News Archive

Faculty member Laura Scuriatti's chapter "Modernism and the Baroque: Two Strange Bedfellows in Mario Praz's Oeuvre" has recently been published in the volume Mario Praz, Voice Centre Stage edited by Elisa Bizzotto (Oxford: Peter Lang). The volume is the first collection of essays in English on Italian writer Mario Praz (1896-1982) and is based on pluri- and interdisciplinary critical approaches by a variety of specialists.

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 |

On September 25, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave an interview to RBB Inforadio on the recent launch of an impeachment inquiry of US President Donald Trump. 

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 |

Faculty member Matthias Hurst participated in the 10th Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung [Association for Research in the Fantastic], held on September 18-21, 2019 at FU Berlin and organized by the research group Cinepoetics and the Department of Film Studies.

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 |

BCB arts instructor John Kleckner is presenting the solo exhibition “Desert Rumors” at the gallery Francesco Pantaleone in Milan. Showcasing new paintings by Kleckner, the exhibition opens on September 24, 2019 and runs through November 23, 2019.

More information>> 

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

Faculty Agata Lisiak and her University of Greenwich colleague and migART collaborator Elena Vacchelli organized a two-panel stream at the RC21 (urban sociology) conference which took place on September 18-21, 2019 in New Delhi.

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 |

On September 23-24, 2019 faculty members Kerry Bystrom, Michael Weinman, and Aaron Tugendhaft are participating in the international conference "Hannah Arendt – Thinking and Education in Times of Crisis" held at the European Humanities University, Vilnius.

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 |

Faculty member Hanan Toukan recently published the article "Liberation or emancipation? Counter-hegemony, performance and public space in Lebanon" in the International Journal of Cultural Studies. 

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 |

BCB's Director of Studio Arts John von Bergen has recently been contracted by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung) to produce his prize-winning 2017 Kunst am Bau proposal "Wandlung."

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 |

On September 11, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was interviewed by Deutsche Welle on the departure of national security adviser John Bolton from the White House. 

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 |

In the frame of its partnership with the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve), Bard College Berlin will host from January to May 2020 the full-time, 4-month preparatory program OLIve-Access, aimed at individuals with refugee status or a refugee-like situation in Europe wishing to improve their Academic English in order to study at university. 

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 |

On September 6, 2019 from 7:30pm faculty member Marion Detjen will participate in a public reading and discussion on migration in Germany organized by Flüchtlingspaten Syrien (Syrian Refugee Sponsors) at the Literaturhaus (Fasanenstraße 23, 10719 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 |