News Archive

Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was invited by several media outlets to comment on the impeachment proceedings initiated by the US House of Representatives against President Donald Trump. 

The media contributions include:

• a panel discussion with Vormann, Benjamin Wolfmeier (Republicans Overseas Germany), Emily Lines (Democrats Abroad Germany), and Sudha David Wilp (German Marshall Fund of the United States) moderated by Anke Plättner on the German public broadcast service phoenix
• an interview for Deutsche Welle in which Vormann outlines the process & timeline of the impeachment case, and its potential effects on the US presidential elections in November '20 (source: dw.com)
• an interview for RBB Inforadio in which Vormann focuses on the divided political & media landscape in the US, and on the loss of confidence in US politics

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

Bard College Berlin is honored to announce Bíborka Béres as the winner of the 2019 DAAD Award. Bíborka is a third-year Hungarian student who is enrolled in the B.A. in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought at Bard College Berlin.
 
The selection committee reviewed the nominations that were handed in by faculty members and after an intense deliberation decided to offer the Award to Bíborka whose academic as well as civic engagement achievements reveal an excellent, hard-working, academically and civically deeply committed student. Bíborka’s studies, free time, life and work are connected through the thread of being engaged, alert, and always in exchange with both the near and greater outside world.  

Bíborka has been working as one of the Civic Engagement Office’s student assistants at Bard College Berlin. In this role, she organizes events around current issues in the political, social and humanitarian realm, and assists with student projects while bringing the Bard College Berlin community into closer contact with Berlin as well as a more global community. She also explores these issues in her academic work as she writes papers and engages in research revolving around these topics. To complement these efforts, she further participates in numerous conferences that enable her to contextualize and advance her knowledge in an international and interdisciplinary context. 

Florian Becker, BCB’s Managing Director, awarded the DAAD certificate to Bíborka​​​​​​​ during “Winterzauber,” the traditional end-of-year celebration held on December 16, 2019 and open to the entire campus community.

The DAAD Award is a monetary award of €1000 that is part of DAAD funding in the STIBET program. It honors outstanding international students in Germany with an exceptional record of engagement for social, political, cultural or humanitarian causes.

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

The study "Who inflates the bubble? Forecasters and traders in experimental asset markets," led by Bard College Berlin Professor of Macroeconomics Marcus Giamattei and originally published in the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2019), was featured in the article “Financial bubbles: a new study suggests a paradox” which appeared in horizons, a Swiss research magazine. 

The article sheds light on the paradoxical findings of Giamattei’s study, namely that accurate forecasts by financial analysts play a role in stock price increases and equity market bubbles. 

Read the article here>> 

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

On Monday, December 16, 2019 Professor of Art and Society Dorothea von Hantelmann will give a talk entitled “Live Art in Dead Institutions - What comes after the exhibition?” at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts.

The talk will focus on understanding museums and exhibitions as modern ritual places with a social function, due to the values and concepts they help bring into society. By situating museums in the context of Western liberalism, von Hantelmann argues that we can grasp the transformations which currently affect the ritual of exhibition and performance, and we can discuss whether our present asks for a new type of ritual. 

Read more>> 

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

In a ceremony that took place on Friday, December 6, 2019 at the Bremen City Hall, Roger Berkowitz, founder and academic director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, and Jerome Kohn (present via video), trustee of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust and editor of many volumes of Arendt's posthumous work, were awarded the 2019 Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought  from the Heinrich Böll Foundation. 

Among those who spoke in praise of Berkowitz and Kohn was Antonia Grunenberg, Professor Emerita of Politics at the University of Oldenburg, who noted that the prize is thus returning to its origins. Ellen Ueberschär, President of the Böll Foundation, further commented, in light of the German-US relation, that the awarding of the prize to two US scholars is a sign. Funded by the state government of Bremen and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the 10,000 EUR prize recognizes the crucial role the work of Berkowitz and Kohn plays in preserving the political ideas of Hannah Arendt. 

Read more (Bremer Nachrichten)>>

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

London Review of Books recently published a review of the catalogue Emil Nolde: The Artist during the Third Reich, co-edited by Bard College Berlin Professor of Art History Aya Soika with Bernhard Fulda (Cambridge University) and Christian Ring (Nolde Stiftung Seebüll), and published for the exhibition of the same name which ran at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof from April 12 to September 15, 2019. 

The article traces the extensive research carried out by Fulda and Soika in the archives of the Nolde estate in Seebüll. Their revised narrative of the painter’s life challenged entrenched postwar myths about Nolde and prompted a fervent discussion in the German chancellery, where two of Nolde’s paintings had been previously displayed. 

You can read the review here>>

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

On November 19, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was the moderator of a lecture on "How automation is transforming the German labor market" delivered by Laura Tyson at the ESMT Berlin. Tyson is the Richard Holbrooke Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and a Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School and Faculty Director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. The lecture discussed the impact of automation on work and the labor market in Germany.

You can watch a recording here>>

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

On November 29-30, 2019 faculty member Daniela Crăciun held a workshop in the frame of Timișoara Workshops on Research Methods, an annual series organized by the West University of Timișoara. 

Crăciun's workshop aimed to survey a family of research methods for systematically extracting information from textual data for scientific purposes known as content analysis.

The event brought together participants from several international academic institutions to discuss quantitative text analysis, more specifically the conceptual, analytical and visual tools to systematically extract meaning from text for social research.

More information>> 
 

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

Bard College Berlin Professor of Macroeconomics Marcus Giamattei has recently published together with Ted Bergstrom (University of California-Santa Barbara), Humberto Llavador (Pompeu Fabra University and Barcelona GSE) and John H. Miller (Carnegie Melon University) a free web-book with materials and software to run experiments in economics classes with the use of mobile devices. 

Based on a book originally published by Bergstrom and Miller, the experiments collected as web resources start from the authors’ observation that ”conducting economic experiments in the classroom, with discussions before, during, and after the experiments, is an effective way of getting students to use economics to think about the world around them.”

Resources for each experiment include instructions for faculty & students, exercises, warm-up quizzes, and tools to evaluate participation & performance. They are freely available at https://econclassexperiments.com/. 

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

On November 13, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave an interview on Inforadio about the first public hearing in the Trump impeachment inquiry. He argued that the chances Trump would be removed from office are very low and that the impeachment process might actually backfire on the Democrats. At the same time, Vormann noted, the fact that an impeachment inquiry takes place could be an advantage for the Democrats and for the institution of democracy. 

Listen to the interview>> 

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

On November 12, 2019 BCB’s Professor of Art and Society Dorothea von Hantelmann will participate in a panel discussion entitled “Was Ihr Wollt! Die Neuen Auftraggeber: Klappe halten? Handeln in Zeiten lärmender Rhetorik” at the Volksbühne, Berlin. The discussion is part of the series "Whatever You Want! The Art of the New Patrons," which presents the projects of the New Patrons program and discusses civil society’s underestimated ability to take its cultural needs into its own hands. 

Von Hantelmann will be joined in conversation by artists, activist and art professionals to debate the ways in which action can transform communities much more effectively than noisy rhetoric.  

More info about the event>>

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

Jens Reich, Chair of the BCB Board of Governors, and his wife Eva were awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz) for the formation of the regime-critical "Friday Circle."

They received the award together with 23 other GDR civil rights activists and former opposition figures from Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue on Wednesday October 2, the day before German Unification.

For more information, please visit the site of the Bundespräsident.

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

On November 8, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann will give a presentation entitled “Trumpism as a Global Phenomenon?” at the Annual Meeting of the Political Science Section of the German Association for American Studies, held on November 7-8 at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies. 

The topic of this year’s meeting is “The Corrosion of the Liberal Democratic Order? Transatlantic Perspectives in Perilous Times.” Participants will aim to address current challenges to the democratic order with a focus on the USA or in a comparative perspective.

Vormannn will present in a panel on the “Faultlines of Liberalism? Democracy in the Age of Trump” whose further speakers include scholars from Charles University (Prague), Schiller University Jena, and Hamburg. 

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

Guest faculty Daniela Crăciun recently published a chapter entitled "Internationalization with Adjectives" in the volume Intelligent Internationalization: The Shape of Things to Come, edited by Kara A. Godwin and Hans de Wit (Brill | Sense). 

In the chapter, Crăciun discusses the rise of internationalization in the recent years in higher education around the world and argues this has resulted in a proliferation of conceptual labels through which scholars attempt to understand the diverse manifestations of internationalization. She further suggests that strategic internationalization documents could be used to understand how higher education systems and institutions engage with internationalization. 

Read more about the volume>>

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

The essay “Archaeology and Jihad” by guest faculty Aaron Tugendhaft was recently published in Cabinet Magazine. In the essay, Tugendhaft traces the role of Baron Max von Oppenheim in excavating the ancient Syrian site of Tell Halaf and the fate of the museum he founded to display the findings. 

Read the essay>>

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

On November 4, RBB radio aired a documentary that featured the demonstration that took place on Alexanderplatz on November 4, 1989. Initiated by theater professionals from East-Berlin, this peaceful gathering was described by Chair of the BCB Board of Governors Jens Reich - one of the speakers during the event and one of the interviewees for the story - as "the most beautiful day of the GDR and its swan song."

You can listen to the interview here>>

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

On November 5, 2019 artist and BCB guest instructor Dafna Maimon, writer, art historian and curator Victoria Camblin, and Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak will participate in a conversation on art historical perspectives as well as social dynamics around motherhood, held at the Grüner Salon, Volksbühne.

The event is part of Volksbühne’s performance series ASSEMBLE, which commissions new live artwork for cultural institutions throughout Berlin. The discussion zooms in on Wary Mary, a performance which Maimon recently created for ASSEMBLE and which was followed by a solo exhibition Mutating Mary at Künstlerhaus Bremen. For both pieces, Maimon has been researching contemporary forms of social pressure on women to reproduce and care, a research process inseparable from personal contemplation of motherhood and experiencing the environment’s treatment of women who are not mothers.

More information and tickets>>

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

BCB Professor of the Practice of Theater Nina Tecklenburg and her interdisciplinary theater group, Interrobang, will present their interactive audio-installation based on audio-material from Heiner Müller, "The Müllermatrix,” at Hellerau - European Center for the Arts, Dresden, as part of the festival "89/19 - Before/After."

The festival runs from October 24 to November 2, 2019 and is dedicated to questions of coming to terms with the past, contemporary analysis and visions of the future in social times of transformation and upheaval.

In the frame of the festival, Interrobang will also participate in a discussion on the current potential and reception of Heiner Müller’s texts and political thinking on October 27.

More information>>

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

On October 9, 2019 faculty member Marion Detjen participated in the panel "Kontroverses erinnern? Perspektiven auf DDR-Grenzsoldaten 30 Jahre nach dem Fall der Berliner Mauer" ["Controversial Remembrance? Perspectives on East German Border Guards 30 Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall"] at the Berlin Wall Memorial. 

The panel aimed to discuss today's views on East German border guards who were killed in the line of duty, beginning from the case of Egon Schultz, who was accidentally shot dead by a colleague during an escape action and whose story had been concealed by the SED leadership until 1989. The panelists reflected on the controversies that surrounded these situations in the past and how they have transformed in the present. 

More information>> 

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

The chapter "When Inequalities Matter Most: The Crisis of Democracy as a Crisis of Trust" co-authored by BCB's Professor of Politics Boris Vormann and Christian Lammert (FU Berlin) was recently published in the volume Mobilization, Representation, and Responsiveness in the American Democracy, edited by Michael Oswald (Palgrave Macmillan).

The volume investigates America’s  transforming democracy as it faces the challenges and developments of the 21st century—challenges and developments that have brought deep dissatisfaction, cultural fragmentation, and economic indignation.

In their chapter, Lammert and Vormann shift their attention from the macro factors of democratic crises to the micro level. They seek to develop an analytical model to better understand how trust in politics, as a central pillar of democratic legitimacy and stability, is not simply imposed from the top down, but built from the bottom up. 

Read more about the volume>> 

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

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 |

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 |

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 |

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 |

On September 6, 2019, faculty Laura Scuriatti and Ulrike Wagner, and guest faculty Dorothea Schöne will participate in a panel discussion and artist talk entitled "Kunst in unruhigen Zeiten" [Art in Troubled Times] at the Kunsthaus Dahlem. 

The event is a presentation of the recent volume Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds. Modernist Aesthetics and the Utopian Lure of Community [Peter Lang, 2019] edited by Scuriatti, which features essays by Wagner ("Utopias of Purposelessness: Sacred and Secular Sociability around 1800"), Schöne ("Modernism and Pan-Europeanism: Utopian Concepts and Visions of the Porza Group") as well as Scuriatti ("Together, on Her Own: A Survey of Mina Loy’s Textual Communities.")

Joined in conversation by Reinhold J. Fäth (HKS Ottersberg) and artist Jenny Michel, the panel participants will discuss the role of art in troubled times and the type of political projects that art can convey. They will focus specifically on the first half of the twentieth century, when the avant-garde on both sides of the Atlantic aligned to search through radical experiments and utopian visions alternatives to the political present. The essays collected in the Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds volume examine the social and artistic projects of those times as expressions of various forms of utopia based on an ethos of community and friendship.  

Date&time: Friday, September 6, from 7:00pm
Venue: Kunsthaus Dahlem, Käuzchensteig 12, 14195 Berlin
Admission free

The language of the event is German

More information>> 

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

In 2019 Bard College Berlin joined the Refugee Education Initiatives (REIs) Consortium, which addresses challenges that refugees and asylum seekers face in accessing higher education. As part of its role, BCB will take over education programs that were intended to run at REIs partner Central European University.

The first such program, OLIve-Plus, will be hosted by BCB between September 2019 and January 2020, and is a full-time course of study for individuals with refugee status in Germany. 

Six students with a refugee background are currently enrolled in the first cohort of OLIve-Plus at BCB. The program prepares them to make competitive applications to Master’s degrees at Central European University. Students take courses in Economics and Business Studies, Human Rights or Public Policy, and additionally in Academic English and Graduate Writing.

More info about the program>>

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

On August 1, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann provided an analysis of the second round of the US Democrats' primary debates for Deutsche Welle News.

According to Vormann, the division between the Republican and Democratic parties is currently doubled by a split within the parties themselves, which makes any predictions very difficult. The split within the Democratic party could however be used as an indication of what sort of presidential candidates are expected. Vormann further commented that the results of the primary debates are usually volatile and that by September, as the number of candidates reduces, it will be clearer which of them have viable chances.  

Watch the full analysis here>> (source: dw.com)

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

Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak has published a paper titled “Poza girl power: dziewczyński opór, kontrpubliczności i prawo do miasta” [Beyond girl power: girl resistance, counterpublics, and the right to the city] in Praktyka Teoretyczna, a Polish journal of philosophy and critical social sciences.

Lisiak argues that girlhood's political potential does not lie in the power of individual girls, but in acknowledging the commonalities and multiplicities of girls' experiences. A non-heroic approach to girlhood that rejects the individualistic 'girl power' paradigm opens up new, sometimes contradictory narrations and representations of contemporary girlhood and reveals not only the intricate workings of exclusion mechanisms, but also the various inclusive tactics and resistance strategies at work.

You can read the full article in Polish here>> 

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

On July 4-6, 2019 faculty member Marion Detjen participated in the conference „Wer ist Flüchtling? Flucht und Asyl in Deutschland seit 1945“ ["Who Is Refugee? Refuge and Asylum in Germany since 1945"] organized by the Jena Center for 20th Century History. 

The conference aimed to historically analyze perception and categorization practices which emerged in dealing with refugees in Germany since 1945 and to contextualize these in an interdisciplinary exchange. 

In the frame of the conference, Detjen participated in the concluding panel on „Deutschland nach der 'Flüchtlingskrise'“ ["Germany after the 'Refugee Crisis'"].

More information on the conference>>

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

The Heinrich Böll Foundation in Bremen, Germany, has awarded its Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought to Roger Berkowitz, founder and academic director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College.

The annual award was created to honor individuals who identify critical and unseen aspects of current political events and who are not afraid to enter the public realm by presenting their opinion in controversial political discussions. The Hannah Arendt Award is a public prize, and therefore not based solely on academic achievement. Funded by both the state government of Bremen and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the prize is endowed with 10,000 Euros and is awarded by an international jury.

Berkowitz shares the 2019 award with fellow recipient Jerome Kohn, trustee of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust and editor of many volumes of Arendt's posthumous work.

The jury praised Berkowitz’s merits as a constitutional theorist and for his work as director of the Arendt Center, a place where “students from all over the world are encouraged to learn to politically think and to study the writings of a political philosopher who never respected the restraints of philosophical thinking.”

More info>>
https://www.bard.edu/news/details/?id=16076

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

The volume Democracy in Crisis: The Neoliberal Roots of Popular Unrest written by Professor of Politics Boris Vormann and Christian Lammert (FU Berlin) was recently published in an English edition by Penn Press with a translation by Susan H. Gillespie (founding director of the Institute for International Liberal Education and Vice President for International Education at Bard College).

Liberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic find themselves approaching a state of emergency, beset by potent populist challenges of the right and left. But what exactly lies at the core of widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo? In Democracy in Crisis, Christian Lammert and Boris Vormann argue that the rise of populism in North Atlantic states is not the cause of a crisis of governance but its result.

Read more about the volume>>

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

Faculty member Andreas Martin Widmann recently presented a creative non-fiction paper at the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) biennial conference “Paradise on Fire”, which took place at the University of California, Davis in June 2019.

Widmann’s presentation “The Days of the Nuthatch: Imagining Ecological Coexistence in the Anthropocene” links observations on patterns in bird behavior to both ecocritical theory and harmful land use by humans causing habitat loss through urban sprawl. In discussing the practice of nest-reusal common to nuthatches, the paper also thinks about how “looking at animals” can result in anthropomorphical projections as well as in unexpected visions of alternative housing and ways of living for humans. 

Literature and environment, the field of the conference, is related to a new literature course Widmann will be offering in Spring 2020. Widmann received a DAAD conference travel grant for the trip.

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

Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak and Alicja Kaczmarek (founder and director of the Polish Expats Association and Centrala Gallery in Birmingham, UK) are co-authors of the chapter titled "Making something out of nothing: On failure and hope in community activism and research” in the newly published UCL Press volume Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture: Convivial Tools for Research and Practice co-edited by Mette Luise Berg and Magdalena Nowicka.

In their chapter, Lisiak and Kaczmarek discuss how inventiveness, creativity, and, above all, hope-driven refusal to give into what seems to be a failure, are the driving force behind community activism and research. While not exactly a manual, the chapter discloses practices, mechanisms, and tactics that have emerged during the design and application of creative and collaborative methods in social activism and research. The chapter, as well as the entire book, are available as free downloads from the UCL Press website.

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

Bard College Berlin Board of Governors member and civil rights advocate Kimberly Marteau Emerson recently published a contribution co-written with Nina Smidt (Director, ZEIT-Foundation) and entitled "Berlin: The Beating Heart of European Civil Society" on the blog of the Center on Public Democracy at USC.  

In the aftermath of the closing of Open Society Foundation and the Central European University in Budapest, as well as similar situations that threaten liberal democracy in Europe, the two authors turn their attention to Berlin and its status as a safe haven for civil society institutions and initiatives. Emerson and Smidt urge that, with the support of the federal government, Berlin plays “a pivotal role in shaping civil society in Germany, Europe and the world at large. It is our hope that it acts on this opportunity.” 

Read the contribution>> 

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

The volume Plato and the Moving Image, co-edited by Bard College Berlin faculty member Michael Weinman and Shai Biderman (Tel Aviv University), was recently published by Brill Publishers.

From the book's description:
This book shows how and why debates in the philosophy of film can be advanced through the study of the role of images in Plato’s dialogues, and, conversely, why Plato studies stands to benefit from a consideration of recent debates in the philosophy of film. Contributions range from a reading of Phaedo as a ghost story to thinking about climate change documentaries through Plato’s account of pleonexia. They suggest how philosophical aesthetics can be reoriented by attending anew to Plato’s deployment of images, particularly images that move. They also show how Plato’s deployment of images is integral to his practice as a literary artist.

Weinman also contributed a chapter to the book on "The Myth of Er as Rationalizing Recording Device."

The book is available both in print and in e-book edition and can be found here.

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

On June 19, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann discussed for Deutsche Welle the formal kick-off of Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. Vormann commented that Trump's re-election bid is not surprising and that it is accompanied by familiar themes which have so far been the focus of Trump's presidency. Vormann also discussed the meaning of the swing states for Trump and urged for cautiousness regarding the current poll numbers. 

Watch the interview>> (source: dw.com) 

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

On June 18-19, 2019 Bard College Berlin representatives participated in the conference "The Other 1 Percent - Refugees at Institutions for Higher Education Worldwide," organized by the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Berlin, in celebration of World Refugee Day on June 20. The conference was opened by Heiko Mass, the German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The conference aimed to strengthen collaboration between higher education stakeholders in countries where displaced individuals live to ensure that generations of young people do not lose their opportunity to lead productive, engaged and independent lives today and in future. In panel discussions, workshops and world-cafés, participants explored opportunities to expand access to higher education for displaced individuals, identified good practices, partnership opportunities and possible actions in the areas of financing and partnerships, inclusion and access, research and data, connected learning, internationalization and transition to employment. 

Bard College Berlin was represented at the conference by Associate Dean Kerry Bystrom, who gave a presentation in a workshop on “Research and data” moderated by economist and peace researcher Tilman Brück; by Civic Engagement Manager Xenia Muth, who introduced BCB’s Program for International Education and Social Change in a poster exhibition on the inclusion of qualified refugees in German universities; and by student Ehab Badwi (BA 2022, Syria), who participated in a student panel discussion on “Refugee student experiences at higher education institutions worldwide” and in the workshop "Student-led Initiatives." 

Read more about the conference>>

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

On June 7, 2019 faculty member Aya Soika was a guest on the radio show Forum (SWR 2) to discuss together with art critic and journalist Till Briegleb and art historian Christoph Zuschlag (University of Bonn) the relation of the Expressionist art movement "Die Brücke" to National Socialism. 

The radio show draws on two current exhibitions co-curated by Soika - A German Legend. Emil Nolde and the Nazi Regime at the Hamburger Bahnhof and Escape into Art? The Brücke Painters in the Nazi Period at the Brücke Museum in Berlin, which both grapple with the question of whether the Brücke artists were victims of the National Socialist cultural policy in light of their inclusion in the "Degenerate Art" exhibition. In the radio show, Soika highlights that the exhibitions are trying to go beyond the scope of this question, to look at the case of each painter individually and also in relation to the changes in their painting style and their actions after 1933. 

Listen to the show>> 

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

Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak was recently a guest on the podcast "Who Belongs?", produced by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley.

Lisiak spoke about her work on Eastern European migration to Western Europe, the experiences of migrant mothers in particular, and the relationship between gentrification and language in European cities. 

Listen to the podcast>>

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

Bard College Berlin is pleased to announce a partnership with OLIve - the Open Learning Initiative through which it will be able to host a full-time, 5-month university preparatory program on campus starting September 2019. Entitled OLIve-Plus, the program is aimed at students with a refugee background in Germany who wish to apply to an MA program at the Central European University in Vienna.

The course of study includes workshops on how to make a successful university application, classes in academic writing and academic skills, a regular academic seminar, auditing degree level classes at Bard College Berlin, and preparation for standardized exams in English such as TOEFL.

The deadline to apply for the program is July 5, 2019. 

More information about the program>>

Open call and eligibility criteria>>

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

On June 12, 2019 faculty member Laura Scuriatti gave a lecture on “Censoring, Understanding, Marketing Modernist Literature: The Trials of Ulysses” at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, in the frame of a course on Joyce taught by Prof. Dr. Claudia Olk. 

The lecture focused on the trials that took place in the US against the publication of Joyce's Ulysses. Scuriatti discussed the role of small magazines in the promotion and dissemination of modernist literature, and the impact of the arguments developed during the time of the first trial (1921) on the structure and style of the book, as well as on its reception.

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

The volume Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds. Modernist Aesthetics and the Utopian Lure of Community edited by faculty member Laura Scuriatti was recently published with Peter Lang. 

From the book’s description:
The essays in this volume analyse the significance (and failures) of literary coteries as spaces of aesthetic and political freedom. They explore the internationalist and interdisciplinary practices of the Porza Group, the abstrakten hannover and the anthroposophical group Aenigma; the utopian efforts of the artists’ communities at Dornach (Switzerland) and Farley Farm, in England; the political and aesthetic implications of collaborative practices of cultural mediation, criticism and translation within the Bloomsbury group, the «Young American Critics», and of single individuals in relation to networks and avant-garde coteries, such as Mina Loy, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Djuna Barnes. The volume offers an evaluation of the roots and ethos of sociability in the Enlightenment, as the basis of modernist utopias of community; it also reflects on the problematic notion of individual authorship within artistic groups, as in the case of the early-modernist Finnish author Algot Untola, who created around forty fictitious author-names.

The volume includes essays by faculty members Ulrike Wagner ("Utopias of Purposelessness: Sacred and Secular Sociability around 1800") and Dorothea Schöne ("Modernism and Pan-Europeanism: Utopian Concepts and Visions of the Porza Group"), as well as an essay by Scuriatti entitled "Together, on Her Own: A Survey of Mina Loy’s Textual Communities." 

More information>> 

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

On May 31, 2019, Martin Binder gave a talk entitled "Pro-Environmental Norms, Green Lifestyles and Subjective Well-Being" in the Cournot seminar series at the University of Strasbourg. 

The talk was based on a paper co-authored by Binder with Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg (University of Goettingen) and Heinz Welsch (University of Oldenburg). The paper grapples with several explanations offered in literature for the positive relationship between green lifestyles and subjective well-being, more specifically with the effect that social or group norms may have on such behavior. Using panel data from the UK, the paper authors demonstrate that the relationship is a positive one, and their findings support the idea that “the relationship between a green lifestyle and subjective well-being relies (in addition to conformity with a moral norm) on group identity rather than conformity with a society-wide green norm.”

More information about the Cournot seminar series>>

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