Einstein Forum on April 20, 2021, in which he spoke about his book The Idols for ISIS, from Assyria to the Internet (University of Chicago Press, 2020).

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 the article here>>
Watch the talk back here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor of Literature and Film Studies Matthias Hurst has published an essay on the Horror Homeroom website as part of a Special Edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the classic British Folk Horror film The Blood on Satan's Claws (1971).

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 here>>

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

The Journal of the German Association for American Studies has published an open-access special issue: "Common Grounds? American Democracy after Trump" guest-edited by BCB Professor of Politics Boris Vormann.

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 |

BCB Professor of Art and Society Dorothea von Hantelmann commented on the growing popularity of immersive art installations in the Economist.

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 |

Bard College Berlin is proud to announce that third-year student Noor Ender (BCB ’22) has won the competitive fellowship by Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

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 |

Every year the initiative “Zürich liest ein Buch” (Zurich reads a book) encourages the people of Zurich to engage in a shared reading experience. This years book: Während wir feiern (while we are celebrating) by Ulrike Ulrich, takes inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s classic Mrs. Dalloway, whilst tackling the politics of migration and asylum against a contemporary European backdrop.

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 here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

German news outlet Tagesspiegel spoke to BCB faculty member Aysuda Kölemen on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Philipp-Schwartz-Initiative.

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 fired 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): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor of Theater and Performance Nina Tecklenburg together with Mario Simon (Akademie für Theater und Digitalität) will be hosting a workshop on the dramaturgical and technical questions of hybrid theater productions.

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 discussed under the label of "Hybridtheater" (hybrid theater) that 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 online here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB faculty member Aaron Tugendhaft will discuss his book The Idols of ISIS. From Assyria to the Internet (University of Chicago Press, 2020) with BCB Professor of Politics Boris Vormann in an online event in cooperation with the Einstein Forum.

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 >>
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Politics,Event | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

The theater project Interrobang ( a cooperation between BCB Professor of Theater and Performance Nina Tecklenburg, Till Müller-Klug and Lajos Talamonti) has created a new digital performance piece.

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 here until April 30.
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Bard College Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was asked to share his analysis of Joe Biden’s announcement of a two trillion dollar stimulus package to overhaul infrastructure in the US.

Boris 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 here.
 

Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Politics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB faculty member Frank Wolff has published a history of the General Jewish Labour Bund in migration which investigates the organization’s transformation from a revolutionary protagonist in early twentieth-century Russia to a socialist institution of secular Jewish life in North and South America. The book follows the paths of activists from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the working class Yiddish neighborhoods of New York and Buenos Aires.

This book is a revised translation of Neue Welten in der Neuen Welt: Die transnationale Geschichte des Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbundes, 1897-1974, which was awarded the Humanities International Award in 2016.

Yiddish Revolutionaries in Migration, The Transnational History of the Jewish Labour Bund is published by Brill. More details here >>
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Fourth-year Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought student Sam Zamrik has published a literary essay under the title of “I am starch, water and fat” on the online portal weiterschreiben.jetzt.
In the essay he recounts how food connects to his experiences growing up in Damascus, as well as his time spent in refugee camps in Germany.

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 here >>
 

Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor of Art and Society Dorothea von Hantelmann will be moderating the upcoming talk with artist Sean Scully at the American Academy in 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 here >>
 

Meta:

Fourth year Humanities Arts and Social Thought and PIESC student Sam Zamrik has been featured by Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

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 here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

In a long form essay for the Heinrich Böll Stiftung BCB fourth year Economics, Politics and Social Thought and PIESC student Ameenah Sawwan looks back on the 10 years since the beginning of the uprisings in Syria and reflects on her experiences of this time of conflict.

Read the full essay here>>
 

Meta: Type(s): Student,PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Unrest in Syria began on March 15 2011 as part of the Arab Spring protests which escalated into the ongoing Syria Civil War. To mark 10 years passing since these events Euronews spoke with BCB ’20 Humanities, Arts and Social Thought alumna Wafa Mustafa.

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): Berlin,Alumni,PIESC | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB faculty Marion Detjen has published a literary essay on Zeit Online reflecting on the significance to of the potato in German culture.
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 |

Ibrahim al-Kasem, originally from Syria and currently a student at the BCB OLIve Program, fellow researcher at the European center for Constitutional and Human rights (ECCHR).  Ibrahim also is executive director of the volunteer ‘’Caesar Files Group’’, whose aim is to bring attention to the human rights abuses in Syria and to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes. The Caesar Files Group takes its name from one of its members, the defected military photographer “Caesar” whose photographs make up the key evidence in the currently ongoing al-Khatib Trial in Koblenz. Of the two former Syrian secret service agents on trial, the first was convicted to 4 and a half years imprisonment on Wednesday February 24, 2021.
Read more about the al-Khatib Trial>>

Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor of Comparative Literature Laura Scuriatti has published an article on Carl Van Vechten’s 1922 novel Peter Whiffle. His Life and Works in the journal Comparative Critical Studies.

In the article Laura 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 here

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Academics | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB student Ehab Badwi and BCB Alumni Karam Alhamad  will be speaking at the 2021 Institute of International Education (IIE) Platform for Education in Emergencies Response (PEER) Forum. The three day event ( March 23 - March 25 2021) will be discussing the future of higher education in states of emergencies.

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 here.

Meta: Type(s): Student,Berlin,Alumni | Subject(s): Politics,Bardians at Work,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

The University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk-Migrants (UARRM) has featured Bard College Berlin in a series of case profiles showcasing higher education institutions who are doing exemplary work to support displaced persons in higher education.

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 here.

Meta: Type(s): PIESC,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor for Middle Eastern Studies Hanan Toukan is one of the winners of the 2020 OSUN contest for Innovative Assignment Design. Faculty were asked to submit online assignments and activities that they had found to be particularly effective in a remote learning environment.

In her assignment Hanan asked students to produce an essay reflecting on the visual politics of the corona 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 |

Nina Tecklenburg, Professor of Theater and Performance, Ramona Mosse (Bard Guest Faculty/Free University Berlin), Christian Stein (Humboldt University Berlin) and Janina Janke (free artist) win Volkswagen Foundation research grant for their joint practice-based project “Viral Theatres: Performing Pandemic Cultures in the Anthropocene”. The grant is part of the Volkswagen Initiative “Corona Crisis and Beyond - Perspectives for Science, Scholarship and Society” which aims to support “research projects from all disciplines whose findings not only contribute directly to overcoming the crisis, but can also provide impetus for overcoming major societal challenges in the medium to long-term."

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 theatre. 

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): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Comparative Literature Professor Laura Scuriatti has published a piece on British born Modernist artist and poet Mina Loy, in the blog of Italian Feminist literature collective l’Orique. The piece is accompanied by audio clips of Scuriatti reading Loy’s Poetry (article in Italian, readings in English).

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.
 

Meta: Type(s): Berlin,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor for Art and Society Dorothea von Hantelmann will be discussing the new art work Future Fossil together with Andy Merritt (one half of creator duo Something & Son) and architectural theorist and editor Nick Axel. The discussion is the second in a series of online events leading up the the unveiling of the art work in April.
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.

Event Page >>
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Faculty member Aysuda Kölemen was asked to comment on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's intentions to change the Turkish constitution by media outlet France24.
Read the full article >>
 

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Politics,Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

BCB Professor of Politics, Boris Vormann discussed the currently ongoing impeachment proceedings against former president Donald Trump in an interview with German national news broadcast Tagesschau.

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 |

Bard College Berlin congratulates Marie Schleef on her performance piece NAME HER. Eine Suche nach den Frauen + being chosen to be part of the "10er Auswahl" at Theatertreffen Festival 2021.

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 |

BCB Professor of Literature Laura Scuriatti will give a talk about her book Mina Loy's Critical Modernism (University Press of Florida, 2019) at the British Institute of Florence.

"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): Berlin,Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Helen Wolff’s autobiographical novel Hintergrund für Liebe (Background for Love) tells the story of a young woman’s emancipation in the early 1930’s. BCB faculty Dr. Marion Detjen, who is Helen Wolff’s great nice, published the novel posthumously almost ninety years after it was written and will give a talk about the book and its author at the Literaturhaus Köln.


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 |

Bard College Berlin welcomes Dr. Aslı Vatansever (PhD University of Hamburg, 2010), a sociologist of work and social stratification from Turkey. Dr. Vatansever’s two year research position is made possible through a competitive fellowship by the Philipp Schwartz-Initiative for threatened scholars. In Turkey, Dr. Vatansever was dismissed from her office as associate professor at a private university in Istanbul and was banned from public service for having signed the Peace Petition of the Academics for Peace in 2016. She was subsequently hosted as a guest researcher at the Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (October 2016-May 2017) and at the Centre Marc Bloch (June-July 2017). She was a Scholar Rescue Fund Fellow at the Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies at the University of Padova (September 2017-August 2018), a research associate at the Re:Work Institute of the Humboldt University, Berlin (September 2018-August 2020), and a guest lecturer at the University of Padova (October-December 2020).
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 |

Bard College Berlin is proud to announce that third year student Lucas Engel of the Economics, Politics and Social Thought Program has won a highly competitive Studienstiftung fellowship.

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 |

Bard College Berlin Professor of Migration Studies, Agata Lisiak, will discuss international collaboration, challenges and opportunities under Brexit at the online event "Art, International cooperation and Brexit" that is hosted by Centrala - a space for Central and Eastern European art and artists located in Birmingham, UK. Prof. Lisiak will be joined by Centrala's director Alicja Kaczmarek, Simina Neagu (Iniva - Institute of International Visual Arts), and Piotr Michalowski (European Network of Cultural Centres).

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 |

Bard College Berlin congratulates Agata Lisiak, Professor of Migration Studies, on winning a VolkswagenStiftung research grant for her project “Migration, Space and Power: Learning from Rosa Luxemburg and Doreen Massey. The grant is part of the VolkswagenStiftungs initiative “Original - isn’t it? New Options for the Humanities and Cultural Studies" that awards outstanding researchers funds to explore “‘original', ‘new’ or ‘innovative’” topics that "contradict the established knowledge or generally accepted intuition.” It encourages researchers to develop new approaches to research, form new hypotheses and theories, observe new phenomena, and discover knowledge gaps.

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 Volkswagenstiftung >>

Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Berlin | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin | Institutes(s): Bard College Berlin |

Together with Prof. Graf Lambsdorff from the University of Passau, Bard College Berlin Professor of Economics Marcus Giamattei has developed classEx, a tool to create experiential learning situations. The tool allows the instructor to run experiments, interactive surveys, and quizzes online and in the physical classroom space. Students are assigned roles and groups in which they interact. They make their decision via their smartphones or the computer and results are immediately shown on the instructor's screen and can be discussed in class.

"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 classEx@school. 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 |