News Archive

Faculty member Dr. Irit Dekel's book Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was featured in a cover article in the April 28, 2014 edition of the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Written on the occasion of the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, the article deals with the memory of the Shoah (Holocaust) as part of contemporary German politics and society. The article can be accessed as a direct link here (Haaretz, English translation), here (Haaretz, in Hebrew) or as a PDF here (in Hebrew).

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

On April 25-27, 2014, the faculty in human rights and related fields from the Andrew Gagarin Center for Civil Society and Human Rights at Smolny College of St. Petersburg State University, Bard College Berlin, as well as other Bard network schools (Al-Quds Bard, European Humanities University in Vilnius, Bard College Annandale) gathered at Bard College Berlin for a workshop on "Human Rights in the New International Context." The workshop featured both public panels on certain regions and closed meetings in which faculty presented their own research and worked on ideas for improving collaborations across the different campuses. The faculty thus generated joint research projects, ideas for co-teaching classes and thoughts on how to improve teaching. Public events: Friday, April 25, 4:30-6:30pm "Human Rights in the New International Context: Russia and Eastern Europe" This panel will focus on mass movements in Russia and the Ukraine. Saturday, April 26, 4-6pm "Human Rights in the New International Context: The Middle East" (mainly focused on Palestine) This panel will feature Berlin-based Palestinian writer Adania Shibli as a special guest. Venue: Bard College Berlin Main Auditorium Platanenstr. 98a, Berlin - Pankow (map here) Admission free

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

This year, Bard College Berlin celebrates the 15th anniversary since its founding as the European College of Liberal Arts in 1999. To reflect back on its first 15 years of life, and also to look forward to the future, the college put together on May 26, 2014 a program of student-run events centred around its development as a liberal arts institution. The anniversary was an occasion to celebrate not only the college's academic achievements, but also the people who contributed to its successes. Students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends attended the May 26 celebration to share with the community their favourite memories of ECLA/Bard College Berlin. The program included: Presentation of "The History Project" Throughout this academic year, a student-initiated working group has researched the history of the institution by looking at archive materials and collecting impressions from current or former faculty members, students, staff, friends and affiliates. Their effort is an attempt to shed light on how the concept of liberal arts has evolved at ECLA/Bard College Berlin, and also to make way for future reflective practices. On May 26, the working group presented the intermediate results of their research and discussed with the audience the ways in which the heritage of the institution can be preserved and productively used in the future. Presentation of "EduLab" EduLab is a Bard College Berlin student-run communal platform that aspires to engage with students and educators from around the world in order to reflect on the importance of invoking compassion and cultivating dialogues in education. Through research, construction and dissemination of innovative pedagogical methods via their bi-annual publication and website, students Lucas Cone Møller and Mathujitha Sankaran, the founders of EduLab, want to provoke thought and practice on how education occurs within and outside primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions. On May 26, they presented samples of their work and how it has integrated the work of students and faculty of Bard College Berlin. Photo exhibition (1999-2014) View some photos from the event here.

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

What kind of education does a democratic citizenry need? How does democracy shape education? These questions are at the heart of a current debate on both sides of the Atlantic about the future of the university and the purpose of higher education. Its focal point is the role of the humanities, often regarded as the core of the liberal arts curriculum, whose status as an essential part of university education has come under intense scrutiny. As an intervention in this global debate, the latest issue of Kronos, Poland's top journal for philosophy and culture, featured an interdisciplinary roundtable on Democracy and Education, including contributions by three Bard College Berlin Faculty: Prof. Ewa Atanassow, Prof. Peter Hajnal and Prof. Thomas Norgaard, as well as by Prof. Thomas Bartscherer from Bard Annandale. The contributions were translated into Polish by alumnus Rafal Kuczynski.

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

A mere century ago, scientists believed we lived in a solitary island galaxy surrounded by a vast, eternal cosmic void. Yet today we have a completely different view: one which includes a detailed understanding of 13.8 billion years of cosmic history, a census of nearly 300 billion galaxies, detailed observations of a large fraction of observable stars, and the discovery of thousands of planets and solar systems, many like our own. On the other hand many of the same observations that have cemented a seemingly unshakeable paradigm have also led to puzzling questions: why is most matter in the universe invisible? How can the expansion of the universe be understood? Why are there so many stars and galaxies? And how is it possible that our entire universe may be just one of many, floating in an infinite multiverse where space and time have no meaning? In this lecture Noam Libeskind introduced some basic concepts regarding the physical characteristics of our universe: what we know and how we know it. His methodology was loosely based on historical developments: starting from the pioneering works of the greatest cosmologists, Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, he showed how classical astronomy developed via Newton, Hershel, and Kant and culminated in the modern ideas of Hubble, Eddington, and Einstein. He thus hoped to discuss some more speculative ideas including recent discoveries such as the Higgs boson and "proof" of primordial gravitational waves. Read more about Noam Libeskind here. Time: Thursday, May 8, 2014 from 17:00 Venue: Bard College Berlin Main Auditorium Platanenstr. 98a, Berlin - Pankow (map here) Admission free

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

Until recently, Black or Afro Germans 1 were either seen as an "exotic" Erscheinung (figure or phenomenon) along the periphery of Germany's socio-historical trajectory, or they remained entirely invisible from the nation's racial self-image. According to the Black German activist Judy Gummich: "Afro-Germans neither exist as Germans in the ethnic consciousness of the majority of their fellow citizens, nor have they been authentically represented in German historical publications or in the media". 2 Moreover, the existence of a nascent Black Diaspora in Germany was unbeknownst to the majority of African descended peoples in Europe and the United States. Luckily, this all began to change with the 1984 visit of the African-Caribbean American lesbian scholar and activist Audre Lorde to Berlin, and with the 1986 publication of the Afro-German Women's Anthology "Farbe-Bekennen". This ground-breaking publication served as the impetus for the creation of a self-determined socio-historical narrative for Black Germans, politicized mobilization and the subsequent formation of organizations such as the ISD (Black German Initiative) ADEFRA (Afro-German & Black Women in Germany) that are still active today. The lecture began with a brief look at Germany's colonial and postcolonial legacy as it relates to this population. However, the primary focus was to examine three intertwined aspects of the Black or Afro German experience; namely the emergence of a self-defined identity, the development of a diasporic consciousness and the creation of an "imagined" community. Dr. Cassandra Ellerbe-Dück studied at the universities of Paris (VIII) in France, and the LMU in Munich, Germany (M.A). In 2006 she completed a PhD in Comparative Cultural Studies/Anthropology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Cassandra has worked as a researcher in various cross-border EU funded projects, and was appointed by the University of Southampton, U.K. as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2007- 2010) for the EU Sixth Framework Project: SeFoNE. "Searching for Neighbours: The Dynamics of Mental and Physical Border in the New Europe": www.sefone.soton.ac.uk where she researched African diasporic women's networks in Germany, Austria & Switzerland. Since October 2013 she has held the position of CSR & Diversity Manager for m:con-mannheim:congress GmbH in Mannheim, Germany. Cassandra is a certified diversity trainer, board member of Eine Welt der Vielfalt e.V. Berlin (Anti-Defamation League - A World of Difference) and academic Fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies and network member of the Black Diaspora in Germany Scholars Project funded by the German Research Foundation: http://www.blackdiasporaandgermany.com 1 The terms Afro or Black German are often used interchangeably and are both self-ascribed designations 2 Gummich, Judy (1993: 16) Als Schwarze Diskiminiert-Als Deutsche Ignoriert: Schwarze Deutsche. Time: Monday, May 5, 2014 from 19:30 Venue: Bard College Berlin Main Auditorium Platanenstr. 98a, Berlin - Pankow (map here) Admission free

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

With their work Fischer & el Sani focus on transitory spaces and vacuum situations in urban environments, collective memory and vision in various media such as film, video, installation and photography. They critically reflect the rise and fall of modernity, the intense and uncanny relationship between our contemporary society and utopian projects that have driven the evolution of our history, from the past to the future, or the anachronistic merging of both ends. Their work is a permanent pursuit of and negotiation with the transition of time. Fischer & el Sani are interested in exploring the historic traces of urban landmarks, monuments and events that embody such a transition. Several places that were once hallmarks, centers of political culture, avant-garde art, and social developments, have become more or less temporally blind spots in contemporary society. They bring them back to today's consciousness in their altered, mystified phases: not utopian anymore, not obsolete, but rather not yet redefined. Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani are filmmakers and visual artists. They have been working together in Berlin since 1993. From 2007 until 2010 they have been Associate Professors for Film and Media Art at Sapporo City University, Japan. International exhibitions they have participated in include Gwangju Biennale 1995, 2002, 2008, the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, 1999, Manifesta 4, Frankfurt, 2002, Sydney Biennale, 2002, 10th Istanbul Biennial, 2007, 5th Media City Seoul Biennale, 2012, 20th Curitiba Biennial, Curitiba, 2013, 2nd Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, 2013 and solo exhibitions at Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1999, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, 2005, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, 2007, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2009, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, Museum of Contemporary Art Hiroshima, 2010, Austin Museum of Art - Arthouse, Austin and Berlinische Galerie - Museum of Modern Art, Berlin, 2012, MAMAM - Museo Arte Moderna, Recife, 2013, MART, Dublin, 2014. More information: www.fischerelsani.net Time: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 from 19:30 Venue: Bard College Berlin Main Auditorium Platanenstr. 98a, Berlin - Pankow (map here) Admission free

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

On March 25, 2014 a group of students from Brown University led by professor Michael Steinberg visited the campus of Bard College Berlin and sat in on seminars, in the frame of Brown-in-Berlin initiative's third curricular pilot program, organised by the Cogut Center for the Humanities at Brown, in partnership with Bard College Berlin and other local institutions. Students participating in this program had the chance to spend a week in Berlin centred on the theme of "comparative modernism." Their activities involved dialogue across disciplinary, academic, cultural, and aesthetic boundaries. Besides attending a session of the core course on modernism at Bard College Berlin led by Prof. Dr. Laura Scuriatti and Dr. James Harker, the students visited the Berlin State Opera, where they attended rehearsals of Wagner's "Tannhäuser," and the Barenboim-Said Academy. The partnership between Cogut Centre and Bard College Berlin was hailed by both sides as a great success. Read more here (The Brown Daily Herald).

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

On April 16 and 17, the students of the graduating BA class and of the Project Year program presented the results of their year-long research projects. The schedule of the presentations was as follows: April 16, 2014 19:00-19:30 Amitai Halberstam: Knowledge, Doing, and the Possibility of the Free Spirit: A Reading of Nietzsche's "Human, All Too Human" 19:30-20:00 Dzmitry Tsapkou: From Surveillance to Dataveillance: Disappearing Bodies and the Decline of Optics 20:00-20:30 Linda Eggert: "Dirty Hands" Reconsidered; An Enquiry Concerning Moral Leadership in Politics 20:30-20:45 BREAK 20:45-21:15 Vera Pluemer: Lacunae in the Social Imaginary: A Discourse-Based Analyses of Rwanda's Gacaca Courts 21:15-21:45 Jelena Barac: Raising Stories from the Past: On Brazilian Nationalism in Contemporary Fiction 21:45-22:15 Elyse Charles: Confronting German Identity and Language Through the Poetry of May Ayim and Paul Celan April 17, 2014 16:00-16:30 Oumaima Gannouni: Photographic Intersubjectivity: The Anthropological Revelations of Posing 16:30-17:00 Chatlin Helm: A Study of Francis Bacon's Crucifixion Triptychs 17:00-17:15 BREAK 17:15-17:45 Mea Hoffmann: Marina Abramovi? - Christoph Schlingensief: An Assessment of the Social Relevance of their Work and its Entrée into the Museum of Modern Art 17:45-18:15 Mathujitha Sankaran: Logos of the Aesthetic World 18:15-19:30 BREAK 19:30-20:00 Catalin Moise: Oniric Cinema and the Diegesis of Film Consciousness 20:00-20:30 Graham Trim: Irony, Idiocy and the Possibility of Love in Brad Neely's "I Am Babycakes" 20:30-21:00 Adam Mandel-Senft: The Road Out of the Niche: What Must Coevolve with Electric Vehicles in Germany 21:00-21:15 BREAK 21:15-21:45 Aurelia Cojocaru: After "Wittgensteinian Poetics" 21:45-22:15 April Matias: Phatic Transactions: Exchange in Henry James' "The Awkward Age" Time: Wednesday, April 16 from 19:00 to 22:15 and Thursday, April 17 from 16:00 to 22:15 Venue: Bard College Berlin Main Auditorium Platanenstr. 98a, Berlin - Pankow (map here) Admission free

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

On April 8, 2014, faculty member Bruno Maçães gave a lecture titled "The Future of Europe" at Boston University, in the frame of the "EU Inside Out" series of events. In this talk, Prof. Maçães offered a Portuguese perspective on Europe's future. Bruno Maçães is currently the Secretary of State for European Affairs for the Portuguese Government. The "EU Inside Out" series addresses, broadly, the theme of democratic politics under conditions of globalization from an "inside" point of view, and highlights the value of the European Union as a model for transnational cooperation, regional integration, and cultural coexistence. Read more about the event here.

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

Are you thinking of studying at Bard College Berlin? Come try it out for a day! On Friday, April 11, prospective students have the opportunity to attend a seminar at Bard College Berlin, see the campus, meet faculty and students, and have lunch in the cafeteria. Please register by Friday, April 4 by sending a short email with your name, home address, and the number of people attending to: admissions@berlin.bard.edu Open Day Schedule (subject to change) Friday, April 11 09:45 - 10:00 Arrival 10:00 - 11:00 Welcome and Admissions Information 11:00 - 12:00 Campus Tour 12:00 - 13:15 Lunch in the Bard College Berlin Cafeteria 13:30 - 15:00 Attend a seminar (open courses will be announced shortly) 15:00 - 15:15 Coffee break 15:15 - 16:45 Attend a seminar (open courses will be announced shortly) 16:45 - 17:30 Time for questions, individual counseling

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

Bard College Berlin expands its educational offerings with a new degree program that provides an interdisciplinary training in economics: the Bachelor of Arts in „Economics, Politics, and Social Thought," which will begin in Fall 2014. In keeping with Bard College Berlin's approach to liberal arts, the 4-year English language degree situates the study of foundational economics within the history of human cultural change and reflection. The fundamental methods and models of contemporary economics are studied in dialogue with the movement of intellectual history, and in connection to theories of politics and models of social functioning. The new professorship will be held by Dr. Martin Binder, who begins his teaching appointment on April 1, 2014. "Here I have the opportunity to teach economics courses that focus on human behavior from an empirical point of view, and also deal substantially with ethical issues. For the students, this approach has the advantage of a closer connection to the way things work in the real world, and thus their education in economics has greater relevance," stated Dr. Binder regarding his appointment at Bard College Berlin. Full press release - English or German

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