News Archive

In his most recent contribution to Public Seminar, titled «No-Platforming, “Unite the Right,” and New Free Speech Debate,» faculty member Michael Weinman responds to the controversy surrounding the invitation extended to AfD-affiliated Marc Jongen by Bard College's Hannah Arendt Center. 

Weinman concludes: "We cannot, I believe, grant Spencer the victory — for it would be his victory — of responding to every Charles Murray as though he were Richard Spencer."

Read the full post here

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

On December 19, 2017 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was interviewed by Deutsche Welle on the National Security Strategy unveiled by the Trump administration earlier this week. 

Vormann commented that, while safeguarding US influence is by no means a new point on the agenda, there is a major direction in which Trump’s foreign policy vision does however set itself apart: Trump’s view of international relations as a zero sum-game and as a competition between nation-states. Vormann went on to discuss the effect of Trump’s ‘America First’ policy on the relations with Russia and China. 

Watch the interview here (source: dw.com)

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

Alumna Maria Khan (BA 2015, Pakistan) worked this fall semester with Bard College Berlin students to stage Assembly Women by Aristophanes. 

A great theater enthusiast, Maria has produced several plays on campus during her studies as well as after graduating. She is enrolled in a PhD at Cambridge University and is currently conducting field work in Berlin, examining how an arts education can help teenagers from migrant backgrounds understand their identity.  

Assembly Women by Aristophanes is a play about Athenian women taking over the government and politics from men, and forcing men to attend to household chores. One of the most hilarious comedies by Aristophanes, the play is a critique of feminism as well as a fresh look at the idea of feminism.

"We had an amazing cast and crew for this play, and I can say that in my last ten years I have had the most fun doing this performance - perhaps due to the extremely comical nature of the play. As always, being reunited with BCB students reminds me of my magical years on campus," said Maria about her work on the play.  

Assembly Women will be performed on campus on December 15 & 16, from 7:00pm, in the arts building The Factory. 

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

On December 13, 2017 faculty Laura Scuriatti participated in the workshop "Modernism at the Peripheries", organized by the University of Milan and the Centre for European Modernism Studies in Perugia (Italy). 

Scuriatti gave a paper on the reception, rewriting and dissemination of the work of the Austrian Otto Weininger in Florence, which, she argued, was a peripheral but very vital nexus for international modernist exchange. Scuriatti showed how Weininger's theories were rewritten by the Florentine avantgarde intellectuals, especially Giovanni Papini, founder of the journal Lacerba, and how this particular version of Weininger's ideas entered the works of the British-born poet Mina Loy. 

Read more about the workshop

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

Faculty and Associate Dean Kerry Bystrom recently published the collection of essays The Global South Atlantic (Fordham University Press) co-edited with Joseph R. Slaughter (Columbia University). 

From the book’s description:

The Global South Atlantic traces literary exchanges and interlaced networks of communication and investment--financial, political, socio-cultural, libidinal--across and around the southern ocean. Bringing together scholars working in a range of languages, from Spanish to Arabic, the book shows the range of ways people, governments, political movements, social imaginaries, cultural artifacts, goods, and markets cross the South Atlantic, or sometimes fail to cross.

Exploring the Atlantic as an effect of structures of power and knowledge that issue from the Global South as much as from Europe and North America, The Global South Atlantic helps to rebalance global literary studies by making visible a multi-textured South Atlantic system that is neither singular nor stable.

Bystrom additionally contributed the essay “South Africa, Chile, and the Cold War: Reading the South Atlantic in Mark Behr’s The Smell of Apples,” in which she looks at the character of a Chilean general in a novel by a South African writer to discuss reactionary counterpoints to revolutionary visions of the South Atlantic. 

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

A new essay from guest faculty Martin Widmann was published in the December issue of the journal Merkur. 

"Is there Live after Dead? Digital Deadheads, Transhumanism und die Suche nach dem Gehirn von Jerry Garcia" discusses following a rock band as well as recorded music in the age of streaming and resurrection. The article begins with Widmann meeting the members of Uriah Heep in the economy class of a crowded flight from Munich to London, which serves as an inspiration for the piece.

Founded in 1947, Merkur is one of the most important cultural journals in the German-speaking space.

Read the essay here

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

On December 7, 2017 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann will give a talk entitled “Citizenship Arbitrage: The Logistics of Urbanization” at Potsdam University. 

The talk is part of the Citizenship Lecture series, organized by the Centre for Citizenship, Social Pluralism and Religious Diversity at Potsdam University. The series aims to address recent developments in research on citizenship related topics and is meant to provide a discussion platform for the exchange between scholars and students of the field. 

Read more here 

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

Fall 2017

PLATO GOES LIVE

conceived by

BARD COLLEGE BERLIN

A program supported by the Stifterverband and the Klaus Tschira Foundation in cooperation with DIE ZEIT in the frame of ‘Eine Uni - ein Buch’

Program

Plato’s Long Night

An evening event taking place in the Cafeteria of Bard College Berlin whereby selected chapters of Plato’s Republic are being read whilst audience and readers will be sustained by a Greek-inspired buffet. The BCB community will be invited as well as campus neighbors and our alumni.

Venue: Bard College Berlin, Cafeteria
Date: Saturday, September 9 from 7 pm to midnight

Campus Conversations

A student-run, weekly event on the BCB campus, which was initiated in 2016 and has an excellent track record of bringing refugees, students and neighbors together for language learning and cultural exchange, two of the Conversations will be dedicated to the first paragraph of Book I and use this text fragment as a basis to discuss topics such as translation and migration.

Venue: Bard College Berlin, Seminar Room 5, Platanenstrasse 24, 13156 Berlin
Date: Thursday, September 21 and Thursday, October 5 from 6 pm to 8 pm

The Wandering Image: Plato and Contemporary Artistic Practice

A cooperation between Bard College Berlin and the ICI Berlin

Plato’s philosophical investigations of artistic practices have received a great deal of attention. Many readers have focused on tensions between the apparent defense, in Plato’s Republic, of certain forms of censorship, and commitments to the freedom of expression in the arts, and in society more generally, that have gained prominence in modernity. Of particular concern has been purported links between the criticism of the arts in the Republic and repressive practices in totalitarian regimes. In this panel discussion artists and theorists will be asked to consider whether it might be possible to shift and twist the familiar discourse around Plato’s relationship to the arts, in part by taking the impetus for the conversation from the actual practice of contemporary artists, and in part by focusing on less familiar aspects of Plato’s engagement with the arts, or looking at familiar texts in new ways. We begin with a provocation: might it be possible and productive to regard modern and contemporary art as a systematic investigation of “Platonic questions?” Co-hosted by the ICI Berlin. The event is open to the public.

Participants:

Cristina Baldacci (Fellow, the ICI Berlin)
Rosa Barba (artist)
Thomas Bartscherer (Bard College)
Yngve Holen (artist)
Geoff Lehman (Bard College Berlin)
Philipp Kleinmichel (philosopher)
Matt Mullican (artist)

Venue: ICI Berlin, Christinenstrasse 18/19, Haus 8, 10119 Berlin
Date: Tuesday, October 17 at 7.30 pm

More information about the event: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/the-wandering-image/

Debating Event

Bard College Berlin’s Politics, Rhetoric and Debate Society will cooperate with the Berlin Debating Union e.V. to organize a debating event, open to the public during which the motion "This house would prefer the rule of the "philosopher king" to a "tyrannical democracy" will be presented.

Venue: Bard College Berlin, The Lecture Hall, Platanenstrasse 98a, 13156 Berlin
Date: Friday, October 20 at 7 pm

‘The fairest regime'
Plato and the trouble with (liberal) democracy

A cooperation between Bard College Berlin, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen
Taking place in the aftermath of the German Federal elections, this panel will convene political scientists and commentators to reflect on the situation in Germany and Europe in light of the account of democracy in Plato’s Republic. Its point of departure is the new urgency that Plato’s critique of democracy has assumed, given the political developments of the past year. In the run up to the US presidential election, for instance, Plato was often invoked in the popular press to warn against dangers of populist rhetoric and tyrannical ambition. Co-hosted by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen. This event is open to the public.

Participants:
Ulrike Guérot (Danube University Krems)

Ira Katznelson (Columbia University)

Ivan Krastev (Center for Liberal Strategies, Sofia)

Sergey Lagodinsky (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung)

Michael Weinman (Bard College Berlin)

Venue: Forum Robert Bosch, Haus Deutscher Stiftungen, Mauerstrasse 93, 10117 Berlin
Date: Wednesday, October 25 at 7pm

Watch a recording of the event here

Plato's Cave Revisited: A Conversation about Education Today

A cooperation between Bard College Berlin and the Barenboim-Said Akademie 

Plato’s Republic culminates in the famous allegory of the cave that offers “an image of our nature in its education and want of education.” Depicting education’s effect as a “turning-around” that is both liberating and potentially dangerous, the Republic also elaborates a curriculum that can affect such a transformation. A foundational stone in the long history of European universities, this view of the purpose and structure of higher education continues to intrigue and inspire today. With the allegory of the cave as a point of departure, this panel gathers academic leaders and educators from Berlin and beyond to discuss the present condition of University education, its achievements and failings, in light of Plato’s educational vision. Co-hosted by the Barenboim Said Academy. 

Participants:
Leon Botstein (President, Bard College)
Lorraine Daston (Director, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)
Mena Mark Hanna (Dean, Barenboim-Said Akademie)
Roni Mann (Director of Humanities, Barenboim Said Academy)
Michael Steinberg (President, The American Academy in Berlin)

Venue: Barenboim-Said Akademie, Französische Strasse 33, 10117 Berlin
Date: Monday, November 20 at 7pm

Watch a recording of the event here

(Post-)modern Platos

The British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) famously stated that the whole of European philosophy could be read as a series of footnotes to Plato. This event will bring international scholars together to discuss the influence of Plato’s Republic on the work of renowned philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou, and to re-evaluate the significance of this text in the context of modern and postmodern European culture. This panel discussion is open to the public.

Participants:
Claudia Baracchi (University of Milano-Bicocca)
Jeffrey Champlin (Barenboim-Said Akademie)
Tracy Colony (Bard College Berlin)
Geoff Lehman (Bard College Berlin)
Michael Weinman (Bard College Berlin)

Venue: Bard College Berlin, The Lecture Hall, Platanenstrasse 98a, 13156 Berlin
Date: Wednesday, December 6 at 7 pm

Plato and the Arts

Three evening seminars structured around Plato’s Republic will take place on the BCB campus with own faculty as well as guest speakers. These lectures are open to the public.

Venue: Bard College Berlin, The Lecture Hall, Platanenstrasse 98a, 13156 Berlin
Dates:
The Republic and Renaissance (Neo-)Platonism on Monday, September 25 at 7 pm
The Parthenon and Plato's Republic on Thursday, November 23 at 7 pm
The Republic and the Moving Image on Wednesday, December 13 at 7 pm

Plato Film Festival
The Plato Film Festival will feature final student projects that conclude the course Talking Heads: The Republic on Film, taught by Paul Festa at Bard College Berlin. A screening of the short films will take place during ‘Winterzauber,’ the holiday reception that is organized on campus for the entire campus community.

Venue: Bard College Berlin, The Factory, Eichenstrasse 43, 13156 Berlin
Date: Thursday, December 21 at 7 pm

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

On December 1-2, 2017 Bard College Berlin will host the workshop Conviviality at the Crossroads, organized in cooperation with Malmö University, Sweden. 

The workshop takes place in the frame of the research project with the same name, launched by Malmö University, and aimed at examining societal challenge, in particular “the combined roots and responses to these crises: the manifestations of identity politics and xenophobia in a world increasingly characterised by the flexible mobility of people, ideas, images and things.”

Over the two days, researchers affiliated with the project, guest faculty and students from Bard College Berlin, as well as experts from Berlin will hold presentations and discuss case studies around key concepts as conviviality, cosmopolitanism and creolization. 
The workshop continues a tradition of collaboration between Malmö University and Bard College Berlin which started in 2013. 

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