Event Archive

Publix (Hermanstrasse 90, 12051 Berlin)  7:00 pm CET/GMT+1
U.S. President Donald Trump's stated plans to annex Greenland have upended security, trade, and diplomatic policy across Europe, not to mention shattered expectations of the possible. The United States, the continent's historic partner and guarantor of security, now looks less an ally than outright antagonist. Is the transatlantic relationship, as it has existed for eighty years, functionally dead? Does Europe have its own strategy in response? German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that Europe's long-standing Pax Americana "no longer exists in the way we once knew it." This current U.S. administration certainly has a declared interest, and a track record of action, that suggests a fundamental break with decades of history and precedent, including a newfound hostility toward modern Europe and its values.

Last year, the Trump administration published a new national security strategy that laid bare truths which had been developing in the background for some time: namely, under Trump, the United States views European institutions and even some European governments as problems to be circumvented or even overcome. It now appears that Washington considers Europe's set of rules and laws a burden; its embrace of immigration and multiculturalism, a civilizational mistake. The U.S., then, must find common cause with parties and individual figures who seek, as the strategy document purports, to restore European "sovereignty" and a "traditional European way of life." That is code for Europe's ascendant far-right and Eurosceptic populist movements.

This high-level panel discussion, featuring David Sanger of The New York Times and Anna Sauerbrey of Die Zeit, moderated by Joshua Yaffa, "Writer in residence" at Bard College Berlin, will attempt to describe and diagnose this current moment, and understand the implications for Germany and its European neighbors. Is the current course reversible? And if not, what does this new era in U.S.-European relations mean for the future of politics and society on both sides of the Atlantic?

Please register here.

This event is in cooperation with Bard College Berlin’s and the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s spring event series, “Writing Democracy: Stories, Ideas, and Arguments On and Off the Page.”

David Sanger, White House and National Security Correspondent, The New York Times. He is also the author of four books on U.S. national security, most recently New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion and America’s Struggle to Save the West, a New York Times bestseller.

Anna Sauerbrey, Foreign Policy Coordinator, Die Zeit. She is the author of Power Shift: How a New Generation of Politicians Is Changing the Country. She also has extensive experience reporting from the U.S., including stints as a guest journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and a fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

Moderation: Joshua Yaffa, Writer in Residence at Bard College Berlin. He is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia, which won the Orwell Prize. 

  Online Event 


Bard College Berlin accepts applications for transfer to the BA degree programs in Fall 2026. The deadline for applying is February 15, 2026, at 23:59 in your time zone.

Eligible applicants for transfer are students who have completed at least one semester of university by the time of their expected enrollment at BCB. For more information on eligibility and application requirements, please refer to our application requirements for transfer.

Should you have any questions about your application for admission and/or financial aid at BCB, please do not hesitate to reach out to the BCB Admissions Team at [email protected]. We look forward to receiving your application!

Learning Commons, W16  6:00 pm – 7:30 pm CET/GMT+1
A student-led weekly space to meet other neurodivergent* and questioning students, share tips, strategies, vent and / or simply be without the pressure to mask.

What can you expect? You can use the space to chill, drink tea and do some crafts There will be craft items to make your own stim toys There will be some topic prompts and the chance to engage in semi-structured (silent) conversation You can bring themes important to you to share You can drop-in, stay the whole time, leave early and come and go as you please*Neurodivergent is a non-medical umbrella term used to describe people whose brains work differently from the so called 'norm.' This can include autism, ADH(D), dyslexia, dyspraxia, Tourettes, epilepsy, and acquired neurodivergence through TBI and health conditions.

No official diagnosis or disclosure is required. Stimming welcome!

For more information or questions please contact [email protected] or [email protected].
 

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Unter den Linden 6 Main Building (Hauptgebäude), 2nd floor, Room 3059 (2. OG, Raum 3059)  5:00 pm – 6:30 pm CET/GMT+1
The launch and discussion of the photobook by Denis Skopin, The Year Twenty Twenty-Two: Photographs from St. Petersburg, Russia (Fresh Verlag, 2025). The book features 56 photographs taken in Russia following the onset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Discussants:
Friedrich Tietjen (Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt)
Anton Polsky (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Denis Skopin (Bard College Berlin / Smolny Beyond Borders)

Chair: Mateusz Kapustka (Freie Universität Berlin)

The event will be followed by wine reception.

Julie J. Kidd Hall Cafe  7:30 pm – 9:00 pm CET/GMT+1
This lecture by Dr. Usahma Felix Darrah will explore the Arab Translation Movement, focusing on its context, its translators and the most significant works they transmitted. We will trace the organizational structure of Islamic learning institutions and how they influenced the emergence of Western universities.

Dr. Usahma Felix Darrah studied political economy, public law, and Islamic studies in Damascus, Heidelberg, and Toronto. He completed his PhD, “History of Syria in the 20th Century,” at Heidelberg University. He worked as a lecturer for politics at German and Syrian universities. Usahma was the speech writer for the Mayor of Heidelberg for several years before relocating to Berlin as a consultant in 2014. Currently, he is the Managing Director of Friends of the Syrian People e.V., a Berlin-based NGO with a rights- and education-based approach to the cause of Syrian rights and freedoms.

Julie J. Kidd Hall Cafe  12:30 pm – 1:30 pm CET/GMT+1
The Involvement Fair is your chance to meet the student clubs and organizations and find out how to get involved this semester. Several campus resources will also have tables where you can learn more about the services they offer.

If you are a club, you can register your club and sign up for the Involvement Fair using this form. Registering as a club allows you to book on-campus spaces, apply for funding, and receive training and support from the Student Life Office. This form closes on Friday, January 30 at 10am. 

JJK Hall  10:00 am – 6:30 pm CET/GMT+1
Close reading is having a global renaissance, both as a literary approach and a teaching practice. It is also a core aspect of the Bard College Berlin curriculum. And yet, what is close reading: a method, an academic exercise, or an ethical stance and epistemic orientation? What are its historical roots and contemporary uses, and what debates and contestations have shaped close reading as a form of inquiry and pedagogy? What kinds or varieties of close reading have established themselves in different academic disciplines? And how can we evaluate the benefits and also drawbacks of close reading compared to other scholarly and pedagogical techniques and emerging technologies? 

This one-day workshop explores the long history and diverse theories of close reading, and probes the plurality of close reading approaches practiced by BCB faculty and students. We would also discuss the possibility of convening an interdisciplinary conference that would consider, through the question of close reading, the role of humanistic inquiry today vis-à-vis the rise of new technologies, the broader devaluation of expertise, and the erosion of democratic values.

Please register to attend the workshop by January 29 so that we can prepare seats and catering accordingly. If you decide last-minute to attend, you're still welcome.

Program

10:00-10:15 Institutional Welcome: Florian Becker 

10:15-12:00 Panel I: Close Reading as Analytical Method(s) – moderator Giulia Clabassi
Luis Miguel Isava: “Varieties and Specificities of Close Reading”
Matthias Hurst: “Close Reading and Film”
Geoff Lehman: “Interpretation and the Pictorial Encounter”
Berit Ebert: “Close Reading and Law”

Lunch Break 
 
13:30-15:00 Panel II: Close Reading as Pedagogical Practice – moderator Christian Wollin
Ewa Atanassow: “Close Reading Plato’s Republic, or How to Learn from Students”
Martin Widmann: “Close Reading as a Tool in Teaching Literature in a Foreign Language”
Donovan Stewart:  “The Time of Close Reading”

Coffee Break
 
15:30-17:00 Panel III: Close Reading and the Liberal Arts – moderator Courtney Hodrick
Jeffrey Champlin: "Three Teachers who Made Me Close Read" 
Michael Weinman: “We are All Close Readers: Esotericism; Hermeneutics; Historicism; New Criticism”
James Harker: “Close Reading from and beyond Literature”

17:15-18:30 Panel IV: Close Readings and the Humanities –  moderator David Hayes
Glenn Most, MPWIG/ University of Chicago
Beer Albers, Cluster of Excellence Cross-Cultural Philology, Ludwig Maximilian University

Hosted by the BCB Learning Commons and European Democracy Institute.
Poster design by Nora Krasniqi.
 

Lecture Hall (P98a)  7:00 pm – 9:00 pm CET/GMT+1
Over the past two years, German universities have become sites of resistance for students in solidarity with Palestine. Campuses have bee marked by police violence, court proceedings, intimidation, and growing forms of (self-)censorship. Set at the Free University of Berlin, this documentary traces how academic spaces have been reshaped by state repression. The film centers on the brutal eviction of the Palestine solidarity encampment in May 2024 and the cascade of events that followed: a media smear campaign, institutional threats, legal repercussions, and mounting interference with academic freedom.These developments are situated within a wider political framework—Germany’s “reason of state”—and examined in relation to the country’s role in the ongoing occupation and genocide in Palestine. Interweaving testimonies from students, activists, professors, legal experts, and journalists with on-the-ground footage and archival recordings of protests, the film maps how universities, police, media, politicians, and the judiciary collectively shape the boundaries of permissible speech and dissent.

  Invitation Only  Fritz Stern Award for Democratic Engagement honoring Małgorzata Maria Gersdorf, Former First President of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland laudation by Andreas Voßkuhle, Former President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. 

With her unwavering dedication to justice and democracy in Poland, Małgorzata Maria Gersdorf has inspired people worldwide. From her early activism in Solidarność to her historic role as First President of the Supreme Court, she has been a staunch defender of judicial independence and the rule of law. In 2017, she stood firm against efforts to undermine the judiciary, showing exceptional courage and dignity. Her return to the court, white rose in hand, became a symbol of constitutional integrity and Poland’s commitment to the European Union. Her resilience galvanized the Polish judiciary and civil society. It reminded all Europeans of the shared values of democracy, justice, and the rule of law.

The Fritz Stern Award for Democratic Engagement, which will be awarded jointly by Bard College Berlin and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and Humanities, honors individuals who have made significant contributions to global democratic culture and practice across the academic, cultural, and political spheres. The inaugural award ceremony will also celebrate the launch of the new European Democracy Institute at Bard College Berlin.

We are grateful for the generous support of the C.H.Beck Kulturstiftung, Allison Blakely, Ruprecht Brandis, Roland Brinkmann, and Olivier Weddrien. This initiative would not have been possible without their dedication to democracy and education. 

Registration closed. The event is at capacity.
For questions kindly contact Dr. Berit Ebert: [email protected]

JJK Hall Cafe (W15)  6:30 pm – 8:00 pm CET/GMT+1
The Welcome Reception is an opportunity for the BCB community to come together after the first day of classes, welcome our new community members, and reconnect with one another. Join faculty, staff, and students to celebrate the start of the semester.

Online  6:30 pm – 8:00 pm CET/GMT+1
We warmly invite you to a public meeting of the newly established working group, Post-Soviet Legacies in the Global Context. Convened as part of FG DeKolonial, an association for antiracist, postcolonial, and decolonial thought and practice, the group seeks to explore the wide-ranging and often understudied global impacts of Soviet legacies extending well beyond the geographical boundaries of the former USSR to regions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. We are interested in the translation and applicability of postcolonial and decolonial perspectives to post-Soviet contexts and examining the conceptual and empirical challenges this entails.

Please register by January 24, 2026 via email ([email protected]) to receive access information.

Post-Soviet Legacies in the Global Context was convened in late 2025 by BCB migration studies professor Agata Lisiak and students Ina Constantin and Mariia Krychevska, alongside Dr. Céline Barry (TU Berlin) and Dr. Dina Bolokan (University of Bath). Their first event took place in cooperation with the Invisible University of Ukraine and featured lectures by Prof. Łukasz Stanek (University of Michigan) and Dr. Tatsiana Shchurko (University of South Florida). If you’re interested in learning more about the group or getting involved, please contact the convenors.

Manuela Boatcă is Professor of Sociology and Head of School of the Global Studies Programme at the University of Freiburg, Germany. She has a degree in English and German languages and literatures and a PhD in sociology. She was Visiting Professor at IUPERJ, Rio de Janeiro in 2007/08 and Professor of Sociology of Global Inequalities at the Latin American Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin from 2012 to 2015. She has published widely on world-systems analysis, decolonial perspectives on global inequalities, gender and citizenship in modernity/coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In 2018 she was awarded an ACLS collaborative fellowship alongside literary scholar Anca Parvulescu (Washington University in St. Louis, USA), for a comparative project on inter-imperiality in Transylvania. The resulting co-authored book, titled “Creolizing the Modern. Transylvania Across Empires” was published in 2022.

  Online Event 


Bard College Berlin accepts applications for entry to our BA degree programs and one-year programs in Fall 2026. The Regular Decision application deadline is January 15, 2026, at 23:59 in your time zone. Students who apply by the Regular Decision deadline can expect to receive their admission and financial aid/scholarship decisions in late March. Applicants from countries outside the EU/EEA and with a visa entry requirement for Germany are strongly encouraged to submit their application no later than the Regular Decision application deadline.

For more information on eligibility and application requirements, please refer here: How to Apply.

Should you have any questions about your application for admission and/or financial aid at BCB, please do not hesitate to reach out to the BCB Admissions Team at [email protected]. We look forward to receiving your application!