News Archive

On April 18, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave an interview to rbb's Inforadio on the expected release of a redacted version of the Mueller report. 

Bormann commented that he expects the content of the report to be controversial and also prone to interpretation. He pointed to previous declarations that may suggest the report should be read with a certain dose of skepticism. 

Vormann also noted that it is a common practice to redact passages in such reports, but that the Ministry of Justice's free hand in deciding what should be redacted constitutes a dilemma given the way the US institutional system is set up.

Listen to the interview here>> 

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

On April 12, the exhibition A German Legend. Emil Nolde and the Nazi Regime curated by Bard College Berlin's Professor of Art History Aya Soika opens at the Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof.

The exhibitions looks at the Expressionist painter's role during the Third Reich and asks how Nolde’s ostracism and occupational ban fit with our knowledge that he was a Nazi Party member, and that he kept faith with the regime until the end of the war. To accompany the exhibition, a richly illustrated volume of essays and pictures (also in an English edition), as well as a separate volume with a timeline and more than 100 documents, will be published. The show is curated together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring, and made possible by the Friends of the Nationalgalerie and supported by the Friede Springer Stiftung.

The exhibition Emil Nolde – A German Legend. The Artist and the Nazi Regime is based on the results of a multi-year academic research project which for the first time was able to analyse the extensive holdings of the Nolde estate in Seebüll, uncovering so much new material that the conventional Nolde narrative must be revised. Thus, for example, the exhibition will present the famous Unpainted Pictures – the small-format watercolours Nolde was reputed to have secretly painted at Seebüll during his occupational ban – in a completely new light, explaining them as part of a long-standing practice of self-stylisation. The importance of this self-stylisation – and how strongly it has influenced our view of Nolde – will be demonstrated to visitors through a reconstruction of the ‘painting gallery’ in Nolde’s studio house in Seebüll. This reconstruction will display the paintings and watercolours just as the ageing artist himself arranged them during the wartime winter of 1941/42. The exhibition will present over 100 originals, some of which have not previously been shown, with references to Nolde’s writings and in the historical context of their creation, in order to reveal the multi-layered relationships between paintings, the artist’s self-presentation, his ostracism, and development of his legend. What impact did the ‘Third Reich’ have on Emil Nolde's artistic work? To what extent do some of his works, such as his depictions of mythic sacrificial scenes or Nordic people, correspond with his sympathies for the regime? What effects did Nolde’s defamation and occupational ban have on his artistic practice and political outlook? And how did the myths about Nolde develop in the post-war period?

The exhibition will run through September 15.

More information>>

Media features in connection to Soika's research on Emil Nolde
Hängt sie auf, in Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 14, 2019)
Die angepassten Expressionisten, on SWR 2 (June 7, 2019)
Emil Nolde, der Nazi, in Süddeutsche Zeitung (April 11, 2019)
Le passé trouble d’Emil Nolde, une ombre au tableau in Le Monde (April 11, 2019)
Der entartete Nazi, RBB (April 10, 2019)
New Berlin exhibition exposes Emil Nolde’s Nazi ties in The Art Newspaper (April 10, 2019)
Stripping Away Lies to Expose a Painter’s Nazi Past in The New York Times (April 10, 2019)

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

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

On May 18, 2019 the students, faculty, staff, alumni/ae, and friends of Bard College Berlin will celebrate the conclusion of the academic year 2018-2019.  

The ceremony will be held at the Ballhaus Pankow, which has been the venue of the past two Commencements. The Ballhaus was built during the Belle Époque (1880) as a recreation & ball structure and is nowadays considered a historical monument. 

The 2019 Commencement speaker will be lawyer, civic leader, and human rights advocate Kimberly Marteau Emerson. From 2013 to 2017 she lived in Berlin with her husband, U.S. Ambassador to Germany John B. Emerson (ret.). Here, she worked both with the Embassy and independently to drive projects on multiple platforms, including the promotion of German immigration and integration efforts related to the 2015-2016 refugee “crisis" and addressing the issue of bringing women to the economic and political decision-making table. She now divides her time between Los Angeles and Berlin. She serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, the Advisory Board of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Kimberly holds degrees from UCLA (B.A.), UC Hastings College of the Law (J.D.) and l’Université de Droit d’Aix-Marseille (D.E.S.U.).

The ceremony will feature a musical introduction by BCB students.

Bard College Berlin’s eighth graduating BA cohort consists of 51 students from 29 countries, including Canada, China, Ecuador, France, Georgia, India, Israel, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Turkey, and the USA. 

The faculty and staff congratulate the Class of 2019 for their achievements! 

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

On April 14-15, 2019 faculty members Geoff Lehman and Michael Weinman will participate in a series of alumni-organized events in Chicago centered on their recent volume The Parthenon and Liberal Education (SUNY Press, 2018).

On April 14, Lehman and Weinman will participate in a reading followed by a discussion with David Shiner (The Shimer Great Books School at North Central College) at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore. 
More information>>

On April 15, the University of Chicago will host a day-long workshop bringing together philosophy scholars, art historians, classicists, and historians of science to discuss the questions raised by Lehman and Weinman in their volume. 
More information>>

The events are organized by BCB alumni and current PhD students at the University of Chicago Ena M. Gojak (BA 2012), David Kretz (BA 2016) and Xinyue Zhang (BA 2018) together with Pirachula Chulanon (PhD student, the University of Chicago). 

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

Faculty member David Hayes recently published an essay called “In praise of lameness: A response to William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep” in the journal Arts and Humanities in Higher Education.
 

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

On March 14, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave a talk on “Governing Transactional Economies” at the international conference “Cities and International Law in the Urban Age,” organized by the Asser Institute (the Hague, Netherlands) in cooperation with Freie Universität Berlin. 

The aim of the conference was to examine “a wide range of practical developments and theoretical dimensions of the changing position and role of cities in international law and governance.”

Vormann’s talk was part of a panel on “Practice Areas: How Cities are Reshaping Legal Fields.”

More about the conference>>

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

A review of BCB German instructor Andreas Martin Widmann's novel Messias (Rowohlt, 2018) was recently published by Der Tagesspiegel. 

The reviewer considers Messias more “ambitious” and “polyphonic” than Widmann’s first novel Die Glücksparade (Rowohlt, 2012), and praises Widmann’s writing skills as well as his approach to the narrative.

Read the review here>>  

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

On February 22, faculty member Katalin Makkai participated in a panel representing the American Society for Aesthetics at the Annual Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (Central Division) in Denver, Colorado (USA). Her talk was entitled “Meaning and Mattering.”

Makkai was also invited to lead a discussion, together with Richard Eldridge and Michael Fischer, following a screening of Preston Sturges’ film "The Lady Eve" (1941) at the Sie Film Center on February 23. The screening and discussion, under the heading of “Exploring Stanley Cavell on Film,” were open to the public. Co-sponsored by the American Society for Aesthetics and the Denver Project for Humanistic Inquiry (D-phi) at MSU Denver, the discussion drew the largest audience to date to such events.

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

The volume Contours of the Illiberal State. Governing Circulation in the Smart Economy, co-edited by Professor of Politics Boris Vormann with Christian Lammert (FU Berlin), was recently published with campus. 

The book discusses the relation between government intervention and globalization, and how this can influence democracy. The contributions provide a historical comparative perspective of the sustained, central role of the US state in the smart economy. 

Read more>>

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

For the second time, the German Studies Program at Bard College Berlin received a DAAD STIBET I.

Similar to last year, the STIBET funding will be used to support the advanced seminar “The German Public Sphere” (in German) that brings together students with guest speakers and faculty to discuss the key themes of migration, populism, artificial intelligence, and gender equity, and to visit German media outlets.

Recent guest seminar leaders included Johanna Luyssen from the Libération on current Franco-German relationships, Sebastian Kenn on projects of the European Democracy Lab and Alexander Sängerlaub from Stiftung Neue Verantwortung on media and fake news; together with Caroline Kent from Tactical Technology Collective, students discussed the organization’s work at the intersection of technology, human rights and civil liberties, and hosted a Glassroom Experience exhibition on campus.

Bard College Berlin will also use the funds to continue last year’s conference series on the topic of antisemitism in cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch. And through the financial support of STIBET I, supervised student tutors will assist students to advance their German language skills in individual meetings, tailored to their needs and questions.

The DAAD's STIBET initiative is a combined scholarship and support program offered to universities using funding from the Federal Foreign Office. STIBET’s overarching objective is to make a contribution towards improving the academic success rate of foreign students.

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

On March 9-14, 2019, Bard College Berlin will be represented by students and staff at the Bard Network Debate Conference, organized by the Bard Debate Union at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. 

The aim of the conference is to engage the participants “in conversation about the state of their debate programs, their strategic plans for the future of their programs, and best practices for competitive debating, public debates, and debate outreach projects.”

The conference will feature workshops on best practices for running campus debate societies, staging and executing public debates, public speaking, research methods, as well as a number of full adjudicated practice debates and a concluding public debate entitled “Is nationalism always dangerous?”. 

The BCB students selected for the Debate Conference are Jillian Igoe (BA ’22), who was the director of the debate team at her high school and participated in a range of debate events, and Shreya Shukla (BA ’22), who held leadership positions in her high school and is keen to examine how civic discourse can foster cross-cultural understanding. 

More information>>

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

Between March 15 and March 22, 2019, Bard College Berlin students and representatives will join other members from the Bard International Network for the 6th annual Get Engaged: Student Action and Youth Leadership Conference at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. 

The Get Engaged Conference “is an effective forum to strengthen the Bard network/intercampus collaborations among students, faculty, and administrators, and acts as an inspiration to participants whose aspiration is focused on addressing complicated social issues.”

The 2019 edition will include workshops on public speaking, active listening, securing project funding, student leadership, and networking. The welcome address will be delivered by Chrys Margaritidis (CEU’s Dean of Students).

The students representing BCB at the 2019 Get Engaged Conference are Adeeb Hadi (BA ’21) with the documentary film project Homesick, Between Death and Death, Maria Jose Sarmiento-Bose with Clowning Workshops, Danny Dubner (BA ’21) with the Emancipe Initiative, Elena Müller (BA ’21) with the community project BCB Sparrows, and Mohamad Othman (BA ’21) with the role-playing workshop In Somebody Else’s Shoes. 

More information>>

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

Human Rights faculty and Associate Dean Kerry Bystrom and Migration Studies faculty Agata Lisiak contributed papers to a special issue of EuropeNow on Forced Migration, Displacement, and the Liberal Arts. The issue focuses on the work of the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education, which was founded in April 2016 and comprises of Vassar, Bard Annandale, Bard College Berlin, Bennington, and Sarah Lawrence Colleges. The Consortium is supported with an Andrew W. Mellon Grant and its aim is to understand and address the global movement of people from the higher education perspective. 

Bystrom’s paper, “Imagining Planetary Refuge,” looks at two contemporary novels to map “the literal and metaphorical walls that divide our current political landscape" and calls for educators to rethink the meaning of the classroom and professional engagement so as to enable newer generations of students to become engaged in the act of shaping more ethical migration regimes by "inventing the world for themselves.”

Lisiak’s paper, “At Home in the City? The Persistence of the Ethnic Lens in Everyday Urban Encounters,” examines the ethnicized and gendered meanings and practices of belonging produced and encountered by migrant women in German and British cities, and argues that "the persistence of the ethnic lens in migrants’ understanding of their experiences tends to obscure other important power dynamics at play.”

More about the EuropeNow special feature>>

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

Dr. Hanan Toukan will be joining the Bard College Berlin faculty to lead its curricular development in the area of Middle Eastern Studies beginning in Fall 2019. 
 
Professor Toukan earned a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London with a thesis that won the Middle Eastern Studies Association Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award for the best PhD in Social Studies in 2012. This work is now forthcoming as the book A Global Political: Art, Diplomacy and Dissent in the Arab World. She was Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University and most recently Visiting Professor at University of Bamberg, in addition to having held fellowships here in Berlin at EUME and the FU. She currently holds an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship related to her second book project on visual cultures and politics of refugee camps and migration.
 
Professor Toukan will be teaching Comparative Politics of the Middle East and Origins of Political Economy in Fall 2019. The position is funded through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant, which was awarded to the Consortium on Forced Migration, Displacement and Education, of which Bard College Berlin is a member. 

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

For the third time in a row, Bard College Berlin has been awarded the Welcome grant, which supports the Campus Conversations, a weekly get-together organized by students for students (with and without a background of forced migration), faculty, neighbors, and anyone else who is interested. The purpose is to engage in German conversation and to discuss modes of life and living in Germany.

For the first time, Bard College Berlin additionally received an Integra grant, to organize workshops and seminars that aim to provide students with skills and tools that will help them to enter the public and professional world in Germany. 

The Welcome and Integra grants are two important financial initiatives developed by DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service) to encourage and support the inclusion of students with a background of forced migration in the German educational landscape.

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

On March 15, 2019 BCB faculty member Michael Weinman will offer a seminar with the title "The Antinomies of Liberal Political Theology: Three Arendtian Aporias” in the series "The Power, Agency and Authority Seminar" hosted by The Hannah Arendt Working Group on Critical Theories of Modernity at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture (Charlottesville, USA).

Weinman's discussant will be Charles Mathewes (Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture). 

The Hannah Arendt Working Group seeks a renewal of social and political thought through a connection of the present moment of crisis to the long arc of scholarship, wisdom, and intellectual tradition—a commitment to “thinking in dark times.”

Flyer with further info>>

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

On March 4, faculty member Ewa Atanassow will be the respondent to a talk entitled “How Does Scholarship Persuade?” held by Geoffrey Harpham (Duke University, Durham; President Emeritus of the National Humanities Center) at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. The talk will focus on a certain type of narrative which underlies authority in a scholarly argument. 

Atanassow is currently spending six months at the Institute for Human Sciences as a Józef Tischner Visiting Fellow, working on a research project for a book on liberal democracy and Tocqueville. 

Read more about the event>> 

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

On February 1 2019, Professor of Literature and Dean of Bard College Berlin Catherine Toal delivered the keynote speech at the two-day event "Brigid in Berlin," organized by the Irish Embassy Berlin, in partnership with the Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin. The event celebrated contemporary Irish women writers. 

Toal's keynote, "Women Writing Irish Literature," was published in full by The Irish Times. You can read it here>>

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

In the fourth round of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative, Bard College Berlin received a 24-month grant to be awarded to the Turkish scholar at risk Dr. Aysuda Kölemen.
 
Aysuda Kölemen is a political scientist whose current research focuses on populism and democratic backsliding in Turkey. She examines the structural and psychological factors that contribute to the populist surge in Turkey from a comparative perspective. 

In 2015, Aysuda Kölemen became a signatory of the Petition for Peace, which was signed by over 2000 academics from Turkey. The petition called for an end to the armed conflict in Turkey. Subsequently she lost her job as an assistant professor at Istanbul Kemerburgaz University (currently Altınbaş University) and was sued by the Turkish government for signing the petition. She moved to Germany in 2017. Her trial continues.

Aysuda Kölemen received her PHD in political science from the University of Georgia, Athens in 2010.

The Philipp Schwartz Initiative
The Philipp Schwartz Initiative was launched by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation together with the German Federal Foreign Office. It enables universities, universities of applied science, and independent research institutions to grant threatened researchers fellowships for research stays in Germany. The initiative has been made possible through generous support from the Federal Foreign Office, the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Stifterverband, and the Stiftung Mercator.

Scholars at Risk
Bard College Berlin is a founding member of the German chapter of the "Scholars at Risk," together with 19 other German academic teaching and research institutions. Kerry Bystrom, Associate Dean of Bard College Berlin and Professor of Human Rights & English Literature, is a member of the German SAR's Steering Group. 

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

On February 6, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave several interviews to German and international media on Trump's second State of the Union address. 

In an interview for Tagesschau, Vormann commented that, while Trump's speech brought little novelty, it demonstrated how much he has consolidated his power within the Republican party. 

For Radio Eins / RBB, Vormann highlighted that Trump's speech shows his readiness to reach a compromise with the Democrats.

Vormann provided a close analysis of Trump's speech together with Obama campaign veteran Julius Van de Laar for Deutsche Welle's "The Day with Brent Goff." You can watch the full analysis here (source: dw.com).

Vormann also provided a commentary for the German-language Deutsche Welle (source: dw.com), in which he noted that Trump's speech was reconciliatory and highly rhetorical, but that it also stood in contrast with his policies and agenda in the past two years.

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

On January 31, 2019 a performance/demonstration directed by BCB arts instructor Julia Hart and involving 60 Greenpeace climate protesters (among which 5 BCB students) was staged in front of the German Chancellery to demand the acceleration of Germany’s coal exit. The performance was scheduled to happen at the same time with the handing over of the Coal Commission's final report to Angela Merkel. 

The demonstrators urged to “wake up,” as “coal destroys our planet, put an end to it!”

Watch a video here>>

Read more here>>

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

On January 22, 2019 Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave a talk on “The Crisis of Democracy: A Transatlantic Take” at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. 

On January 24, 2019, Vormann gave a talk on Trump’s first two years as president at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum/James-F.-Byrnes-Institut (DAZ) in Stuttgart. Entitled “Ist der „Sumpf” trockengelegt? Präs. Trumps Agenda zur Halbzeit” ["Is the ’swamp’ drained? Trump’s agenda at halftime"], the talk examined the outcome of Trump’s campaign promises, his priorities for the second half of his term, as well as the general outlook of liberal democracy in this context. 

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

Together with Isaac Ariail Reed, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, faculty member Michael Weinman is co-convener of the newly launched "Hannah Arendt Working Group on Critical Theories of Modernity" hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.  

Weinman and Reed describe the group and its mission thus: "We seek answers—not an answer—to two related sets of questions: (1) How, after what Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt identified as twentieth-century barbarism, is it possible to articulate a critical assessment of “the Western tradition” that does not amount to a Nietzschean or Heideggerian rejection? And why is it worthwhile, even necessary, to do so? (2) When we engage that tradition, can we articulate a deep history and philosophy of civil engagement and democratic decision-making? What are the moments in the democratic tradition that articulate how the polity can be made more ethical and less prone to violence and the untrammeled use of instrumental advantage? And on what basis, and through what worldview, do we wish to offer a robust defense of democratic norms of action and interaction?"

More details about the Working Group can be found on the IASC website.

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

Faculty Andreas Martin Widmann published an essay on filmmaker Roland Klick entitled "Verloren im Supermarkt – Jenseits des Neuen Deutschen Films" ["Lost in the Supermarket. Beyond the New German Cinema"] in the Winter 2018 issue of Lettre International. 

Roland Klick is an outsider among the auteur directors of 1960s and 70s New German Cinema. The essay traces Klick's life and career ahead of his 80th birthday. Klick's approach to making films which combine compelling storytelling with artistic credibility is discussed with regard to underrated masterpieces such as Bübchen, Deadlock and Supermarkt. In the biographical essay, Widmann analyzes these films against the historical background of postwar Western German society.

Read the essay here (subscription required)>>

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

On January 18, 2019 faculty member Matthias Hurst gave a talk at the interdisciplinary colloquium "Mensch und Roboter, Leiblichkeit und Maschine. Neue Interaktionsformen" ("Human and Robot, Embodiment and Machine. New Forms of Interaction"), held at Heidelberg University.

Hurst’s presentation was entitled "Fiktionen des Fast-Menschlichen. Roboter, Androiden und Künstliche Intelligenz im Science Fiction-Film" (“Fictions of the Almost Human. Robots, Androids, and Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction Films”) and examined the origins of modern robot and android fictions in mythology, Enlightenment philosophy (La Mettrie's Mechanistic Materialism), romantic / gothic literature (Doppelgänger motif, problematic subjectivity), and the development of modern technology and robotics. Hurst also discussed the diverse approaches to human-robot interaction, based on these cultural and historical discourses, phenomena like the ‘uncanny valley’ and machine eroticism, as well as the different depictions or expressions of hopes and fears related to artificial intelligence in science fiction films (such as Metropolis, Saturn 3, Blade Runner, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, Her, Ex-Machina, Alien Covenant, Transcendence).

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

On January 25, 2019, Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak gave a talk at Nion, a new Japanese initiative exploring new modes of living and working. Lisiak unpacked the popular image of international artists as the ultimate gentrifiers and pointed at the importance of international alliances in the struggle for the right to the city. Lisiak was invited by Angles, a collective of artists, writers, filmmakers and other creatives interested in telling stories about Berlin.

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

Faculty member Martin Binder recently published the article “Soft paternalism and subjective well-being: how happiness research could help the paternalist improve individuals’ well-being” in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics. 

From the paper’s abstract:
Soft paternalists claim to respect individuals’ preferences by trying to nudge them towards actions that would satisfy said preferences if they were suitably informed and debiased. This paper argues that soft paternalists neither respect preferences nor credibly improve individuals’ welfare through their nudges, as these are based on ad hoc judgements of what individuals’ informed preferences would look like. 

Read the article here>>

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

The collaborative visual essay "A city coming into being" written by students Reece Cox (Bard in Berlin 2017), Flavia Tienes (BA 2018) and Sophia Braddel (BA 2018), and Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak in the frame of the class "All That Is Solid Melts Into Air" (taught by Lisiak at Bard College Berlin in Fall 2017) was recently published in the peer-reviewed academic journal CITY: Analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action.

The essay uses experimental walking and writing methods to examine the experience of modernity in contemporary Berlin, aiming through its collaborative and experimental format to provide new perspectives on urban modernities and urban methods. 

From the abstract:
"Our reflections—some captured through photography, some expressed in prose—give way to essential questions: How does walking help us interrogate the experience of modernity? Can it help us understand what it means for Berlin (or any other city) to be “a city coming into being”? How do we make it come into being? Even when walking the same route, each person is bound to experience the city differently, and so we find it makes little sense to try to impose a single reading of contemporary Berlin. We invite the reader to walk through the city with us, but we do not insist on holding hands. Our text quite literally reflects various points of view on the city and should be considered a series of occurrences, reflections, and impressions that work both in contrast and concert."

Access the article here>> 

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

On January 3rd 2019, Professor of Politics Boris Vormann gave an interview to SWR2 on the swearing-in of the 116th Congress and what it means for the new US Congress to be seated during a government shutdown. 

In his contribution entitled "Was die Demokraten bewegen können" ("What can the Democrats do"), Vormann argues that the "shutdown conflict" signals a U-turn in US politics and that Trump takes advantage of the blockade situation in order to build political pressure on his opponents. 

Listen to the interview here>>

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

The chapter entitled "Epic" by faculty Michael Weinman was recently published in The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature, edited by Barry Stocker and Michael Mack (2018). The handbook "presents the major perspectives within philosophy and literary studies on the relations, overlaps and tensions between philosophy and literature."

Weinman's chapter has two central aims. First, to introduce the the rivalry between philosophy and epic, beginning from "the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry" reported by Plato Republic 10 and continuing right until today. Second, to argue that epic remains relevant for philosophy for essential, not merely accidental or historical, reasons; chief among these, as Weinman argues, is one Plato identifies: the peculiar power of imitative poetry in which the poet’s voice is hidden directly in one or more speaking characters within the literary work.

Read more about the handbook>> 

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

On December 17, 2018 faculty and Associate Dean Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom and guest faculty Dr. Ramona Mosse gave a guest lecture at the University of Potsdam. 

Their lecture was entitled "Virtual Reality and Humanitarian Campaigning: Childhood, Empathy and Immersion in Clouds Over Sidra" and was part of the series “Children Crossing Borders” co-organized by Bystrom with Dr. Suncica Klass and Dr. Carly McLaughlin from the Institute for English and American Studies, University of Potsdam.

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

On January 8, 2019 faculty Michael Weinman will give a talk entitled “Hannah Arendt and the Authority of Tradition Today” at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, Paderborn University. 

Read more about this talk on the organizer’s website>>
 

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

Professor of Politics Boris Vormann contributed the chapter “City Limits: Sustainable Urban Governance in Planetary Infrastructural Regimes” to the volume The Globalisation of Urban Governance edited by Helmut Philipp Aust (Freie Universität Berlin) and Anél du Plessis (North-West University, South Africa) and published by Routledge (2019).

From the volume’s description:
The Globalisation of Urban Governance makes an important scholarly contribution by linking the narrative on globalisation of good urban governance in various social sciences with legal discourse. It considers global governance and connects the existing debate about cities and their place in global governance with some of the most pertinent questions that lawyers face today.

Read more>>

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

Bard College Berlin is pleased to announce the winner of the DAAD Award. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has enabled Bard College Berlin to select one excellent international student with an impressive record of academic achievement and civic engagement.

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.

Following the review of many qualified applications, the DAAD Award was offered to senior student Margarethe Hattingh (BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought). The committee was impressed not only with Margarethe’s excellent academic and civic engagement record, but also with the recommendations she received from BCB faculty.

Margarethe Hattingh is currently an editor and writer for Bard College Berlin’s student blog “Die Bärliner,” a member of the organizing team of the upcoming Liberal Education Student Conference, as well as a math tutor for her BCB peers. She previously worked as an assistant in BCB’s Civic Engagement Office, as a teacher of English to sixth-graders at a school in Berlin, and interned with the Berlin-based NGO Office for the Implementation of Equal Treatment.

“What this award means is that somewhere out there someone cares about the engagement of students in not just academics, but in the society around them; it means that this sort of engagement is valued, and that non-German students are also seen as valuable to Germany,” stated Marga upon receiving the award, noting that “the deserving [students] are too many to count”. She added that “the award means I can feel optimistic about the value I have contributed in my time here, and that I can continue to do more meaningful and impactful work with the money I have received.”

Florian Becker, BCB’s Managing Director, awarded the DAAD certificate to Margarethe during the traditional end-of-year celebration held on December 17, 2018 and open to the entire campus community.

Photo (left to right): BCB's Director of Public Affairs and Development Bendetta Roux, senior student and DAAD Award recipient Margarethe Hattingh, and Managing Director Florian Becker

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

The article “Long waves of urban reform” co-authored by Professor of Politics Boris Vormann with Hillary Angelo (University of California - Santa Cruz) was recently published in the journal CITY - analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action.

The article puts forth a view of urban reform movements as “‘long waves’: consistently patterned technological and economic cycles that repeat over time.” The two authors examine the case of the United States to show that their proposed view reveals similarities in different historical contexts. “We use this analytic to historicize the contemporary ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’ city, arguing that it is only the latest in a series of beauty and efficiency solutions to urban problems, and its promises should be taken with more than a grain of salt.”

Read more>>

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

On December 14, 2018 Professor of Migration Studies Agata Lisiak participated in a workshop titled "Lifestyles, Dwelling and Postmigratory Societies" organized by the Mobile Worlds research team at Goethe University in Frankfurt.

In her talk “At home in the city? Migrant mothers navigating the urban,” Lisiak discussed the different ways in which the meanings and functions of migrants’ homes help us better understand the intersection of migration, gender, and the urban.

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

On December 14^th and 15^th, Bard College Berlin hosted a colloquium, “Life Writing: New Forms, Uses, Genres.” Scholars from institutions in Germany, Italy, and Russia joined Bard College Berlin faculty for two days of seminar discussion and presentations.
 
“Life Writing” encompasses all written accounts of actual individuals, from biography and autobiography and memoir to letters, diaries, testimony, essays and hybrid genres such as autofiction and biofiction. Presentations approached life writing from many perspectives: the historical development of its forms, the limits of life writing genres, the use of life writing in political contexts, and the relationship between life writing and fiction.
 
BCB faculty participants included Ulrike Wagner, Jeffrey Champlin, Kerry Bystrom, Catherine Toal, Laura Scuriatti, and James Harker. 
 

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

The article "When private vice hurts public virtue: of blind men, elephants and the politics of market failure" by Professor of Politics Boris Vormann was recently published in the journal Economy and Society. 

In the article, Vormann contends that, contrary to mainstream economic thought, the various types of market failure (notably externalities, public goods and information asymmetries) are not separate descriptions of distinct empirical phenomena, but simply offer different perspectives on the same problem. Because these types of market failure do not stand in an orthogonal, equidistant relationship to one another, if, when and how a market failure occurs is by no means objectively clear. Using the cases of higher education and the global financial crisis, Vormann argues that the conditions in which markets fail, like markets themselves, are socially embedded, context-specific, and the result of often unrecognized political decision-making. 

Link to article>> 

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

The paper “When Punishment Strikes Late. The Effect of a Delay in Punishment and Punishment Feedback on Cooperation and Efficiency” by BCB faculty member Israel Waichman and Lukas Stenzel was accepted for publication in the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics.

This experimental study centers on the effect of a delay in peer punishment on public good provision. It finds that, even under a delay in the effect and feedback of punishment, peer punishment is very effective in facilitating cooperation. However, peer punishment is only efficient (in terms of the overall group's welfare) when a salient link between received punishment and past contributions is established.

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

Latest updates:

December 5, 2018: Sara Mardini Released on Bail
Berlin – Sara Mardini, a first-year student at Bard College Berlin, humanitarian worker and Syrian refugee, was released from Korydallos prison in Athens earlier today.  Bail was set at EUR 5,000. Mardini’s request for release from pre-trial detention was granted yesterday, after 106 days in prison. Sara and Sean Binder, a German citizen who was also released, worked as sea rescue volunteers on Lesbos. They were arrested on August 21, 2018 on accusations of human smuggling, membership in a criminal organization, spying, and money laundering. Sara and Sean still face charges and a possible prison sentence.

Kondylia Gougou, Amnesty International’s Greece Researcher commented: “Whilst we welcome the news that these dedicated humanitarians will be back with their families after more than 100 days behind bars, the fact that they still face absurd charges and potentially long prison sentences is an outrage … People who selfless[ly] act in these ways should be lauded, not imprisoned. These baseless charges should be dropped.”

“We are very happy and look forward to welcoming Sara back home in the next few days,” said Florian Becker, Managing Director of Bard College Berlin. “However, our student’s release came only after the presentation of copious evidence which, in our view, disproves the allegations against her in their entirety. Much damage has already been done. We will continue to press for the charges to be dropped.”

Sara and her sister Yusra Mardini, who participated as one of 10 athletes on the “Refugee Olympic Team” in Rio in 2016, became internationally known because they saved the lives of the other 18 forced migrants in their life raft by swimming their water-logged boat to the Greek coast during their own flight across the Mediterranean in 2015.

Sara Mardini became a student at Bard College Berlin in August 2017 when she was awarded a full scholarship under the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC), aimed at students from regions of crisis or conflict. Currently there are 32 PIESC students enrolled at Bard College Berlin from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Greece, Eritrea and Brazil.

Sara Mardini Released on Bail (press release)>>
Sara Mardini gegen Kaution freigelassen (Pressemitteilung)>>

Amnesty International: Smuggling charges against humanitarian workers who saved refugees in Greece must be dropped>>
Human Rights Watch: Saving Lives at Sea Should Not Earn Time in Jail>>​​​​​​​
Sara Mardini's case in the international press and in statements from other organizations>>


November 27, 2018: Sara Mardini receives finalist prize of the 2018 MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award
BCB student Sara Mardini, imprisoned in Greece since August 2018 for refugee aid work, and her sister & Olympic swimmer Yusra Mardini have recently been selected among the finalists of the 2018 MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award.

The Disobedience Award was created in 2017 and recognizes individuals and groups "who engage in ethical, nonviolent acts of disobedience in service of society."

The award committee praised Sara and Yusra's gesture to rescue their fellow refugees when their boat capsized during their journey to Europe in 2015 as well as their subsequent efforts in helping other refugees. The value of the finalist prize is $10,000.

Read more about the award>>


November 5, 2018: Human Rights Watch issues statement about Sara Mardini and fellow volunteers
In a recent coverage of BCB student Sara Mardini and her fellow volunteers' arrest in Greece for refugee aid work, Human Rights Watch considers the accusations brought against them "entirely unfounded."

Greece: Rescuers at Sea Face Baseless Accusations>>


October 20, Berlin: Demo in solidarity with BCB student Sara Mardini and her fellow volunteers currently detained in Greece
Bard College Berlin in cooperation with Nadja López, the initiative #FreeHumanitarians, Seebrücke - Schafft sichere Häfen! and Seebrücke Berlin held on October 20, 2018 a demonstration in solidarity with Sara Mardini and her fellow volunteers Nassos Karakitsos and Seán Binder, currently held in detention in Greece for their refugee rescue work.

The crowd marched from Alexanderplatz to Brandenburger Tor, where participants held up signs against the criminalization of rescue workers and demanded Sara, Nassos, and Seán's release from prison. Stage performances were offered by musicians Gülina, Monolink, among others, as well as Theater X / JugendtheaterBüro Berlin. 

Videos from the demonstration>>
More information (PDF)>>
Link to the Facebook event>>


August 29, 2018: Syrian Refugee Student from Bard College Berlin Arrested in Greece for Rescuing Refugees from Aegean Waters
Berlin - Sara Mardini, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee student and scholarship recipient of Bard College Berlin, was arrested in Greece last Tuesday, August 21, 2018. She was on her way back from Lesbos to Germany to resume her studies after a period of several months’ service as a volunteer rescuing refugees in Greek waters. Sara and Sean Binder, a German citizen and fellow volunteer, who was also arrested, are in detention and have been accused of human trafficking, membership in a criminal organization, spying, and money laundering.

Sara and her sister Yusra Mardini, who participated as one of 10 athletes on the “Refugee Olympic Team” in Rio in 2016, became internationally known because they saved the lives of the other 18 forced migrants in their life raft by swimming their water-logged boat to the Greek coast during their own flight across the Mediterranean in 2015.

“We are in close contact with Sara’s legal counsel and these charges seem more about halting the operations of the NGO in question than about any actions of Sara or her fellow volunteer,” said Dr. Florian Becker, Managing Director of Bard College Berlin. “A long period of imprisonment in Greece awaiting a potential trial would be devastating for Sara and her life plans. We will leave no stone unturned to get Sara released from prison, so that she can spend this time in Berlin and continue her studies, which she has earned with so much difficulty.”

After their arrival in Germany, Sara and Yusra continued to be engaged as volunteers, demonstrating great personal commitment to the interests of refugees. Sara was invited as a speaker by Harvard University and Dartmouth College; her sister spoke before the UN General Assembly and with personalities like Pope Francis and Barack Obama.

Sara Mardini became a student at Bard College Berlin in August 2017 when she was awarded a full scholarship under the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIE-SC). The PIE-SC scholarship program is aimed at promising students from regions of crisis or conflict. Currently there are 30 PIE-SC students enrolled in the two B.A. degrees at Bard College Berlin – 27 Syrians, one Iraqi, one Afghan and one Greek student.

Link to press release>>

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

On November 30, 2018, a group of Syrian students in BCB’s Program of International Education and Social Change and faculty & staff representatives visited the Bundestag where they had a conversation with Franziska Brantner, the foreign policy speaker of the parliamentary group of the Green Party.

The students presented their own activities working with and for civil society in those areas in Syria that were/are not (yet) controlled by Assad. In light of the current cutting of Western funds for civil society structures in these areas, the students highlighted these structures’ desperate struggle for survival. Brantner and the students also discussed the criminal prosecution of Syrian war criminals in Germany and how to communicate in Germany that an opportunistic “peace“ with Assad will eventually rebound upon Western societies.

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

Bard College Berlin joins a network of civil society actors and human rights institutions in an open call for the expansion of legal and safe complementary pathways in response to international protection needs. 

The appeal provides statistical data from the UN Refugee Agency to highlight the vulnerability of displaced populations, the growing need for refugee resettlement programs, as well as the shared responsibility of the international community to support the reception and accommodation of displaced people. The expansion of safe and legal pathways is put forth as a fourth durable solution in addition to the three already developed by the UN Refugee Agency. 

Signers of the appeal thus call on national governments “to take steps to expand access and facilitate procedures to implement complementary pathways” through a variety of approaches, such as improving the legal framework, facilitating access to education, encouraging the development of sponsorships and of public engagement, issuing humanitarian visas, or strengthening the labor mobility scheme.

Read the call to action>>

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

BCB's Professor of Art and Society Dorothea von Hantelmann will participate in the international symposium "Re-Constructing Performance Art. Processes and Practices of Historicisation, Documentation, and Representation (1960s–1970s)" organized by Freie Universität Berlin on November 30 - December 1, 2018. 

From the symposium's description:
The issues of documentation and representation of past performance art have dominated the debate over this art form, both in scholarly and museum-related contexts, for several decades. In recent years, the discussion has undergone a crucial shift, in that no longer is it concerned with whether a performance may or may not be reproduced and documented, but how multiple materialisations and representations in effect re-produce an artist’s work over and over again in the course of its history. The symposium Re-Constructing Performance Art, while upholding this new approach, offers a new and original perspective within it.

In the frame of the symposium, Dorothea von Hantelmann will take part in a roundtable on "Methodologies of Performance Art Research" along other scholars from various research fields. 

Read more about the symposium>> 

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

A chapter co-authored by Professor of Politics Boris Vormann and Christian Lammert (John-F.-Kennedy-Institute, FU Berlin) was recently published in the volume Die USA - eine scheiternde Demokratie? [USA - A Failing Democracy?] edited by Patrick Horst, Frank Decker and Philipp Adorf (2018, Frankfurt/New York: Campus).  

The volume focuses on the changes to the US political establishment brought about by Trump’s election. By looking at the effects of Trump’s methods on the electoral process, governability and social cohesion, the various contributors analyze whether US democratic institutions could still serve their purpose and whether the US might be facing a relapse into authoritarianism.

Vormann and Lammert’s chapter is entitled "The Heavenly Chorus Sings with a Strong Upper-class Accent: Geld und Lobbyismus in der US Politik."

Read more about the volume>>

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

On November 23, 2018, faculty member James Harker gave a lecture at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Smolny College), Saint Petersburg State University in Russia.
 
The lecture, “Unnatural Characters in Contemporary British Fiction,” examined recent approaches to fictionality and character that have borrowed heavily from cognitive science in efforts to explain how authors create characters and how readers understand them as such. The talk focused on how cognitive models for the generation and reception of character account for “unnatural” characters—ones that seem purposely to break with narrative conventions. Looking to examples from Muriel Spark, John Fowles, Ian McEwan, and Kazuo Ishiguro, the talk surveyed a variety of “unnatural” characters in efforts to show both what cognitive approaches to character have to offer and where they find precedents in the theory of the novel.
 
The lecture was part of a multi-format exchange between BCB’s LT102: The Contemporary Novel and Smolny’s course Reading Ian McEwan: An Introduction to Narratology.

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

BCB faculty member Ewa Atanassow was awarded a Fellowship by the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna. She will spend six months in the spring/summer of 2019 at the Institute, working on her research project, a book tentatively titled, Liberal Dilemmas: Tocqueville on the Crisis of Liberal Democracy in the 21st Century.

Engaging with critiques of liberalism from both the left and the right, Liberal Dilemmas argues that global democracy’s liberal prospects depend on how political thinkers and actors tackle three hard-wired modern dilemmas concerning the institutionalization of popular sovereignty, the meaning of nationhood, and the possibility of global governance. As these are significant, if neglected, dimensions of Alexis de Tocqueville’s thought, his writings provide a powerful framework to help understand and address the crisis of liberal democracy in the twenty first century.

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

BCB alumna Maria Khan (2015, Pakistan) worked this year as an affiliate partner for British Council’s UK/Germany 2018 program to stage "Was Jetzt Faust or What now Faust?", two performances of Faust with students from diverse backgrounds (including migratory) in Germany.  

Currently a PhD student at Cambridge University, Maria examined through her project how theater can help teenagers understand their identity. Using the technique of "autobiographical theater," Maria and the high schools students reinterpreted Goethe's Faust and Marlow's Faust in the context of their own lives.  

Watch a short video about the project here>>

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

On November 16, 2018, faculty member Martin Binder gave the keynote lecture at the Workshop on Behavioural Science, Subjective Well-being, and the Environment held at University College Dublin’s Geary Institute for Public Policy (Ireland) and sponsored by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. 

The workshop’s aim was to discuss potential research collaborations as well as applications of behavioral science research on climate change actions in particular. 

Binder’s keynote was entitled “Peer influences on green behavior and green self-image and their impact on subjective well-being.” 

Read more about the workshop>> 

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

On November 10, 2018 the daily newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung published an interview with BCB faculty member Andreas Martin Widmann "Was haben Sie von Grass gelernt?" ["What have you learned from Grass?"].

Among other topics, Widmann discusses the beginnings of his literary career, the success of his most recent novel Messiah, and his teaching at Bard College Berlin. 

Read the full interview (in German) here: https://www.allgemeine-zeitung.de/panorama/leben-und-wissen/was-haben-sie-von-grass-gelernt-schriftsteller-andreas-martin-widmann-im-interview_19174661

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