Event Archive

W15 Cafe at Bard College Berlin (Waldstrasse 15, 13156)  7:00 pm – 9:00 pm CET/GMT+1
What can and should intellectuals do in times of fundamental transformation, when “monsters” rule and fall, when genocide is rampant but dictatorships surprisingly collapse? We will discuss this question with speaker Yassin al-Haj Saleh.

He will have returned from Syria where he currently spends time to celebrate the liberation from the Assad regime with the Syrian people, to visit the former sites of his political struggle after an 11-year absence, and to support the transformation with all its risks and uncertainties. Recent events in Syria will certainly figure prominently in the conversation; it will also address the issue of Israel's role in the region, and the part the EU can still play in Syria's democratic development.

The conversation will be conducted by BCB’s alum and staff member Hesham Moadami and BCB senior student Ahmad Mustafa. The event will be followed by a reception.

Please register here.

Yassin al-Haj Saleh (born 1961) is the most acclaimed Syrian political writer and dissident of our time. In his youth, he spent 16 years, from 1980 to 1996, in the prisons of the Syrian dictatorship under Hafez al Assad. After Bashar al Assad took over, he became a journalist and author. From 2011 he accompanied, analyzed and explained the sources of the “Arab Spring” in Arabic as well as Western media, and became a central figure in the democratic, human rights-oriented resistance in Syria. Yassin al-Haj Saleh fled to Turkey in 2013 and came to Germany in 2017. Since then, he has written several books: about Syria and the failure of the revolution, about jail and torture, violence and genocide, absence and disappearance, and politics of culture. He now also writes about the Israeli question and the dynamics of Palestinian and Arab (mis)representation in Germany. 

Hesham Moadami, who graduated from BCB in 2021, is currently the Civic Engagement and OSUN Coordination Officer at BCB. He worked as an open-source investigator for the NGO Mnemonic and on the “WhoWasInCommand” Project with Columbia Law School's Security Force Monitor. As a law student in Damascus he participated in the Revolution as a citizen journalist. After fleeing to Jordan he worked for the Shaam Relief Foundation supporting other refugees.

Ahmad Mustafa is a senior student in the HAST program at Bard College Berlin. He is writing his thesis on the Syrian diaspora activities in Germany vis-à-vis the German passport procurement requirement and the Syrian embassy, and he has been documenting the changes since December 8. Inside Syria, he was active in the revolutionary movement, coordinating protests at Aleppo University and working as a citizen journalist with the Assembly of Free Raqqa’s Youth. After ISIS took control of Raqqa, he fled to Turkey, where he began working on refugee support projects before eventually moving to Germany.

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm CET/GMT+1
BCB will award two scholarships for BCB students to participate in the Summer Theater Intensive Program which will take place from May 30 - June 30, 2025 in Berlin. The deadline to apply is March 15.

Theater professors Nina Tecklenburg and Jonathan Rosenberg (Bard College Annandale) will hold a zoom info session about the program and application process on Wednesday, 19th of February 2025 between 12:30-13:30. Zoom link. For students who are seeking to apply, please sign up for the info session by sending an email to [email protected].

Students who are interested in the scholarship should fill out the general program application until the 15th of March 2025. The two BCB scholarships will be granted according to financial need.

This extraordinary program aims to foster creative engagement between students and a wide variety of multidisciplinary artists working in theater and performance in Berlin (amongst others Rimini Protokoll, Gob Squad, She She Pop). The rigorous four-week program explores techniques in the devising and creating of original theater works, and immerses students in the city’s theater and performance culture through regular outings to performances, museums, galleries, and other cultural venues; visits to artistic and historical landmarks; and meetings with artists. The work in the studio is organized around distinct themes such as space, text, composition, body/movement, sound and image. It includes guided rehearsals, regular showings, feedback and a final presentation. The program is run by theater directors Jonathan Rosenberg (Bard College Annandale) and Dawn Akemi Saito (Fordham University + The Juilliard School).

KM28, Karl-Marx-Straße 28, 12043 Berlin  8:30 pm CET/GMT+1
Strategies of irreverence – like the intentional disrespect of imposed authority, the flippant disregard for demands of obedience, the playful breaching of restrictive morality and the conscious embrace of the profane – have a long and rich history within queer art and activism. Not only do these strategies expose power structures and their repressive mechanisms of control that serve to maintain various social-political inequalities, but they are also forms of self-reflexivity – working against the ossification of language by subjecting it to ongoing critique and reinvention.

The films in this program exemplify queer irreverence through performative practices that boldly and inventively intervene in (hetero)normalizing, anthropocentric and authoritarian discourses, fearlessly and flamboyantly reclaiming public space as both a stage and a site of protest. Doors open 8:00 PM, screening 8:30 PM.

Ania Nowak’s To the Aching Parts! (Manifesto) (2020, 15min) is a public speech which dissects the language used by and against queer communities today. Devoid of grammar, the text is subjected to the order and pleasure of rhythm. Commissioned by HAU Hebbel am Ufer in the frame of “Manifestos for Queer Futures”, the performance relies on historic references to militancy by minorities to address the dangers of normativity and the need for embodied intersectionality when forming queer alliances today. By taking liberty to play around with the language of resentment and trauma as well as empathy and healing, it proposes to destabilise identities, practices and well known acronyms like LGB or FtM for the sake of a queer future we have yet to envisage.

Kerstin Honeit’s Panda Moonwalk or Why Meng Meng Walks Backwards (2018, 8min) performs an act of queer interspecies solidarity by calling out the mainstream media’s complicity in projecting sexist and racist stereotypes onto imprisoned pandas. Since 2017 the two Giant Panda Bears Meng Meng and Jiao Qing have been hired out by China to the Berlin Zoo for millions of Euros. Unfortunately for the Zoo this profit seeking attraction did not work out as planned – in fact it worked backwards. Meng Meng, the female Panda will only walk backwards – probably protesting against her imprisonment. Surprisingly the international press takes a different, sexist route and suggests that Meng Meng’s behaviour relates to the fact that she has not yet bred and is seeking attention. Kerstin Honeit’s video aligns Meng Meng’s protest with other performances of protesting bodies using movement in public space to address grievances.

“The film is charming, but it is still labour. The labour to engage in demanding what should already be ours.” With a wink to Jack Smith, the New York underground performer and filmmaker, as well as to the history of queer and feminist calls such as “Wages for Housework!”, Charming for the Revolution (2009, 11min) by Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz recreates the “housewife” as an ambiguous figure with an open future. Additional references extend from Deleuze-Guattari’s becoming-animal, to the 19th century dandy, who out of protest against the clock pulse of industrialisation walked turtles on leashes (as Walther Benjamin described him), or to Pasolini’s ironic capitalism-critical film “The Hawks and the Sparrows”.

No Democracy Here (2018, 25min) by Liad Hussein Kantorowicz is an experimental documentary about political domination. Liad is a leftie human rights defender-dominatrix who re-educates her right-wing slaves about the ethos of leftist values like economic justice and direct democracy using BDSM practices. On election day Liad decides to give her slaves the ultimate political domination session – outdoors and in public, where she teaches them about the pillars of democracy. At the end she forces them to engage in the ultimate political BDSM practice – voting, but only for the ‘correct’ political party, the one reflecting her political beliefs. This film uses BDSM as an allegorical critique of electoral democracy. It explores the meaning of ‘consent’ and ‘free will’, which are frequently used in a BDSM-context, and applies them to the context of electoral democracy and public political processes. The film was shot in 2013 on the streets and in voting polls on election day in Israel.

Queer Irreverence (as an antidote to authoritarianism) is programmed by Angela Anderson as part of the event series Thinking Toward Feminist Futures curated by Agata Lisiak, supported by Janina Schabig, and funded by the Experimental Humanities Collaborated Network.

Ania Nowak approaches vulnerability and desire as ways towards reimagining what bodies and language can and cannot do. Nowak develops formats such as live and video performance, installation and text. In her practice, Ania engages with bodies in their nonlinear feeling and thinking capacity to tackle the difficulties of companionship and care in times of perpetual crisis. Her work attempts to reimagine the notions of disorder, pleasure, disease, intimacy, pain, sexuality, class and accessibility as sites of binary free living. Nowak collaborates with alternative educational programs in Eastern Europe, such as Kem School in Warsaw and the School of Kindness in Sofia. Ania’s works have been presented at Berlinische Galerie, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Akademie der Künste,Sophiensaele, KW, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Nowy Teatr, Warsaw; 14th Baltic Triennial at CAC Vilnius and 12th Gothenburg Biennial, a.o. Nowak recently held solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and Galerie Wedding – Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin.

Kerstin Honeit works as an artist with experimental documentary moving image formats. Honeit's research-based work deals with the translatability of socio-political issues into resistant aesthetics and counter-narratives. Her focus is on the politics of the (film) voice and in particular on how the voice as a queering event, between the moving images, can shake up prevailing gaze regimes. Honeit's work has been presented internationally in exhibitions and at film festivals, including KINDL, Berlin / Whitechapel Gallery, London / Hammer Museum, LA / CAC, Quito / Fajr International Film Festival, Tehran / n.b.k., Berlin / Off Biennale Cairo / International Short Film Festival São Paulo / MMOMA, Moscow / HKW, Berlin / International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen / Berlinische Galerie, Berlin / Gallery 400, Chicago / BFI London / MCAD, Manila.

Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz have been working together in Berlin since 2007. They produce installations that choreograph the tension between visibility and opacity. Their films capture performances in front of the camera, often starting with a song, a picture, a film or a score from the near past. They upset normative historical narratives and conventions of spectatorship, as figures and actions across time are staged, layered and re-imagined. Their performers are choreographers, artists and musicians, with whom they are having a long-term conversation about the conditions of performance, the violent history of visibility, the pathologization of bodies, but also about companionship, glamour and resistance. Their work has been recently shown at 35th São Paulo Art Biennal, Crystal Palace/Reina Sofia Museum Madrid, Centre Pompidou Paris, Hammer Museum Los Angeles, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Whitechapel Gallery London, New Museum New York, Coreana Museum of Art Seoul, National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne, Kunstmuseum Basel, Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin or the 58th Biennale di Venezia (Swiss Pavillon).

Liad Hussein Kantorowicz is a musician, artist, perpetual migrant, queer trash diva, and a master of the margins. Liad lives in Liadland, physically in Berlin, but emotionally located between continents, places she’s lived, and where her heart lies. Liad’s history of political work in Palestine and Europe inspired and informed her artistic work. Her performative methods create space where those considered sexual or political deviants can feel seen. In April 2024 she released under her musical project LIADLAND the album NOTHING TO DECLARE, a reference to her lifetime of being a political activist with a big mouth, and it’s a signifier of crossing borders between nations, between identities, between worlds, and trying to contain all of these realities and transitions within oneself. Focusing on Palestine freedom, sex workers’ rights and queer liberation, she showcased in Europe’s biggest performance festivals: Impustanz/Vienna, City ofWomen/Ljubljana, Sommerfestival/Hamburg, and Berlin’s 10th Biennale. NO DEMOCRACY HERE is the first of her two films.

K24 SR12  7:30 pm – 8:30 pm CET/GMT+1
EJAAD Berlin and the Bard Feminist Collective presents our first collaborative event of the year: a film screening on menstrual stigma in India. With the screening of Period. End of Sentence, we hope to begin a discussion on menstrual stigma around the world, but particularly in the global south and what we can do the change the discourse that is still present today. Menstruation is nothing to be ashamed of and we hope that this event will be the starting point for a deeper conversation on this topic.

W15 Cafe (Waldstraße 15, 13156 Berlin, Germany)  1:30 pm – 4:30 pm CET/GMT+1
“Weaving threads from the Margins: Crafting futures through artistic creative writing” is an invitation to explore realities, subjectivity, and commitments that matter by reconnecting with the bodies as a source of creative energy, freeing up new pathways for the assertion to take back the power of our own narratives. This workshop will engage participants in in exploring creative writing as a tool for imagining feminist futures drawing from discussions, critical analysis, and hands-on activities that encourage them to consider how different systems of power shape our imaginations of the future by addressing the interconnectedness that can foster sustainable futures.

Please register here.

This event is presented by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network as part of the Thinking Towards Feminist Futures event series.

Lecture Hall, Platanenstrasse 98a  6:00 pm – 8:00 pm CET/GMT+1
The panel discussion is a public event within the workshop organized by the Invisible University for Ukraine, which will be hosted by BCB on February 15-16. The panel members, Kerry Bystrom (BCB), Valeriia Karpan (University of Coimbra), Aysuda Kölemen (BCB), Joachim von Puttkammer (University of Jena), Volodymyr Ryzhkovskyi (WIKO Berlin), and Balázs Trencsényi (CEU) will examine the current conceptual dynamics in East European studies with a focus on Ukraine, while also drawing insights from other contexts.  Could Eastern Europe be regarded as postcolonial? Is the concept of "Eastern Europe" still relevant today? What does the postcolonial perspective reveal about the region? Could the decolonial paradigm help to move beyond the constraints of traditional area studies and promote a transregional approach that transcends the dividing lines of existing mental geographies? The discussion will be moderated by Mariia Krychevska (BCB). The event is co-organized by Mriї Collective

  Online Event 


Bard College Berlin accepts applications for transfer to the BA degree programs in Fall 2025. The deadline for applying is February 15, 2025, 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!

The Factory  7:00 pm – 10:00 pm CET/GMT+1
As part of our Girl on Bike project, the Bard Feminist Collective will organize a fundraiser party this Valentine's Day. We will collect money by selling drinks at the party.

W15  7:00 pm – 8:30 pm CET/GMT+1
FOCUS is back in the new semester! This time in focus are the recent elections in Eastern Europe and their aftermath. Feel like you're missing some information? Your fellow students are here to fill you in on anything you might have missed and give insight into the internal and regional dynamics in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise of the far-right. Ina, Tazo, Vasko, Stani, and Hana will speak about their first-hand experiences of elections from Romania, Georgia, Macedonia, and Slovakia. The short presentations will be followed by an open discussion with questions and comments.

SR 8, Platanenstrasse 24, 13156 Berlin  6:30 pm – 8:00 pm CET/GMT+1
Open Classroom allows people to experience university-level courses taught at Bard College Berlin in an informal setting that is open to everyone. It also aims to engage students to share the knowledge gained in the courses they attend as a part of their curriculum. Takes place every Thursday.

Register online here. Walk-ins are also welcome.

W15 Cafe  12:30 pm – 2:00 pm CET/GMT+1
Drawing on her current research on the feminist decolonization of borders, Céline Barry will explore the revolutionary practices of the 2012 O-Platz Refugee Strike. To trace anti-capitalist transformational processes, Barry first seeks to understand in what sense the movement represents a specter of Marx (Marx and Engels, 1847) or, in Rosa Luxemburg’s (1906) terms, a wave in the globalized ocean of proletarian struggles: the mass strike.

Barry will engage in a spectral dialogue with Iranian refugee Mohammad Rahsepar, whose suicide in a refugee camp sparked the O-Platz movement. What can we learn from him? As we will see, the reasons Mohammad and his community gave for his death point to the necropolitical dimension of border regimes, which—alongside the direct killings occurring at the external(ized) borders of the EU and the exploitation and precarization they produce—also engender slow death through camp detention. Accordingly, the emancipatory goal of liberation from the camp occupies a central place in the movement Mohammad spearheaded. In this process, new notions of freedom are being generated. In the final part of her talk, Barry will turn to the hopeful futures that activists tested through their political practice. The movement teaches us how care and critical intersectional politics can become foundational for a rehumanizing, convivial (Gilroy, 2009) future.

Presented by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network, as part of the Thinking Toward Feminist Futures event series.

Dr. Céline Barry is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Women’s and Gender Studies (ZIFG) at Technische Universität Berlin, where she teaches courses on feminism, race, and intersectionality in postcolonial contexts. Her work is rooted in a commitment to critical social research practices, grounded in everyday life and incorporating creative forms of expression. In her research, Barry focuses on African and Black feminist movements and theories, which she views as essential to decolonization processes. She is also deeply committed to the decolonization of education, collaborating with colleagues to reimagine curricula, transform institutional processes, and foster equitable transnational academic relations. Dr. Barry serves as a board member of both the FG DeKolonial e.V. association for postcolonial, decolonial, and race-critical theory and practice, and the migrant umbrella organization Migrationsrat Berlin e.V.

P98a Lecture Hall  7:00 pm – 9:30 pm CET/GMT+1
Who are Intersex People? What challenges do we face? What is IGM or Intersex Genital Mutilation? How are Intersex and Queer-Feminist Liberation Linked? What can Intersex Resistance and Joy look like in the face of oppressive regimes?

Join us for a screening of the documentary film Every Body, which follows the Intersex activists River Gallo (they/them), Alicia Roth Weigel (she/they), and Sean Saifa Wall (he/him) as they unpack these questions and more.

This evening intends to create a much needed space to acknowledge and celebrate the intersex community, a largely under- and mis-represented “I” in the LGBTQIA+ community. Following the film there will be the opportunity to share reflections and take part in a student-led discussion.

The film focuses on empowerment and resistance and centers intersex voices and experiences. However, due to the lived realities of many intersex people and the film’s commitment to educate others, the following content notes are advised: Medical Abuse and Trauma, Queer-, Trans- and Inter-phobia, Mental Health challenges and references to suicide. 

This event is presented by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network as part of the Thinking Towards Feminist Futures event series, and it is co-hosted by BCB’s Equal Opportunity, Participation and Nondiscrimination Office.

W15 Cafe  7:00 pm – 8:30 pm CET/GMT+1
Want to learn more about your working rights in Germany as a migrant? Interested in finding out more about what it means to fight for better working conditions and more control over your work? Want to learn more about what it means to build power over the decisions that affect your capacity to care for yourself, your loved ones, and your community?
 Join a Q&A session with Daniel Gutiérrez, union secretary at ver.di, also known as @danielyourunionguy on TikTok. Open to students and highly encouraged for all student-workers.

  5:30 pm – 7:00 pm CET/GMT+1
Now in its second year, this two-part workshop offers the opportunity to work with renowned journalist Joshua Yaffa on crafting non-fiction prose. Like academic writing, essay-writing for journals and magazines requires precision, evidence, and a sharp argument, but in other ways, the approach to writing is distinct. Participants will have the chance to write, workshop, and revise pieces intended for a broad readership. Both students and faculty are welcome.

Please sign up here.

Session 1 is on Monday, February 10, from 5:30-7:00pm in the Learning Commons.
Session 2 is on Monday, February 17, from 5:30-7:00pm in the Learning Commons.

Kuckhoffstraße 24, Seminar Room 11  3:00 pm – 6:00 pm CET/GMT+1
This two-part workshop takes place on Saturday, 8 February and Saturday, 22 February from 3-6 pm 

If you are interested in documenting stories of ordinary people, if you are interested in writing histories that reflect the voices of those in the margins, if you are interested in writing a reflective feminist history, then you need to learn about oral history theory and methodology.

In this two-part workshop, we will explore both the theory and practice of oral history, with a focus on feminist influences in its development. The first part will center on the theory and methodology of feminist oral history, after which participants will be invited to conduct their own oral history interviews. In the second part of the workshop, we will review participants’ work and explore existing online oral history archives from the North Africa and West Asia region. Toward the end of the workshop, we will reflect on what makes oral history feminist and how it can inform our research, studies, and understanding of how history can be written.

The number of participants is limited, so please apply for the workshop at your earliest convenience (by midnight on 31 January at the latest) using this form. You will be notified if you have been accepted and will receive further instructions for preparation by 3 February. If you have any questions about the event, please email BCB faculty Agata Lisiak at [email protected].

This event is presented by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network as part of the Thinking Towards Feminist Futures event series. 

Photo credit: private archive

W15 Cafe (Waldstraße 15, 13156 Berlin, Germany)  12:30 pm – 1:30 pm CET/GMT+1
If you have walked the streets of Berlin and Germany recently, you likely noticed the election posters of various political parties campaigning for the 2025 German federal election on 23 February 2025. Originally scheduled for 28 September 2025, the elections were brought forward due to the collapse of the governing coalition in 2024. Ahead of the election, thousands of people took to the streets in several cities across Germany to protest the rise of far-right extremism and the growing popularity of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

You are invited to join the 2025 German Federal Election info session to learn what is at stake, the political and societal context, and what may be the implications of election results. Reinhard Fischer from Berliner Landeszentrale für politische Bildung (Berlin Centre for Civic Education) will visit campus to offer an overview of the electoral system, the democratic setup of the German state, and political decision-making processes, as well as the relationship between the state and the civil society level.

Register via email to: [email protected]

Reinhard Fischer works for the Berliner Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung (Berlin State Agency for Civic Education). It is a state non-partisan educational institution that offers educational events and seminars on promoting democracy, political participation, and education to all Berliners and encourages active contributions to democratic decision-making processes according to people's own interests and abilities.

W15 Cafe  7:00 pm – 9:30 pm CET/GMT+1
From the eighteenth century onwards, western science began to tap a large, yet non-renewable, capital store of energy. This transition from agricultural production dependent upon the flow of annual cycles (the sun) to industrial production based on the usage and subsequent depletion of energy stocks (fossil fuels) peaked around 1860. The use and abuse of energy continue to directly impact the state of our planet and its life, so, naturally, energy transition and related future technologies are omnipresent topics. What is crucial to these discussions—yet has received far less attention so far—is the question of what kinds of futures energy production should make possible. What often stands in the way of energy imaginaries is the chronopolitics of energy. We “manage,” “kill,” “save,” and “steal” time, which, in most western cultures, is seen as linear. Our massive modern energy systems, with their attendant geopolitics, obscure the cyclical nature of time, which moves in seasons, on currents, and over much longer scales than human life. This panel discussion will frame time differently, exploring the flows of labor, capital, and resources that are constantly in flux around the globe, and examining what has driven these flows in the past and present in order to imagine better futures.

Register here

This event is presented by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network as part of the Thinking Towards Feminist Futures event series. 

Jen Richter is an Associate Professor at Arizona State University, in Tempe, AZ, USA. She is jointly appointed between the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Social Transformation. Her research lies at the intersection of energy systems, policy, and justice, with specific focus on the nuclear fuel cycle, and informing equitable nuclear waste management for communities. She also works on projects related to direct air capture for carbon emissions in former coal communities, as well as solar energy for Maricopa County, the largest (and hottest!) county in Arizona. Richter has published in Energy Research & Social Science, as well as a co-authored book entitled Environmental Realism: Challenging Solutions, and also co-directs the student activist organization Local to Global Justice.

Ana Teixeira Pinto is a writer and cultural theorist based in Berlin. She is a professor at HBK Braunschweig and a theory tutor at the Dutch Art Institute. She is the editor of the book series On the Antipolitical and co-editor of Fascism, Unreason and the Paradox of Modernity, both published by Sternberg Press.

Sladja Blažan received her PhD in North American Literature and Culture from Humboldt University Berlin and her Habilitation in American Studies from University Würzburg. She has taught as a professor for Literature and Media Cultures at Philipps-Universität Marburg, Bard College Berlin/Annandale-on-Hudson, New York University, Free University Berlin, Dutch Art Institute, Humboldt University Berlin and University College Dublin. Research areas include speculative fiction, critical posthumanism, environmental humanities, and critical refugee studies. Her book Ghosts and Their Hosts: The Colonization of the Invisible World was published last month with University of Virginia Press. Other publications include the edited collection Haunted Nature: Entanglements of the Human and the Nonhuman, the manuscript American Fictionary: Postsozialistische Migration in der U.S. Amerikanischen Literatur and numerous articles on the intersection of race, gender and class issues.

W15 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.

Online (Zoom)  7:30 pm – 9:00 pm CET/GMT+1
The Early Modern Science Core cordially invites you to a lecture on Aristotle's natural philosophy by Dr. Giulia Clabassi. Drawing on the Physics (particularly Book VIII) alongside other key works, the lecture will examine Aristotle’s foundational theories on motion and begin a reflection on the broader impact of his ideas.

Zoom link
Meeting ID: 863 0503 7440
Passcode: 928244

Giulia Clabassi holds a PhD in Philosophy from Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Philosophy from Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy. Giulia works at the intersection of ancient philosophy and contemporary science, focusing on concepts such as Motion, Time, and Entropy. She has presented her research at Princeton University and Université Paris Sorbonne among others, with forthcoming publications in Dialogoi (Ancient Philosophy Journal). She is currently in the process of publishing her doctoral dissertation.

Online (Zoom)  6:00 pm – 8:00 pm CET/GMT+1
In this session, we will report on current projects and highlight the urgency of decolonial and postcolonial approaches for achieving a deeper understanding of European traditions. Through brief inputs from philosophy, cultural, and literary studies, we will discuss the constitutive role of colonial violence in the formation of European cultures, as well as how it has been resisted. Additionally, we will reflect on how decolonial and postcolonial critiques provide, on one hand, a precise understanding of structures of violence and power, and on the other hand, open up possibilities for transversal critique and solidarities beyond ethnic identities.

Join via Zoom here.

Curated by Agata Lisiak (Bard College Berlin), Céline Barry (Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung der Technischen Universität Berlin) and Pablo Valdivia Orozco (EUV Frankfurt/Oder).

Part of Postcolonial Critiques – Decolonial Perspectives, a hybrid Lecture Series initiated by AG Postkolonialismus of Allianz für Kritische und Solidarische Wissenschaft and presented by FG DeKolonial e.V.

Katja Diefenbach is Professor of Cultural Philosophy/Philosophies of Culture at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). Her main research and teaching areas are contemporary French philosophy and epistemology (with a special focus on the relationship of Marxism and post-structuralism); the reception of contemporary French philosophy in Postcolonial and Gender Studies; Spinoza research as well as the colonial grammar of 17th-century political philosophy. Her publications include Spekulativer Materialismus. Spinoza in der postmarxistischen Philosophie (2018; English translation, 2025) and Encountering Althusser. Politics and Materialism in Contemporary Radical Thought (co-edited with Sara Farris, Gal Kirn, Peter Thomas, 2013). She is a member of the publishing collective b_books in Berlin.

Gal Kirn is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Culture at the University of Ljubljana, and currently finishing the research project Protests, Art Practices and Culture of Memory in the Post-Yugoslav Context. He will start to work at European University of Viadrina. He has published two monographs: Partisan Ruptures (Pluto Press, 2019) and Partisan Counter-Archive (De Gruyter, 2020).

Sanja S. Petkovska obtained a PhD degree in Cultural Studies from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and previous academic degrees in Cultural Sociology and Adult Education from the Faculty of Philosophy at the same university. She works at the Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research in Belgrade, Serbia, as a Research Fellow and her research revolves around the domains of critical theory, human–animal relations, knowledge production, cultural studies, violence, and public policies. She edited the book Decolonial Politics in European Peripheries (Palgrave, 2024).

Pablo Valdivia Orozco is Senior Lecturer for Literary Studies at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). His main research and teaching areas are Latin American and Western European Literature of the early modern/colonial period and 20th century, critical theory, and the history of modern aesthetics from a decolonial perspective. His publications include Weltenvielfalt: Eine romantheoretische Studie im Ausgang von Gabriel García Márquez, Roberto Bolaño and Sandra Cisneros (2013) and Gegen/Stand der Kritik (2015, co-editor). His latest work proposes a critical reexamination of Petrarch’s Secretum as a foundational text of colonial modernity and its cultural politics. He is a regular visiting professor in Bogotá, Colombia.

W15 Cafe  12:30 pm – 2:00 pm CET/GMT+1
On Monday, 3 February 2025, the BCB chapter of the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network is hosting a get-together with Professor Jennifer Richter at W15, starting 12:30 pm.

Bring your own lunch; light snacks will be provided.

Jennifer Richter is an Associate Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. She is also a senior Global Futures Scholar with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory. Her research interests are at the intersections of science, environment, and society, and she teaches courses on environmental justice, science and society, and energy policy. She is especially interested in how policies that govern innovations and research are created and then taken up by local populations, specifically in the American West. Professor Richter focuses on energy justice, specifically in relation to the cultural, political, and environmental issues that come with larger energy transitions. Her research has focused on the environmental and social issues related to nuclear waste storage, renewable energy production, and how policies are developed to address issues of production of resources, as well as contamination of land, water, and air.  By examining how science and technology policies collide with local expectations and understandings of environment and politics, Professor Richter explores the different effects of energy technologies and policies, and their effects on society at different scales, from the local to the global.  She is also co-director of a local student activist organization called Local to Global Justice, which brings together local activists with students to organize an annual Forum and Festival to highlight community activism locally and internationally.

In 2023, together with Siarhei Liubimau (European Humanities University, Lithuania) and Agata Lisiak (Bard College Berlin), Professor Richter led the EHCN-funded Generator Project, a multi-sited, multi-campus, and multi-disciplinary seminar on energy justice, culminating in a field school experience in Lithuania. The project was envisioned as a response to the ongoing challenges regarding energy generation and distribution, including the creation of sustainable, resilient, and equitable systems. Read more about Generator here.

This event is presented by the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network as part of the Thinking Towards Feminist Futures event series. 

W15 Cafe  6:30 pm – 8:00 pm CET/GMT+1
In a collaborative event with the Afghan Activist Collective, we seek to shed light on the ongoing Afghanistan crisis and its impacts on Afghans within and beyond the borders. Exploring the realities of life under Taliban rule, this event begins with a comprehensive awareness seminar to better understand Afghanistan's status. Delving into how Taliban governance affects women, access to education, and human rights as a whole. This is followed by a panel discussion of Afghan activists/refugees exploring what it means to be a diaspora activist? Why leave home behind? And at what expense?

Register here

Various Locations  Berlin Weekend is a longstanding BCB tradition, giving our community the opportunity to welcome and get to know our new students and show them what Berlin has to offer. There are a variety of events taking place over the entire weekend. Be sure to sign up!

Complete list of Berlin Weekend events:

Visit NochMall with Civic Engagement
Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 12pm
Meeting Time and Location: Meet Faiza and Hesham at 12pm at Auguste-Viktoria-Allee 99, 13403 Berlin-Reinickendorf
NochMall is the first department store for second-hand goods in Berlin, and it is much more than just a mall. NochMall not only sells and gives and gives a second life to furniture, clothing, electrical appliances, household goods, toys, books and more on over 2,000 square meters, it is also a place to experience the circular economy and waste prevention through different workshops and events. Berliner Stadtreinigung (Berlin Waste Management, BSR), who are responsible for the rubbish produced by the city's two million households, opened this used goods department store in summer 2020, as a measure to promote reuse.

Visit NochMall together with the BCB Civic Engagement team and join the open auction that happens there every first Saturday of the month! You will also learn about how the ideas of circular economy and waste prevention are reflected in on-campus student-run civic engagement initiatives at BCB.
Register here 

Visit to the "Design for Children" exhibit at the Bröhan museum
Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 1pm
Meeting Time and Location: Meet Atticus at Bröhan Museum at 1pm
Join Atticus on a visit to the "Design for Children" exhibit at the Bröhan museum. ‘Design for Children’ brings together examples of furniture, product and graphic design and locates them in their time of origin. In addition to the design of children’s rooms and playgrounds, objects designed for children are also analyzed in terms of their natural or artificial materiality. A separate room dedicated to children’s books not only presents historical examples, but also provides a small library for browsing, looking at and reading. The exhibition is aimed at children and adults alike and contains many interactive elements that can be tried out, played with and sat on. It encourages a change of perspective between young and old and is an invitation to adults interested in design to look at the material world through the eyes of a child (taken from museum website).

BCB will cover the cost of admission.
Please complete this form by 12pm on Friday, January 31st.
Register here

Schwules Museum - The Queer Museum Visit
Sunday, February 2 at 2pm
Meeting time and location: Meet Bernardo at the W15 Cafe at 2pm
The Schwules Museum is one of the most important institutions for Queer experiences in Berlin. Serving as not only a museum but also an archive and general hangout spot that hosts diverse events throughout the year, it is a pretty cool place to get to know the city’s queer scene. The trip includes four exhibitions: “Insights into the life of Eberhardt Brucks”; “Queer Arts from Southeast Asia and its Diaspora”; “Photographs from Annette Frick” and “Queer Movements in Germany since Stonewall”. Hoping to see you there! 

Registration required and is limited to the first 12 sign ups. 
Register here
 

W15 Cafe  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.

2:15 pm – 3:45 pm CET/GMT+1
In this session with Srila Roy (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) and Serena Owusua Dankwa (University of Basel), we will explore the question of transnational queer and feminist solidarities from a postcolonial angle. Departing from specific contexts in India and Ghana, we will discuss the connections between queer and feminist struggles in the Global South and consider their relationships to diasporic and Western contexts. Our guests will also reflect on the conceptual, epistemic, and methodological approaches they use to make sense of gendered power relations and practices of resistance.

Click Here to Join the Zoom

Srila Roy is a Professor of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand with long-standing interest and expertise is in the field of transnational gender and sexuality studies. She is the author of Remembering Revolution: Gender, Violence and Subjectivity in India’s Naxalbari Movement (Oxford 2012), one of the first books on the gender and sexual politics of Indian Maoism, and Changing the Subject: Feminist and Queer Politics in Neoliberal India (Duke 2022; Distinguished Book Award in the Sexualities category from the American Sociology Association), which maps a rapidly changing terrain of queer and feminist organizing under conditions of neoliberalism and globalization. She is the editor of, among others, New South Asian Feminisms: Paradoxes and Possibilities (Zed Books 2012). Her research advances debates on postcolonial gender and sexualities, development, neoliberalism and social movements, and centres the Global South in feminist enquiry.
This event is curated by Agata Lisiak (Bard College Berlin), Céline Barry (Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung der Technischen Universität Berlin) and Pablo Valdivia Orozco (EUV Frankfurt/Oder). it is part of Postcolonial Critiques, Decolonial Perspectives: a hybrid lecture series.

Serena Owusua Dankwa is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Social Anthropology. She has worked at the crossroads of academic, activist, and artistic forms of knowledge production, with a particular focus on queer, feminist, and African concepts of gender, friendship and intimacy. Her monograph Knowing Women: Same-Sex Intimacy, Gender and Identity in Postcolonial Ghana (Cambridge 2021) is the first full-length ethnography on African women’s same-sex intimacies outside South Africa and received the Ruth Benedict Prize and the Elliot P.Skinner Prize of the American Anthropological Association. She co-edited open access volume Bildung.Macht.Diversität (transcript 2021) as well as the collection Racial Profiling (transcript 2019). Her new research project focuses on safe house intimacies in relation to protection, security, mobility and repression and in the larger context of feminist development and solidarity projects.

  Online Event 


Bard College Berlin accepts applications for entry to our BA degree programs and one-year programs in Fall 2025. The Regular Decision application deadline is January 15, 2025, 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!