Aryana Arian Assl

Iran
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '20
Currently: MA in Culture, Criticism and Curation, University of the Arts London and Editor-in-Chief at perediza

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The rewarding experience of having discussions in political economy, literature, art history, and philosophy with students from different backgrounds and concentrations.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Intellectually rewarding. It built the foundation for my critical thinking and discourse abilities.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
The “Renaissance Florence” Core course, taught by Dr. Geoff Lehman, taught me how to look at works of art critically and explore the interplay between artists, their creations, and their historical contexts. I wrote my final paper on the Persian Sibyl, a small painting by Michelangelo that is part of the Sistine Chapel.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB allowed me to pick a master's program that is interdisciplinary and exciting—something that can build on the foundation of knowledge that BCB built. Furthermore, many essays I wrote at BCB, including my final essay for “Renaissance Florence” and my thesis, have paved the way for the work I am doing today at perediza. Perediza is a humanities/philosophy-based magazine that tackles climate change, art, style, and, more broadly, life. BCB gave me the network, knowledge, critical thinking, and passion to create this magazine. Seven out of the roughly 15 creatives and writers who contributed to our first issue are BCB students! Either through writing magnificent critical and philosophical pieces, or contributing their beautiful art to the magazine, Bard College Berliners were a crucial part of putting perediza together.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am in London pursuing a master’s degree in Culture, Criticism, and Curation at the University of the Arts London. Furthermore, I serve as the Editor-in-Chief at perediza. We released our inaugural issue last year, and we are currently working on the second issue.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
If you are looking for an education where you will gain a strong foundation of knowledge in philosophy, culture, history, and more broadly, the humanities, BCB is the place to go. Not only will it reward you with engaging opportunities for discourse and critical thinking, but it will also allow you to find friends and a community of people that are passionate and immersed in theory, practice, or both. Furthermore, BCB is located in Berlin, renowned for its amazing exhibitions, historic landmarks, sights, culture, and diverse communities. BCB's small size also allows for you to engage in the classrooms and with the professors, offering a more communal learning experience that is very rare and hard to find!

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I liked how the core classes at BCB create a fascinating intersection between all the different disciplines that students study here. Core courses such as Origins of Political Economy and Plato’s Republic and Its Interlocutors are some of my favorite courses this year. Bringing together economists, philosophers, writers, and artists in a classroom discussing The Republic by Plato creates both interesting discussions and perspectives. It also expands everyone's views and allows for the contextualization of topics like art and economy.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
The intersectionality between the different subjects studied by the students. The core courses bring up questions and issues from different fields that are normally not discussed together, making the topics and discussions in class more interesting than I thought it would. It also surprised me how easy it is to start diving into your interests as the city has so much to offer. No matter what you study, the city always inspires you. As an art student, I was surprised by the overwhelming amount of museums and galleries, displaying numerous amounts of work from all around the globe, and this inspired me and my work in such a great way.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
A liberal arts education, in my view, is the ideal way to educate someone who has interests that coexist within different forms and spaces. Our minds are not designed to think in a one-directional sense but rather we require to think and communicate via different shapes, paths and forms. Liberal arts education allows this. It asks you to educate yourself through the understanding of various things beside your specialization and this allows for your specialization to blossom in a proper context. Whether that be a politician who understands art, thus understanding people’s struggles better, or an artist who understands politics to create art that speaks louder. Knowing about one thing and one thing only won’t lead to complete knowledge, as for example, without philosophy you wouldn’t be able to understand what knowing truly is before you begin to know in the first place.

Lucari Jordan

New Mexico, USA
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '21
Currently: Commercial Associate at Aurora Energy Research

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The fact that we could always talk to or debate with our professors at eye level. That, and the friends I made, of course.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
It went quicker than it felt, was more exciting then it seemed, and taught me more than I knew.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
It's difficult to choose just one as they work as a whole. One of my most memorable courses was Boris Vormann's Future of Work class. This course guided us from a historical analysis of how the labor market developed (I still bring up Theda Skocpol's "Protecting Soldiers and Mothers" at house parties, perhaps too often) through modern market design and issues towards a consideration of what future systems could be (and how to avoid the dreaded 'bullshit job' described by Graeber).

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
Personally, BCB did a lot to help me become a more flexible and resilient person with respect to living abroad and working with diverse people. Socially, BCB introduced me to people who would become my chosen family away from home. Intellectually, BCB influenced me by not influencing me and allowing me to chase tangents down rabbit holes, find the things that held my attention and felt important, and then question those things.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I have remained in Berlin, and when not working in my role as a Commercial Associate at Aurora Energy Research selling economic analytics of the power market, I spend most of my time renovating my raw diamond of an apartment, crafting random things, or hanging out with friends at the cinema, opera, or out on the Tempelhofer Feld.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
In order to get the most out of BCB, you should be open to learning about things you don't think are interesting or relevant to you, never take the question's assumptions for granted, consider texts critically but also constructively, and talk to your professors regularly. If you do most of those things, you'll come out of BCB with a better idea of what you're good at and what you want to do, as well as also being prepared to work toward what you want to achieve in a myriad of different ways.

Miksa Gáspár

Hungary
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '23
Currently: MA at the University of Potsdam, Freiberufliche Bildungsreferent at the Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Favorite quote and why?

“Man is the measure of all things.” (Protagoras)

To be born as a human being is a privilege that is not about shaping the world according to our own desires but to change with the world. Since at Bard Berlin we are discussing the most crucial challenges of our age - which could seem way bigger than us - I find it very important to underline what Protagoras said, that these issues are in a way our personal challenges as well.

Why Bard College Berlin?

Bard College Berlin seemed to me as a laboratory where I can explore my motivations and myself further. I spent a lot of my free time during high school participating in different activities; working with people on projects we are all very motivated about creates the greatest kind of community. I thought here at BCB I will find everything to develop new ideas or my current ones further: a colorful and open-minded community and place for experimenting. I chose BCB to challenge my ideas, and I am delighted to see that others are doing the same.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?

BCB is a source of personal motivation for every student, but these sources differ greatly. What is very nice in our community is that, even though we are all strong individuals, we can channel our diverse motivations and opinions into discussions. For example for me lunchtime is not only about eating but sitting with other people, teaching and learning from each other even unintentionally by chatting over the food.

You favorite place to study on campus?

I love the garden behind our residence halls, as I can sit in nature surrounded by the chirping of birds and also hear people entering and leaving our buildings. It is a little bit like sitting at the border of two worlds.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations?

I am a member of the debate club as well as the Lingo 101 French class. I also participate occasionally in the meetings of StuPa and BCB Goes Green. I am running my own discussion circle since the beginning of the semester called Let’s Jew it.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?

I love to wander around in the suburban areas of Berlin on my bike.

What surprised you the most about BCB?

The level of involvement in classes from both students’ and teachers’ side turned out to be a lot higher than I have ever thought.

Favorite book you read in a class?

Ahmed Saadawi’s book called Frankenstein in Baghdad.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

This semester I am taking a course called Introduction to Critical and Cultural Theory that I nearly dropped at the beginning of the semester because I barely understood a word from it. We are reading challenging essays and studies related to the history and the philosophy of art beside many other topics, which I found too complex for me to understand with the background knowledge I had. When I went to my teacher, she encouraged me to read the scientific texts in a personal way, which gave me the key to understanding every text - if not in their full complexity, but at a certain level. I got back to some of the articles during midterms and surprisingly I understood them a lot better than before. This course showed me that just by becoming a more experienced reader, my understanding will develop as well.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

I cannot define it in one sentence. Liberal arts education is on the one hand a broad scale of opportunities in a variety of fields and in a variety of topics, and on the other hand a way of studying in which you have to personally get involved. A liberal arts education is a process of constantly pairing up one’s opportunities with one’s interests. However, a liberal arts education is not only about living with these opportunities but also about creating ones for others. In contrast to the world today, liberal education is based on giving, on surpassing what we receive and not on reserving knowledge for ourselves.

Aisha Khurram

Afghanistan
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought
Concentration: Ethics and Politics

What drew you to Bard College Berlin and why did you ultimately decide to enroll as a student?
Just one year ago, I was studying law and political science at Kabul University, and I was in my last semester of my bachelor's degree working on my thesis, when the Afghan government collapsed. I still remember the day when I had to leave my home. I left within minutes with no documents at hand that could prove I have studied for four years but couldn’t graduate at the last moment. And then there I was in a new country, starting my life from scratch. I didn’t know how long it would take for me to get my legal documents so I could get my life started, but even if I had my documents, it was very unlikely for me to get back to class due to the language barrier in Germany. One day, one of my friends from the Open Society University Network (OSUN) community informed me about the Bard College scholarships for Afghan students, which I didn’t know existed despite seeking and searching for months. When I applied for the scholarship at Bard College Berlin, I was not only admitted to the college, but my former incomplete education was also recognized and most of my credits were transferred to my current degree. I decided to join BCB not only because it is a safe haven for young students, who have been stripped of their basic human rights, but also for the essential values that are ingrained in its modern method of education.

What do you study at Bard College Berlin?
When I joined BCB, I decided to concentrate on Ethics and Politics for two main reasons. First, a professional reason: my educational background and knowledge in international law and foreign relations. And second, a personal reason: the combination of the two words "ethics" and "politics". At first the combination might sound strange to anyone coming across these two terms. However, I started to wonder why ethics shouldn’t be an integral part of a political science degree in every institution. Why shouldn’t we normalize co-dependency, indispensability and inter-connectivity of these two fields rather than normalize the Machiavellian definition of politics. Joining Bard College Berlin made me question the ideas and concepts I never thought were questionable; it persuaded me to express my opinion about them, but at the end it all left me with no finite answer and thousands of possibilities to explore.

What do you like about campus life at Bard College Berlin?
The BCB environment with its vibrantly diverse, engaging, politically conscious and civically engaged students has turned our campus life into a home for those of us who are constantly seeking a safe haven, where we can employ our abilities to leave in impact.

What do you enjoy about living in Berlin?
Berlin is living and breathing history. Every corner of every street reminds me of the resilience of this place. Berlin has turned into a home in exile for thousands of people around the world, who need a sanctuary not only for their physical safety, but also for their radically liberating thoughts and beliefs. What I like most about Berlin is that it has no shape, it cannot be defined, and therefore cannot be limited, and that's exactly what makes it beautiful, diverse and welcoming.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
I have had many interesting courses at BCB such as "Forms of Love", "Human Rights Advocacy" and "Feminist Science and Technology." However, one of the most transforming courses for me during my time at BCB has been the "Greek Civilization" Core class. This course has been a great introduction not only to the historically significant and transforming Greek philosophy but also to the core philosophy of Bard's existence as a Liberal Arts college. In this course we face Plato's Republic and discuss his account of Socrates' zealous pursuit of truth and knowledge. I believe nothing is more transformative than having a safe space to discuss and debate universally normalized conventions and concepts. The Greek civilization course not only quenches our thirst for the sophisticated yet philosophically meaningful texts from ancient times, but it also takes us back into the development journey of the most significant concepts of our modern day.

How are you civically engaged on campus or beyond?
I work as an Afghanistan Project Assistant with Kinderberg International and voluntarily work with Tertiary Refugee Student Network. I was a UN Youth Delegate and have also started my own initiative with other delegates in order to make education accessible for students in times of humanitarian crises, especially in Afghanistan. At BCB I have volunteered with Ukrainian refugee relief efforts and have been involved with the Real Talk discussions.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you? How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?
Studying Liberal Arts is a radically transforming journey for those who seek to acquire the necessary knowledge for leading an impactful life. Liberal Arts exposed me to the realm of unexplored possibilities that lie beyond the illusions of our ordinary, mundane and normalized beliefs, which knowingly or unknowingly shape our lives today. Everyday in our courses we face, debate and dissect the most essential questions that form the basis of our social and individual existence. Liberal Arts is not only the in-depth study of a specific major but it also exposes the students to a range of knowledge in many fields within the social sciences, arts and humanities in general, helping us to explore the objective realities with a critical yet human lens of new possibilities. As a Liberal Arts student, I have been able to develop and polish my skills in writing, speaking and thinking critically which has greatly improved my performance as a human rights advocate.

Alison Gleeson

Australia/Germany
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?

Studying in a large and vibrant city such as Berlin had always been my dream and to be able to combine it with a fascinating liberal arts curriculum meant I knew I would just love it. It was exciting to see so many of my interests represented in the course options - I could hardly decide which ones to take for my first semester!

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?

Students at BCB come from all over the world! There’s a continuous exchange of ideas and cultures as well as a place for every voice on campus. People are friendly, engaged, and open, and there’s always something fun going on on-campus.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?

The study rooms are perfect for me as they’re more of a designated quiet area. If I need a change of scenery I’ll probably be in our library.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?

Not as of yet!

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?

It's hard to choose, but I would say Plato’s Republic was my favorite. It was for our core module, so it accompanied us throughout the semester and we would analyze it chapter by chapter. It was one of the many books this past semester which forced me to immerse myself and animated me to look forward to class discussions.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

Introduction to Ethics was my favorite course last semester. As the name suggests, we read key philosophical texts from antiquity up to the 20th century. The nature of the course ensured that a broad spectrum of philosophy was read while critically engaging with the texts during class discussions. Taking the course solidified my interest in philosophy and my wish to pursue it even further during future studies.

What surprised you the most about BCB?

How peaceful Pankow is! Berlin conjures up images of a never-standing-still-city (which it can be!), nevertheless, Pankow represents a more quiet enclave ensuring that you can study in peace and then soak up the fun in the city when you choose to do so.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?

Berlin has an amazing synthesis of art, music and culture. Visiting the museums has to be one of my favourite activities on the weekend. For example, I’ve booked tickets to the highly coveted Caspar David Friedrich exhibition coming to Berlin in a few weeks time, which I’m really looking forward to.
Public transport connections are mere minutes away from campus and transport you right into the heart of the city, making spontaneous trips around Berlin extremely easy.

What are your plans for after BCB?

I feel like I have a kaleidoscope of options waiting for me after graduation, but for now I know I would love to continue with graduate school.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

A liberal arts education for me means to not only delve deeper into topics I have long been interested in, including aspects that only an interdisciplinary approach can provide, but to be able to explore new areas of interest in ethics, politics, art, and history.

Ana Mihajlovska

Macedonia
BA in Economics, Politics and Social Thought

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
Changing my environment after 18 years of living in the same place—right now I am breathing air that is still unknown to me. That is exactly the challenge I wanted when I pressed the “apply” button for Bard College Berlin. I decided on this big step to come and study at BCB because I knew that the college would give me a chance. A chance to be able to express my opinions without being afraid. BCB gave me the chance to freely walk the streets of Berlin, knowing that I have an intellectual home that will house my thinking and my body—as out of-the-ordinary as they both might be. BCB and I, we are right for each other because we share the same dream: an education that empowers young people like me to cross gendered, cultural, and sociopolitical boundaries as we face today's challenges.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
If I were to describe the BCB community I would definitely say that it is a very warm, united and diverse community. We always support each other in good times, and in times of trouble. The beauty of this diversity is that you can always, ALWAYS learn something new from each person, you simply have the whole world in your hands! While being in this small community, I got to learn bits of languages I never thought I'd stumble upon, I got to try and taste food from different cultures, as well as share some pieces of what I call my home, which is Macedonia.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
My favorite place to study would definitely be the W15 cafeteria, because when you are surrounded by people who also work it is very respectful and quiet. And if I happen to have a friend to study with, I take that as a challenge to do my work efficiently. Having a support system during your studies is quite important. On sunny days I love doing the readings outside, especially on the hammock behind K24, or on the huge grass field that we have— it is the most beautiful landscape to have in front of you while working!

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
As a person who loves sports, I am part of the BCB Volleyball Club, and on warm Sundays we usually play beach volleyball at our local gym SPOK. We do not put stress on the level of talent we have, but most importantly we learn by having fun!

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
In my class on Existentialism, which I took with Prof. Tracy Colony, we read a lot about the general concept of existence, about the belief that we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives. My favorite book in this class was the play "No Exit" by Jean Paul Sartre. It sounds very scary to think about, but the main concept that the play proposes is that “hell is other people” rather than a state created by God. It left an impression on me because it explains the fact that true misery comes from the human inability to control the nature of one's own existence.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
As a student in the EPST program, I would say that my Microeconomics class, taught by Prof. Israel Waichman, has left a lasting impression on me. The way he teaches always motivated me to do well, to learn and to think critically about different economic issues in the world. My favorite thing is to work with numbers, and this class helped me use my interest for math to learn about the creation of individual and market demands and how that works in practice. We touched upon issues of market efficiency and the workings of welfare economics. The most interesting part for me was being able to learn more about concepts of monopoly and perfect competition.
In addition to Microeconomics, the beauty of being at BCB and at a liberal arts university is the opportunity to take classes in the core curriculum. My favorite class was on Renaissance Florence. It enabled me to visit different museums throughout the semester and analyze paintings in depth. This was a class where I could have my mind be at peace and give opinions without needing to worry if it is correct or not, because when analyzing art, there is never a correct answer, it is open to interpretation always.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
What surprised me most about BCB is the close connection people have among each other; staff members, professors and students as well! I can easily have a good conversation with any professor—whether it is on a topic connected to a class or anything in general. My favorite thing about BCB is the events we have, where everyone is invited and we are able to interact with all students, as well as eat good food and feel safe within the community. When I started school in 2020, even with the difficult circumstances concerning the pandemic, everyone was so accepting, understanding and respectful. We have a lot of resources available on campus, and even without knowing who I was supposed to live with at first, I was immediately welcomed, which is why I could easily call BCB my home.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
My favorite thing to do during the weekends, no matter how warm or cold it is, is to go to the Mauerpark with my friends. Sundays in Mauerpark are multidimensional! What I mean by that is that while you are walking through the park, you can see and experience completely different things happening within just a few meters. People are either singing, dancing, playing an instrument, sitting in the nearby cafés, playing basketball, visiting the big flea market, or just enjoying themselves on the grass surrounding the park. The energy is very enjoyable, you can always meet someone new, talk to people and even so, learn something new! But, the best thing about Mauerpark is definitely the Sunday karaoke. People sit on big collosseum-like rocks and sing songs, which is a very nice bonding moment. Something everyone must experience when in Berlin for sure!

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
To me, a liberal arts education means that after I have completed my BA degree, I want to have a basis of knowledge in many fields of life—humanities, the arts, as well as the natural and social sciences. I do not want this liberal arts education to just prepare me for a single career path, but to also equip me with skills that would prepare me to go out in the world without fear. I want to be able to understand the world without having any prejudices towards it, and most importantly to share my thoughts and knowledge with people I meet along the way.

What are your plans for after BCB?
Staying in Berlin would be very good, because Berlin never sleeps, and there will always be something new to discover or to do, to learn and to reflect upon in this town. As for my aspirations, they constantly change. I am a person who loves adventures, but on the other hand I am person who has engraved on her the want and wish to always help people and be there for them. I am also big on numbers, therefore if I could combine adventure, community service and numbers in one, I would love to work towards being an economic diplomat, who travels a lot and experiences different cultures and people!

Davit Chankseliani

Georgia
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought
Concentration: Politics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I was looking for a university in an urban environment that provided a liberal arts education. I accidentally discovered Bard College Berlin and it seemed like a perfect choice. It is located in one of the most urban cities of the world and is based on the idea of liberal arts. Moreover, the Economics, Politics and Social Thought (EPST) program offered at BCB strongly resonated with me and my academic interests. It included everything I wanted to learn about, be that political science, international relations, economics, etc. Other than that, small classroom sizes, internship, and civic engagement opportunities were why I decided to come to Bard College Berlin after being accepted.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
I would describe it as welcoming. It is very easy to approach people and there is always going to be someone who is willing to help you out.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
My favorite place to study on campus besides my room would be the K24 study room. Plenty of books, lamps, comfortable sofas and wooden chairs create a great atmosphere for studying.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I co-run the "English Hour" an initiative by the civic engagement office, which allows people from our neighborhood in Pankow to come to BCB, and practice their spoken English skills with BCB students. It is one of my favorite activities on campus, enabling me to give back to our community and better integrate in our neighborhood. I also co-run the Debating Club, which meets every Tuesday. We discuss various debating formats and organize mock debates as well.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
Plato's Republic. It is a fundamental text that maintains its relevancy nowadays, and I find myself going back to its ideas quite often

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Despite being a politics student, I decided to take a course called: "Critical Perspectives on Berlin's New Cultural Venue Humboldt Forum." For each class we meet at Humboldt Forum - one of the biggest cultural venues in the city - and explore one of its aspects. I am still amazed how at BCB, Berlin, and its establishments can become your classroom. The course itself is an intersection of art, management, politics, and history - everything that I love. It has deepened and reimagined my understanding of not only Humboldt Forum, but Berlin and cultural spaces in general.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
Professors know their students by their names and are always willing to provide guidance whenever necessary, even if you have finished taking their class. They also provide plenty of opportunities for students to engage outside the classroom.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Checking out various events Berlin has to offer by myself or with friends - be that art, sport, culture-related, etc.

What are your plans for after BCB?
I am letting the opportunities to guide me, but I would like to continue my studies through a postgraduate degree

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
For me, liberal arts education means continuously expanding your horizons. I cherish the opportunity provided by the liberal arts education to explore various academic fields. In retrospect, it has helped me grow not only academically but individually as well

Elena Lovejoy

USA
BA in Artistic Practice and Society

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I started looking for schools in Berlin because I have always been fascinated with art and history and this city seemed like the perfect place for me. When I found BCB, it imediately jumped to the top of my list. I believed the creativity, social engagement, and access to Berlin that studying at BCB offers would introduce and hone skills that I could employ in many different fields after college. I have diverse interests, so I thought the core curriculum and classes offered at BCB could help me connect to a wide range of subjects, and I was excited to gain new perspectives and connect with people and cultures that I am unfamiliar with. The small class sizes also factored into my decision, as they would let me dive deeper into discussions and forge more meaningful connections within the community. Ultimately, I thought that studying at BCB would be the perfect place to fulfill the adventurous, challenging, unique, and enriching college experience that I hoped to have. I am really glad I chose BCB!

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
The BCB community is warm and diverse and engaging and it is easy to form connections and celebrate one another.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
I enjoy studying in my kitchen in T25 or in the W15 Cafe. They are very cozy!

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I live in the ABC House! ABC stands for "Artists/Activists Building Community" and we are a group of students focused on interpersonal connection and peer support in the BCB campus community.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
As I am writing this during the first semester of my first year, I have not yet read too many books in classes at BCB. However, I am enjoying reading "The Republic" as part of my first core class. Though the book is dense and occassionally hard to understand, the in-class discussions I have been a part of make it totally worth the read.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
It is hard to choose, but I am currently taking both a painting class and a marble stone sculpture class that I absolutely love! In painting, I am always excited to go to the studio and see what my classmates have created as well as spend time creating art of my own. My teacher has led our class on some tours of galleries in the city which give us an amazing way to connect with the vast art scene of Berlin. The stone sculpture class is also wonderful. I never imagined that creating a marble statue would be something available to me, but I love tackling this form of art I have never tried before. I may not be the best at it yet, but I am learning that it is definitely a lovely medium to delve into!

What surprised you the most about BCB?
I was most surprised at how easy it was to make friends and how much time I have to explore! I was worried that people coming from all different backgrounds would make it harder to form connections and that balancing classes, extracurriculars, and studying would make my schedule ridiculously packed. Within the first few days of getting here, I realized that wouldn't be an issue. Everyone is amazingly easy to get along with, and my schedule still leaves plenty of time to discover the city!

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
I like going out with friends, finding good food (especially late night Döner Kebabs), walking though parks and museums, and meeting interesting people. Everywhere I go there is something funky and fun to do :)

What are your plans for after BCB?
I honestly don't know yet. I would love to travel more and connect with more places and cultures around the globe. I am considering going into art restoration and musem work as it combines two of my favorite topics: art and history. So perhaps I will go for an apprenticeship or maybe a graduate degree.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
I think that the interdisciplinary and open approach to tackling real world issues is a fascinating and important way to navigate a college education. I have felt myself becoming a more active and aware global citizen since I've gotten to BCB. The liberal arts philosophy creates a safe and responsive place which feeds my curiosity and allows me to connect, disagree, debate, and understand the people around me. It is teaching me to be firm in my values but not intolerant of differing ideas. A liberal arts education also means offering a wide range of interesting and important subjects for people to study. I want to take full advantage of the interdisciplinary approach and explore my interests in the intellectually stimulating environment it supplies. The skills and perspective I hone here will help me successfully navigate my life after college and become the best version of me I can.

Georgy Kalakutskii

Russia
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought
Concentration: Ethics and Politics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
BCB seemed to be a rare place that cared not just about my academic background and interests, but also the human rights work I do outside of my studies.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
A bunch of caring people. Caring about each other, considerate of what’s happening around them on both local and international scale.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
Favorite place to study is yet to be discovered. But I can already say that there’s probably no better feeling than cycling through campus in the morning and saying hi to at least a couple of dozens of lovely people.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
Have to say, I’m not consistently involved in student clubs, but other students do know that they count on my support pretty much anywhere, be it organizing a party or planning a more serious political/social event.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James. I’ll probably come back to rereading it a few more times in the coming years, but for now it’s certainly one of the most eye-opening pieces this year. In short, world’s colonial history can always surprise, no matter how much you read about it.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Being a fresh transfer student, I am covering 3 core subjects in a single semester and often feel sympathetic glances of my peers. And yet, Origins of Political Economy so far is my favorite subject. I had no idea there’s a possibility to cover so much critical theory in a seemingly foundational course. Making a leap from Confucius to Marx does really hit different and that’s exactly something I hoped to get at BCB.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
There’s certainly always room for improvement, but it’s my first time being in an institution that seem to stick to its values on every level. Probably, it’s the size that helps us keep it this way – everyone I met here so far is no less than a treasure <3

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Meeting with my outside-of-campus friends to recharge and remember about the life outside of the studies and work. Drinking tea in a Greek tea house, planning a summer festival, volunteering at the bar at their event or anything else that helps me reconnect with the real world and not stuff happening on my screen.

What are your plans for after BCB?
After so many years working in human rights, I assume I will continue this path. Whether I immediately do Master’s or not, I’ll either way stay somewhere close to the third sector, democratization and such.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
For me it was always about caring and acknowledging the context, being ready to debate and be debated, seek answers and be mindful of bias.

Jasmine Ahmed

United Kingdom
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought (2024)
Concentration in Ethics and Politics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I had never lived outside of the UK before, or been outside of it for longer that 2-3 weeks, so the chance to move to Germany, learn a new language, and experience a new culture was too big an opportunity to miss, and BCB's financial aid program allowed me to do this! Additionally as a UWC student I was excited by the chance to study in a close-knit international community, particularly alongside more UWC Alumni.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
Caring! Whether you are trying to get a club off the ground, raise awareness about a cause, need help with something in German, or just need someone to talk to, people at BCB on all levels (student; faculty; Student Life/Admin/Civic Engagement) are always ready to help and be involved.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
The W15 Café!

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I am involved in StuPa, the Student Parliament; the Stitch Up - a club where students come together to crochet and knit clothing items that are then donated to an organization that redistributes woolen clothes to the unhoused across the city; English Hour - a space for the BCB community and its local neighbors to meet, talk, improve their English and German language skills and foster cross-cultural understanding; DerDieDas Haus - a living learning community on campus, where students use German to communicate in their daily lives.

What is your favorite book you read in a class?
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh: This was the first fiction book I read for a BCB class, and I literally could not put it down. The book follows a rare book dealer on a journey between the Sundarbans, Los Angeles, and Venice after helping document the location of a shrine built on an ancient Bengali legend, in the Sundarbans before it was swept away by rising water levels and storms. Climate change plays a massive role in the book, influencing the characters' actions and decisions throughout, and it was really interesting for me as it was the first time I have ever read or considered climate change as a factor in fiction. It has helped me explore new ways to convey information and stories about the impacts of climate change, including ways, which may be more accessible to more people, such as through stories.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Postcolonial Politics in my first semester has really stuck with me, as it was the first time I was properly exposed to postcolonial theory and scholarship. It forced me to reflect and reevaluate the narratives, which I had been exposed to growing up in the UK, mainly due to the lack of education on colonialism in the school system, and I still think about and try to incorporate the theories, questions, and materials we discussed in that course into my other classes.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
How approachable professors and faculty are!

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Often I go work and study in internet cafes, so it's fun to explore different ones around the city with my friends!

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
For me, a liberal arts education means I can learn about a wide variety of topics and areas which I wouldn't be able to combine anywhere else. You have the opportunity to take classes across disciplines, meaning in a single semester you could combine the Arts with German, with Politics, and with Philosophy, and I think this has enabled me to have both a deeper understanding and appreciation of the things I learn and read in class, as I'm able to find new ways of applying what I learn, and to observe things from new and different perspectives. This also means I can feel more prepared and confident for new challenges and opportunities inside and outside of university, as I have a wide skill set and knowledge base to work with, as well as the ability to change and adapt.

What are your plans for after BCB?
After BCB I plan to apply straight to graduate work schemes in the UK, such as the UK Government Diplomatic and Development Fast Stream. However I am also considering continuing my studies at post-graduate level either in Germany, the US, or in the UK, most likely through a masters degree in an area such as security studies.

Lejla Zjakic

Bosnia and Herzegovina
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought
[email protected]

Where are you from and which program are you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I come from a nice and small country named Bosnia and Herzegovina, and I am enrolled in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Thought program.

What drew you to Bard College Berlin and why did you ultimately decide to enroll as a student?

I was looking for a place that embodies the words vibrant, diverse, and liberal. Besides the open-minded and diverse dimension BCB offered, it was the only place that corresponded to my interest in a wide range of subjects which are not often found in one academic program. I am particularly interested in visual arts and art history, I have been studying visual arts throughout high school and I hoped to learn more about the practical aspect: different art techniques and mediums, but also theoretical: art movements and artists. I saw a chance to incorporate my interest for the art world with social and cultural studies.

What do you like about student life and the community at Bard College Berlin?

I like how you learn a lot outside of the classroom context. The great side of being in an international environment is having the feeling that you are in touch with the entire world. Whether it is your Georgian roommate telling you about the political atmosphere or great food in their country, or reaching out to a student from Brazil to ask about the recent wildfires there, you get to learn and understand the matter through their eyes. Having such a small yet diverse community allows for great inputs of different thoughts, experiences, as well as knowledge: learning a language from your friend through Lingo 101, taking part in “BCB Goes Green” sustainable initiatives, or just playing badminton at the local gym, SPOK. I can say that I am growing in many aspects by being surrounded with such people.

What do you enjoy about living in Berlin?

I enjoy the funky vibe of freedom and acceptance that Berlin has. The city is filled with people from all over the planet with different interests and worldviews, and yet everyone is feeling at home and allowed to be who they want to be, and that kind of corresponds to how diverse the city itself is: with its different districts and complex history.

There is a place for everyone here. I particularly enjoy the art and music scene and how it is given a lot of importance. Culture is very much valued, and there is never a lack of inspiration. Life is also balanced and not fast-moving, and lying next to the Spree all day long is perfectly alright. Some of my favorite activities include visiting art galleries and museums, spending Sundays at flea markets, listening to live music and eating Döner Kebab.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

Responding to Climate Change is a course I attended in my first semester, taught by faculty Ramona Mosse, and it truly left a lasting impression on me. It was mainly a literature-based class tackling the problem of climate change and prompting us to respond to it and take action. We visited the Federal Ministry for the Environment where we were given an interactive lecture about environmental issues by scientists and policy analysts. Our assignment was to respond to climate change through creating a podcast about different matters such as pollution, food waste, recycling etc. in order to raise awareness of those topics. My group was working on the issue of pollution and e-waste, and I got to reach out to people in Berlin - environmental activists and a computer repair technician, to talk to them about their views on pollution. I enjoyed being engaged outside of class and in that way to take action and learn.

How do you think the education you receive at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future? What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

At this point I can’t say that I will pursue my career in the art field: and I think that is the liberty of the kind of education I am receiving. It allows me to search for myself in many different fields and widen my interests. A liberal arts education means going beyond the conventional way we think of academics as studying in a specific field in order to pursue a career focused only on that one field. What is important to me is to be aware, not only about a specific matter, but also about what this world has experienced and is experiencing. This forces us to think about matters that surround us: politics, philosophy, ethics, arts, culture, economics, and to realize how all of them are interconnected and crucial in shaping our lives.

I believe that it is difficult or almost impossible to understand the entirety of the ever-changing world we live in, but by studying liberal arts I feel that I am closer to understanding it every day and capable of looking at it from a more critical perspective.

Lex Hill

USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought (2025)
Concentration in Ethics and Politics, and Arts and Aesthetics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
When considering to pursue further education, I was drawn to the liberal arts because I had far too many interests to narrow my studies. After a few years studying abroad, I learned that what I studied didn’t matter as much as who I was studying with. BCB’s international student body and emphasis on student engagement creates an environment where learning extends beyond the classroom.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
Open-minded and relaxed.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
During the colder months when studying outside becomes more difficult, you can find me studying in the K24 reading room. The reading room is a quiet space reminiscent of old libraries and the silent solidarity of my peers helps me focus without distractions. I am also biased to the reading room because it houses the Queer Community Library which is an initiative that I help run.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I have been an Orientation Leader, a position that welcomes new students to campus, which is a great way to get to know the ever-changing community. Currently, I am serving as a BRAVE Peer Advisor, where I support fellow students with mental health related issues as well as raise awareness about the topic through community events and collaboration with other student organizations. I also spend a lot of time as an organizer of LGBCBTQ+, the student LGBT/Queer community group on campus. We hold educational and social events with the aim of supporting the LGBTQ+ community on campus.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
I read Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih for my Global Citizenship course during my first semester at Bard College Berlin. This book stands out as a favorite because of the way it cleverly handles topics of migration, colonialism, and violence. Using literature to explore these topics forced me to abandon my comfort mode of intellectualization in the class and interrogate my Western perspectives.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
In the 2022 Spring Semester I took the course "Introduction to Art and Power" with Prof. Hanan Toukan. In short, this course explored the ways power functions in the art world and how art is used as a tool of hegemony and ideology. I credit this course for opening me to the world of critical cultural theory which not only changed my view of art as a whole but has also led me to rethink what it means to call myself an artist.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
My only hesitation before arriving at BCB was that the school would feel too small. I was surprised to find that I actually love the size of our community. It feels intimate in and out of the classroom, yet I also find myself always meeting new people. If the size of our campus ever does feel small, I can easily take public transport and slip into the anonymizing sea of Berlin.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
I love to cycle and explore the many parks in the city. It is a goal of mine to visit all of the parks in Berlin, which is a surprisingly difficult undertaking when considering that Berlin is one of Europe’s greenest cities. When I am on foot, I love to compare the different neighborhoods, contextualizing their histories to gain a better understanding of present conditions. Wherever I go, I enjoy reading the walls of the city, which you can always count on being covered in graffiti and street art.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
I cannot begin to comprehend what a great privilege it is for me to not only study at university but to receive an education that prioritizes interdisciplinary learning over fulfilling hyper specific qualifications. The liberal arts serves this purpose not only by teaching me how to make broad connections across systems of thought but also through contextualizing what I have learned, to make insights that can be tools for understanding and shaping the communities I inhabit. I came to BCB with an ignorant assurance that I knew myself and the world around me. Here, I have learned to value the mutability of knowledge rather than being fixed on stagnated notions of right and wrong. My liberal arts education gives me the freedom to change my mind and change it many times over. The liberal arts has shown me that my education is not over upon receiving a diploma, rather it continues as long as I engage with the world with curiosity and a desire to make connections.

What are your plans for after BCB?
I love Berlin and I am so grateful that I get to experience this city during these years spent at BCB. That being said, I don’t see myself living in an urban environment and I would like to live closer to nature. Wherever I end up, I hope to continue investing my time organizing for my community, to apply what I am studying here through practical efforts, and to continue to learn however I can.

Martha Baiye

Germany
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought (2027)

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I love how interdisciplinary the degree programs are.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
Diverse, engaged, and open.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
W16 Library Learning Commons

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
I honestly can't say there's just one. Looking back, many of my favorite readings happen to be from the Global Citizenship course that I had with Dr. Nassim AbiGhanem in my first semester. One of them was Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson. It was so striking to understand how this feeling and sense of national belonging emerged. So much is so psychological and has been constructed/fixed into systematic structures and conventional definitions.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Pretty much all the courses I’ve taken so far have opened up new perspectives for me and have enriched my thought process around the theories and concepts that shape our world. I´m just going to take reference to the Forms of Love core class, because I feel like I learned so much about myself and it allowed me to put things into perspective I had not contemplated yet.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
Our campus and the BCB community are extremely safe spaces and contrast with the hectic and dramatic character of Berlin. "Safe" in the sense that I have not once witnessed or experienced any form of discrimination, whether it´s extremely subtle or very obvious.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Go out with friends and have some food with hilarious conversations

What are your plans for after BCB?
After BCB I would love to pursue some of my longstanding socio-historic projects revolving around the two neighboring countries Nigeria and Cameroon.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
Liberal arts for me means having the opportunity to learn about the world from a very nuanced perspective, one that deviates from the faulty conventional narratives and perspectives.

Muhammad Faraz Sadiq

Pakistan
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought ('25)
Concentration in Economics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I chose to study at Bard College Berlin because of its interdisciplinary curriculum and seminar style classes. I thought it would be an enlightening experience to explore a wide range of disciplines including politics, economics, and philosophy and to understand their interrelationship with each other. I was also interested in studying and living in Berlin and exploring the city and learning about the German language and culture.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
I think the community at Bard College Berlin is a beautiful amalgamation of beautiful minds. I am happy to be a part of such a diverse and vibrant community where everyone is kind, welcoming and supportive towards each other.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
I often study in one of the reading rooms, because it is very cozy and when the weather is nice, they are bright and sunny. When I want to write my essays, I go to the library and work in one of the rooms where I can be by myself in silence and can think and write better.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations?
I am running two Civic Engagement projects. One is the English Hour, which provides a space for people in the neighborhood of the college to come and practice their English, engage in conversation and form new connections in the community. And the other is Open Classroom, a project that enables people to experience university-level courses taught at Bard College Berlin in an informal setting that is open to everyone. It also aims at students to share the knowledge gained in the courses they are attending at Bard College Berlin.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
It is hard to choose, but recently I read Bocaccio's The Decameron as a part of my course on Renaissance Florence. I loved this book because of the ways it tells stories, and through telling those, expresses ideas that would have been quite radical for its time. These stories are also framed as such that they are set against a backdrop of a plague—a scenario which we can relate to, having recently lived through a pandemic of our own time. I liked the way the different characters are developed, the contrast between the chaos of a city and the calm of the countryside is presented, and how the ever important question of preserving the human legacy in face of devastating calamity is answered.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
The course Forms of Love that I took in the Spring 2022 semester was particularly fascinating. I liked the way the transfer of ideas from Ancient Greece to the Middle East to Western Europe was illustrated by the diversity of texts that were chosen to be a part of the curriculum. I learned about the different kinds of love that exist, and fundamental questions regarding their nature. It was at times thought provoking, at times entertaining, and at times calling for introspection—this is one of the best things that a single course can aim to achieve.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
I was amazed about the level of support you can find here, and about how understanding your professors and the other members of the community are. I always feel comfortable sharing my experiences and concerns whether it be with my professors, the Student Life officers, the Civic Engagement coordinators, or Careers Services. I feel that there is always someone who can offer me guidance and support to help me make the right decisions.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Going for walks, visiting museums (of which there are plenty in Berlin), and going to a nice café or a restaurant with my friends.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
To me getting a liberal arts education means that I am exposed to a wide range of ideas and thoughts as part of an interconnected, interdisciplinary curriculum. I think it is important to see how different fields of understanding our world are interrelated and is important in developing a holistic understanding of ourselves and our world. I also think it means acquiring a wide range of transferrable skills that will help me through my educational and professional career.

Naima Hübner

USA/Germany
BA in Artistic Practice and Society

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
The small, close-knit classes were particularly appealing, offering the kind of intense discussions that were a contrast to my previous educational experiences. As I continued to explore the college online, it became clear that its environment was what I wanted for my higher education.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
Its size is nothing to be concerned about. You won't know everybody by name and there's a lot of school activities in which you can meet a new face. I also think that the professors truly have your best interest at heart and want you to enjoy the class as much as they enjoy teaching it.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
K24 silent reading room.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
Yes, the swap shop; a free thrift store on campus!

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
I really enjoyed the DSM-5 for my Concepts of a Person class because I have an interest in psychology. I remember being really intrigued while reading that text for my class discussion.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
It's hard to chose, but it would probably be The Black & White (photography). It's cool being able to use a dark room and see your images come to life.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
What surprised me was that with the college being located in Pankow, you aren't really in Berlin's city life. The separation is nice to have especially if you like a calm environment for living and studying. Pankow is a really calm environment which wasn't what I expected when saying I was going to be going to college in Berlin.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Every weekend there's a different adventure to have. Sometimes it's sleeping the whole weekend away, a museum, a cafe, a bar with friends, etc. I don't think I can have a favorite activity to allocate my weekends to. Every weekend is different!

What are your plans for after BCB?
My plans after BCB are still up in the air for I am not done with my BA program here. For example, one of the things I want to do is become a flight attendant.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
It means having freedom in choosing classes that consume your interest, allowing your introduction to higher education to be more of an exploration; possibly helping you understand what you would enjoy to do in and with your life.

Nola Ben Eli

USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '26
Concentration: Ethics and Politics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I was very lucky to be able to travel with my family as a kid and foster an appreciation for being immersed in different cultures. Since I went to Bard High School Early College in Manhattan, I knew I liked the Bard learning environment and I had heard of Bard Berlin from some of my professors in high school, so I was excited about it as a choice. When I got in, I knew I wanted to go here!

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
BCB has a dynamic, inclusive, international community where you can really experience the benefits of the smaller class setting and, especially living on campus, there is a really close community vibe where you can get involved in a lot of initiatives and get to know the people around.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
I really like that there's a lot of green space outdoors around campus for before it gets too cold, and when it does get cold in Berlin I love to go in the K24 reading room. It has a very cozy vibe and is a great quiet atmosphere for studying. I also love going to the Learning Commons no matter the weather.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I am the co-leader of BCB Go Green, in charge of the Gardening and Sustainability Committees! We get to collaborate with the Swap Shop and other clubs, as well as Civic Engagement more largely. I am also the Student Life representative in Student Parliament (StuPa) this year.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
My favorite book I read in a class was Dante's La Vita Nuova in Love Core. I had Tracy Colony for this section of core, and he taught it in such a lovely and captivating way, it really illustrated the immensely layered and elaborate intention behind the book and how it was significant in the context of Dante's other works, as well as in the context of the time period and themes of the class.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
I think my favorite course that I've taken so far has been Aya Soika's Critical Perspectives on the Humboldt Forum, which I am taking right now. There's so much I love about the class, especially being able to go out into the city every week and explore the Humboldt Forum. I've always loved museums and have thought about the idea that it would take you days to really get to see everything in even a very small museum, and I was very excited to really experience that with the Humboldt Forum. Nothing could've prepared me for the whirlwind of fascinating and extremely relevant controversy both stemming from the museum's facade and beyond it. Aya and Tarek (the co-instructor from Humboldt) do an incredible job of teaching it in an engaging way!

What surprised you the most about BCB?
I had never been to Berlin or visited campus before, and I knew the housing was very nice but I was eager to be in the KW buildings or HKH based on the videos I had seen. I was so incredibly pleasantly surprised by the T25 housing, and even by how much the other buildings surpassed my expectations, and how much the layout of campus works to foster really lovely community between all the buildings. Prospective students should know that the basics of housing will be great regardless of where they stay their first year on campus.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
There are so many fun places to go in Berlin. If I'm not catching up on work or hanging out with friends on our lovely campus, I'm probably out at one of the many cool bars, clubs, or galleries in the city.

What are your plans for after BCB?
I am working on a sustainable fashion business project in New York City, which ties into my thesis, and I will be finishing both while I am abroad in Annandale and taking more econ and business electives in my last year. I am planning on going to graduate school in the US or abroad (not 100% sure yet!) for economics, business, and politics. I'm not sure which one will be my major or minor yet, as I am both very interested in getting into the business world, as well as working to become a diplomat for the US and working in international relations. I'm hopeful I can do a bit of both, but we'll see which one ends up being my primary career :)

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
Going to Bard High School Early College, I suppose I knew what a liberal arts education meant to me and what I loved and thought was important about it before I even knew that it was necessarily a "liberal arts education." I think this labeling of "liberal arts" can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people, but the defining elements of the Bard liberal arts learning environment to me are the open discussion model, curiosity, and genuine passion for understanding and sharing about their respective interests + fields of study, among faculty and students alike.

Owen Burk

USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought (2027)
Concentration: Ethics and Politics

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I wanted to study at global, diverse university while also being able to have the experience of a smaller liberal arts school in Europe.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
I think the BCB community is the perfect mixture of politically active, artistic, creative, and enthusiastic people passionate about what they are studying.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?
I also study in the learning commons. It's quiet, comfortable, and a bit more secluded than other study spaces on campus, which makes it easier to lock in an focus on my work.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I am a member of both the student parliament and student union. I think it's important to work to advocate for student's rights on campus and make changes to help improve the community.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
Last year I got to read Beer in the Snooker Club by Waguih Ghali for a class on Postcolonial Politics in the Middle East. The book offered a unique look into the life of an Egyptian man living in a postcolonial society, facing systematic oppression and how colonization can affect the individual on such an extreme level. This book brought to light many injustices in our current society, and was a very insightful read.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Europe's Others was one of my favorite classes I've taken at BCB. The class focused on minority and marginalized communities within Europe and their experiences both with challenging and remodeling the modern identity of Europe.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
I was surprised to find a community of so many like minded people like myself, who really value living in an international community and advocating for the causes we believe in.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?
Berlin is a really big city, and I either spend my weekends enjoying its lakes and parks, if the weather is nice, of course, or my friends and I will go to demonstrations and protests to advocate for the causes we believe in.

What are your plans for after BCB?
After BCB, I hope to continue pursuing my interest in documentary film making, and finding a way to connect that to an organization that works to promote human rights and equality on an international scale.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
To me, a liberal arts education means learning how to properly question the systems and structures we live in and use on a daily basis. It means studying the world from multiple angles to gain a diverse understanding of people and politics.

Qais

Afghanistan
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought (2023)

Favorite quote and why?

‘’A great mind becomes a great fortune.’’ - Seneca
I believe the result of every accomplishment comes from trying and putting your efforts into it. Hence, the consequence of cultivating the mind gives you lifetime happiness.

Why Bard College Berlin?

Over the past two years before I joined Bard College Berlin, I have been working in different environments to try to find a relatable field for my higher education. I have realized that my interests and my mind are made for liberal arts studies. Therefore, I chose BCB.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?

A community where you feel at home!

You favorite place to study on campus:

The Reading Room of K24 (the residence hall where I currently live).

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations?

As part of my involvement with LINGO 101, I teach Persian once a week.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?

Playing ping-pong with friends and attending cultural events in diplomatic missions in Berlin.

What surprised you the most about BCB?

The teaching methods and direct interactions between faculty and students.

Favorite book you read in a class?

Democracy & Its Critics by Robert Dahl

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

Introduction to Ethics - a very great way of learning about Western philosophers. Their ethical approaches, rationality and theories have made me rethink human life.

Plans after BCB?

As education is very dear to me, I will pursue a Master’s degree and work for a year or two in Berlin after I graduate from BCB.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

Liberal arts education gives me the ability to think and demonstrate the principles of life and how to act upon them. Through liberal arts education, I can be a better version of myself.

Sanskriti Shrestha

Nepal
HAST (Arts and Aesthetics)

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?

Bard College Berlin's commitment to a liberal arts education deeply resonated with my academic goals. As an art student, I was fascinated with the idea that I would be able to overlap other disciplines like philosophy, literature, and humanities for the interdisciplinary approach that allows me to explore a diverse range of subjects, fostering a well-rounded intellectual development and future career options.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?

BCB’s community is highly international and inclusive. The campus is comprised of students from various cultural backgrounds, providing a rich and dynamic environment for cultural exchange and global perspectives. Nevertheless, the emphasis on small class sizes and close faculty-student interactions is something highly unique to BCB. This creates a supportive, inclusive, and active learning environment, which allows me, as an art student, to explore and express creative ideas and projects very freely.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?

Other than my own apartment, where I feel like home to be comfortable as well as productive, I find the libraries at BCB to be a very inspiring place for its immense number of varieties of books. Because of easy access to kitchens on each floor, I can easily make some tea and get going with my studies. Apart from that, the Learning Commons provides a well-lit and cozy atmosphere to study, where studying happens not just through books, but also collective discussions and group works with peers and mentors.
As an art student, I also find myself spending the most amount of time in the Factory, which is an art studio space and a creative haven for me to work on my art projects.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?

Each semester during the involvement fair, you get to mingle around with club representatives and explore what clubs are available to join. I end up signing up for a lot of clubs during this time and enjoy keeping myself busy throughout the semester with these clubs.
With the environmental club, we have organized vegan picnics, hiking, and activities to bring ourselves closer to nature. With the knitting club, we spent time in the evenings at the W15 Cafe to relax and learn a new skill. With the ceramics club, we spend tons of time at the factory making cute handmade gifts for ourselves and our friends. I myself started my own yoga club, which regularly organizes yoga and de-stress sessions, something everyone treasures especially at that peak time of the semester when exams and assignment deadlines are around!

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?

My favorite book that I've read so far for a class was the Three Plays by Elfriede Jelinek, which is comprised of three long plays by a post-dramatic playwright. Since the course was about post-dramatic theater making, with Jelinek an inspiration and our reference, I truly enjoyed reading this very different genre of theater text.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

At BCB, we use the entire city of Berlin as a backdrop for our education and studies, using the vast number of cultural and academic opportunities provided by the city. In Prof. Dr. Dorothea von Hantelmann's art history class called “Museum as Rituals,” we launched a theoretical discussion of how museums as a mode of modern ritual is problematic and what its alternatives could be. For the class, we got to visit a number of museums and exhibitions in the city, and got to analyze them with an anthropological lens. For the rich amount of knowledge I've gained in this class, it has made a lasting impression on me by far.

What surprised you the most about BCB?

BCB deviates from the kind of image I have in mind of typical undergraduate universities, where students attend lectures in big numbers in big halls. At BCB, I was surprised and immensely pleased to see how its academic environment emphasizes a more intimate and engaged learning experience. We benefit from smaller class sizes, which are ‘seminars’ rather than ‘lectures,’ fostering interactive two-way discussions and close connections with professors and classmates. Additionally, BCB’s commitment to collaborative learning goes beyond the campus community, as we connect with the larger OSUN and Erasmus networks.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?

It is pleasing to see how rich Berlin is in artistic as well as natural landscapes. On weekends, I seek to find a good balance between finding serenity in Berlin’s big, green parks and inspiring the soul with Berlin's creative and artistic culture of flea markets, exhibitions, theater shows, and operas.

What are your plans for after BCB?

After BCB, I want to stay in Berlin and use its artistic collaborative network to develop my art career. I want to work in the field of film and theater, and explore more in my interests of artistic production and performance.
Additionally, as a freelance yoga teacher, I want to delve deeper into the exotic spiritual scene of Berlin and keep working in a number of yoga studios across the city as my secondary job.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

A liberal arts education, to me, represents a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to learning that goes beyond the confines of specialized fields. It is a philosophy that encourages intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and a broad understanding of various subjects. Here, I'm educating myself not just about these various fields of philosophy, humanities, literature, etc., but really teaching myself about life and society itself and what it means to be an individual who can think critically, communicate effectively, and adapt to different situations. This approach values the interconnectedness of knowledge and promotes the idea that insights from various disciplines contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the world, promoting active engagement and stimulating curiosity and a lifelong love of learning.

Sofus Ellingsgård

Denmark
BA in Artistic Practice and Society (APS)

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?

I chose Bard College Berlin because I come from a background of both American and European institutions, and BCB is the perfect union between the two educations. I was initially drawn to study at a liberal arts university in the US, but once I heard about BCB, getting the chance to study at an American liberal arts college while living in a major European city, I knew it was the right place for me.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?

The Bard Berlin community is very international and full of different cultures, all bringing something different to BCB. Since BCB is the small size it is, our community is close knit and you quickly get a sense of closeness to the people around you.

Where is your favorite place to study on campus?

I find the W15 Cafe the best place to study on campus. It has a good atmosphere, and there's always familiar faces around.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?

I am not yet involved with any student clubs, but I would be interested in joining a club focusing on art in the future.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?

My favorite book I have read in a class was The Epic of Gilgamesh. I found it fascinating reading one of the oldest tellings of mankind, understanding how man has developed through time.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

My most inspiring class has been Beginning Photography. This class challenged me to experiment with the medium of photography and learn new skills and methods to evolve my own art.

What surprised you the most about BCB?

The small sizes of the classes and the internationality of the school.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?

On weekends I love to venture out into the city and see a new neighborhood that I am not yet familiar with. I love going to galleries and thrift stores in Kreuzberg or in the summers hang out in parks. After living in Berlin for about half a year I can still find something new and unexpected every time I go to the city.

What are your plans for after BCB?

After BCB I plan to work for a creative agency somewhere in Berlin.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

A liberal arts eduction for me means having the freedom to design my own eduction to fit my personal interests. The liberal arts education has appealed to me because of its interdisciplinary nature.

Xiaojing (Soledad) Li

China
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought
Currently: Pursuing an MA in Digital Sciences at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Université de Paris

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?
I am from Shenzhen, China and I was enrolled in the HAST program at BCB.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
I enjoyed people at BCB the most! I have suffered from mental health issues for 12 years. During my time at BCB, I received enormous help from people here. They warmed me up with their kindness and wisdom and made me brave enough to accept myself and make peace with my mental health issues.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?
It is like owning a Mary Poppins bag or opening an "Überraschungsei".

Did you have a course that left a lasting impression on you?
That’s so hard to choose! If I had to choose one, I would choose Julia Hart’s Staging of German Drama 21 Century. The course opened up my exploration in performing arts and after it, I started specializing in theater and had a wonderful time in BCB.

While at BCB, you initiated your sustainability project Rhythm of Bamboos that was funded by the Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe Institute. What is the project about and what led you to initiate it?
The Rhythm project is about building a sustainable community center out of bamboos for women and children in a rural village in China. Apart from the center, we designed a board game and curated two exhibitions for villagers to participate in the Rhythm center. I initiated this project with one of my best friends after graduation from BCB. (Aroud July 2021) Both of us are from China and are interested in community projects. We have been flatmates for 3 years so we know each other quite well. After a short brainstorming session, we started applying for grant with the Rhythm project! Before coming to BCB, I spend half a year doing community projects in urban villages in China.

Where are you now and what do you do?
I am pursuing my master's degree in Digital Sciences at the Center for Research Interdisciplinarity (CRI) in Paris now. As the name suggests, it is a research center that focuses on interdisciplinary studies. Besides the university time, I am interning remotely for AutSPACEs, a citizen science project for autistic people in London.

How did what you learned at BCB help you transition to where you are now?
It is not easy to make this sudden transition from arts to tech. I held doubts on my own at first. But BCB helped me believe in myself and taught me that it was never too late to start learning. : )

Any advice you would give to students in the HAST programs?
Do not feel afraid of trying new ideas out! You may get easily distracted (always!), but you will always explore new things about yourself and find new missing puzzles pieces of your jigsaw!

Jens Reich
Honorary Chair

Dr. Jens Reich was born in Göttingen in 1939. A molecular biologist and essayist, Jens Reich was one of the key figures in the civil rights movement of the GDR in the 80s. In September 1989 he was one of the signatories of the paper calling for the establishment of the “Neues Forum” grassroots movement whose activities led to the overthrow of the communist regime in East Germany and eventually to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 1990, as leading candidate of “Neues Forum”, he was elected to the People's Chamber of the GDR.

After reunification, he returned to his academic career as molecular geneticist at the Max-Delbrück-Centre in Berlin, remaining politically active. In 1991 Jens Reich was a visiting professor at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

He was a candidate in the election for President of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1994, which resulted in the appointment of Roman Herzog.

Jens Reich has been a member of the “German National Foundation”, as well as the German Ethics Council (2001-2012).

Today, Jens Reich is active as an ombudsman for the Max-Delbrück-Centre and helps researchers in conflict situations - the same position he held at the Charité University Hospital from 2001 onwards. He also teaches bioethics at Bard College Berlin.

Jens Reich studied medicine at the Humboldt University Berlin (1956-1962) and became an expert of molecular biology. He was professor of Bioinformatics at the Medical Faculty (Charité) of the Humboldt University in Berlin from 1998 to 2004.

Publications (selection of non-professional publications):

Es wird ein Mensch gemacht. Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Gentechnik, Rowohlt-Verlag, Berlin, 2003
Jens Reich im Gespräch mit Mathias Greffrath und Konrad Adam, Hanser Verlag, München, 1994
Abschied von den Lebenslügen. Die Intelligenz und die Macht, Rowohlt Berlin, 1992
Rückkehr nach Europa. Zur Lage der deutschen Nation, Hanser Verlag, München 1991

Photo: David Ausserhofer/Copyright: MDC

Nassim AbiGhanem

Lebanon
PhD in International Relations
Central European University

Nassim AbiGhanem received his MA in International Relations from the University of Manchester (2012), focusing on Middle Eastern conflicts. He recently completed his Ph.D. in International Relations at the Central European University (2021) titled "The Civil Society Organizations' Design and Implementation of Demobilization and Reintegration Programs". Using social network analysis (SNA) and life-course approaches, the dissertation explores the various brokerage and turning points that local civil society organizations conducted to demobilize and reintegrate ex-combatants in the city of Tripoli in Lebanon. His research interests include civil society organization (CSOs) resilience roles, civic engagement, non-state actors' involvement in international politics, and conflict management and peacebuilding. He is currently working on turning his PhD thesis into a book.
Outside academia, Abi Ghanem advised regional and international organizations on programmatic initiatives taking place in Lebanon.

Dr. AbiGhanem was a Global Teaching Fellow at Bard College Berlin for the 2021/2022 academic year.

Publications:

AbiGhanem, N., 2022. The reverse impact of politics on the COVID-19 response: How Hezbollah determined the choices of the Lebanese government. In The MENA Region and COVID-19 (pp. 36-51). Routledge.

Contact:
Dr. Nassim AbiGhanem

International Relations
n.abighanem[at]berlin.bard.edu

Fatin Abbas

Sudan/USA
PhD in Comparative Literature
Harvard University

Fatin Abbas is a writer and scholar whose work lies at the intersection of African and Middle Eastern studies, literature, migration, gender and visual studies. She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at Harvard University and her MFA in Creative Writing at the City University of New York. Her research addresses histories of the African diaspora, gender in African and Arabic literature, post-independence state power, as well as colonialism and globalization as themes in African and Middle Eastern literature and film.

She has been a Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholar (UK), a Writer-in-Residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature (Switzerland), a James Baldwin St. Paul de Vence Writer-in-Residence (France), as well as an Austrian Federal Chancellery/KulturKontakt Artist-in-Residence (Austria). Her first book, Ghost Season: A Novel is forthcoming from W. W. Norton & Co.

Contact
Dr. Fatin Abbas
Comparative Literature
f.abbas[at]berlin.bard.edu

Carla Åhlander

Sweden/Italy
Performance and Theatre Studies, Commedia School (Copenhagen)
Photography Studies at Fatamorgana Fotoskole (Copenhagen), SACI (Florence), Lund University

Carla Åhlander is a Swedish-Italian artist based in Berlin. She mainly works with photography and deals with themes moving between memory and history. The immediate situations Åhlander documents in her photographs are rather subtle appearances of power relations and systems of order – in all shades and from the vocabulary of everyday life – situations where something is about to happen or could happen, taken from a multiplicity of contexts, often with no beginning or end in narrative terms. Her solo presentations include The Idea of a Mountain, Skepparholmen (2016), Noteringar: tillstånd, platser, Fotogalleriet Format, Malmö, (2014), and the public billboard piece Perspektiven (2013–2016) for nGbK, Berlin, installed in the subway station Schwartzkopffstraße in Berlin. Group exhibitions include Police the Police, Biennial for Young Art, Bucharest (2010), Boredom, Essays & Observations, Berlin (2012), Interkontinental, Belmacz, London (2016), The 9th Scandinavian Sculpture Biennial, Vigeland-museet, Oslo (2017), BONE Performance Festival, Bern (2018). She has taught classes at the UdK, Berlin, Summer University of the UdK, Berlin, Kunsthochschule Kassel, among other institutions.

Personal website
www.carlaahlander.com

Contact
Carla Åhlander
Artist
c.ahlander[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ewa Atanassow

Bulgaria/Poland
PhD from the Committee on Social Thought
The University of Chicago

Ewa Atanassow holds a PhD from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, an MA in psychology from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Government at Harvard University. Her research and teaching range across the history of political thought, focusing on questions of nationhood and democratic citizenship, with emphasis on Tocqueville. She is the author of Tocqueville's Dilemmas and Ours: Sovereignty, Nationalism, Globalization (Princeton University Press, 2022), and the co-editor of Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy with Richard Boyd (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Liberal Moments: Reading Liberal Texts with Alan S. Kahan (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017); and When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice with Thomas Bartscherer and David Bateman (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Courses taught at BCB

Core

Early Modern Science
Forms of Love
Plato's Republic and Its Interlocutors

Seminars

Aristotle's Politics
Citizens of the World: Ancient, Modern, Contemporary
Colonization and Democracy: the case of Algeria
Democracy Ancient and Modern
Equality
Hate and Revolution
Hobbes' Leviathan
Liberalism and Empire: the case of India
Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism
Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws
Tocqueville's Democracy in America

Project Lead at the Science and Religion Project

Contact
Prof. Dr. Ewa Atanassow
Political Thought
Phone: +49 30 43733 104
Email: e.atanassow[at]berlin.bard.edu

Deborah Amos

USA
BS in Journalism
University of Florida

Deborah Amos teaches Migration Reporting at Princeton University in the Fall term. She was first named a Ferris Professor in 2012 and has returned to Princeton to continue teaching as the University expands its journalism program.
Amos is a former correspondent for National Public Radio with four decades of reporting from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the US.

In 2022, Amos was among the 22 recipients of the Berlin Prize Fellowship for a semester at the American Academy Berlin.

In 2020 Amos won a Dart Award for “Syria Torture Survivors Seek Justice.” The judges noted; “a case study of thorough, humane, and complete reporting.”

2017: IWMF Courage in Journalism Award for a career of war reporting.

2013 The Alfred I. DuPont-‐Columbia Award, the George Foster Peabody Award and was honored by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for her coverage of the Syrian uprising.

2010 The Edward R. Murrow Life Time Achievement Award by Washington State University.

In 2009, Amos won the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University. Amos was part of a team of reporters who won a2004 AlfredI. DuPont-‐ColumbiaAward for coverage of Iraq.

In 2013 and again in 2015 she was named the James H. Ottaway Sr. Professor of Journalism at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She taught a one-semester journalism course.

In 2018 Amos taught a one-‐week radio production class at Columbia University for entering Master’s degree candidates and a semester course in radio news reporting.

A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1991-‐1992,Amos returned to Harvard in 2010 as a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School to write a research paper on the Iraqi media.

Contact:
Deborah Amos
Human Rights
[email protected]

Heba Amin

Egypt
MFA
University of Minnesota

Heba Y. Amin is an Egyptian visual artist and scholar whose work is embedded in extensive research addressing the convergence of politics, technology, and urbanism. She is particularly interested in tactics of subversion and techniques used to undermine systems as well as topics surrounding critical spatial practice and critical geography. Amin received her MFA at the University of Minnesota and is a DAAD grant recipient (2010-2012), a Rhizome Commissions grant winner (2009) and a recent short-listed artist for the Artraker prize (2014). She is currently the curator of visual art for MIZNA journal (US), curator for the biennial residency program DEFAULT with Ramdom Association (IT) and co-founder of the Black Athena Collective. She is also one of the artists behind the subversive action on the set of the television series Homeland which received worldwide media attention and led to the making of the short film Homeland is not a Series produced by Field of Vision (The Intercept).

Amin’s artistic work has been shown worldwide with recent exhibitions at Dak’Art 2016 Biennale, the Marrakech Biennale 2016 Parallel Projects, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Kunstverein Hamburg, Berlin Berlinale Forum Expanded (2014, 2016), and the IV Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. She also has an extensive repertoire in public speaking and performance lectures at various conferences and events. More information on her work can be found at www.hebaamin.com.

Amin is currently represented by Galeri Zilberman in Istanbul.

Contact
Heba Amin
Visual Artist
Email: h.amin[at]berlin.bard.edu

Mònica Colominas Aparicio

Spain
PhD in Religious Studies
University of Amsterdam

Born in Barcelona, Mònica Colominas Aparicio obtained her BA Degree and MA Degree (cum laude) in Arabic Language and Culture, and her diploma in Classical Guitar at the University and Conservatorium of Amsterdam. She holds a doctorate from the Department of Religious Studies (University of Amsterdam, 2016). Since May 2016 she was, first, a postdoc and, currently, a research scholar at the Department I of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and a core member of the Max-Planck inter-institutional project Convivencia: Iberian to Global Dynamics, 500-1750. She was a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and recently held a teaching fellowship at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas (University of Tel Aviv).

Her work focuses on the identity discourses of the Muslim minority communities living under Christian rule—the Mudejars—in their works of religious polemics with the Christians and the Jews written in Arabic and in aljamiado (Spanish in Arabic characters). She received the 2015-2016 Dissertation Award of the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH). Her book The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Iberia. Identity and Religious Authority in Mudejar Islam has appeared in 2018 in the Brill’s Series "The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World," volume 64.

Contact
Dr. Mònica Colominas Aparicio
Religious Studies
Email: m.colominasaparicio[at]berlin.bard.edu

Stefania Animento

Italy
MA in Social Sciences
Humboldt University, Berlin

Stefania Animento studied International Relations (BA) and Social Sciences (MA) in Italy and Germany. She graduated in 2014 with a thesis on the concept of social mix in disadvantaged neighborhoods of Berlin. Since then, she has been enrolled as a Phd Candidate in Urban Studies at the University of Milan-Bicocca and at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In her work, she focuses on the urban as a privileged setting to analyze social life and social inequalities. More specifically, she investigates how young migrants interact with processes of urban restructuring related to the housing and labor market, by focusing on the case study of young Italian migrants in Berlin.

In the past years, she has taught courses in Sociology at the Humboldt University and at the Evangelische Hochschule in Berlin. She is currently based at the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies in Berlin, where she has co-founded a research group on “Global Urban Youth.” As a lecturer, she is particularly interested in developing participative ways of teaching, such as research-based learning.

Contact
Stefania Animento (PhD candidate)
Urban Studies
Email: [email protected]

Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi

United Arab Emirates
MSc in Global Banking & Finance
Regent's University London

Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi is an Emirati columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. He is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, an independent initiative established in 2010 to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region. He has taught 'Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art' at New York University, Yale University, Georgetown University, Boston College, The American University at Paris and most recently at The School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.

Contact:
Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi
Art and Aesthetics
[email protected]

Josefin Arnell

Sweden
MA in Dirty Art, Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam
Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam

With video operating as the primary medium, visual artist Josefin Arnell's work extends to performance, installation, objects, poetry or printed media. Floating between aspects of documentary and fiction she methodically navigates the space between exuberance and self-exploitation. By choosing to work with non-actors, she is capturing a rawness that reflects an emotional landscape exploring unattainable desires, perfectionism and control. The teenage girl, the horse and the mother are recurring characters alongside clumsy allegories in conflicts of human conditions or environmental catastrophes.

In addition to her solo work, Josefin is involved in multiple collaborations and self initiatives focusing on feminism practices. These include performance productions or critical and supportive conversation events for cultural practitioners. One of the most notable collaborations is HellFun aka Josefin Arnell & Max Göran. HellFun makes video and performances and "prefers to be brave and pathetic rather than drowning in shame." Together with artist Natasja Loutchko, Josefin runs HorseGirl, a production platform exploring intimacy and sisterhood. In 2018 HorseGirl started developing their first feature film.

Arnell's work has been shown at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Kunsthalle Münster (Münster), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Beursschouwburg (Brussels), Contemporary Art Center Vilnius (Vilnius), Moscow International Biennale for Young Art 2018 (Moscow). She was awarded the first prize in the frame of the Theodora Niemeijer Prijs 2018 at Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven for emerging women artists in the Netherlands. In 2015/2016 she participated in the two-year residency program Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam). She holds an MA in Dirty Art from Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam).

Contact
Josefin Arnell, M.A.
Visual Art
Email: j.arnell[at]berlin.bard.edu

Fred Abrahams

USA
MA in International Affairs
Columbia University

Fred Abrahams is a researcher, writer and human rights advocate with expertise in war crimes investigations and research methodologies. Until May 2024, he was Associate Program Director at Human Rights Watch, where he oversaw the Crisis & Conflict, Arms and Technology divisions, including the Digital Investigations Lab, and led the organization’s internal research training. He has written numerous reports, articles, and opinion pieces and co-authored A Village Destroyed: War Crimes in Kosovo (University of California Press, 2002). His book, Modern Albania: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe (NYU Press, 2015), explores the fall of communism and Albania’s challenging transition. Abrahams has a bachelor's degree in German and International Studies from Washington University and a master's in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Abrahams has previously taught at Columbia University and The New School in New York.

Contact:
Fred Abrahams
f.abrahams[at]berlin.bard.edu

Kimberly Marteau Emerson
Chair

Principal, KME Consulting

Kimberly Marteau Emerson (JD) is a lawyer, civic leader, and human rights advocate. In May 2023, she was appointed by President Biden to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Council. From 2013-2017, she lived in Berlin with her husband, US Ambassador to Germany John B. Emerson (ret.) during President Obama’s second term, where she worked with the US Embassy as well as independently to drive projects on multiple platforms, including promotion of German immigration and integration efforts related to the 2015/2016 refugee crisis; and addressing the issue throughout Germany of bringing women to the economic and political decision-making table. Kimberly also worked in the Clinton Administration as a senior political appointee and spokesperson for the U.S. Information Agency, now part of the State Department.

She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Governors of Bard College Berlin, on the Board of Trustees of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, as a member of the Advisory Board of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, the German-American Institutes, Berlin social impact consultancy PHINEO, and The Thomas Mann House, and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Paciﬁc Council on International Policy. Kimberly divides her time between LA and Berlin. She has been an election observer in Nigeria and the United States, and worked on relief projects in Lesbos, Greece, during the 2015 refugee crisis, Sri Lanka post-tsunami and New Orleans post-Katrina. Kimberly has been deeply active in US Presidential politics and helped many Democratic candidates on the local, state and federal level. She has also received several awards for her civic engagement. Previously, Kimberly practiced law with Tuttle & Taylor, and worked in Hollywood as a business and creative executive with Savoy Pictures and Sony Entertainment. She holds degrees from UCLA (BA), UC Hastings College of the Law (JD) and Faculté de Droit et de Science Politique at Aix-Marseille Université (DESU).

Christine Wallich
First Vice Chair

Dr. Christine I. Wallich, an international economist, has advised and worked with governments and civic institutions across the global south, building institutions and systems that work in challenging contexts. She served in senior leadership positions at the World Bank and other international financial institutions for over two decades, representing the World Bank and IMF at the Dayton Peace talks and leading an EU-World Bank Consortium of donors that raised $5 billion for Bosnia’s post-conflict reconstruction. She spearheaded World Bank economic advisory work on institutional and economic reforms in Eastern Europe, China, the former Soviet Union and subsequently, Russia, focusing on corporate and public sector governance, the role of civil society, and the transition to market economy. Previously, she headed the Asian Development Bank’s Private Sector Group, making transformational and socially responsible infrastructure and private sector investments across South and East Asia.

Christine Wallich grew up in Germany and the US, and now lives in Berlin. In addition to her economic advisory work, she serves on several nonprofit boards, both in the US and Germany. She holds degrees from Cambridge (BA, MA), Yale (PhD, Economics) and Harvard Business School (AMP).

Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg

Germany
PhD in Economics
Universität Kassel

Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg is a behavioral economist who holds a PhD in Economics (2015) as well as an MA (2011) and a BA in Economics (2009) from the University of Kassel. She also completed vocational training as an industrial clerk (2008). Before joining Bard College Berlin, she was a Research Associate (Post-Doc) at the “Chair of Economic Policy and SME Research,” University of Göttingen (2015-2021) and a Research Fellow at the “Economic Policy Research Group,” University of Kassel (2011-2015).

Her research interests are focused on ecological economics, pro-environmental behavior, identity economics, industrial dynamics/innovation, self-employment/entrepreneurship, and especially subjective well-being research. Recently, she has been most interested in the following areas of this field: (1) Implications of identity on human behavior (e.g. in the form of green identity or "artificial group identity"), (2) the extent to which occupational identity is conducive to worker well-being, and (3) the relationship between self-employment/entrepreneurship and well-being.
Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg received a grant in 2019 from the Ministry of Science and Culture (Lower Saxony) to research life satisfaction and identity in the skilled crafts and trades (“www.handwerksstolz.de”). Her research has appeared in internationally recognized journals such as Research Policy, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Ecological Economics and Social Indicators Research.
More information about her research can be found here.

Selected Publications:

Babutsidze, Z.; Blankenberg, A.-K., & A. Chai (2023). The effect of traditional media consumption and internet use on environmental attitudes in Europe, Journal of Evolutionary Economics.
Binder M., Blankenberg A.-K. (2021) Self-Employment and Subjective Well-Being. In: Zimmermann K.F. (eds) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics. Springer, Cham. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-319-57365-6_191-1
Welsch, H.; Binder, M. & A.-K. Blankenberg (2021). Green behavior, green selfimage, and subjective well-being: Separating affective and cognitive relationships, Ecological Economics, 179.
Binder, M.; Blankenberg, A.-K. & H. Welsch (2020). ProEnvironmental Norms, Green Lifestyles, and Subjective Well-Being: Panel Evidence from the UK, Social Indicators Research.
Binder, M.; Blankenberg, A.-K. & J. Guardiola (2020). Does it have to be a sacrifice? Different notions of the good life, proenvironmental behavior and their heterogeneous impact on well-being", Ecological Economics, 167.
Proeger, T. & A.-K. Blankenberg (2017). PAYWHAT-YOU-WANT IN GROUPS - EVIDENCE FROM A FIELD EXPERIMENT. Applied Economics Letters, 18.
Binder, M. & A.-K. Blankenberg (2017). Green lifestyles and subjective wellbeing: More about self-image than actual behavior? Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 137: 304323.
Blankenberg, A.-K. & G. Buenstorf (2016). Regional coevolution of firm population, innovation and public research? Evidence from the West German laser industry, Research Policy 45(4): 857868.
Binder, M. & A.-K. Blankenberg (2016). Environmental worries, volunteering and subjective well-being: Antecedents and outcomes of environmental activism in Germany, Ecological Economics 124: 1-16.

Selected Media Coverage

Universität Göttingen, Press release: Stimuli in the humanities and social sciences, (11.01.2019)
Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur: “Future discourses”: 1.2 million Euros for the humanities and social sciences, (11.01.2019)
Understanding Society (Report): Do green lifestyles improve life satisfaction?, “Insights 2018-19”, pp. 32-33)
Understanding Society: Many people believe in ‘green’ values, but fewer put it into practice, (03.10.2017)
The Atlantic: How vanity could save the planet, (20.06.2017)

Further links

Personal webpage
Google scholar
ORCID Researcher ID: 0000-0001-7108-7252
Web of Science Researcher ID: AAH-2768-2020

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg
Economics
E-mail: [email protected]

Florian Becker

Germany
PhD in German Literature
Princeton University

Literature
Managing Director

Dr. Florian N. Becker has been managing director of Bard College Berlin since 2015. He has been a member of the college’s leadership and faculty since 2012. From 2005 to 2012, Becker was Assistant Professor of German at Bard College in Annandale, New York. He has taught courses in language and literature, social theory, philosophy and cultural history. His research is concerned with twentieth-century German theater and performance, philosophy, and social theory. Since 2012, Becker has published articles and chapters in Brecht und die Naturwissenschaften (eds. Hippe and Ißbrücker, 2017), Der Deutschunterricht, Modern Drama, The International Brecht Yearbook, and the Routledge Handbook of Human Rights. With Paola S. Hernández and Brenda Werth, Becker edited the volume Imagining Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Theater: Global Perspectives (2013). With Janine Ludwig and Noah Willumsen, he is editing a two-volume English-language companion to the works of Heiner Müller. Becker holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. in German literature from Princeton University.

Managing Director; Associate Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Bard College
Phone: +49 30 43733 0
Email: f.becker[at]berlin.bard.edu

Abed Azzam

Germany
PhD in Philosophy
Tel Aviv University

Abed Azzam is a writer, scholar and translator. His areas of research include Islamic philosophy, Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory. He received his PhD from Tel Aviv University and has lectured in Philosophy and Religious studies at various universities in Germany and the US, including the University of Marburg, the Free University in Berlin and Brown University. His book Nietzsche versus Paul was published by Columbia University Press in 2015. In addition to his scholarly work, Azzam has worked extensively on various community development, youth and adult education projects.

Contact
Dr. Abed Azzam
Philosophy
Email: a.azzam[at]berlin.bard.edu

Behzad Azarhoushang

Iran
PhD in Political Economy
University of Kassel

Behzad Azarhoushang earned a PhD in Political Economy from the University of Kassel in 2017, with a research project on the effects of foreign direct investment in the industrial sector on regional inequality in China. Since 2014, he has lectured on strategic management, business administration, international economics & finance, macroeconomics, and German & EU economy at the Berlin School of Economics and Law, CIEE Berlin, and at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin. Between 2015-2017 he worked for the Institute for International Political Economy Berlin, where he created a database for investigating foreign direct investment and regional trade, and carried out research on Sino-German trade and for the Iran Chamber of Commerce. He has published analyses on foreign direct investment in China, global value chains and multinational companies, and industrial policies.

Contact
Dr. Behzad Azarhoushang
Political Economy
Email: b.azarhoushang[at]berlin.bard.edu

Valentina Azarova

Russia/Ukraine
PhD in Law
National University of Ireland, Galway

Dr. Valentina Azarova is an international legal academic and practitioner, who teaches and writes on foreign territorial control, the law of (third) state responsibility, and the international legal practice of non-governmental organizations. She is Visiting Academic at the Manchester International Law Centre (MILC), University of Manchester, where she co-teaches a project course on 'Transnational Public Interest Lawyering', and Legal and Strategic Advisor to the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). She is also Associate Editor of the Oxford Reports on International Human Rights Law and United Nations Treaty Bodies, and a member of the International Law Association’s Committee on Recognition/Non-Recognition.

Valentina has over a decade of experience documenting and engaging in legal actions and advocacy to challenge processes of structural violence of armed conflict, occupation, and economic exploitation with a focus on third party complicity. She has worked with and regularly advises UN bodies and fact-finding missions, states and non-governmental organizations. Valentina co-founded and taught in the BA program in Human Rights and International Law at Al-Quds Bard College, Al-Quds University. She held lecturing positions at Birzeit University and the University of the Holy Spirit of Kaslik in Lebanon, and research positions at Central European University and Koç University's Centre for Global Public Law in Istanbul.

Contact
Dr. Valentina Azarova
Law
Email: [email protected]

Yossi Bartal

Germany
MA in Gender Studies and Musicology
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Yossi Bartal is a researcher, journalist and political activist. Born and raised in West Jerusalem, he worked within joint Palestinian-Israeli initiatives and human rights organizations before moving to Berlin in 2006 to study Gender Studies and Musicology at Humboldt University. He graduated with a Master's thesis on flamenco and the economic crisis in southern Spain. From 2015 to 2021, he worked as a strategic consultant and editor for the Tel-Aviv office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and began writing for renowned German-language newspapers such as Berliner Zeitung, taz - die tageszeitung, and Freitag on subjects ranging from German-Israeli relations and queer politics to history and religion.

A short selection of his writings in English:

"German - Anti-German – Syn-German? The Afterlife of the Pro-Israeli Left in Germany"
In the Left Berlin >>

"Rewriting the History of Chanukka and Intifadas"
In +972 Magazine >>

"Flamenco’s Repression and Resistance in Southern Spain"
In Truthout >>

"Cultural Independence - Why I Resigned From Berlin’s Jewish Museum"
In Haaretz >>

Contact
Yossi Bartal
Journalism
y.bartal[at]berlin.bard.edu

Isaac Abotebuno Akolgo

Ghana
PhD in Political Economy
University of Bayreuth, Germany

Isaac Abotebuno Akolgo is a post-doctoral researcher at Bard College Berlin and the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth. His current research focuses on money, finance, and the political economy of development in Africa. Drawing from a variety of Economics perspectives, his work contributes to longstanding and recent debates on development finance. Of particular interest is the analysis of: (1) the ownership and operations of banks and Fintechs; (2) sovereign debt accumulation and debt crises; and (3) the distributive effects of monetary policy. By sifting through the complexity of money and finance, he aims to contribute to policy discourse on the sustainable path to African economic transformation. His most recent research has been published in journals such as Development and Change, the Review of International Political Economy, and the Review of African Political Economy.

Contact:
Dr. Isaac Abotebuno Akolgo
Political Economy
i.akolgo[at]berlin.bard.edu

Kerry Bystrom

USA
PhD in English
Princeton University

Professor of English and Human Rights, Director of Special Global Initiatives

Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom earned a BA, summa cum laude, in English/Creative Writing and Government from Dartmouth College (1999) and a PhD in English from Princeton University (2007). Awards for her doctoral research on cultural responses to dictatorship in Latin America and apartheid in South Africa include Princeton’s Charlotte Elizabeth Proctor Honorific Fellowship and an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council (USA). Before arriving at Bard College Berlin in 2012, she taught at Princeton University, Bard College, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Connecticut, where she was also director of the Research Program on Humanitarianism at the Human Rights Institute. She teaches at the intersection of aesthetics and politics, and on topics ranging from postcolonial studies (theory, literature, performance and visual art) and African and world literature to trauma and memory studies, human rights, and humanitarianism.

Courses taught at Bard College Berlin

Civic Engagement
Writing African Futures
Doing “Justice” after Atrocity
Critical Human Rights and Humanitarian Advocacy/ Scholars At Risk
Scholars at Risk
Global Citizenship
Global Cold War Literatures
Fictions of Justice: Literature, Truth Commissions, and International Criminal Law
Postcolonial Literature and Theory
Home and Exile - Studies and Literature and Human Rights
Introduction to Human Rights

Research
Bystrom is the author of the monograph Democracy at Home: Family Fictions and Transitional Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and has published numerous articles and book chapters in venues such as the Journal of Southern African Studies, Social Dynamics Humanity, and Interventions. She is co-editor with Glenn Mitoma of a special issue of the Journal of Human Rights on "Humanitarianism and Responsibility" (March 2013) and also with Sarah Nuttall of a special issue of Cultural Studies on "Private Lives and Public Cultures in South Africa" (Summer 2013). On-going research projects include Cold War relationships between Southern Africa and Latin America; the idea of the "South Atlantic"; global constructions of children's rights and particularly the right to identity; and visions of global solidarity and humanitarian crisis in literature, performance, and new media.

Publications (selected)

The Cultural Cold War and the Global South: Sites of Contest and Communitas, co-edited with Monica Popescu and Katherine Zien, Routledge, 2021
"Imagining Planetary Refuge," in EuropeNow, 2019
South and North. Contemporary Urban Orientations, co-edited with Ashleigh Harris and Andrew J. Webber: Routledge, 2018
The Global South Atlantic, co-edited with Joseph R. Slaughter: Fordham University Press, 2017
Democracy at Home in South Africa: Family Fictions and Transitional Culture New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
"Humanitarianism, Responsibility, Links, Knots," in Interventions International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 16(3), 2014
"Humanitarianism and Responsibility in Discourse and Practice," co-authored with Glenn Mitoma, in Human Rights Protection and Global Responsibilities: States and Non-State Actors, ed. Kurt Mills and David J. Karp, Palgrave Macmillan [New York], 2015
"Literature, Remediation, Remedy (The Case of Transitional Justice)," Comparative Literature 66 (1), 2014, pp. 25-34
"Stolen Children, Identity Rights and Rhetoric (Argentina, 1983-2012)," co-authored with Brenda Werth, Jac: A Journal of Rhetoric, Culture and Politics 33.3–4 (2013), pp. 425-453
"Johannesburg Interiors," Cultural Studies 27 (3), 2013, pp. 333-356
"Private Lives and Public Cultures," co-authored with Sarah Nuttall, Cultural Studies 27 (3), 2013, pp. 307-332
"Writing Roots in post-apartheid South Africa," Safundi 14 (1), 2013, pp. 17-36
"Broadway without Borders: Eve Ensler, Lynn Nottage, and Humanitarian Campaigns to End Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo," in Imagining Human Rights in Twenty-first Century Theater: Global Perspectives, ed. Florian Becker, Paola Hernández and Brenda Werth, Palgrave MacMillan [New York], 2013.
"Reading the South Atlantic: South Africa, Chile, the Cold War, and Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples," African Studies 71 (1), 2012, pp. 1-18
"On 'humanitarian' adoption (Madonna in Malawi)," Humanity 2 (2), 2011, pp. 213-231
"Literature and Human Rights," in The Routledge Handbook of Human Rights, ed. Thomas Cushman, Routledge [London], 2011, pp. 637-646
"Culture and Politics After Apartheid: Views from the Market Theatre. An Interview with Malcolm Purkey," Safundi 11 (3), 2010, pp. 201-213 (peer-edited extended interview)
"The Public Private Sphere: Family Narrative and Democracy in Argentina and South Africa,"Social Dynamics 36 (1), 2010, pp. 139-152
"South Africa, the USA, and the Globalization of Truth and Reconciliation: Itinerant Mourning in Zakes Mda's Cion," Safundi 10 (4), 2009, pp. 397-417
"The DNA of the Democratic South Africa: Ancestral Maps, Family Trees, Genealogical Fictions," Journal of Southern African Studies 35 (1), 2009, pp. 223-235
"The Politics of Subjectivity: Notes on 21^st-century Argentine Documentary Film," in Rethinking Third Cinema: The Role of Anti-colonial Media and Aesthetics in Postmodernity, ed. Frieda Ekotto and Adeline Koh, intr. Simon Gikandi, LIT Verlag [Berlin], 2009, pp. 31-51

Contact
Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom
Professor of English and Human Rights, Director of Special Global Initiatives
Phone: +49 30 43733 123
Email: k.bystrom[at]berlin.bard.edu

Dominik Bartmanski

Dominik Bartmanski is a cultural sociologist and social theorist. He earned his PhD with distinction in sociology at Yale University. His doctoral thesis, devoted to the transformation of public space in Berlin after 1989, won the Marvin B. Sussman prize for the best sociological dissertation at Yale in 2012. The same year his article "How to become an iconic social thinker: the intellectual pursuits of Malinowski and Foucault" was awarded the junior theorist prize by the International Sociological Association (ISA). He co-edited the volume Iconic Power: Materiality and Meaning in Social Life (Palgrave Macmillan 2012) and is the co-author with Ian Woodward of the book monograph Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury 2014). He does research and teaching in the areas of material culture, urban sociology, and sociology of consumption, knowledge, and music.

The full list of peer-reviewed publications can be found here.

Aaron Allen

USA
MA in Security Studies
Georgetown University

Aaron Allen is a non-resident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and freelance journalist focusing on transatlantic relations, democratic resilience, strategic arms control, and German foreign policy. Aaron was most recently a national security fellow with the Robert Bosch Stiftung where he worked for the German Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation in the Bundestag and Auswärtiges Amt in Berlin. Previously, he worked in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, Committee Professional Staff Member, and was the founder and former President of the Foreign Affairs Congressional Staff Association. He also previously worked in local and state politics in California. Aaron attended the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated with degrees in History and Political Science. He has completed a Master in Arts in Security Studies at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and a Master in Arts in Defense and Strategic Studies at the U.S. Naval War College. He also completed a two-year national security certification fellowship with the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation.

Contact:
Aaron Allen
International Affairs
[email protected]

Susan H. Gillespie
Second Vice Chair

Susan H. Gillespie has spent her life exploring the possibilities of translation—interlingual, cultural, and educational. She is a graduate of Radcliffe College of Harvard University and attended the University of Freiburg for four years on a DAAD scholarship. She has translated Theodor W. Adorno and many other authors of philosophical and musicological works, as well as fiction and poetry. Her book-length translations include Corona: Selected Poems of Paul Celan and The Correspondence of Paul Celan and Ilana Shmueli, which was a finalist for the National Translation Award. After a period of anti-war activism, Susan embarked on a career in fundraising for the New York Zoological Society, the New York Public Library, and, finally, Bard College where she served first as Vice President for Public Affairs and Development and then as Vice President for Special Global Initiatives. In 1998, Susan founded the Institute for International Liberal Education, which has pioneered in the development of dual-degree liberal arts programs with university partners in Russia, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan, Palestine, and elsewhere.

Bastian Becker

Bastian Becker received his PhD (Political Science) from the Central European University, Budapest, in June 2017. During his doctoral studies, Bastian participated twice in the ICPSR summer program at the University of Michigan and spent a semester-long research stay at the University of Mannheim. Previously, he received two Master's degrees, in Public Policy from the University of Erfurt, and in Business Economics from Saarland University. He also worked as a researcher at the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn and for the German International Cooperation (GIZ) in the Philippines. Bastian's current research is situated at the intersection of comparative political economy and political behavior, with a focus on the political causes and consequences of economic inequality. His dissertation explores the effects of unequal labor market opportunities on preferences for redistribution in Western democracies, employing both statistical and experimental methods. Bastian's doctoral studies have been supported through scholarships by CEU and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); he also received ICPSR's Clogg Scholarship award as well as CEU's Award for Advanced Doctoral Students.

Caitlin Berrigan

USA
MS in Visual Art
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Caitlin Berrigan works across performance, video, sculpture, and text to engage with the intimate and embodied dimensions of power, politics, and capitalism. Her artist’s book Imaginary Explosions (Broken Dimanche Press, 2018) was the subject of solo exhibitions in Berlin and Schloss Solitude, and her book Unfinished State is forthcoming from Archive Books. Her current body of work, Imaginary Explosions, is a cosmology of science fiction videos that follows an affiliation of transfeminist geologists as they operate in communication with the desires of the mineral earth for radical, planetary transformation. Her work has shown at the Whitney Museum, Art in General, the Poetry Project, Harvard Carpenter Center, Storefront for Art & Architecture, Hammer Museum, Anthology Film Archives, LACMA, Henry Art Gallery, UnionDocs, and the deCordova Museum, among others. Berrigan has received grants and residencies from the Humboldt Foundation, Skowhegan, Graham Foundation, PROGRAM for Art & Architecture Berlin, and Akademie Schloss Solitude. She holds a Master's in visual art from MIT and a B.A. from Hampshire College. She is a researcher at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna PhD-in-Practice program, and an affiliate of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering Technology, Culture and Society.

Contact
Caitlin Berrigan, MS
Artist
Email: c.berrigan[at]berlin.bard.edu

Angela Anderson

USA/Germany
MA in Film and Media Studies
The New School

Angela Anderson is an artist and researcher working in the mediums of multi-channel video and sound installation, sculpture and photography. Through experimentation with audio-visual forms, she seeks to challenge patriarchal, settler-colonial narratives and foster inter-species & inter-material solidarity from a queer feminist perspective, activating different ways of seeing and perceiving through cartographies of multiple materialities and temporalities. Her work has been shown in exhibitions and festivals internationally, including the 2021 Kyiv Biennial, Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol, Pravo Ljudski Film Festival Sarajevo, Tallinn Photomonth Biennial, Holbaek Images (DK), the 2015 Thessaloniki Biennale, and as co-author in documenta 14. She holds an BA in Natural Resources and Economics from the University of Minnesota and an MA in Film and Media Studies from the New School in NYC. She is currently a candidate in the PhD in Practice Program at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and assistant professor for the class Virtual Realities at Kunsthochschule Kassel.

Photo credit: Ana Hoffner

Contact:
Angela Anderson
Film
[email protected]

Roland J. Augustine

Roland J. Augustine was born in Kingston, NY in 1950. A graduate from Georgetown University’s School of Business in 1972, he went on to study both music and art at the State University of New York at Purchase. His professional art career commenced as the director of Galleri Bellman on 57th Street in Manhattan. In 1985, Roland Augustine co-founded Luhring Augustine Gallery with Lawrence R. Luhring where he works today. The gallery, now located on 24th Street in Chelsea with an additional exhibition space in Tribeca, represents an international group of contemporary artists and works with institutions and individuals to support diverse artistic engagement and representation. The practices of the gallery’s artists include painting, drawing, sculpture, performance, video and film, and photography. Roland Augustine served as the president of the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) from 2006 to 2009. He is a dedicated supporter of arts and education programs. He is a longstanding member of the board of trustees of Bard College and serves on the Board of Governors for Longy School of Music of Bard College and Bard College Berlin.

Jeffrey Champlin

USA
PhD in German Studies
New York University

Jeffrey Champlin is Director of the Learning Commons and Lecturer in the Humanities at Bard College Berlin. His research emphasizes connections between literature and political theory. In terms of administrative and pedagogical development, he has a particular focus on students from areas of crisis and conflict. Specific areas of research include: European and post-colonial literature, literature and politics, academic writing and student-centered writing practices, trauma-informed pedagogy, post-Kantian philosophy, aesthetics, political theory, Hannah Arendt.

Jeffrey received his PhD from New York University and has previously taught at NYU, Middlebury College, The Barenboim-Said Akademie, and Bard's campuses in New York, Berlin, and Palestine.

Publications

Books
Born Again: Romanticism and Fundamentalism (University of Toronto Press, Forthcoming)

The Making of a Terrorist: On Classic German Rogues. Preface by Avital Ronell (Northwestern University Press, 2015).

Edited Volumes
The Technological Introject: Friedrich Kittler Between Implementation and the Incalculable (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018). Editor, with Antje Pfannkuchen.

Terror and the Roots of Poetics (New York and Dresden: Atropos Press, 2013).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Rights, Revolution, Representation: Thinking Through the Language of the French Revolution,” Teaching Representations of the French Revolution, ed. Julia Douthwaite (Modern Language Association Book Publications Program). Forthcoming, 2018.

“The Clara Complex: Kittler on ‘The Sandman.’” The Technological Introject: Friedrich Kittler Between Implementation and the Incalculable (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018).

“‘We shall be monsters’: Body Structuralism and Earth Narrative.” Studien zur Englischen Romantik 19 (2017).

“‘Poetry or Body Politic:’ Notes on Natality.” Reading Arendt’s Denktagebuch, ed. Roger Berkowitz (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017).

“Brother, Sister, Monster: Resonance and the Body of the Voice in Antigone and The Metamorphosis.” Modern Language Notes 130.5 (2015).

“Born Again: Arendt’s Natality as Figure and Concept.” Germanic Review, 88 (2013).

“LOOK AWAY FROM ME: Apotrope als Beichte und die Zukunft von Sarah Kanes 4.48 Psychosis.” Ökonomie des Opfers. Literatur im Zeichen des Suizides (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2013 ) [“LOOK AWAY FROM ME: Apotrope as Confession and the Future of Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis.”

“Reader Beware: Wild Right in Eichendorff and Kleist.” Heinrich von Kleist: Artistic and Political Legacies, ed. Jeff High (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013).

“Art in Ruin: Rilke’s Ekphrastic Turn.” Terror and the Roots of Poetics, ed. Jeffrey Champlin (New York and Dresden: Atropos Press, 2013).

“Reading Terrorism in Kleist: The Violence and Mandates of Michael Kohlhaas.” German Quarterly, 85.4 (2012).

“Hegel’s Faust.” Goethe Yearbook 18.1 (2011).

“Bombenpost 2011: Zur Rezeption von Kleists Briefen.” Kleist Jahrbuch (2010).

“Authority in a Time of War: 21st Century Kleist Scholarship.” Germanic Review 85, 1 (2010).

Contact
Dr. Jeffrey Champlin
German Studies
Email: j.champlin[at]berlin.bard.edu

Bruno Besana

Bruno Besana studied philosophy at the Paris VIII University. He is a former Fellow of the ICI Berlin, and of the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (NL). He has taught philosophy at the Paris VIII University, and has published on ontology and aesthetics in contemporary philosophy, with a particular focus on the works of Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou, and Jacques Rancière. He is affiliated fellow of the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, and a member of the editorial team of S – Line of Beauty, journal of the CLIC, Circle for Lacanian Ideology Critique.

He is a founding member of the Versus Laboratory research collective. The aim of the Versus Laboratory project, started in 2007, is to explore how philosophical concepts are produced at the points of adversity and tension with political, aesthetical and scientific practices; the idea is to approach philosophy not as a regulative practice that reflects upon other practices defining their fields of action, but as a battlefield whose interiority is fed by the dissensual relations that it maintains with them. Versus Laboratory has organized several conferences and seminars. Currently, together with Ozren Pupovac and Tzuchien Tho, Bruno Besana is leading a seminar – entitled Prolegomena to the Void – on the history of the concept of the void from early atomism to Hellenistic philosophy. The seminar will continue in 2014 by investigating the changes that the concept of the void undergoes in XVII century science and philosophy.

Bruno Besana is also currently working on two short books projects, the first on Gilles Deleuze's reading of Greek Stoicism, the second on some contemporary attempts to give a formal reading of the concept of the subject.

Joseph Bjelde

USA
PhD in Philosophy
UC Berkeley

Joseph Bjelde completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy at UC Berkeley in 2012 and has been an Assistant Professor in the Institut für Philosophie at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin since 2013. He is interested in nearly everything, but his work focuses on epistemology, Plato, and Aristotle, and has appeared in Mind, Analysis, Synthese, and Classical Quarterly. He is especially interested in how abilities to reason and persuade matter both to epistemology as well as to abilities to perform actions that require the participation of others. For instance: if it takes two to tango, does an ability to tango require an ability to persuade others to dance, or an ability to teach others to tango? His current book project develops a broadly similar idea: that according to Plato, ruling a city requires some special abilities to persuade the ruled.

Personal Website

Courses offered at Bard College Berlin:
Plato and Aristotle on the Political Significance of Knowledge and Philosophy (Spring 2022)

Contact:
Joseph Bjelde
Philosophy
[email protected]

Martin Binder

Germany
Habilitation in Economics
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Prof. Dr. habil. Martin Binder holds a Habilitation in Economics from the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (habilitation project: “Wirtschaftlicher Wandel und menschliches Wohlergehen”, 2012), a PhD in Economics (2009), an M.A. in Philosophy (2004) and a M.Sc. in Business Administration (Dipl.-Kfm., 2003) from RWTH Aachen, and a B.Sc. in Economics (2002) from the Florida Atlantic University. His dissertation, which explores the normative consequences of measuring societal progress and development via measures of subjective well-being, has appeared as a monograph with Routledge in 2010 and won the „Deutscher Studienpreis 2010“ from the Körber-Stiftung. From 2004 to 2012, he was a Research Fellow and a Research Associate at the Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena, where he conducted research in the fields of behavioral and evolutionary economics. Subsequently, he held a research position at the University of Sussex. Since 2013, Prof. Dr. Binder has been a Visiting Professor for Normative Economics and Business Ethics at the University of Kassel. His research interests are focused on behavioral and normative economics, and especially subjective well-being (“happiness”) research. His research has appeared in internationally recognized journals such as the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Social Science & Medicine, Journal of Economic Psychology, and Small Business Economics. In 2009-2011, Prof. Dr. Binder received a grant from the European Commission to research knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship and social well-being. Prof. Dr. Binder does extensive refereeing and is a member of the Editorial Board of Social Indicators Research.
His research can be found at www.mbinder.net/publications.

Courses taught

Behavioral Economics
Ethics and Economics
Microeconomics
Principles of Economics
Mathematics for Economics

Awards

Best Annual Social Indicators Research Paper Award 2012 (International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies)
Deutscher Studienpreis 2010 der Körber-Stiftung. "Innovationen, Wirtschaftskrisen und gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt – Eine wohlfahrtstheoretische Untersuchung" (Essay)
Springorum-Denkmünze 2005 for academic excellence (Freunde und Förderer der RWTH Aachen e.V.)
Studienpreis Projektmanagement 2004 (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Projektmanagement e.V.)

Selected Media Coverage

Capital.gr: Η ψυχολογία της ανεργίας, 14.09.2014
Max Planck Forschung: "Die Glückssucher", 20.09.2012
Detektor.fm: "Forschungsquartett - Ökonomische Glücksforschung - Was macht uns wirklich glücklich?", 19.07.2012
BR2 - IQ: "Warum in China die Menschen ungluecklicher werden", 23.05.2012
BusinessWeek: "It's time to tax happiness", 21.05.2012
Der Standard: "Gefuehltes Glueck erhoeht beruflichen Erfolg", 01.02.2011
Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, "Economics of Happiness", 2011
Panelist Koerber-Forum on "Economics and Happiness", February 2011
Thueringer Landeszeitung: "Jenaer Volkswirt sucht ein Maß für das Glueck", 02.08.2010
"Denkfabrik", Wirtschaftswoche: "Genießen und Leiden", 20.09.2010, Nr. 38 (online)

Further links

Personal webpage
LinkedIn
Repec
Google scholar
ORCID Researcher ID: 0000-0002-5053-3804

Contact
Prof. Dr. Martin Binder
Economics
Phone: +49 30 43733 231
Email: m.binder[at]berlin.bard.edu

Foto: David Ausserhofer/Körber-Stiftung

Wulf Walter Böttger

Germany
Diploma in Architecture / Dipl.-Ing. Arch.
Technische Universität Berlin

Wulf Walter Böttger (Dipl. Ing. Architektur) holds the position of Visiting-Professor in Architecture at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) teaching the collaborative Master's program at the department of architecture at the Chinese German Academy of Arts (CDK) in Hangzhou, China. He also teaches interdisciplinary architecture and fine arts classes in the Studium Generale section of UdK Berlin. He has given lectures at the University of California Los Angeles and Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna. Before establishing his own architecture practice in Berlin he worked for internationally renowned architects such as Peter Eisenman in New York and Jun Aoki in Tokyo. With his research project on the relationship between architecture and the human body he received the Rudolph M. Schindler research and residency award from the MAK center for art and architecture in Los Angeles and the Museum für angewandte Kunst Wien. As a curator focused on architecture and urbanism he contributed to major exhibitions at Akademie der Künste Berlin, KW-Kunstwerke Berlin and several galleries in Berlin and LA.

Contact
Wulf Walter Böttger
Architecture
Email: [email protected]

Tracy Colony

USA
PhD in Philosophy
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Prof. Dr. Tracy Colony received his doctorate in Philosophy in 2001 from Leuven (Belgium). In 2000-01 he held a Flemish Community Fellowship and in 2002-03 a DAAD supported post-doctorate at Bard College Berlin, where, since 2003, he has taught. In 2006 he received a stipend from the Weimar Classics Foundation.

Classes Taught at Bard College Berlin

Plato's Republic and Its Interlocutors
Forms of Love
The Thought of Martin Heidegger
In Search of the Good: An Introduction to Ethics
Continental Aesthetics
The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Introduction to Existentialism
Totality and Infinity
Dante's Divine Comedy
Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy
Existentialism
The Philosophy of Transcendentalism
Philosophy and Poetry: The Work of Friedrich Hölderlin

General Teaching Interests
Ancient Philosophy, German Idealism, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Contemporary Phenomenology

Translations
Martin Heidegger, Phänomenologie der Anschauung und des Ausdrucks; Gesamtausgabe Bd. 59, (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2007); translated as Phenomenology of Intuition and Expression (London: Continuum, 2010).

Publications (selection)

"Composing Time: Stiegler on Nietzsche, Nihilism and a Possible Future" in Nietzsche and the Politics of Difference, eds. A. Rehberg and A. Woodward, (Berlin: de Gruyter) (2022).
"From Time to Time: Auto-Affection in Derrida's 1964-65 Heidegger Course," Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy (2019).
"The Future of Technics: Stiegler on Time and Futurity", Parrhesia (2017).
"Transformations: Malabou on Heidegger and Change", Parrhesia (2015).
"Bringing Philosophy Back to Life: Nietzsche and Heidegger's Early Phenomenology", Studia Phaenomenologica (2014).
"Epimetheus Bound: Stiegler on Derrida, Life and the Technological Condition", Research in Phenomenology (2011).
"The Death of God and the Life of Being: Heidegger's Confrontation with Nietzsche," in Interpreting Heidegger: Critical Essays, ed. Daniel Dahlstrom, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
"A Matter of Time: Stiegler on Heidegger and Being Technological," Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology May (2010).
"Concerning Technology: Heidegger and the Question of Technological Essentialism," Idealistic Studies (2009).
"Given Time: the Question of Futurity in Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy," The Heythrop Journal (2009).
"Attunement and Transition: Hölderlin and Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning)," Studia Phaenomenologica (2008).
"The Wholly Other: Being and the Last God in Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy," Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology May (2008).
"Before the Abyss: Agamben on Heidegger and the Living," Continental Philosophy Review (2007).
"Unearthing Heidegger's Roots: On Charles Bambach's Heidegger's Roots," (review essay) Studia Phaenomenologica (2006).
"Geschichte der Rezeption der Heideggerschen Nietzsche Interpretation in Deutschland," in Heidegger-Jahrbuch (Hrg.) A. Denker und H. Zaborowski (Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber, 2005).
"Telling Silence: The Question of Divinity in Heidegger's Early Nietzsche Lectures," Epoche (2004).
"Heidegger's Early Nietzsche Lectures and the Question of Resistance," Studia Phenomenologica (2004).
"Twilight of the Eidos: The Question of Form in Heidegger's Reading of Nietzsche's Thought upon Art," Analecta Husserliana (2004).
"Circulus Vitiosus Deus: Time and the Question of God in Heidegger's Nietzsche," Existentia (2003).
"Eternal Phenomena: The Question of Contemplation in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy," Existentia (2003).
"Time and the Work of Art: Reconsidering Heidegger's Auseinandersetzung with Nietzsche," Heidegger Studies 19 (2003).
"Representation and Metaphor in Nietzsche's "On Truth and Lie in the Extra-Moral Sense" in Neuere Beiträge zur Nietzsche-Forschung (Band II) (Hrg.) Sabine S. Gehlhaar (Cuxhaven: Traude Junghans Verlag) (2001).
"Dwelling in the Biosphere? Heidegger's Critique of Humanism and its Relevance for Ecological Thought," International Studies in Philosophy 31:1 (1999).
"Exquisite Stimulations: Will and Illusion in The Birth of Tragedy," Journal of Nietzsche Studies Spring (1999).

Contact
Prof. Dr. Tracy Colony
Philosophy
Email: t.colony[at]berlin.bard.edu

Andreas Blank

Germany
Habilitation in Philosophy
Universität Paderborn

Andreas Blank specializes in early modern philosophy, especially the philosophy of Leibniz, early modern philosophy of the life sciences and early modern moral and political philosophy. He holds a Dr. phil. in philosophy from the University of Konstanz, Germany, has taught at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and is a faculty member at the University of Paderborn. He has been a visiting fellow at the Center of Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University. For 2016-2017 he is Visiting Professor at Bard College Berlin.

Publications

Books
Ontological Dependence and the Metaphysics of Individual Substances, 1540–1716. Munich: Philosophia, 2015, 267 pp. Biomedical

Ontology and the Metaphysics of Composite Substances, 1540–1670. Munich: Philosophia, 2010, 235 pp.

Leibniz: Metaphilosophy and Metaphysics, 1666–1686. Munich: Philosophia, 2005, 207 pp. Der logische Aufbau von Leibniz' Metaphysik.

[The Logical Structure of Leibniz's Metaphysics.] Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2001, 170 pp.

Refereed Journal Articles

"Zabarella and the Early Leibniz on the Diachronic Identity of Living Beings." Studia Leibnitiana 47 (2015): 86–102.

"Leibniz, Locke, and the Early Modern Controversy over Legal Maxims." History of European Ideas 41 (2015): 1080–1092.

"Domingo de Soto on Justice to the Poor." Intellectual History Review 25 (2015): 133–146.

"Mary Astell on Flattery and Self-Esteem." The Monist 98 (2015): 53–63.

"Domingo de Soto on Doubts, Presumptions, and Noncomparative Justice." History of Philosophy Quarterly 32 (2015): 1–18.

"Animals and Immortality in the Monadology." Magyar Filozófiai Szemle 59 (2015): 140–152.

"Wittgenstein on Aspect Blindness and Meaning Blindness" (with Ohad Nachtomy). Iyyun. The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 64 (2015): 43–62.

"Nicolaus Taurellus on Forms and Elements." Science in Context 27 (2014): 659–682.

"Johannes von Felden on Usucaption, Justice, and the Society of States." Journal of the History of Ideas 74 (2013): 403–423.

"Henry More on Spirits, Light, and Immaterial Extension." British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (2013): 857–878.

"Fortunio Liceti on Mind, Light, and Immaterial Extension." Perspectives on Science 21 (2013): 358–378.

"Aquinas and Soto on Derogatory Judgment and Noncomparative Justice." History of Philosophy Quarterly 29 (2012): 411–427.

"Presumption, Torture, and the Controversy over Excepted Crimes, 1600–1632." Intellectual History Review 22 (2012): 131–145.

"Julius Caesar Scaliger on Plants, Species, and the Ordained Power of God." Science in Context 25 (2012): 503–523.

"Leibniz on Usucaption, Presumption, and International Justice." Studia Leibnitiana 43 (2011): 70–86.

Spanish translation: "Acerca de la 'usucapio', de la presunción y de la justicia internacional según Leibniz." (translated by Evelyn Vargas) Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad de Costa Rica 51 (2012): 357–365.

"Daniel Sennert on Poisons, Epilepsy, and Subordinate Forms." Perspectives on Science 19 (2011): 192–211.

"Wittgenstein on Verification and Seeing-As, 1930–1932." Inquiry 54 (2011): 614–632.

"Material Souls and Imagination in Late Aristotelian Embryology." Annals of Science 67 (2010): 187–204.

"Julius Caesar Scaliger on Plant Generation and the Question of Species Con-stancy." Early Science and Medicine 15 (2010): 266–286.

"Existential Dependence and the Question of Emanative Causation in Protestant Metaphysics, 1570–1620." Intellectual History Review 19 (2009): 1–13.

"Justice and the Eclecticism of Protestant Ethics, 1580–1610." Studia Leibnitiana 40 (2008): 223–238.

"Julius Caesar Scaliger on Corpuscles and the Vacuum." Perspectives on Science 16 (2008): 137–159.

"Wittgenstein on Colours and Logical Multiplicities, 1930–1932." Dialogue. Canadian Philosophical Review 47 (2008): 311–328.

"Composite Substance, Common Notions, and Kenelm Digby's Theory of Animal Generation." Science in Context 20 (2007): 1–20.

"Wittgenstein on Expectation, Action, and Internal Relations, 1930–1932." Inquiry 50 (2007): 270–287.

"Material Points and Formal Concepts in the Early Wittgenstein." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2007): 245–261.

"Leibniz and the Presumption of Justice." Studia Leibnitiana 38 (2006): 201–210.

"Leibniz on Justice as a Common Concept. A Rejoinder to Patrick Riley." Leibniz Review 16 (2006): 205–214.

"Internal Relations and the Descriptive Nature of Philosophy in the Early Wittgen-stein." Iyyun. The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2005): 271–286.

"Definitions, Sorites Arguments, and Leibniz's Méditation sur la notion commune de la justice." Leibniz Review 14 (2004): 153–166.

"Incomplete Entities, Natural Non-separability, and Leibniz's Response to François Lamy's De la Connoissance de soi-même." Leibniz Review 13 (2003): 1–17.

"Leibniz's De Summa Rerum and the Panlogistic Interpretation of the Theory of Simple Substances." British Journal for the History of Philosophy 11 (2003): 261–269.

"Wittgenstein's Tractatus and the Problem of a Phenomenological Language." Philosophia 29 (2002): 327–341.

"Substance Monism and Substance Pluralism in Leibniz's Metaphysical Papers 1675–1676." Studia Leibnitiana 33 (2001): 216–223.

"Leibniz und die panpsychistische Deutung der Theorie der einfachen Substanzen." ["Leibniz and the Panpsychistic Interpretation of the Theory of Simple Substan-ces."] Studia Leibnitiana 32 (2000): 117–125.

"Die kategoriale Unbestimmtheit der Gegenstände in Wittgensteins Tractatus." ["The Categorial Indeterminacy of Objects in Wittgenstein's Tractatus."] Grazer Philosophische Studien 60 (2000): 197–215.

Book Chapters

"Leibniz and the Early Modern Controversy over the Right of International Medi-ation." In "Das Recht kann nicht ungerecht sein …" Beiträge zu Leibniz' Philo-sophie der Gerechtigkeit. Edited by Wenchao Li (Studia Leibnitiana Sonderheft 44). Stuttgart: Steiner, 2015, 117–135.

"Presumption and Leibniz's Metaphysics of Action." In Leibniz's Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Form. Edited by Adrian Nita (New Synthese Historical Library). Dordrecht: Springer, 2015, 89–106.

"Archibald Campbell über Gewissen und Kosmopolitismus." ["Archibald Campbell on Conscience and Cosmopolitism."] In Gewissen zwischen Gefühl und Vernunft. Edited by Simon Bunke and Katerina Mihaylova. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2015, 89–104.

"Material Causes and Incomplete Entities in Gallego de la Serna's Theory of Animal Generation." In The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy. Edited by Ohad Nachtomy and Justin Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 117–136.

"Sennert and Leibniz on Animate Atoms." In Machines of Nature and Composite Substances in Leibniz. Edited by Justin E. H. Smith and Ohad Nachtomy (New Synthese Historical Library). Dordrecht: Springer, 2011, 115–130.

"On Interpreting Leibniz's Mill." In Interpretation. Ways of Thinking about the Sciences and the Arts. Edited by Peter Machamer and Gereon Wolters. Pitts-burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, 111–129.

"Leibniz vs. Lamy: How does Confused Perception Unite Soul and Body?" In The Practice of Reason: Leibniz and his Controversies. Edited by Marcelo Dascal. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2010, 169–186.

"Jean Fernel on Divine Immanence and the Origin of Simple Forms." In Nature et Surnaturel. Philosophies de la nature et métaphysique aux XVIe–XVIIIe siècles. Edited by Vlad Alexandrescu and Robert Theis. Hildesheim: Olms, 2010, 9–21.

"The Analysis of Reflection and Leibniz's Early Response to Spinoza." In The Philosophy of the Young Leibniz. Edited by Mark Kulstad, Mogens Laerke and David Snyder (Studia Leibnitiana Sonderheft 34). Stuttgart: Steiner, 2009, 161–175.

"Ramus and Leibniz on Analysis." In Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist? Edited by Marcelo Dascal (Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science 13). Dordrecht: Springer, 2008, 155–166.

"Dalgarno, Wilkins, Leibniz and the Descriptive Nature of Metaphysical Concepts." In Leibniz and the English Speaking World. Edited by Pauline Phemister and Stuart Brown (New Synthese Historical Library). Dordrecht: Springer, 2007, 51–61.

"Atoms and Minds in Walter Charleton's Theory of Animal Generation." In The Problem of Animal Generation in Modern Philosophy. Edited by Justin E. H. Smith. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 124–145.

"Twin-Consciousnesses and the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's Nouveaux Essais." In Leibniz selon les Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain. Edited by François Duchesneau and Jérémie Griard. Montréal: Bellarmin/ Paris: Vrin, 2006, 189–202.

Reviews

Rezension von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Mathematischer, naturwissenschaftlicher und technischer Briefwechsel. Siebenter Band: Juli 1696–Dezember 1698 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011). Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 37 (2014): 170–171.

Review of Charles Bolyard and Rondo Keele (eds.), Later Medieval Metaphysics. Ontology, Language, and Logic. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2013). History and Philosophy of Logic 35 (2014): 211–213.

Review of Nicolaus Taurellus, Philosophiae triumphus, hoc est, Metaphysica philosophandi methodus (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 2012). Renaissance Quarterly 66 (2013): 1052–1053. Review of Catherine Wilson, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2010). HOPOS. The Journal of the Society for History of Philosophy of Science 2 (2012): 200–203.

Review of Martin Mulsow (ed.), Spätrenaissance-Philosophie in Deutschland 1570–1650 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2009). Early Science and Medicine 16 (2011): 260–262.

Review of Concetta Pennuto, Simpatia, fantasia e contagio. Il pensiero medico e il pensiero filosofico di Girolamo Fracastoro (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2008). Renaissance Quarterly 62 (2009): 996–998.

Review of Stuart Brown and N. J. Fox, Historical Dictionary of Leibniz's Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006). Philosophy in Review 27 (2007): 100–102.

Dave Braneck

USA
MA in North American Studies
Freie Universität Berlin

Dave Braneck studied history and politics at George Washington University and Freie Universität, receiving an MA in North American Studies from Freie Universität in 2017. He contributed a book chapter on historic shifts in labor, globalization and the state for the recently published Contours of the Illiberal State (Campus 2019). Braneck is a Berlin-based journalist focusing on politics, labor and at times, their convergence with sports. His work most frequently appears in Deutsche Welle. In addition to having covered local politics and culture as a journalist in New Jersey for various outlets, he has first-hand experience working in electoral politics, non-profit administration and social services in the United States.

Contact
Dave Braneck, MA
Politics
Email: d.braneck[at]berlin.bard.edu

Edna Bonhomme

USA
PhD in History of Science
Princeton University

Edna Bonhomme is a Haitian American scholar, writer, and former biologist. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science where she is working on her book manuscript Ports and Pestilence in Alexandria, Tripoli, and Tunis which addresses the convergence of sanitary imperialism and traditional medicine during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition to her book project, she is collaborating with Berlin –based artists and writers who are using decolonial methodologies and diachronic practices in order to upend uneven power dynamics in archives, pedagogy, and science.

She completed her PhD in history/history of Science at Princeton University in 2017. Using a historical materialist approach, her dissertation, “Plagued Bodies and Spaces: Medicine, Trade, and Death in Ottoman Egypt, 1705-1830 CE,” examined the commercial and geopolitical trajectory of plague and as its direct links to commercial, provincial, and imperial policies in several North African port cities. In addition to her historical training, she studied biology at Reed College (BA) and public health practitioner at Columbia University (MPH).

In addition to her academic interests, she writes for publications including but not limited to Africa is a Country, Contretemps, Der Freitag, Jacobin Magazine, Mada Masr, and Viewpoint Magazine. She has previously taught for the Princeton Prison Initiative (2012), Drexel University (2016, 2017), and Humboldt University (2018).

More information about her can be found at www.ednabonhomme.com.

Eva Burghardt

Germany
MA in Theater
Hochschule der Künste Bern

Eva Burghardt is a freelance dancer/performer and choreographer, based in Berlin. She holds an MA in Theater "Scenic Arts Practice" from the Hochschule der Künste, Bern, Switzerland (2010), for which she received the Beatrice and Otto Tschumi scholarship for Masterstudies in Tanztheater. She also studied Theater Studies and Art History at the Freie Universität Berlin (2008) and received a diploma in contemporary dance and choreography at SEAD/Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (2005). In 2005 she did a residency in New York, studying at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Since 2010 she has worked in a range of different fields including solo performances, opera productions, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her solo Shut Up and Love Me toured Switzerland and Germany and was invited to the 20th Tanztage Berlin/Sophiensaele. With Jim Spastics & Hans Gender, a Berlin Performance Collective, and the Melbourne based Triage Live Art Collective she began working in interdisciplinary performance formats encompassing dance, theatre, visual arts, and social live art events.

She has performed in the opera productions Salome, directed by Michael Simon at Staatstheater Braunschweig, Eugen Onegin, with the Staatsoper at Schiller Theater Berlin and Verdi's Messa da Requiem at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, both directed by Achim Freyer.

Since 2002 Eva has been giving classes and workshops in contemporary dance, ballet, and improvisation. For the last 6 years she has co-led "Reflexions," a tri-national art project hosted in Niedermiròw, Poland. She has been a guest teacher at Bard College Berlin and at the Pädagogische Hochschule Zentralschweiz, Luzern. She also gives regular classes at TATWERK, a school for theatre, dance and performance in Berlin/Neukölln.

Contact
Eva Burghardt, MA
Dance Instructor
Email: e.burghardt[at]berlin.bard.edu

Sebastian Brass

Germany
PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures
Harvard University

Sebastian Brass teaches (and writes on) German language and literature. He received his PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University in 2022, and he holds an MA as well as an MEd in English and American literature from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. His dissertation, “Fact, Fiction, and Transparency: Modes of Autobiographical Self-Reference in the 20th and 21st Centuries,” proposes a narratology of the manifold ways in which modern autobiography operates with self-referential discourse regarding its own truth claims. Other fields of interest include the media theory and aesthetics of reading scenes, the epistemology of case narratives, and literary theory. Sebastian has published articles on E.T.A. Hoffmann, Gertrude Stein, Christa Wolf, and Marcel Beyer. At various German and American institutions, he has taught courses on realism and the fantastic, Marx–Nietzsche–Freud, and ecocriticism as well as language classes of all levels and tutorials in comparative literature.

Contact
Dr. Sebastian Brass
German Studies
Email: s.brass[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ali ATH, Artist Protection Fund Fellow

Afghanistan
Music artist and producer

Ali ATH is an Afghan Hip Hop pioneer whose music reflects the daily struggles and experiences in Afghanistan, particularly on issues like lack of human rights, corruption, and freedom. His music gained significant attention and was played during demonstrations against the Taliban regime both before and after they took over the government. He released multiple albums and numerous singles, producing hundreds of songs for fellow artists while constantly innovating his craft. Notably, he became the first artist in Afghanistan to distribute music on an international scale.

Louis Cameron

USA
MFA in Painting
Temple University, Tyler School of Art

Louis Cameron is an American artist that lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He earned a BFA from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia.

Cameron's diverse painting and photography practices engage in the creation of pictorial spaces based on his encounters with the city environment, while other bodies of work probe the limits of privacy in actual and virtual spaces. Additionally, Cameron collaborates with other artists by organizing poster portfolios that are distributed via the internet.

Cameron has had solo exhibitions and projects at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; The Kitchen, New York; The Armory Show, New York; and the Saint Louis Art Museum. He has also participated in group exhibitions in the United States and abroad at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the Contemporary Art Museum Houston; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom; and the Dakar Biennial, Senegal. Cameron has participated in the Artist-in-Residence program at The Studio Museum in Harlem and been a Fellow in Painting with the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work is in the collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; the International Center of Photography, New York; and the Saint Louis Art Museum.

Cameron has taught at Princeton University, Yale University, and Brooklyn College, among other institutions.

Contact
Louis Cameron, MFA
Artist
l.cameron[at]berlin.bard.edu

Marion Detjen

Germany
PhD in History
Freie Universität Berlin

Marion Detjen attended the United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, and then studied European history and German literature and linguistics in Berlin and Munich, where she received her MA and passed her first state exam. She worked for several years as a freelance curator, teacher, writer, and activist, before receiving her PhD from Freie Universität Berlin with a dissertation on rescue helpers after the building of the Berlin Wall. 2009 - 2014 Marion worked and taught at Humboldt University Berlin, 2015 - 2107 on a DFG-position at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung (Center for Contemporary History) in Potsdam. She has been teaching migration history and global history as well as “research creation” courses that combine historical research and art production at Bard College Berlin since 2016, and is director of Bard College Berlin's „Program for International Education and Social Change“ (PIESC). She is currently writing a book on the German-American publisher in exile Helen Wolff and her most favorite author Uwe Johnson. Her interests include German and GDR post-war history, migration history, global history, constitutional history, the history of Berlin, of publishing, gender, and the relationship between the private and the public. Marion is a regular contributor to the column „10nach8“ at ZEIT-Online as part of its editorial team, and she is a co-founder and board member of "Wir machen das," a coalition of action focused on the migration crisis, where she recently set up “Helen Wolff grants” to support female writers at risk in Afghanistan and other regions of crisis.

Publications

Monographs:

Helen Wolff, Hintergrund für Liebe. Das Buch eines Sommers, edited and with an essay by Marion Detjen, Bonn (Weidle Verlag) 2020.
Die Deutschen und das Grundgesetz. Geschichte und Grenzen unserer Verfassung, together with Max Steinbeis and Stephan Detjen, Munich (Pantheon) 2009, Schriftenreihe der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Band 763.
Ein Loch in der Mauer. Die Geschichte der Fluchthilfe im geteilten Deutschland 1961-1989, Munich (Siedler Verlag) 2005.
„Zum Staatsfeind ernannt". Widerstand, Resistenz und Verweigerung gegen das NS-Regime in München, ed. by the City of Munich, Munich (Buchendorfer Verlag) 1998.

Essays/Articles/Book chapters since 2020:

"What Kind of Science Is This? On the documenta fifteen ‘Expert Panel'", e-flux, September 23, 2022.
"Was ist das ‚Volk‘? Anmerkungen zu einem Kernbegriff im Grundgesetz nach dem Beginn des russischen Angriffskrieges auf die Ukraine", in: Die Politische Meinung, Nr. 574, May/June 2022, p. 32-37.
"The Germans’ ‚Refugee‘: Concepts and Images of the ‚Refugee‘ in Germany’s Twisted History Between Acceptance and Denial as a Country of Immigration and Refuge", in: Erol Balkan and Zumray Kutlu-Tonak (Eds.), Refugees on the Move. Crisis and Response in Turkey and Europe, Oxford & New York (Berghahn Books) 2022, pp. 209-238.
"Patriotismus", in: David Ranan (Ed.), Sprach Gewalt: Missbrauchte Wörter undandere politische Kampfbegriffe, Bonn (Dietz Verlag) 2021, pp. 42-52.
"'At my death, burn or throw away unread!‘ Zum Hintergrund des Hintergrunds", in: Helen Wolff, Hintergrund für Liebe. Das Buch eines Sommers, edited and with an essay by Marion Detjen, Bonn (Weidle Verlag) 2020, pp. 119-215.
"'Wir schaffen das‘ oder ‚revolutionäres Bewusstsein‘? Überlegungen zur Willkommenskultur 2015", in: Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 30-32/2020, pp. 20-26.

Contact
Dr. Marion Detjen
History
Email: m.detjen[at]berlin.bard.edu

Alessio Castellacci

Italy
BA in Developmental Psychology, University La Sapienza/Rome
BA in Experimental Choreography, Dance Maker Department, Artez Institute/Arnhem

Alessio Castellacci is a performer, teacher and sound composer based in Berlin.

He has a BA in Developmental Psychology from the University La Sapienza/Rome and a BA in experimental choreography from the Dance Maker Department, Artez Institute/Arnhem. His artistic research focuses on voice embodiment, improvised performance and sound design. As a self taught electronic music composer, he found himself always swinging between the polarities of sound and movement disciplines: feeling the lack of physicality in most of traditional music studies, and the lack of sensitivity toward sound and breath nuances in most of dance techniques. Out of tension, ten years ago he started connecting the two worlds, developing a pedagogical approach for voice & movement improvisation based on principles of somatic work, sound design, breath work and synesthetic perception.

Alessio is currently focusing on the research of pedagogic methodologies, working as well as a sound composer for dance shows and as a coordinator of educational and performance formats in Berlin. From 2012 to 2017 he has curated and organized the SMASH Berlin program, since 2014 the educational program The World is Sound dedicated to voice & movement performance, and has recently launched the new intensive dance program ROAR Berlin. In 2017 he has initiated with choreographer Jule Flierl From Breath to Matter, a performance series in Berlin in which different artists are invited to share work around the topic of vocal dance and the political implications of voicing. As a performer, sound composer and voice coach Alessio has collaborated with (a.o.) Dani Brown, M.F. Scaroni, H.Min Kim, Sasha Waltz Kinder Tanz Company, Peter Pleyer, Jeremy Wade, Jule Flierl, Irena Tomažin, Moss Beynon Juckes, Tino Sehgal, Morgan Nardi, Piccoli Production, Fingersix Collective, Kareth Schaffer, Davide Sportelli, Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, Ru Chen/Cloud Gate Company. He is part of the sound art duo Morphield with ambient composer Kryshe, and produces in his spare time downtempo music under the moniker Gaia Waves.

www.the-world-is-sound.com
www.roar-berlin.com

Contact
Alessio Castellacci, BA
Performance
Email: a.castellacci[at]berlin.bard.edu

Jean-Rémi Carbonneau

Canada
PhD in Political Science
Université du Québec à Montréal

Research areas:
Language and minority policies, nationalism, federalism, Canadian, German and Spanish politics.

Publications:

Edited Volumes and Special Issues:

(2021, forthcoming). With Juan Jiménez-Salcedo. ‘Bilingüisme de sentit únic: els obstacles a la revitalització de les llengües perifèriques de l’Estat espanyol / One-Way Bilingualism: Obstacles to the Revitalization of Spains’ Peripheral Languages [Special isssue]. Revista de Llengua i Dret / Journal of Language and Law, (76).
(2021). With Fabian Jacobs, and Ines Keller. Dimensions of Cultural Security for National and Linguistic Minorities. Brussels: Peter Lang (Series: Diversitas), 512 pp.
(2017). With Andreas Gruschke, Fabian Jacobs, Ines Keller and Sonja Wölke. ‘Dimensionen kultureller Sicherheit bei ethnischen und sprachlichen Minderheiten’ [Special issue]. Lětopis, 64(2), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 360 pp.

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters (Selection):

(2021). ‘A Multidisciplinary Approach to Cultural Security in Minority Studies.’ With Andreas Gruschke, Fabian Jacobs, and Ines Keller. In Jean-Rémi Carbonneau, Fabian Jacobs, and Ines Keller, Dimensions of Cultural Security for National and Linguistic Minorities (pp. 35-58). Brussels: Peter Lang.
(2021). ‘Between Spanish and Catalan Nation-Building. The Pursuit of Cultural Security in the Valencian Country.’ In Jean-Rémi Carbonneau, Fabian Jacobs, and Ines Keller, Dimensions of Cultural Security for National and Linguistic Minorities (pp. 357-391). Brussels: Peter Lang.
(2020). ‘La normalisation du catalan vue par les partis pan-espagnols’ [Catalan Normalization as Seen by Spanish Political Parties]. Revue internationale de politique comparée, 27(4), 7-45.
(2020). ‘Le catalan: l’idiome mal aimé de l’Aragon’ [Catalan: Aragon’s Unloved Language]. Mémoire(s), identité(s), marginalité(s) dans le monde occidental contemporain. Cahiers du MIMMOC, (23).
(2020). ‘Langue et identité nationale aux Îles Baléares: la catalanité contestée’ [Language and Identity in the Balearic Islands: Challenged Catalanity]. In Juan Jiménez-Salcedo, Christine Hélot, and Antoinette Camilleri-Grima (Eds.), Small is Multilingual: Languages and Identities in Micro-Territories (pp. 69-89). Berlin: Peter Lang (Series: Sprache, Mehrsprachigkeit und sozialer Wandel).
(2019). ‘German Mononational Federalism and the Sorbian Quest for Territorial Autonomy.’ European Journal of Minority Studies/Europäisches Journal für Minderheitenfragen, 12(1-2), 26-53.
(2017). With Mélissa Desrochers, ‘Médias et Printemps étudiant au Québec en 2012’ [The Media during the 2012 Quebec Student Protests]. Recherches internationales, (111), 111-132.
(2017). ‘La complétude institutionnelle des Sorabes de Lusace depuis l’unification des États allemands’ [The Institutional Completeness of Lusatian Sorbs since the Unification of the German States]. Politique et Sociétés, 36(3), 15-45.

Book Reviews:

(2020). Jean Tournon. (2018). Une saga canayenne. Grenoble: Recherche sur Ethnicisme et Sociation. In Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 26(2), 214-216.
(2019). Anne Pauwels. (2016). Language Maintenance and Shift. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In Lětopis, 66(1), 149-151.
(2015). Stephen May. (2012). Language and Minority Rights. Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. In Editorial Afers, 29(79), 851-855.
(2015). Nenad Stojanović. (2013). Dialogue sur les quotas: penser la représentation dans une démocratie multiculturelle. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. In Linguistic Minorities and Society, (5), 241-244.
(2014). Alain Noël, and Jean-Philipe Thérien. (2010). La gauche et la droite. Un débat sans frontières. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. In Politique et Sociétés, 33(1), 107-110.
(2014). Alain Beaulieu, Stéphan Gervais, and Martin Papillon (Eds.). (2013). Les Autochtones et le Québec. Des premiers contacts au Plan Nord. Montreal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. In Canadian Political Science Review, 47(1), 208-210.

Conference Papers:

(2019, September). ‘The Institutionalization of Sorbian Minority Rights in German before and After 1989.’ Summer Scholl of the European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI), Bautzen, Germany.
(2019, June). ‘The Territorial Niches of Catalan in the State of Autonomies: Progress and Limitations’. Conference of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
(2019, April). ‘La politisation de la question linguistique dans les Pays catalans’ [The Politicization of the Language Issue in the Catalan Countries]. International Workshop entitled Revitalisation linguistique: pour qui? Pour quoi? Idéologies et stratégies à l’œuvre dans les processus de redynamisation des langues minoritaires de l’Union européenne [Language Revitalization: for Whom? For what? Ideologies and Strategies Involved in the Reinvigoration of Minority Languages of the European Union], Université de Poitiers, France.
(2019, March). ‘Les politiques d’innovation dans les systèmes fédéraux: la dynamique d’émulation linguistique dans les Pays catalans’ [Innovation Policies in Federal Systems: The Dynamics of Linguistic Emulation in the Catalan Countries]. Junior Scholars Seminar 2019 of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Diversity and Democracy (CRIDAQ), Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada.
(2018, May). ‘La tradition étatique espagnole et la décolonisation inachevée de la périphérie (pan) catalane’ [Spanish State Tradition and the Unfinished Decolonization of the (Pan)Catalan Periphery]. Annual Conference of the Société québécoise de science politique (SQSP), University of Ottawa, Canada.

Contact:
Dr. Jean-Rémi Carbonneau
Political Science
[email protected]

Rasha Chatta

Syria
PhD in Comparative Literature
SOAS, University of London

Rasha Chatta earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from SOAS, University of London, with a dissertation entitled “Marginality and Individuation: A Theoretical Approach to Abla Farhoud and Arab Migrant Literature”. She holds an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS and a BA in History of the Middle East and North Africa from Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) and “Classes préparatoires” in Humanities.

At SOAS, Rasha taught courses on Arab women’s literature, Arab cinema, and the Arabic language. In 2009, she was Community Outreach Director at the Cairo-based Resettlement Legal Aid Project. Rasha’s research interests include visual aesthetics and memory, approaches to world literature, migrant and diasporic literatures, and war literature with a focus on Lebanon and Syria. Since 2017, she is Research Fellow at the EUME - Forum Transregionale Studien where she is carrying out research on migration in Arab comics.

Contact
Dr. Rasha Chatta
Comparative Literature; Near Eastern Studies
Email: [email protected]

Maria Avxentevskaya

Russia
PhD, Freie Universität Berlin
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Maria Avxentevskaya is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Her main research interests concern the ways in which early modern knowledge "performed" itself through linguistic tropes, signature gestures, and defining rules and frameworks for scientific and philosophical discourse. She received her doctoral degree from the Freie Universität Berlin, and her research has been supported by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Her current work concerns the early modern practices of knowledge networking through the genre of alba amicorum - collected volumes of manuscripts, drawings, and prints, often protected by elaborate leather cases, which were kept by physicians and medical students during their peregrinationes academicae across Europe and beyond. These albums distributed the heuristic values of an ingenious experimental enquiry, and became the Bilderfahrzeuge, in the terms of Aby Warburg, for cultivating the expert collective perception of significant details in knowledge historia. The study involves an extensive use of cutting-edge tools for digital network analysis and visualization.

Contact
Dr. Maria Avxentevskaya
History of Science
Email: [email protected]

Ayse Cavdar

Turkey
PhD in Cultural Anthropology
European University of Viadrina

Ayşe Çavdar completed her BA degree in Journalism at Ankara University and received her MA in History at Boğaziçi University in Turkey. She completed her doctoral thesis titled "The Loss of Modesty: The Adventure of Muslim Family from Neighborhood to Gated Community" at the European University of Viadrina in 2014 (supported by Global Prayers Project initiated by MetroZones). In 2017, she started her postdoctoral fellowship position at Käte Hamburger Kolleg - Center for Global Cooperation Research in Duisburg. Then, she continued her work as a visiting scholar at the Philipps University in Marburg for two and a half years.
Alongside her academic career, Çavdar has also been a journalist for three decades, working on diverse political, cultural, and social issues. She participated and worked for different NGOs in Turkey professionally and as a volunteer. Her current academic interests include urban and religious studies focusing particularly on middle-class living spaces and religious performativities. Recently, her work centered on two new topics. The first one is the nationalist and religious symbolization of the state as an idea(l) and affect. Second, is the focus on the new secularities rising among the youths in Turkey. These research interests are linked closely with current political manifestations and youth movements, mainly established in the religious and nationalist social milieu.

Selection of recent academic publications:

"Never walk alone: The politics of unveiling in 'New Turkey'" in The Politics of Culture in 'New Turkey' edited by Kaya Akyıldız, Ivo Furman and Pierre Hecker, Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming in 2021.
"The Sufi Rhetoric in Contemporary Turkey: Find Peace in My Hegemony!" in Sufism: a theoretical intervention in global international relations edited by Deepshika Shahi, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
Kutsal hırsın beton gölgesi: Istanbul'da İslam için bir yok yer (The concrete shadow of holy greed: A non-place for Islam in Istanbul) in Otoriter Neoliberalizmin Gölgesinde: Kent, Mekan, İnsan (Under the Shadow of Authoritarian Neoliberalism: City, Space, People) edited by Şerife Geniş, Nika Publishing House, 2020.
"Sıkışmak, sıkılmak, sığınmak, sığışmak, savaşmak: ...ama bir türlü esneyememek" (Being jammed, bored, harboured, squeezed, contended: …but unable to yawn), in Sıkıntı Var (Boredom Exists) edited by Aylin Kuryel, İletişim Publishing House, 2020.
“The state (of mind) of Dumrul: How did a nation lose the plot?," Freie Assoziation - Zeitchrift für psychoanalytisce Sozialpsyhcologie, 2/2018, (released in August 2019)
"As If They Will Never Die: Islamism's Dream of Capital 15 Accumulation," South Atlantic Quarterly, 2019, 118 (1): 23-40.
Media in "New Turkey": Old Diseases vs. New Energies in Media, Freedom of Speech, and Democracy in the EU and Beyond, edited by Angelos Giannakopoulos, The S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2019.
“The radicalizing effect of the contest between similars” in Nach dem Putsch: 16 Anmerkungen zur »neuen« Türkei edited by Ilker Ataç, Michael Fanizadeh, Volkan Ağar, Mandelbaum Verlag, 2018.

Other notable publications:

She co-edited two books: With Volkan Aytar, Media and Security Sector Oversight, Limits and Possibilities, TESEV, 2009; With Pelin Tan, The State of Exception in an Exceptional City, Sel Yayınlari, 2013.
In 2010, her interview with sociologist Nilufer Gole was published as a book by Hayy Kitap.
In 2011, she edited the Neo-Islamism issue of Express magazine.

Contact:
Dr. Ayşe Çavdar
Cultural Anthropology
a.cavdar[at]berlin.bard.edu

Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong

Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong was born and raised in Cameroon. Her areas of research and activism include intervention theater, African drama and theatre, theatre criticism, and postcolonial literatures and critical theory. Currently Assistant Professor of African Literatures and Cultures in the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, she has taught at several German universities, including as guest professor of Theatre-for-Development in the Graduiertenkolleg "Alter(n) als Kulturelle Konzeption und Praxis" in the Department of Art History at Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf.

In 2013, she was awarded the first Faculty Prize for teaching excellence at Humboldt University. A DAAD scholarship enabled the completion of her Ph.D dissertation on Cameroonian Drama and Theatre at the University of Bayreuth in 2008. Her 2011 book, Rituals in Cameroon Drama: A Semiological Interpretation of the plays of Gilbert Doho, Bole Butake and Hansel Ndumbe Eyoh was published in the Bayreuth African Series. She is currently working on her Habilitation project, which focuses on the representation of old age in African drama/theatre.

Lotta Beckers

Germany
MA in European Media Studies
University of Potsdam

Lotta Paula Mathilda Beckers (1995*) lives in Berlin and works as a dramaturge and artist. She studied applied theatre studies in Gießen, choreography and dance in Copenhagen, as well as European media studies in Potsdam. As a dramaturge she is involved in different artistic long-term collaborations with the theatre director Noam Brusilovsky and the choreographer Deva Schubert. Her own artistic research evolves around the entanglements of affects and desire with power and history, recently within the writing of Kathy Acker. Beckers is fluently moving between the fields of theatre, performance, dance, and media arts.

Contact:
Lotta Beckers
l.beckers[at]berlin.bard.edu
Arts

Berit Ebert

Germany
PhD in Political Science
Aachen University

Dr. Berit Ebert specializes in European Union law with a focus on gender equality. She received her master’s (2006) and doctoral degrees (2012) in political science from Aachen University, and a master’s degree in European studies (2007) from Vienna University. Her current research interests lie at the intersection of gender equity, democracy, and the rule of law, as well as the judicial reform in Poland, and subnational influence on supranational policymaking. She is the author of Wie Europa Zeus bändigte. Transnationalität im Gleichstellungsrecht der Europäischen Union (How Europe Tamed Zeus. Transnationality and Gender Equality Law in the European Union) (Tectum/Nomos, 2021), which elaborates on the impact of EU citizens on the development of the Union’s gender equality framework. Her articles appeared in the Open Gender Journal, Democracy SOS, and The Berlin Journal. Recent articles are “The Power of One Woman: The Progress of Gender Equality in the European Union” (2023) and “Gender Equality und Rechtsstaatlichkeit in der EU. Die polnische Justizreform” (2022).

Berit Ebert is also the Director of Public Programs and Strategic Initiatives at Bard College Berlin. Prior, she served as Vice President of Programs at the American Academy in Berlin, where she oversaw the institution’s academic and public programming. She was affiliated with the UNESCO in South Africa and the Committee for Foreign Affairs at the Deutsche Bundestag.

Academic & Journalistic articles

Ebert, B. (forthcoming). International Investment Treaties and the Promotion of Gender Equality. In F. Emmert & B. Esenkulova (Eds.), International Investment Law and Investor-State Dispute Settlement. Open-Source Textbook.
Ebert, B. (2023). Elections in Poland, with democracy hanging in the balance. In Democracy SOS.
Ebert, B. (2023). The power of one woman: the progress of gender equality in the European Union. In Democracy SOS.
Ebert, B. (2022). Gender Equality und Rechtsstaatlichkeit in der EU. Die polnische Justizreform. In Open Gender Journal, 6. doi: https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2022.201
Ebert, B. (2022). Poland: The European Union's Bright Promise of Gender Equality. In The Berlin Journal, 38, 74-75.
Ebert, B./Fradinger, M. (2020). Gender Dissidence in the 21st Century. In The Berlin Journal, 34, 78-83.
Ebert, B. (2020). Ja, Nein, Vielleicht, oder doch vielleicht nicht? … Trans* im Recht der Europäischen Union. (Yes, No, Maybe, or maybe not? ... Trans* in the Laws of the European Union). 21 May 2020. In History | Sexuality | Law. https://hsl.hypotheses.org/1375

Monographs

Wie Europa Zeus bändigte: Transnationalität im Gleichstellungsrecht der Europäischen Union. (How Europe Tamed Zeus. Transnationality and Gender Equality Law in the European Union). Baden-Baden: Tectum 2021.
Gleichstellung und Gender in der Jurisdiktion des Gerichtshofes der Europäischen Union. Eine Analyse unter Berücksichtigung kontemporärer Gerechtigkeitstheorien. (Equality and Gender in the Jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. An Analysis Considering Contemporary Theories of Justice). Berlin: Logos 2012.
Die neue Weltordnung als Strategiefrage. Sicherheitspolitische Divergenzen zwischen EU und USA (The World Order as a Question of Strategy. Divergences of the Security Policies in the EU and the USA). Marburg: Tectum 2008.

Contact
Dr. Berit Ebert
Political Science
Email: b.ebert[at]berlin.bard.edu

Deville Cohen

Deville Cohen is a visual artist living and working in Berlin and New York. A graduate of the Bard-Annandale MFA Program at the Milton Avery School of the Arts in 2010, he also studied at the Kunsthochschule Weissensee in Berlin.
Deville Cohen’s performance-based videos, sculptures and installations use black-and-white Xerox images as integral elements in their mise-en-scène. Sets, characters, and props become entangled in psychic dramas saturated with humor, desire, and anxiety. Cohen uses sculptural and theatrical techniques to create works that reflect on the immediate relationships we have to everyday objects and environment. His most recent project is underline, a collaboration with the composer Hugo Moral, which was commissioned by the Munich Biennale for new music theater and co-produced by the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. His class in the Spring Semester at Bard College Berlin draws on the multi-media and performance focus of his artistic practice and his previous teaching work at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington DC.

Photo credit: David Adika

Irwin Collier

USA
PhD in Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Irwin Collier joins Bard College Berlin this coming Fall Semester. Previously he was professor of Economics and North American Studies at the John-F.-Kennedy Institute of Freie Universität Berlin. Before coming to Freie Universität in 1994, Irwin Collier taught at the University of Houston for thirteen years. He has also taught as a visiting professor at CERGE/EI in Prague and Seoul National University’s School of Public Administration in South Korea. Over his teaching career Irwin Collier has taught a broad spectrum of courses including macroeconomics, international economics, social policy, labor economics, econometrics, comparative economic systems, and history of economics.

Irwin Collier studied economics at Yale University and earned his doctorate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before coming to Bard College Berlin his research work has focused on aspects of the economy and the economic policies of the former German Democratic Republic and the transition of the postwall East German economy as well as the theory and statistical methods of measuring purchasing power in an international context. Over the past few years he has conducted significant archival work dealing with the evolution of the curricula for undergraduate and graduate education in economics from the late 19th century up through the 1960s in the United States.

Irwin Collier’s work has been published in the American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Economica, Journal of Comparative Economics, Comparative Economic Studies, Journal of Forecasting, and Journal of Economic Integration.

Irwin Collier runs a boutique blog, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror (irwincollier.com), that offers a regular stream of artifacts from the history of economics transcribed and curated by him.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Irwin Collier
Economics
Email: i.collier[at]berlin.bard.edu

Jacalyn Carley

USA
BA in Dance Education
George Washington University, Washington DC

Jacalyn Carley is a Berliner-by-choice with an American passport. She studied dance with Prof. Maida Withers (GWU) and with the founders of Motion Berlin dance company — all Mary Wigman students with a focus on improvisation and performance. She cofounded Tanzfabrik Berlin. As choreographer, educator, and social-activist for the Free Scene, she helped shape modern and post-modern dance in West Berlin and onwards. Her evening-length choreographies, a blending of literature and dance, toured extensively throughout Europe and the US for over two decades, sponsored by both the Goethe Institute and the Berlin Ministry of Arts. She has been the recipient of various stipends and residencies.

After ending her active career as performer and choreographer, Jacalyn Carley authored four books and edited the English version of Dance Techniques/Tanzplan Germany (an authoritative tomb on all modern dance styles) published simultaneously in German and English by Tanzplan Deutschland/Henschel Verlag. Her focus shifted to Community Dance as coauthor for Royston Maldoom’s autobiograhy Dance for Your Life (S. Fischer Verlag) and as author of A Community Dance Handbook on Maldoom’s methods (Henschel Verlag).

Jacalyn’s personal interests delve into the topic, “From Political Revolutionaries to Cultural Missionaries: Modern Dancers in Germany 1900 - 2020,” – a course she taught for Sarah Lawrence College and lectures given elsewhere.

She has been On-site Director for 'Summer Arts in Berlin,' a Sarah Lawrence College study abroad program, since 2011.

For videos and publications see: jacalyn-carley.com

Contact:
Jacalyn Carley
Dance
[email protected]

Raphael Beil

Germany
Diploma of Fine Arts
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences

Raphael Beil was born in Hamburg. He began his career with a full apprenticeship as a stone sculptor and later studied Fine Arts at the Alanus University of Arts and Social
Sciences. He then worked with various artists such as Tony Cragg, Nicolas Bertoux, and Hagbart Sollös, gaining extensive experience in creating monumental sculpture projects.

Since 1992, he has been working as a freelance sculptor based in Berlin, Norway, and Italy. He has collaborated with garden and landscape architects Cornelia Müller and Jan Wehberg
(Luetzow7) in Berlin, with whom he has worked on several large garden projects. These include the installation of several stone sculptures in the courtyards of the Federal Ministry of Economics, the creation of the outside stone floor of the Paul-Celan-Hof at the Jewish Museum Berlin, and the "30 Floating Stones" outside the German Reichstag Parliament.

Raphael Beil has participated in exhibitions and symposia worldwide, including in Turkey, Taiwan, India, Guatemala, and China. His works are permanently exhibited at the Uttarayan
Art Foundation in India; the National Museums of Guatemala City; Hualien, Taiwan; and Beijing China.

In 1986, he began teaching at the summer academy for sculpture "Campo de'll Altissimo" in Italy and continued teaching there until 2022.

With the aim of sharing his experience, he founded the "School of Sculpture" together with Tobia Silvotti. Located in Monopol in Berlin-Reinickendorf, the school offers workshops and sculpture courses with marble, granite, and other types of stone, teaching traditional and modern techniques to create unique sculptures. The courses are open to everyone, whether young or old, experienced or a beginner.

Personal website

Contact
Raphael Beil
Studio Arts — Sculpture
r.beil[at]berlin.bard.edu

Daniela Crăciun

Romania
PhD in Political Science
Central European University

Daniela Crăciun earned a PhD in Political Science from Central European University (Hungary), an Erasmus Mundus MA in Global Studies from the University of Leipzig (Germany), Jawaharlal Nehru University (India) and Wroclaw University (Poland), and a BA in Marketing with Media and Cultural Studies from Canterbury Christ Church University (UK).

Daniela’s teaching and research interests lie in the area public policy, specifically higher education policy. Additionally, she is interested in issues of research design, conceptualization and content analysis. Her PhD dissertation analyzed national higher education internationalization strategies from around the world using computer assisted text analysis to lift empirical data to a conceptual level.

Recently, Daniela has been a visiting scholar doing research or teaching at the University of Yangon (Myanmar), the Federal University of Sao Carlos (Brazil), and the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College (USA). Her postdoctoral research explores issues of graduate employability.

Contact
Dr. Daniela Crăciun
Political Science
Email: d.craciun[at]berlin.bard.edu

Emerson Culurgioni

Germany
Diploma of Visual Arts
Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst

Emerson Culurgioni was born and raised in Munich. He studied Art and Design at the Free University of Bolzano and at the University of the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (HGB), where he graduated in 2014 with Clemens von Wedemeyer. The critical and interdisciplinary engagement with social issues is at the core of his artistic practice. He is co-founder of the artist* collective Filmische Initiative Leipzig. Between 2013 and 2017, he participated in the Professional Media Masterclass program for artistic documentary film at the Werkleitzgesellschaft in Halle (PMMC). The resulting films LEUNA (13') and HABITAT (79') were shown at international film festivals and various exhibitions. Since the beginning of 2018, he has been working on the hybrid feature-length documentary LA DUNA (120'). In April 2020 he made the 5-channel video installation "Exploitation or how to break the surface" (15' loop).

Contact:
Emerson Culurgioni
Film Studies
[email protected]

Adrien De Sutter

Belgium
PhD in Sociology
Goldsmiths, University of London

Adrien De Sutter completed his PhD in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. An interdisciplinary researcher specializing in science and technology studies and the history and philosophy of science, his primary focus is on the philosophical, sociological and political implications of the activities of fundamental physics research.

Adrien De Sutter’s research to date has focussed primarily on the scientific practice of modern physical cosmology, inquiring what it means for the modern story of the universe’s origins and its development to have become a science. Weaving together traditional sociological and anthropological concerns and methodologies, historical analyses, and philosophical reflection, his research seeks to explore the meaning and purpose of cosmology away from more familiar readings of scientific progress in physics and modern rationality.

He has a keen interest in pragmatist and empirical philosophies, and in establishing connections between different intellectual traditions including science studies, history and philosophy of science, continental philosophy, cultural anthropology, and postcolonial thought.

Contact
Dr. Adrien De Sutter
Sociology
a.desutter[at]berlin.bard.edu

Irit Dekel

Israel
PhD in Sociology
The New School for Social Research

Irit Dekel earned her PhD in sociology at the New School for Social Research. She is a research fellow at the department of Social Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin where she leads an international research project in cooperation with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She studied political transformation at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin in 2005-6 with the support of DAAD research fellowships and with a Fritz Thyssen Foundation stipend.

Her book Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial was based on that research and was published in the summer of 2013 in the Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies series.

Her research project financed by the German Israeli Foundation in 2014-2016 is titled Domesticating Cosmopolitanism: a Comparative Study of Historical Home Museums in Germany and Israel. It will ask how personal and history-forming stories intersect and inquire about their reception in historical home museums in Germany and Israel so as to shed light on the construction and circulation of cultural and intercultural knowledge in the public sphere, diaspora, ethnicity, diversity and change.

Classes taught at Bard College Berlin:
City for Citizens: Participation, Inequality and Social Change
The Sociology of Culture
Humanistic Social Research: Thinking Through Methods
Transformation of Public Space in Berlin After 1989 (co-taught with the TU Berlin)
City for Citizens: Urban Design and Social Change in the European Metropolis (co-taught with the TU Berlin)
Methods in Social Theory
Past in the Present
Introduction to Sociology

General Teaching Interests:
Sociological theory; cultural and political sociology; memory studies; museums and tourism; media

Research and Publications:

Dekel, Irit and Katriel, Tamar 2015. "Krieg dem Kriege: The Anti-War Museum in Berlin as a Multilayered Site of Memory" in Anna Reading and Tamar Katriel (eds.) Cultural Memories of Nonviolent Struggles Powerful Times. Palgrave Macmilllan.

Dekel, I. 2014. "Jews and Other Others at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin". Anthropological Journal of European Cultures, Volume 23, Issue 2

Dekel, I. 2013. Mediation at the Holocaust Memorial, Palgrave Macmillan.

Dekel, I. 2011. "Mediated Space, Mediated Memory: New Archives at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin" in Motti Neiger, Oren Meyers and Eyal Zandberg (eds.) On Media Memory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dekel, I. 2009. "Ways of Looking: Transcending Time and Space through Photography at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin". Memory Studies 2:1, 71-86.

Dekel, I. 2009. "Pan-topia: Exposing the Palimpsest of Meanings at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin" History and Theory: The Protocols Bezalel Academy of Art and Design 14.

Jenny Dirksen

Germany
MA in Art History
The University of Cologne

Jenny Dirksen is currently the academic project manager and part of the curatorial team of Hello World: Revising a Collection, Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Previously she worked as a curator and researcher in the context of Videoarchiv, a research project at the Ludwig Forum in Aachen, and in the realisation of documenta 13 in Kassel, whose final phase she oversaw as head of project management. She studied art history, classical archaeology and English philology at the University of Cologne.

Contact
Jenny Dirksen, M.A.
Curator
Email: [email protected]

Jeremiah Day

United States
PhD in Humanities
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Jeremiah Day studied art at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Day holds a PhD in the Humanities from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at UniArts Helsinki's Center for Educational Research and Academic Development in the Arts, developing his approach to sharing art through workshops and education. His multi-disciplinary work spans photography, performance, and installation, with a focus on politics as lived experience, channeled through site and narrative. His most recent publication is "If It's For The People, It Needs To Be Beautiful," She Said, (2021) produced in collaboration with Will Holder and accompanying the 2020-21 traveling solo project presented at the Badischer Kunstverien, Centre d’art Le Lait, and Villa Romana.

Contact:
Dr. Jeremiah Day
Performing Arts
[email protected]

Sam Dolbear

United Kingdom
PhD in Critical Theory
Birkbeck, University of London

Sam Dolbear received his PhD on Walter Benjamin from Birkbeck, University of London and has since held a number of research positions at the Institute of Modern Language Research at London’s School of Advanced Study and at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry in Berlin. He has two books forthcoming, one on the radio producer and composer Ernst Schoen (with Goldsmith Press) and one on the palmist and sexologist Charlotte Wolff (with Ma Bibliothèque). He has published and taught widely, including in the study abroad programmes of UC Berkeley and Skidmore College in London.

Contact
Dr. Sam Dolbear
Literature
[email protected]

Tom Drury

USA
MA in English/Creative Writing
Brown University

Tom Drury is an American writer living in New York and Berlin. He received a BA from the University of Iowa in Journalism (1980) and an MA from Brown University in English/Creative Writing (1987). His short stories have been published in Harper's Magazine, the North American Review, and The New Yorker.

Drury has served as a writing instructor at Wesleyan University, and has taught as a visiting writer at Florida State University, La Salle University, and Yale University. He has worked as journalist or editor for publications such as Providence Journal, St. Petersburg Times, the Litchfield County Times, the Mississippi Review, and The New York Times Magazine.

Drury’s novels include The End of Vandalism (1994), The Black Brook (1998), Hunts in Dreams (2001), The Driftless Area (2006), and Pacific (2013). He was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 1996 and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000-2001.

Contact
Tom Drury, M.A.
Writer
Email: [email protected]

Vanessa de Senarclens

Switzerland
PhD in French Studies / Habilitation in French Literature and Cultural Studies
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Vanessa de Senarclens is a specialist of the Enlightenment. While she mostly worked on French authors (PhD on Montesquieu, publications among others on Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot), she dedicated her more recent research to the cultural transfer from France to Prussia in the 18th century as well as the influence of English philosophy and theatre on French authors. She has taught French Literature in Berlin, Wuppertal, and Augsburg. Her current research relates to the notion of “bibliomigrancy” and, more specifically, to the history of a library founded in the 18th century in East Pomerania, which was decimated in the aftermath of World War II. Using a cultural studies approach, she follows the paths which the books took through East and West Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union after March 1945 and explores their status and political significance today.

She is a member of the board of the German Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

Publications (selection)

Book

Montesquieu, historien de Rome. Un tournant pour la réflexion sur le statut de l’histoire au XVIIIe siècle, Genève (Droz / Bibliothèque des Lumières), 2003

Edited Volumes

(with Markus Messling, Cornelia Ruhe, Lena Seauve), Mathias Énard et l’érudition du roman, Brill/Rodopi (Faux titre), Amsterdam, New York, 2020
(with Lena Seauve), Grenzen des Zumutbaren, Frankfurt am Main (Peter Lang) 2019
(with Elisabeth Décultot, Helmut Pfeiffer), Genuss bei Rousseau, Würzburg (Königshausen & Neumann), 2014
(with Jürgen Overhoff), Friedrich der Große, Œuvres du Philosophe de Sans-Souci, Potsdamer Ausgabe, Band VII, Berlin (Akademie Verlag), 2012
(with Jürgen Overhoff), An meinen Geist: Friedrich der Große in seiner Dichtung. Eine Anthologie, Paderborn (Schöningh), 2011
(with Veit Elm, Günther Lottes), Erfundene Antike? Vom Umgang mit den antiken Quellen im Europa des 18. Jahrhunderts, Hannover (Wehrhahn), 2009

Journal Articles (recent)

“Excerpts in a Time of Untruth or Voltaire’s Practice of Excerpting and the Rehabilitation of Justice”, in: Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte/ History of Sciences and Humanities, 2/ 2020
“Spinoza in Hinterpommern: Ein wiederaufgetauchter Bibliothekskatalog von 1756 in kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive”, in: Das Achtzehntes Jahrhundert, Göttingen (Wallstein) Nr. 44/1
„Verlegt, verwahrt und vergessen. Die Bücher aus den ehemaligen deutschen Bibliotheken in Polen“, in: Merkur. Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, Nr. 74, Oktober 2020, S. 77-84
“Päpstlicher Segen für eine Tragödie der Aufklärung? Voltaires Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet, le Prophète (1742) und die katholische Kirche”, in: Katholische Aufklärung in Europa und Nordamerika”, ed. by Jürgen Overhoff, (collection: Supplementa. Das Achtzehnte Jahrhundert), Göttingen (Wallstein Verlag), 2019
“Um die Teile einer verstreuten Büchersammlung aus dem 18. Jahrhundert: Die Bibliothek Schloss Plathe und ihre Benutzer”, in: Unbekannte Schätze. Germanica des 16. Jahrhunderts in der Universitätsbibliothek Lodz, ed. by Cora Dietl, Malgorzata Kubisiak, Lodz (Universität Verlag), 2018 (Price of the Université de Lodz)
“Du ronflement des furies : Pierre Brumoy et la tragédie antique au 18e siècle” in : Fabula-LhT, n° 19 / 2017, Les conditions du théâtre. Le théâtralisable et le théâtralisé. Numéro dirigé par Romain Bionda (Université de Lausanne), http://www.fabula.org/lht/19/senarclens.html
“Moses im postrevolutionären Frankreich: Der Prophet des Alten Testaments als Erinnerungsfigur im apologetischen, erzählerischen und dramatischen Werk Chateaubriands”, in: Romanische Forschungen, Nr. 1/2018
“Zwischen Gelehrsamkeit und Philosophie. Montesquieus Geschichtsschreibung”, in: Die Vielfalt der Sattelzeit, ed. by Elisabeth Décultot, Daniel Fulda, (collection: “Hallesche Beiträge zur Europäischen Aufklärung”) Berlin (De Gruyter), 2016
“L’exception de la tragédie antique grecque dans la Lettre à d'Alembert sur les Spectacles de 1758”, in: Rousseau et le spectacle, ed. by Jacques Berchtold, Christophe Martin, Yannick Séité, Paris (Armand Colin), 2014
“Au donjon du château. Im Turm des Schlosses: die Poesie Friedrichs des Großen”, in: Dichter und Lenker. Die Literatur der Staatsmänner, Päpste und Despoten vom 16. Jahrhundert bis in die Gegenwart, ed. by Patrick Ramponi, Saskia Wiedner, Wien/ Köln/ Weimar (Böhlau), 2014

Contact:
Dr. habil. Vanessa de Senarclens
French Literature and Cultural Studies
senarclv[at]hu-berlin.de

Sasha Bergstrom-Katz

United States
PhD in Psychosocial Studies
Birkbeck, University of London

Dr. Sasha Bergstrom-Katz is a researcher, artist, and writer who works on the history of the human sciences, performance in medicine. Her focus is specifically about the creation, design, and uses of scientific apparatuses which she examines through written critical texts as well as video, performance, installation, and photography. She is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bielefeld having recently completed a fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. She received her PhD on the materiality and performance of intelligence test kits from Birkbeck in Psychosocial Studies in 2023. She has an MFA in studio art from the University of California, Irvine and a BFA in art from CalArts. She exhibits her work internationally and publishes in areas such as history of science, psychosocial studies, and STS. She has taught studio and theory courses at the University of California, Irvine, and on BA and MA modules in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck. Her monograph, Unpacking Intelligence, is currently under review and she is co-editing a special issue on the Material Force of Categories for the History of the Human Sciences with Tomas Percival and a forthcoming volume on the intersections between Art & Psychotherapy with Dr. Suzanne Hudson and Dr. Sarah Marks.

Contact:
Dr. Sasha Bergstrom-Katz
Science
[email protected]

Elena Eßer

Germany
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '24
Concentration: Politics
Currently: Masters in Global Studies at Central European University and Bard College

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
Majoring in politics at BCB, the interdisciplinary nature of the liberal arts approach significantly contributed to a more multi-dimensional view on the subject. Both academically and professionally, I repeatedly got the feedback that such a broad approach is unique and highly desirable.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Finally, I got the chance to study what I was genuinely interested in and also found a second family in the amazing friends I met at BCB.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Dr. Nassim AbiGhanem's 'Global Citizenship' course perfectly prepared me for my time in NYC at the Bard Globalization and International Affairs program (BGIA). Covering the basics of international relations theory while simultaneously applying them to current events is one great trait of this course. The second, and for me more significant, trait of this course is the incentive to critically analyze the course contents.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB has fostered my diverse interests and laid the foundation for me finding a study program and future occupation that allows me to make use of said interests.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am staying in Berlin for the summer for work. Starting in September, I am going to pursue the Bard Global Studies Masters program in collaboration with Central European University (CEU). This degree entails one semester in Vienna and one in NYC while awarding two Masters degrees, a European one in Global Studies and a US one in International Relations.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
If the uni-layered approach to academia bothers you and you constantly hear that you are thinking 'too complex', BCB will be the perfect match for you. Who knows, you may even find academic interests you were not aware of before...

Cassandra Ellerbe

USA
PhD in Anthropology / Comparative Cultural Studies
Universiteit Gent

Cassandra Ellerbe completed in 2006 a PhD in Comparative Cultural Studies/Anthropology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. She has worked as a researcher in various cross-border EU funded projects, and was appointed by the University of Southampton, U.K. as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2007-2010) for the EU Sixth Framework Project: SeFoNE. “Searching for Neighbours: The Dynamics of Mental and Physical Border in the New Europe” where she researched African diasporic networks in German-speaking countries. Her current research focuses on cultural studies, Black European studies, gender, intersectional theory, social justice/diversity, social innovation, refugees and migration studies.

Cassandra is a certified diversity/social justice and specializes in empowerment trainings for Black, migrant and refugee women of color. From 2011-2019 she served as a board member of Eine Welt der Vielfalt e.V. Berlin (Anti-Defamation League - A World of Difference ®). She was an academic Fellow at the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies (2013-2014) and a network member of the Black Diaspora in Germany Scholars Project funded by the German Research Foundation (2010-2014). From January 2016-May 2019 she worked with the refugee team of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit - Team-180 Flucht & Asyl (Federal Employment Agency).

In May 2019 she accepted the post as a Senior Researcher at the Berlin University of Technology in the Interreg Central Europe research project SIforREF: “Integrating Refugees in Society and The Labour Market Through Social Innovation.”

Cassandra is currently Officer for Diversity & Inclusivity at the University of Bremen in the EU project titled: YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe).

Most recent publications:

Ellerbe, C. (2018). "Black German Women, the Matrilineal Diaspora and Audre Lorde" in Black Diaspora in Germany. Edition Assemblage: Münster

Ellerbe, C. (2018) "‘Ich bin stolz ein Deutscher zu sein’" in Black German Males and National Pride. Edition Assemblage: Münster

Ellerbe-Dück, C. & Wekker, G.) “Naming Ourselves as Black Women in Europe – An African American & Afro-Dutch Conversation” in (co-editors- Bolacki & Broeck) Audre Lorde’s Transnational Legacies 2015.

Ellerbe-Dück, C. & Dzajic-Weber, A. 2016. "Die Diversity Dimension Ethnische Herkunft und Hautfarbe: einsichten und Überlegungen aus der Sensibiliserungsarbeit" in Petia Genkova and Tobias Ringeisen (Hrsg) Handbuch Diversity Kompetenz Band 2 Gegenstandsbereiche, Springer Verlag: Berlin

Ellerbe-Dück, C. & Dzajic-Weber, A. 2016. "Hautfarbe und Alltagsrassismus" in punktum. Juni 2016, s. 8-10.

Website:
https://www.cassandraellerbe.com/

Contact
Dr. Cassandra Ellerbe
Anthropology
Email: c.ellerbe[at]berlin.bard.edu

Dirk H. Ehnts

Germany
PhD in Economics
Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

Dr. rer. pol. Dirk H. Ehnts holds a PhD in economics from University of Oldenburg and a diploma in economics from University of Göttingen. He has worked at Affiliated Computer Services of Spain in Barcelona after completing his diploma degree. He then was awarded a PhD scholarship from Ev. Studienwerk Villigst e.V. and participated in the joint PhD program „Globalization and Employment" of the universities of Hohenheim and Oldenburg.

From 2006 to 2012, Dr. Ehnts worked as a research assistant at the University of Oldenburg's chair for international economics. He then switched to the Berlin School of Economics and Law, where he was working as a guest lecturer in monetary economics. Interrupted by a spell as visiting professor for Latin American macroeconomics at Free University's Latin American Institute during the summer semester 2014 he held this position until the end of 2014.

His research has appeared in international recognized journals. His latest book Geld und Kredit: eine €-päische Perspektive deals with the creation and destruction of money and credit in the euro zone. Dr. Ehnts is co-founder of the Samuel-Pufendorf Gesellschaft für politische Ökonomie which is a non-profit aiming at educating the public about the workings of money and finance. He also serves as the book review editor of the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education.

Courses taught

Global Economics
Origins of Political Economy
Macroeconomics
Statistics

Magdalena Emmerig

Germany
Diploma in Fine Arts/Stage and Costume Design
Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin

Magdalena Emmerig is a German artist and theatre maker. She is a trained tailor and completed the diploma course in Fine Arts/Stage and Costume Design at the Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin. Her work in theater and costume and stage design explores culturally formed signs and affects, queer feminist theory, and practices of resistance in late capitalism. In previous works, she has explored neoliberal branding, commodified self-optimization, contemporary images of masculinity, and global contexts of paid reproductive labor, among others. Her focus is on immersive formats in which the audience enters and in which a personal encounter and affirmative exploration of complex contexts is facilitated.

Magdalena Emmerig has been a founding member of The Agency, whose immersive performances have been shown internationally from 2015-2022, at venues including HAU Berlin, FFT Düsseldorf, PACT Zollverein Essen, Münchner Kammerspiele, Gessnerallee Zürich, Sophiensaele Berlin, Donaufestival Krems, Tanz im August Berlin, Athens Biennale 2018, Radikal Jung Festival 2019, and FIBA Buenos Aires 2021.

She has a long-standing collaboration with director Noam Brusilovsky and dramaturg Lotta Beckers. Since 2020 she has been working with director and choreographer Heinrich Horwitz and performance and media artist Rosa Wernecke. She is a member of the FLINTA* collective Gefährliche Arbeit e.V. and Performing for Future - Netzwerk für Nachhaltigkeit in den Darstellenden Künsten.

Contact:
Magdalena Emmerig
Practicing Arts
[email protected]

Tania Espinoza

Tania Espinoza obtained her PhD from the Department of French at the University of Cambridge (2012). Her thesis was about the figure of negative space in Kantian philosophy, Lacanian psychoanalysis and Virginia Woolf's literature. She is a fellow at the École de Philosophie d'Épineuil-le-Fleuriel, and a member of the Société Internationale de Philosophie et Psychanalyse. Her research and teaching interests are in comparative literature, philosophy and psychoanalysis. She has taught at the Department of Literature of the Universidad Mayor de San Andres, in La Paz.

Walid El-Houri

Lebanon
PhD in Media Studies
University of Amsterdam

Walid El-Houri is a researcher, journalist, and filmmaker based between Berlin and Beirut. He is lead editor of openDemocracy’s North Africa West Asia (NAWA) section and an affiliated fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin.

He completed his PhD in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2012 exploring the transformation of Hezbollah’s media strategies and the articulation of the notion of “resistance” as a political identity in Lebanon. He studied filmmaking at the Saint Joseph University in Beirut, and holds an MA in Journalism from the Lebanese University and the Paris II University, and an MA in Film Studies from the University of Amsterdam. He has taught media studies and political communication at the American University of Beirut (2013) and the University of Balamand in Lebanon (2009) before moving to Berlin in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studienand later at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry.

His current research explores protest movements, the politics of failure, and the new geographies of war and protest in the Middle East.

Contact
Dr. Walid El-Houri
Journalist & filmmaker
Email: [email protected]

Jasmine Ahmed

United Kingdom
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '24
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Currently: Masters in International Relations at Central European University and Bard College

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
I had never lived outside of the UK before, or been outside of it for longer that 2-3 weeks, so the chance to move to Germany, learn a new language, and experience a new culture was too big an opportunity to miss, and BCB's financial aid program allowed me to do this! Additionally as a UWC student I was excited by the chance to study in a close-knit international community, particularly alongside more UWC Alumni.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
Caring! Whether you are trying to get a club off the ground, raise awareness about a cause, need help with something in German, or just need someone to talk to, people at BCB on all levels (student; faculty; Student Life/Admin/Civic Engagement) are always ready to help and be involved.

Where was your favorite place to study on campus?
The W15 Café!

Were you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
I was involved in StuPa, the Student Parliament; the Stitch Up - a club where students come together to crochet and knit clothing items that are then donated to an organization that redistributes woolen clothes to the unhoused across the city; English Hour - a space for the BCB community and its local neighbors to meet, talk, improve their English and German language skills and foster cross-cultural understanding; DerDieDas Haus - a living learning community on campus, where students use German to communicate in their daily lives.

What is your favorite book you read in a class?
Gun Island by Amitav Ghosh: This was the first fiction book I read for a BCB class, and I literally could not put it down. The book follows a rare book dealer on a journey between the Sundarbans, Los Angeles, and Venice after helping document the location of a shrine built on an ancient Bengali legend, in the Sundarbans before it was swept away by rising water levels and storms. Climate change plays a massive role in the book, influencing the characters' actions and decisions throughout, and it was really interesting for me as it was the first time I have ever read or considered climate change as a factor in fiction. It has helped me explore new ways to convey information and stories about the impacts of climate change, including ways, which may be more accessible to more people, such as through stories.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Postcolonial Politics in my first semester has really stuck with me, as it was the first time I was properly exposed to postcolonial theory and scholarship. It forced me to reflect and reevaluate the narratives, which I had been exposed to growing up in the UK, mainly due to the lack of education on colonialism in the school system, and I still think about and try to incorporate the theories, questions, and materials we discussed in that course into my other classes.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
How approachable professors and faculty are!

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
For me, a liberal arts education means I can learn about a wide variety of topics and areas which I wouldn't be able to combine anywhere else. You have the opportunity to take classes across disciplines, meaning in a single semester you could combine the Arts with German, with Politics, and with Philosophy, and I think this has enabled me to have both a deeper understanding and appreciation of the things I learn and read in class, as I'm able to find new ways of applying what I learn, and to observe things from new and different perspectives. This also means I can feel more prepared and confident for new challenges and opportunities inside and outside of university, as I have a wide skill set and knowledge base to work with, as well as the ability to change and adapt.

Ariane Faber

Germany
MA in North American Studies and Theater Studies
Freie Universität Berlin

Beatrice Farkas

Romania
PhD in Economics
Louisiana State University

Beatrice Farkas received her PhD in Economics from Louisiana State University, U.S.A. in 2009. Before coming to Berlin, she was Assistant Professor of Economics at the Fashion Institute of Technology of the State University of New York (SUNY). Between 2010 and 2015 she was a Research Associate at DIW Berlin. Beatrice Farkas is an applied macroeconomist whose research interests are macroeconomics, economic growth and development. Her research focuses on empirical work in economic development, primarily international total factor productivity differences and open economies.

Courses taught at Bard College Berlin

Principles of Economics
Macroeconomics
Global Economics

Contact
Dr. Beatrice Farkas
Economics
Email: b.farkas[at]berlin.bard.edu

Marius Fahrner

Marius Fahrner earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in conjunction with a minor in philosophy at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz. His thesis in mathematics concerned itself with abstract algebra, while his papers in philosophy dealt with different philosophical concepts of time. Following a year as an Erasmus-student in Lyon, Fahrner earned a master's degree in mathematics with a minor in philosophy at the Humboldt-University in Berlin. In his master's thesis, Fahrner connected concepts of abstract algebra with aspects of quantum physics, while his philosophical papers explored the philosophy of law and anthropology.
After completing his master's thesis, Fahrner took a post as a lecturer at the Touro College in Berlin. He has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in statistics, finite maths, quantitative analysis and computer concepts.

Paul Festa

USA
Advanced Certificate
The Juilliard School

Paul Festa is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of film, fiction, music, and criticism.

His films include the widely acclaimed experimental documentaries Apparition of the Eternal Church, about the music of Olivier Messiaen, and Tie It Into My Hand, a series of violin lessons given to the filmmaker by noted non-violinists including Harold Bloom, Alan Cumming, Margaret Cho, and Robert Pinsky. In The Glitter Emergency, an award-winning silent-film comedy, Festa performs the Tchaikovsky violin concerto opposite members of the San Francisco Ballet and The Cockettes while chasing a peg-leg ballerina up and down the hills of San Francisco.

He produced, wrote and edited, with director Austin Forbord, the Emmy-nominated documentary Stage Left: A Story of Theater in San Francisco. His video performance Night of a Thousand Agneses was nominated for the 2015 Berlin Arts Prize and was banned from the Berlinale Panorama reception.

Performances as violinist and actor include Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and the Center for Performance Research (NYC); Dock 11 and the Alter St.-Matthäus Kirchhof Kapelle (Berlin); Teatro Arriaga (Bilbao); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and North Bay Shakespeare (SF), and MacDowell Downtown (Peterborough, NH). With various collaborators, he gave premieres of Messiaen’s posthumously published “Fantaisie” for violin and piano throughout the US, including at the Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, on the “Betts” Stradivarius.

He is the author of OH MY GOD: Messiaen in the Ear of the Unbeliever, based on Apparition of the Eternal Church, and his novel-in-progress Materano won Lambda Literary’s 2024 J. Michael Samuel Prize. His essays appear in publications and anthologies including Salon, The Daily Beast, Nerve: The First Ten Years; three editions of the Best Sex Writing anthology, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New York Times Book Review.

Following scholarship studies at The Juilliard School with Robert Mann, he graduated in English with distinction, honors, and prizes from Yale College. Residencies include Yaddo, MacDowell, ODC Theater, and Centre des Récollets. At BCB he has taught courses in literature, philosophy, film production, fiction writing, Italian history, and music history.

Contact
Paul Festa
Filmmaker
Email: p.festa[at]berlin.bard.edu

Sebastian Felten

Sebastian Felten is a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. His current work is focused on environmental history, and the consequences of and possibilities for human agency in interaction with the environment. More specifically, he investigates how systematic note-taking in commerce, administration and science connected to eighteenth and nineteenth century mining created discrete environments that humans could act upon. The project builds on a study of historical accounting practices that he carried out as part of his PhD at King's College, London, on the topic of the monetisation in European rural society between 1700 and 1900. He has also worked for the German Historical Institute London as part of the digital edition project "Pauper Letters and Petitions for Poor Relief in Germany and Great Britain, 1770 – 1914", through which he developed a keen interest in Digital Humanities.

Christiane Bethke

Germany
Lic. in German and English Studies
University of Porto

Christiane Bethke holds a degree in Modern Languages and Literature (German and English Studies) from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, in Portugal. The degree aimed at the study of English and German and the cultures, literature and history of the respective countries and discussed literary and linguistic theories, as well as the practical aspects of teaching and translating foreign languages and intercultural relations. Her studies also included Portuguese linguistics and translation.

In 2004 she concluded a training program for teachers (German as a Foreign Language) at the Goethe-Institut in Porto. After graduating in 2007 she worked as a teacher for German as a Foreign Language for the Goethe-Institutes in Porto and Lisbon as well as for the University of Porto. After returning to Germany in 2010 she taught German language classes at all levels at several Goethe-Institutes in Germany and the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her area of interest lies in the field of language acquisition, German history, and East German literature. She also does literary translations and corrects dissertations. Since 2018 she has been teaching at Bard College Berlin.

Contact:

Christiane Bethke

German Instructor
c.bethke[at]berlin.bard.eu

Ana Mihajlovska

Macedonia
BA in Economics, Politics and Social Thought '24
Currently: MA at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Why did you choose to study at Bard College Berlin?
Changing my environment after 18 years of living in the same place. That is exactly the challenge I wanted when I pressed the “apply” button for Bard College Berlin. I decided on this big step to come and study at BCB because I knew that the college would give me a chance. A chance to be able to express my opinions without being afraid. BCB gave me the chance to freely walk the streets of Berlin, knowing that I have an intellectual home that will house my thinking and my body—as out of-the-ordinary as they both might be. BCB and I, we are right for each other because we share the same dream: an education that empowers young people like me to cross gendered, cultural, and sociopolitical boundaries as we face today's challenges.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?
If I were to describe the BCB community I would definitely say that it is a very warm, united, and diverse community. We always support each other in good times, and in times of trouble. The beauty of this diversity is that you can always, ALWAYS learn something new from each person, you simply have the whole world in your hands! While being in this small community, I got to learn bits of languages I never thought I'd stumble upon, I got to try and taste food from different cultures, as well as share some pieces of what I call my home, which is Macedonia.

Where was your favorite place to study on campus?
My favorite place to study was definitely the W15 cafe, because when you are surrounded by people who also work it is very respectful and quiet. Having a support system during your studies is quite important. On sunny days I loved doing the readings outside, especially on the hammock behind K24, or on the huge grass field that we have— it is the most beautiful landscape to have in front of you while working!

Were you involved in any student clubs or organizations? If so, which ones?
As a person who loves sports, I was part of the BCB Volleyball Club, and on warm Sundays we usually played beach volleyball at our local gym SPOK.

Favorite book you read in a class, and why?
In my class on Existentialism, which I took with Prof. Tracy Colony, we read a lot about the general concept of existence, about the belief that we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives. My favorite book in this class was the play "No Exit" by Jean Paul Sartre. It sounds very scary to think about, but the main concept that the play proposes is that “hell is other people” rather than a state created by God. It left an impression on me because it explains the fact that true misery comes from the human inability to control the nature of one's own existence.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
As a student in the EPST program, I would say that my Microeconomics class, taught by Prof. Israel Waichman, has left a lasting impression on me. The way he teaches always motivated me to do well, to learn and to think critically about different economic issues in the world. My favorite thing is to work with numbers, and this class helped me use my interest for math to learn about the creation of individual and market demands and how that works in practice. We touched upon issues of market efficiency and the workings of welfare economics. The most interesting part for me was being able to learn more about concepts of monopoly and perfect competition.
In addition to Microeconomics, the beauty of being at BCB and at a liberal arts university is the opportunity to take classes in the core curriculum. My favorite class was on Renaissance Florence. It enabled me to visit different museums throughout the semester and analyze paintings in depth. This was a class where I could have my mind be at peace and give opinions without needing to worry if it is correct or not, because when analyzing art, there is never a correct answer, it is open to interpretation always.

What surprised you the most about BCB?
What surprised me most about BCB is the close connection people have among each other; staff members, professors and students as well! I can easily have a good conversation with any professor—whether it is on a topic connected to a class or anything in general. My favorite thing about BCB is the events we have, where everyone is invited and we are able to interact with all students, as well as eat good food and feel safe within the community. When I started school in 2020, even with the difficult circumstances concerning the pandemic, everyone was so accepting, understanding and respectful. We have a lot of resources available on campus, and even without knowing who I was supposed to live with at first, I was immediately welcomed, which is why I could easily call BCB my home.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?
To me, a liberal arts education means that after I have completed my BA degree, I want to have a basis of knowledge in many fields of life—humanities, the arts, as well as the natural and social sciences. I do not want this liberal arts education to just prepare me for a single career path, but to also equip me with skills that would prepare me to go out in the world without fear. I want to be able to understand the world without having any prejudices towards it, and most importantly to share my thoughts and knowledge with people I meet along the way.

Florian Becker

Ex Officio
Managing Director of Bard College Berlin

Dr. Florian N. Becker has been managing director of Bard College Berlin since 2015. He has been a member of the college’s leadership and faculty since 2012. From 2005 to 2012, Becker was Assistant Professor of German at Bard College in Annandale, New York. He has taught courses in language and literature, social theory, philosophy and cultural history. His research is concerned with twentieth-century German theater and performance, philosophy, and social theory. Since 2012, Becker has published articles and chapters in Brecht und die Naturwissenschaften (eds. Hippe and Ißbrücker, 2017), Der Deutschunterricht, Modern Drama, The International Brecht Yearbook, and the Routledge Handbook of Human Rights. With Paola S. Hernández and Brenda Werth, Becker edited the volume Imagining Human Rights in Twenty-First Century Theater: Global Perspectives (2013). With Janine Ludwig and Noah Willumsen, he is editing a two-volume English-language companion to the works of Heiner Müller. Becker holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and a Ph.D. in German literature from Princeton University.

Alwin Franke

Germany
MA and MPhil
Columbia University

Alwin Franke received his Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Freie Universität Berlin and his MA and MPhil from Columbia University, where is is currently a doctoral candidate.

Informed by critical theory, media archeology, and the history of science, Alwin is interested in the intersection of literature, anthropology, and the sciences. His further interests include the history of Marxist and psychoanalytical thought, theories of cognitive-cultural capitalism, and postcolonial studies.

In his dissertation, tentatively titled “Back Behind the Origin: Symbolic Logic, Financial Capital, and Literary Modernism,” Alwin explores the entangled histories of modern symbolic logic, the sign-logic of financial capitalism, and an ‘epochal’ fascination with grounds and origins in the literary and critical prose of Robert Musil, Hermann Broch, Carl Einstein, Alfred Sohn-Rethel, and Theodor W. Adorno.

Alwin has translated essays by Gayatri Spivak, Maurizio Lazzarato, Tom Holert, and Joseph Vogl. In addition to his academic projects, he has worked as editor for Tribes Magazine and as assistant to filmmaker Hito Steyerl.

Alwin has been awarded fellowships by the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Fulbright, and DAAD.

Contact
Alwin Franke (PhD candidate)
German Language and Literature
a.franke[at]berlin.bard.edu

Richard Frater

New Zealand
MFA
Glasgow School of Art

Richard Frater (b. 1984, Wellington, NZ) lives and works in Berlin. He received an MFA from Glasgow School of Art, UK, in 2012. In 2016, he was a participant in the Berlin Program for Artists, and has continued on the program as a guest mentor.

He has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Oracle, Berlin. Recent exhibitions include: Compound series, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Resisting Images, Heidelberger Kunstverein, curated by Boaz Levin,“Farewell Photography, Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie”, Produktion: Made in Germany Drei, Hannover Kunstverein, Hannover, Earth League Symposium 2017, exhibitor and discussant, PIK-Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, Potsdam, Living Cities 2011-, Adam Art Gallery, curated by Laura Preston, Wellington, NZ, 2015 (solo); New 15, ACCA, Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, AUS, 2015 (group); ‘Let’s Destroy the Earth but Keep Humans’, curated by Matthew Richardson, Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zürich (2014).

Contact
Richard Frater, MFA
Artist
Email: [email protected]

Sladja Blažan

Germany
PhD in North American Literature and Culture
Humboldt University
Habilitation North American Literature and Culture
University Würzburg

Sladja Blažan received her Ph.D. in North American Literature and Culture from Humboldt University Berlin and her Habilitation from University Würzburg. From 2012 to 2021 she was an Assistant Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies in the American Studies department at the University of Würzburg. She has previously taught at New York University, Free University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, University College Dublin and Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. Her areas of research include speculative fiction, critical posthumanism, environmental humanities, critical refugee studies, and migration. In addition to her academic career, she has worked as a theater director, dramaturg, and translator.

Books:

Ghosts and Their Hosts: Race and Nature in Early U.S. American Literature and Culture (in progress)
American Fictionary: Postsozialistische Migration in der U.S. amerikanischen Literatur. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006.

Edited Volumes:

Haunted Nature: Entanglements of the Human and the Nonhuman. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
with Nigel Hatton. Refugees and / in Literature. Special Issue Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht. 2/3, Königshausen & Neumann, 2018.
with Avital Ronell. What Was I Thinking: A Critical Autobiography and Spectral Colloquy. Hauptstadtkulturfonds, 2011.
Ghost Stories and Alternative Histories. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.

Articles / Book Chapters (selection):

“‘Something Beyond Pain’: Gender, Violence, and Hyperempathy in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.” Gender Forum. Special Issue on Gender, Violence, and the State in Contemporary Speculative Fiction. Fall 2021 (in print)
“Haunting and Nature: An Introduction” Haunted Nature: Entanglements of the Human and the Nonhuman, edited by Sladja Blazan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. (in print)
“Vegetomorphism: Exploring the Material within the Aesthetics of the Ecogothic in Stranger Things and Annihilation.” Haunted Nature: Entanglements of the Human and the Nonhuman, edited by Sladja Blazan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. (in print)
“Lithic Corporeality: Elemental Philosophy in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Short Stories.” Revisiting Hawthorne’s Short Stories. Special Issue Nathaniel Hawhtorne Review, edited by Monika Elbert and Laura Laffrado, Penn State University Press, 2021. (in print)
“Von Hannah Arendts 'We Refugees' to Viet Thanh Nguyens The Refugees: Re-Evaluierung der Flüchtlingsdesignation im gegenwärtigen nordamerikanischen Roman.” Non-Persons: Grenzen des Humanen und des Humanitären in Literatur, Kultur und Medien, edited by Stephanie Catani and Stephanie Waldow, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2020, pp. 131-145.
“Literature and the Agency of the Refugee: An Analysis of Narrative Structures Employed in Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Schutzbefohlenen and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees.” Special Issue Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, edited by Sladja Blazan and Nigel Hatton, vol. 2, nb. 3, Königshausen & Neumann, 2018.

Image: Teresa Marenzi

Contact:
Dr. Sladja Blazan
Ph.D. North American Literature and Culture
[email protected]

Miksa Gáspár

Hungary
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '23
Currently: MA at the University of Potsdam, Freiberufliche Bildungsreferent at the Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Favorite quote and why?

“Man is the measure of all things.” (Protagoras)

To be born as a human being is a privilege that is not about shaping the world according to our own desires but to change with the world. Since at Bard Berlin we are discussing the most crucial challenges of our age - which could seem way bigger than us - I find it very important to underline what Protagoras said, that these issues are in a way our personal challenges as well.

Why Bard College Berlin?

Bard College Berlin seemed to me as a laboratory where I can explore my motivations and myself further. I spent a lot of my free time during high school participating in different activities; working with people on projects we are all very motivated about creates the greatest kind of community. I thought here at BCB I will find everything to develop new ideas or my current ones further: a colorful and open-minded community and place for experimenting. I chose BCB to challenge my ideas, and I am delighted to see that others are doing the same.

How would you describe our community in a nutshell?

BCB is a source of personal motivation for every student, but these sources differ greatly. What is very nice in our community is that, even though we are all strong individuals, we can channel our diverse motivations and opinions into discussions. For example for me lunchtime is not only about eating but sitting with other people, teaching and learning from each other even unintentionally by chatting over the food.

You favorite place to study on campus?

I love the garden behind our residence halls, as I can sit in nature surrounded by the chirping of birds and also hear people entering and leaving our buildings. It is a little bit like sitting at the border of two worlds.

Are you involved in any student clubs or organizations?

I am a member of the debate club as well as the Lingo 101 French class. I also participate occasionally in the meetings of StuPa and BCB Goes Green. I am running my own discussion circle since the beginning of the semester called Let’s Jew it.

Your favorite thing to do in Berlin on the weekends?

I love to wander around in the suburban areas of Berlin on my bike.

What surprised you the most about BCB?

The level of involvement in classes from both students’ and teachers’ side turned out to be a lot higher than I have ever thought.

Favorite book you read in a class?

Ahmed Saadawi’s book called Frankenstein in Baghdad.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

This semester I am taking a course called Introduction to Critical and Cultural Theory that I nearly dropped at the beginning of the semester because I barely understood a word from it. We are reading challenging essays and studies related to the history and the philosophy of art beside many other topics, which I found too complex for me to understand with the background knowledge I had. When I went to my teacher, she encouraged me to read the scientific texts in a personal way, which gave me the key to understanding every text - if not in their full complexity, but at a certain level. I got back to some of the articles during midterms and surprisingly I understood them a lot better than before. This course showed me that just by becoming a more experienced reader, my understanding will develop as well.

What does a liberal arts education mean to you?

I cannot define it in one sentence. Liberal arts education is on the one hand a broad scale of opportunities in a variety of fields and in a variety of topics, and on the other hand a way of studying in which you have to personally get involved. A liberal arts education is a process of constantly pairing up one’s opportunities with one’s interests. However, a liberal arts education is not only about living with these opportunities but also about creating ones for others. In contrast to the world today, liberal education is based on giving, on surpassing what we receive and not on reserving knowledge for ourselves.

Ahmad Ghani Khosrawi

Afghanistan/Germany
PhD Humanities and Literature
Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University

Prof. Ahmad Ghani Khosrawi is the Dean of Humanities and Literature faculty of Herat University. A scholar and humanitarian, he is the author of 15 books and more than 50 articles published in several countries. He serves as a Senior Cultural Advisor of the Belt and Road Initiative 2018-2030 (China), and is a member of International linguistics, a member ECHO, and a researcher of AIL. He also founded the German department at Herat university.

Prof. Khosrawi received his Bachelor’s degree in Humanities and Literature from Herat Univeristy in Herat, Afghanistan. He got his master’s degree in 2009 and his Doctorate in late 2011 from the Jamia Millia Islamic University in New Delhi, India

Publications (selected)
Books

Toward the Sun (Collection of Articles) Volume I & II, 2021
Modern Research Methodology, 2020
World Literature Volume I, 2018
World Literature Volume II, 2019
Diwan of Sheikh Qsimm Kahi Kabuli, 2021
Now-rooz in Persian Poetry, 2020
Philosophy (History of Philosophy in West and East), 2019
Mow-Lama Jami (Biography, Personality, Thought and Works), 2017

Contact
Prof. Ahmad Ghani Khosrawi
Humanities and Literature
Email: [email protected]

Jaroslava Gajdosova

Jaroslava Gajdosova earned her PhD in Sociology from The New School for Social Research. She was a research fellow at Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universität Greifswald, Humboldt Universität Berlin, and Columbia University, and has published on contemporary sociological theories and on German collective memory and identity.

Currently she is an external researcher at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen where she studies how film and literary narratives shape political and cultural identities of post-communist societies in Central-Eastern Europe. Her research has two foci: 1) relationship between cultural memory and political identity of post-communist societies, and 2) self-othering as a mode of post-communist feminine identity. Her theoretical interest lies in critical, poststructural, and phenomenological theories and their application to the qualitative research models.

Jaroslava has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in social theory, methods, collective identities, and gender in Prague and New York.

Rocco Gaudenzi

Italy
PhD in Physics
Technical University of Delft

After a High School degree in Classics, Gaudenzi earned a Master of Science degree in Physics at the ETH Zurich and a doctorate from the Technical University of Delft. After the PhD, he fulfilled his original desire to go past the science in favor of the inquiry on its historical-epistemological dimension and conceptual dynamics, and was awarded a two-year Rubicon grant to pursue research at the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science. There he investigates the conceptual connections between condensed matter and elementary particle physics, paying particular attention to the methods and heuristic thought processes entailed in the cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer, and focusing on the role played in it by analogical and metaphorical thinking.
Alongside research, he has devoted himself to teaching and dissemination, experimenting with various formats including theater and broad audience lectures; he annually co-organizes an event that strives to integrate the scientific discourses with reflections on humanities and society.

Contact
Dr. Rocco Gaudenzi
Email: r.gaudenzi[at]berlin.bard.edu

Salma Houmane

Tunisia
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '23
Currently: MS at Potsdam Universität in EPQM: Economic Policy and Quantitative Methods, Data Analyst at GLS Studio

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
The community and the sense of belonging. I believe moving to a big city like Berlin would be tremendously more challenging if it weren't for the existing family and structure at BCB. Everyone from the faculty to the students and staff are very welcoming, kind, and patient so it is an easier transition into 'adult life'.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Studying at BCB, even as an economics and politics major, is like embarking on a philosophical journey where you're encouraged to question everything, step out of your comfort zone, and engage deeply in discussions that challenge your perspectives and broaden your horizons. These are skills you cannot gain in a public German university following an economics program.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
The class I took during my second year with professor Nassim Abi Ghanem called Quantitative Methods where I learned the basics of R and coding is what led me to choose a quantitative methods specialization for my masters and work in the data analytics field. It opened my eyes to how much data can be fun and intriguing.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am still in Berlin, pursuing an MS at Potsdam Universität in the program EPQM: Economic Policy and Quantitative Methods. I am also working part time with GLS Studio as a data analyst.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Take classes that seem odd and that you would not have access to in different institutions. Get out of your comfort zone and try new things and let yourself struggle and learn and maybe love something new or also hate it, but at least experience it.

Laura Gemsemer

PhD in Comparative Literature/Religious Studies
Freie Universität Berlin

Laura Gemsemer obtained her PhD at Freie Universität Berlin in 2018. A doctoral fellow of the excellence cluster 264 Topoi and a student at Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies, her thesis formed part of the research group (C-2) “Space and Metaphor in Cognition, Language, and Texts.“
Prior to her PhD degree, she studied History of Arts (BA), Comparative Literature (BA and MA) and Religious Studies (MA) at Freie Universität Berlin.
Subsequent to her doctorate, Laura Gemsemer became a self-employed language teacher and founded her own language institute Sprachraum Berlin-Schöneberg. In addition to her teaching at Bard College Berlin, she also works as a freelance teacher for different language schools and as an editor.
Her research focuses on the interdependency of language and reality and, more specifically, on metaphorical speech as a powerful tool to shape reality.

Selected Publications:
Book

Visio Amoris et Veneris: T(r)opische Imaginationen der Liebe bei Boccaccio. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2019 (=Epistemata Literaturwissenschaft).

Articles:

„Etikettenschwindel in der Wüste“. In: Macht. Kritische Ausgabe – Zeitschrift für Literatur im Dialog 36 (2019), 57-63.
„Vom Vermessen der Liebe im italienischen Spätmittelalter am Übergang zur Frühen Neuzeit. Eine topologische Analyse“. In: Julia Grillmayr/Andrea Sibylle Kreuter (ed.): Raumirritationen – Wieso nach dem Raum fragen? Wien: danzig & unfried, 2019, S. 118-157.
„All'acqua all'acqua, ché il foco s'accende! Versprachlichung von Liebe, Begehren und Koitus in Boccaccios Ninfale fiesolano“. In: Lea Braun/Felix Florian Müller (ed.): Unsagbarkeit. Sprachen der Liebe in der Literatur der Vormoderne. Berlin: De Gruyter (=Transformationen der Antike), 2019, 119-142.
„Du bis(s)t, was du isst. Diätetik und Identität im zeitgenössischen (Jugend-)Vampirroman“. In: Elisabeth Hollerweger/Anna Stemmann (ed.): Narrative Delikatessen. Kulturelle Dimensionen von Ernährung. Siegen: universi 2015, S. 123-140.
„Matriarchale Freizügigkeit und mormonische Abstinenz. Religiöse Elemente in P.C. und Kristin Casts House of Night Novels und in Stephenie Meyers Twilight-Saga“. In: Tim Lörke/Robert Walter-Jochum (ed.): Religion und Literatur im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Motive, Sprechweisen, Medien. Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2015, S. 181-202.

Contact:
Dr. Laura Gemsemer
German Language and Literature
[email protected]

Noam Brusilovsky

Israel/Germany
Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch

Noam Brusilovsky is an Israeli-German theater and radio maker. After graduating the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts he moved to Berlin and studied theater directing at the HfS Ernst Busch. Brusilovsky works as an author and director for different radio stations of the German public broadcasting corporation ARD. His radio plays twice won the German Radio Drama Award and were nominated for the Prix Europa. Noam Brusilovsky has been working for different state theatres in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In collaboration with POLIGONAL - Office for Urban Communication he develops acoustic formats that deal with the remembrance culture of historic queer spaces. Lately he started publishing critical columns regarding Jewish life in Berlin at the Berliner Zeitung.

Image by Lea Hopp

Contact:
Noam Brusilovsky
[email protected]

Imani Faber

USA/Germany
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '23
Concentration: Politics & Economics
Currently: Socio-Ecological Economics and Policy Masters at WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
I enjoyed the small class sizes and community events.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
A place to explore all of your ideas from whatever perspectives you want. A small community of students and professors who try to learn from each other.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Origins of Political Economy was taught by an amazing professor and she gave me so much contextual knowledge that I feel has shaped how I understand political and economic thought.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
It’s made me appreciate the liberal arts and has inspired me to study politics and economics from a different perspective.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am doing my Masters on Socio-Ecological Economics and Policy at the University of Vienna.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Advocate for yourself and remember that your voice matters.

Edit Gerelyes

Hungary
MA, Lettres Modernes
University of Paris III

Edit Gerelyes received her MA in Lettres Modernes from the University of Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, specializing in 18th century French theater. In addition she completed a one-year programme in the Methodology and Pedagogy of Teaching Foreign Languages. As a translator from French into Hungarian, she has published several literary and anthropological works, among others, studies of Patrick Williams, Bernard Formoso (ed. Uj Mandatum, L'Harmattan 2000), historical novels by J-F Nahmias (ed. Aquila, 1999, 2000), as well as two plays by Marivaux: La Surprise de l'amour and L'Epreuve, the latter also having been produced on stage in Budapest [Sziget Festival, directed by Balazs Simon].

Edit joined Bard College Berlin in 2004, and taught at all levels, including the preparation courses for tests such as DELF, DALF and TCF, certifications of French-language abilities for non-native speakers administered by CIEP, International Centre of Pedagogical Studies for the French Ministry of Education. These examinations often feature among admissions requirement for non-native French speakers at higher education institutions or workplaces.

Besides the effective fostering of communication skills, language learning in a higher educational setting should also make itself felt as a cultural element, and prepare students for the study of primary texts and secondary literature in the original as a meaningful complement to the curriculum as a whole. In this light Edit co-taught the Concentration Seminar on Montesquieu's Persian Letters with Ewa Atanassow (2011). The Proust reading group (winter term, 2012) was offered to complement James Harker's seminar on Swann's Way, as well as the 2012 winter core course on Love.

Another forum for the study of original texts, as well as advanced translation work is the Atelier Français. This "reading club" formed on student initiative features texts chosen by the students, and all discussions take place in the French language.

In 2011 Edit also initiated an experimental project for A1/A2 French learners (beginners) with a playful title: "Read French without knowing French". The project approaches French on the model of extinct languages, with the exclusive goal of acquiring adequate reading skills.

Traditional events such as French dinners or a petanque party have become an important part of Bard College Berlin's community life. In March 2015 Edit was invited by the Hungarian Asssociation for the Professional Development of High-School Language Teachers to lead a day long workshop on the cards-based language learning activity method she developed between 2006-2012.

Francesco Giusti

Italy
PhD in Comparative Literature
Sapienza University of Rome and the Italian Institute of Human Sciences

Francesco Giusti is currently affiliated with the ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, where he was a 2016-2018 Fellow within the frame of the Core Project ERRANS, in Time. After completing his PhD in Comparative Literature at Sapienza University of Rome and the Italian Institute of Human Sciences, he pursued his research on the history and theory of the lyric at the University of York and the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. He is a member of the Centre for Research in Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Après-coup at the University of L’Aquila.

He has published two books devoted respectively to the ethics of mourning and to creative desire in lyric poetry, Canzonieri in morte: Per un’etica poetica del lutto (2015) and Il desiderio della lirica: Poesia, creazione, conoscenza (2016), and co-edited, with Christine Ott and Damiano Frasca, the volume Poesia e nuovi media (2018). His work has appeared in Modern Language Notes, The Italianist, Italian Studies, Intersezioni, Strumenti critici, Between, Critica letteraria, California Italian Studies, and in many other Italian and international journals.

Contact
Dr. Francesco Giusti
Comparative Literature
f.giusti[at]berlin.bard.edu

Marcus Giamattei

Germany/Italy
Habilitation in Economics
University of Passau, Germany

Marcus Giamattei holds a Habilitation (2020) and a PhD in Economics (2015), both from the University of Passau. Before his PhD he completed an M.A. in International Economics and Business (2011), a B.Sc. in Business Computing (2009), and a B.A. in International Cultural and Business Studies (2009) there. Before coming to Berlin, he was an assistant professor at the University of Passau, where he is still an external fellow. He is also affiliated with CeDEx at the University of Nottingham, UK, and has been a visiting researcher at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. His research has appeared in Experimental Economics, the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Plos One, the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. A full CV can be found at giamattei.de.

His research interests are Macroeconomics and Experimental and Behavioral Economics. In the growing field of Experimental Macroeconomics, he focuses on bounded rationality and limited reasoning as an important driver of macroeconomic behavior. His second research area deals with the role of cooperation, ethics and corruption. He developed classEx, a tool for interactive classroom and lab-in-the-field experiments with mobile devices and LIONESS Lab – a tool for online experiments. Those tools enable instructors and researchers to use experiments outside of the lab and for teaching economics. classEx and LIONESS are used in over 50 countries around the world.

Courses taught at Bard College Berlin:

Macroeconomics (always in Spring term)
International Monetary Economics (always in Fall term)
Principles of Economics (always in Fall term)
Mathematics for Economics (always in Fall term)
Introduction to Statistics (Spring 2020 and 2022)
Mathematical Foundation (Spring 2020)
Experimental Ethics (Spring 2023)

Research Interests:

Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Experimental Macroeconomics, Economics of Corruption and Experimental Ethics, Online, Classroom and Lab-in-the-Field Experiments.

Publications:

Giamattei, M. (2021): Can cold turkey reduce inflation inertia? Evidence on disinflation and level-k from a laboratory experiment. Forthcoming in the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking.
Giamattei, M., Yahosseini, K. S., Gächter, S. and Molleman, L. (2020): LIONESS Lab - a Free Web-Based Platform for Conducting Interactive Experiments Online. Journal of the Economic ScienceAssociation. DOI 10.1007/s40881-020-00087-0.
Dorner, V., Giamattei, M. and Greiff, M. (2020):The Market for Reviews: Strategic Behavior of Online Product Reviewers with Monetary Incentives.Schmalenbach Business Review. DOI 10.1007/s41464-020-00094-y.
Grundmann, S., Giamattei, M., Lambsdorff, J. Graf (2019): Intentions rather than Money Illusion – Why Nominal Changes Induce Real Effects. European Economic Review 119, 166-178.
Giamattei, M., Huber, J., Lambsdorff, J. Graf, Nicklisch, A., Palan, S. (2019): Who inflates the bubble? Forecasters and traders in experimental asset markets. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jedc.2019.07.004
Giamattei, M., Lamsbdorff J. Graf (2019): classEx - an Online Tool for Lab-in-the-Field Experiments with Smartphones. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance 29: 223-231. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbef.2019.04.008
Lambsdorff, J. Graf, Giamattei, M. (2019): Makroökonomik - Vorlesung in Volkswirtschaftslehre. 6. Auflage. Course book for macroeconomics in the bachelor program (in German).
Lambsdorff, J. Graf, Giamattei, M., Werner, K., Schubert, M. (2018): Team reasoning—Experimental evidence on cooperation from centipede games. PLoS ONE 13(11): e0206666.
Lambsdorff, J. Graf, Giamattei, M., Werner, K. (2017): How Fragile Is Conditional Cooperation? A Field Experiment with Smartphones during the 2014 Soccer World Cup. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 30(2): 492-501. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.1968
Giamattei, M., Lambsdorff, J. Graf (2015): Balancing the Current Account – Experimental Evidence on Underconsumption. Experimental Economics 18(4): 679-696. DOI: 10.1007/s10683-014-9422-z.
Lambsdorff, J. Graf, Schubert, M., Giamattei, M. (2013): On the Role of Heuristics - Experimental Evidence on Inflation Dynamics. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 37(6): 1213-1229.
Giamattei, M., Scholz, M. (2010): Exploiting Correspondence Analysis to Visualize Product Spaces. Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the Italian Chapter of AIS, 2010, Naples, Italy.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Marcus Giamattei
Macroeconomics
Email: m.giamattei[at]berlin.bard.edu

Clarissa Shane

USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '23
Concentration: Ethics & Politics
Currently: MA in Oral History at Columbia University

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
Bard College Berlin had an impact on my view of the world. I was able to learn from both scholars and peers that had varying personal and professional experiences rooted in different parts of the world, which allowed me to join in well-rounded conversations and discussions about current events.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
BCB provided an open environment for learning from forward-thinking scholars and questioning the status quo.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
A Lexicon of Migration allowed me to understand the importance of words and how framing and naming can impact real lives.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB has influenced me to continue my studies in higher education. Attending BCB showed me that social change can be made by surrounding myself with like-minded and differently minded thinkers who value learning.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am going to be doing my masters in oral history and focusing on how plants can be preserved through storytelling, plant medicine, and ceremony.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
BCB is a small community that fosters opportunities for deep academic conversations with peers and supportive mentors.

Leon Botstein

Ex Officio
President of Bard College
Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities, Bard College

Dorothe Gonska

Germany/Iran
BA Business Administration
Saxion University of Applied Sciences

Dorothe Gonska holds a BA in Business Administration from the Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Enschede, Netherlands (2011).
She also holds several teaching certificates from the Goethe Institute like the study program “Methodik und Didaktik des Fremdsprachlichen Deutschunterrichts” (2017) and the “Grünes Diplom” (2021).

From 2015 until 2021, she was living in Iran and teaching German as a Foreign Language from A1 to C1 at the German Language Institute DSIT in Teheran, which is part of the German Embassy and connected to the Goethe Institute.

Besides teaching at Bard College Berlin, she works as an online teacher trainer (DLL – Deutsch Lehren Lernen) for the Goethe Institutes in the South Asia region and is a Goethe Institute examiner for the Goethe-Zertifikate A1 – B2.

Contact:
Dorothe Gonska
German Language and Literature
[email protected]

Miles Chalcraft

UK/Germany
Master of Arts - Distinction in Experimental Media
Northern Media School, Sheffield Hallam University

Miles Chalcraft is an artist and cultural producer who co-founded Trampoline, a Nottingham/Berlin-based agency for new media. His artistic work over the last 25 years has explored the intersection of filmmaking and new technologies within performance where his innovative work as a video designer for the world-renowned German/English performance group, Gob Squad, has taken him to theaters across the globe. Miles’ passion for digital media began when he programmed his ZX Spectrum to create film titles, and he has ever since worked with and promoted cutting-edge technologies such as interactivity, live-streaming, GPS, virtual reality, and rocketry. Miles’ artistic vision is driven by his desire to push the boundaries of what is possible within performance and to create immersive experiences that captivate audiences.

Contact:
Miles Chalcraft
VR
[email protected]

Assaf Gruber

Assaf Gruber (Jerusalem, 1980) is a sculptor and filmmaker who lives and works in Berlin. Both his time-based works and installations investigate the manner in which the political ideologies of subjects are intertwined with individual, personal stories, and the way in which they form social relations within private and public spheres.

Gruber is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and of the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent. His work has received funding from the Ostrovsky Family Fund, New York, the Berlin Senate, Outset Contemporary Art Fund, and the Rothschild Foundation, among others. Upon graduation in Paris he won the first prize of ‘Les amis des beaux-arts de Paris’. His future solo exhibitions include the Museum of Natural History, Berlin (2018) and the Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2018). His films have been featured in festivals including the Berlinale Film Festival (2016), the Lo schermo dell'arte Film Festival (2016) in Florence, and the International Short film Festival of Oberhausen (2016).

James Harker

USA
PhD in Rhetoric
University of California, Berkeley

James Harker received his B.A. from Swarthmore College where he studied sociology, anthropology, and English literature. He received his PhD in rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley in 2010. His research specialties are the twentieth century British novel, narrative theory, rhetoric, and cognition. At UC-Berkeley, he taught courses on classical rhetoric, theories of fiction, and transatlantic modernism, as well as introductory and advanced courses on writing. He is currently working on a book titled The Modernist Mind: The Art of Cognitive Minimalism, which argues that the modernist novel's distinguishing feature is its emphasis on the fallibility of basic cognitive processes. His work has appeared in the Journal of Modern Literature and Studies in the Novel.

Contact
Dr. James Harker
Literature and Rhetoric
Language and Thinking Program Coordinator
Director of Academic Services and the Learning Commons
Phone: +49 30 43733 226
Email: j.harker[at]berlin.bard.edu

Clare Griffin

Clare Griffin received her PhD from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, with a dissertation on medical knowledge at the seventeenth-century Russian palace. She was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, before joining the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, in 2015. She is currently writing a book on medical drugs in the early modern Russian empire.

She is also the editor of H-EarlySlavic, an academic discussion list focused on Eastern European history before 1725.

Publications

"In Search of an Audience: Popular Pharmacies and the Limits of Literate Medicine in Late Seventeenth-and Early Eighteenth-Century Russia."Bulletin of the History of Medicine 89.4 (2015): 705-732.

"Russia and early modern European medicine." Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 12.4 (2011): 967-981. PERPETUAL MOTION? Transformation and Transition in Central and Eastern Europe & Russia, co-authored with Bhambry, T., Hjelm, J. T. O., Nicholson, C., & Voronina, O. G., (2011)

Giulia Clabassi

Italy
PhD in Philosophy, defended
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Giulia Clabassi is originally from Rome, Italy. She recently completed her PhD at Humboldt University in Berlin, as part of the Research Training Group "Philosophy, Science and the Sciences," and is currently preparing her thesis for publication. She earned both her BA and MA degrees at the University of Roma Tre. Her research focuses on the nature of motion as explored in Book VIII of Aristotle's Physics, blending her interdisciplinary expertise across ancient philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the history of science and technology. In 2023, she completed a research residency at Princeton University, where she had the opportunity to present her work to an international audience. She is committed to advancing her multicultural academic and teaching experience.

Contact:
Giulia Clabassi
Philosophy
[email protected]

Ronald A. Crutcher

Dr. Ronald A. Crutcher is a national leader in higher education and a distinguished classical musician. From 2015-2021 he served as President of the University of Richmond, and is also President Emeritus of Wheaton College. Prior to Wheaton, he was Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Miami University of Ohio. In August 2021, he was named a Senior Fellow at the Aspen Institute.

Ronald Crutcher writes and speaks widely on the value of liberal education, the democratic purposes of higher education, diversity and inclusion, and free expression on college campuses. He is Immediate Past Chair of the Board of the American Council on Education (ACE), a Senator of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and a member of the Board of Institute for the International Education of Students (IES Abroad).

Ronald Crutcher was the first cellist to receive the doctor of musical arts degree from Yale University, where he also earned his master’s degree. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Miami University (Ohio), he has received honorary degrees from Wheaton College (MA), Colgate University, Muhlenberg College, University of Richmond, Randolph-Macon College, and the University of Cordoba in Spain.

Publications (selected)
I Had No Idea You Were Black: Navigating Race on the Road to Leadership, Clyde Hill Publishing, 2021.

David Hayes

USA
PhD from the Committee on Social Thought
The University of Chicago

David Hayes received his B.A. in English from Kenyon College in 1992 and his PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago with a dissertation on Early Greek Lyric Poetry. He came to Bard College Berlin as a fellow in 2005.

Classes taught at Bard College Berlin
Core courses

Plato's Republic and Its Interlocutors (coordinator 2008, 2009)
Forms of Love
Property
Innocence and Experience
Objectivity and Self-Knowledge
Character

Electives and Foundational Modules

Short Dialogues of Plato
The Odyssey
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
Introduction to Poetry
Comedies of Remarriage
Poetry and Philosophy
Tragic Character
Huckleberry Finn

Coordinator of the 2010 Annual Conference: The Translator

General Teaching Interests:
Greek philosophy and literature, poetry

Publications:

“Piety as a Virtue,” The Journal of Value Inquiry (2020). Co-authored with Jeremy Schwartz.
“In Praise of Lameness: A Response to William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep,” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education (2019)
"The Iliad now," The New Criterion (September, 2015)
"Against critical thinking pedagogy," Arts and Humanities in Higher Education (2015)
"When BS Is a Virtue," The Chronicle of Higher Education (2014)
Three Translations of Theognis: "Not Even Zeus," "Those Wings of Yours," "Decline," The Utopian (2010-11)

Contact
Dr. David Hayes
Greek Philosophy and Literature
Phone: +49 30 43733 203
Email: d.hayes[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ulrike Harnisch

Germany
MA in English and American Literature
Technische Universität Berlin

Ulrike Harnisch holds an M.A. degree in English and American Literature from the Berlin Technical University and in Israeli Politics and Literature from the Berlin Humboldt University (1998). She has taught German language classes at all levels. As a translator from Hebrew and English into German she has published several books, among others Mel Gussow’s book about Samuel Beckett, as well as modern Israeli plays of Edna Mazya, Gilad Evron, and Roni Kuban. Moreover she has translated essays for the exhibition catalogues of the Israeli photographers Boris Carmi and Micha Bar-Am. She also does subtitles for Israeli movies.

Contact
Ulrike Harnisch, M.A.
German Language and Literature
Email: u.harnisch[at]berlin.bard.edu

Flora Keene

USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '22
Concentration: Arts & Aesthetics
Currently: MA in Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The friends I made, the small class sizes, the opportunity to form close relationships with your professors, and the ability to travel Europe.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Studying at BCB is definitely a one-of-a-kind learning experience. It is cozy and supportive!

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
In my third year, I took a class called Contemporary Art and The Anthropocene taught by visiting professor Laura López. I was so inspired by the philosophers we studied that I went on to write my bachelor's thesis based on the theories we learned, and I continue to think about these themes today.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
The BCB Internship Program single handedly kick-started my career in the arts. Judith Weber, the Internship and Career Networking Officer, placed me at Callie's, an artist residency in Wedding, where I remained for two and a half years. I loved my internship there so much that I joined the team, and I am grateful to BCB for creating that connection for me. I have just returned back home to New York after working for two months as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
In the fall of 2023 I will begin a MA in Fashion and Textile Studies with a concentration in Textile Conservation. It is my dream to be a Costume and Textile conservator.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Take advantage of BCB's connections to Berlin's art scene, because they have so much to offer!

Matthias Hurst

Germany
Habilitation in Literature and Film Studies
Universität Heidelberg

Prof. Dr. Habil. Matthias Hurst studied German literature and language, art history and psychology at the University of Heidelberg. He received his MA in 1993, his PhD in 1995 and his habilitation in literature and film studies in 2000. He taught German literature, comparative literature and film studies at the University of Heidelberg (1996-2001) and as guest lecturer at the University of Reading (1998) and the Paul Valéry University in Montpellier (1999) and has written on narration in literature and film, film adaptations of literary works, film history/theory, film interpretation and genre films. In Heidelberg he was also working on the pilot project Studien-Coaching, a new developed, highly individual and personality-based form of student counselling (2001-2003).

Classes taught at Bard College Berlin

Core Courses

Bildung: Education and Formation

Foundational and Advanced Modules

Introduction to Film Studies: The Films of Stanley Kubrick
Frankenstein’s Heirs: Mary Shelley’s Novel and Film Adaptations
Freud and Jung go to the Movies: Psychoanalysis and Film
Film Narratives-Introduction to Film Studies
Controversial Films
German Film: Reflections of History and Style
Aspects of New German Cinema
The Hitchcock Files: An Introduction to Film Studies
Star Trek: The Final Frontier and Beyond
Order and Chaos – The Films of Fritz Lang
Woody Allen: A Poetics of Fun and Philosophy
German Cinema in the Weimar Republic
Dreadful Pleasures: Horror Films
Introduction to Film Studies
German Cinema: Weimar Republic and Third Reich
Narration in Literature and Film
Frames of Meaning: Film Interpretation
The Gorgon's Gaze: Controversial Films
Outsiders in Film
German Cinema
Being Scared: Horror Films
Ingmar Bergman
Heroes on Screen
Film Genres
Fight, Pain, Death: Existential Philosophy and Film
The Fantastic Screen
How The West Was Won: The Western Films
Visions of the Future: The Science Fiction Film from Metropolis to Matrix

Project Year Research Topics supervised at Bard College Berlin

‘Equal But Different’: Engendering Vladimir Menshov‘s Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1979)
Derek Jarman’s “I” Film: A Ritual of Sincerity
Oniric Cinema and the Diegesis of Film Consciousness
Investigating the Postmodern Sublime in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001)
Early Cinema and the True Motion Picture: The Aesthetics of Movement in the Films of Max and Emil Skladanowsky
Theater’s Fearsome Mirror: Cabaret as Political Theater
On the Realities of Science Fiction, or: The Exoteric Esotericism of Philip K. Dick
Enjoy Documentary: Filmmaking, Ethics, and Ai Wei Wei‘s Human Flow
Troubled Black Representation & the Emotion of Horror
The Witch: Horror, Women, Psychoanalysis, and Suspiria
Dream and Film: An Analysis of David Lynch, Irritation and Mulholland Drive
Lars von Trier's Dogville
Sergej Eisenstein in Berlin

General Teaching Interests
Film History (esp. Western European and American Cinema), Film Analysis, Genre Film, the Fantastic in Literature and Film

Publications (selection)
Books

Erzählsituationen in Literatur und Film. Ein Modell zur vergleichenden Analyse von literarischen Texten und filmischen Adaptionen. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996.
Im Spannungsfeld der Aufklärung. Von Schillers Geisterseher zur TV-Serie The X-Files: Rationalismus und Irrationalismus in Literatur, Film und Fernsehen 1786-1999. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2001.

Essays

„Der Blick in den Abgrund. Schuld und Verantwortung in Franz Fühmanns Erzählungen Kapitulation, Das Gottesgericht und Die Schöpfung." In: Colloquia Germanica. Inter-nationale Zeitschrift für Germanistik, Vol. 32 (1999), No.1, pp. 37-69.
„Mittelbarkeit, Perspektive, Subjektivität: Über das narrative Potential des Spielfilms." In: Jörg Helbig (ed.): Erzählen und Erzähltheorie im 20. Jahrhundert. Festschrift für Wilhelm Füger, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2001, pp. 233-251.
„Blutige Küsse. Bram Stokers Dracula: Der Vampir als Wunschbild und Angsttraum des Mannes." In: Karin Tebben (ed.): Abschied vom Mythos Mann. Kulturelle Konzepte der Moderne. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002, pp. 138-154).
„Tod und Wiedergeburt. Literarische Formen der Initiation und der Individuation." In: Wirkendes Wort. Deutsche Sprache und Literatur in Forschung und Lehre, Vol. 52 (2002), No. 2, pp. 257-275.
„Coaching für Studierende." (Zusammen mit Rainer M. Holm-Hadulla, Antje Wetzel und Charlotte Buff) In: Psychologisch-Psychotherapeutische Beratungsstelle der Universität des Saarlandes (eds.): Beratung und Beziehung. Tagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Studien-, Studentinnen- und Studentenberatung (ARGE) vom 5. bis 8. September 2001 in der Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken 2002, pp. 50-74.
„Flucht aus der Zeit. Zur narrativen Struktur des Films Slaughterhouse-Five von George Roy Hill." In: Komparatistik. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft 2002/2003. Heidelberg: Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Autoren, 2003, pp. 73-95.
„Augen-Blicke des Ekels in Roman Polanskis Film Repulsion (1965)." In: Hermes A. Kick (ed.): Ekel. Darstellung und Deutung in den Wissenschaften und Künsten. Symposium des Arbeitskreises „Psychopathologie, Kunst und Literatur" (Heidelberg 2000). Hürtgenwald: Guido Pressler Verlag, 2003, pp. 83-96.
„Bilder des Schreckens - Schrecken der Bilder. Hollywoods Katastrophenkino und der Terror der Realität." In: Der 11. September – Ursachen und Folgen. Sammelband der Studium Generale-Vorträge der Universität Heidelberg im Sommersemester 2002, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2003, pp. 55-73.
„'... und es begann der tiefere Traum seines Lebens.' Diskursebenen der Initiation in Stefan Zweigs Novelle Brennendes Geheimnis (1911)." In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik, Neue Folge No. 1 (Februar 2004), pp. 67-82.
„The Aging West: Der alternde Held und der Mythos des Westerns." In: Kurt Bayertz / Margrit Frölich / Kurt W. Schmidt (eds.): I'm the Law! Recht, Ethik und Ästhetik im Western. (Tagung der Evangelischen Akademie Arnoldshain 31. Mai – 02. Juni 2002) Frankfurt a.M.: Haag + Herchen, 2004, pp. 134-157.
„Ameisen, Hühner, Oger: Moderne Märchen – postmoderne Parodien." In: Maren Bonacker (ed.): Peter Pans Kinder. Doppelte Adressiertheit in phantastischen Texten. (Tagungsband zum Wissenschaftlichen Symposium, 16.-18. Mai 2003) Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2004, pp. 107-125.
„Stimmen aus dem All – Rufe aus der Seele. Kommunikation mit Außerirdischen in narrativen Spielfilmen." In: Michael Schetsche (ed.): Der maximal Fremde. Begegnungen mit dem Nichtmenschlichen und die Grenzen des Verstehens. Würzburg: Ergon, 2004, pp. 95-112.
„Der Exorzist (USA 1973, Regie: William Friedkin): Ästhetik und sozialhistorische Implikationen eines Kino-Erfolgs." In: Hermes A. Kick et al. (ed.): Besessenheit, Trance, Exorzismus. Affekte und Emotionen als Grundlagen ethischer Wertebildung und Gefährdung in Wissenschaften und Künsten. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004, pp. 7-24.
„Feine Speisen – rohe Sitten. Sinnlichkeit und Ästhetik des Essens in Peter Greenaways Film Der Koch, der Dieb, seine Frau und ihr Liebhaber (1989)." In: Dietrich von Engelhardt / Rainer Wild (eds.): Geschmackskulturen. Vom Dialog der Sinne beim Essen und Trinken. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 2005, pp. 193-204.
„Unterbewusstsein am Haken. Film-Nixen als Anima-Figuren." In: Jost Eickmeyer / Sebastian Soppa (eds.): Umarmung und Wellenspiel. Variationen über die Wasserfrau. Overath/Witten: Bücken & Sulzer, 2006, pp. 19-40.
„The Duality Persists. Faust on Screen." In: Komparatistik. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft 2005/2006. Heidelberg: Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Autoren, 2006, pp. 39-54.
„Magische Übergänge. Visualisierungen des (kindlichen) Unbewussten im Fantasy-Film." In: Zauberland und Tintenwelt. Fantastik in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Beiträge Jugendliteratur und Medien, 17. Beiheft, Vol. 58 (2006). Herausgegeben von Jörg Knobloch und Gudrun Stenzel in Zusammenarbeit mit der AJuM der GEW, pp. 129-145.
„Mord im Film. Hitchcock und Kieslowski: Ästhetik und Ethik des Tötens." In: Dietrich von Engelhardt / Manfred Oehmichen (eds.): Der „Mord". Darstellung und Deutung in den Wissenschaften und Künsten. „Murder". Reproduction and Interpretation in Sciences and Arts. (Research in Legal Medicine, Vol. 35.) Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 2007, pp. 367-391.
„Der Weg aus der Kindheit. Pinocchios Abenteuer als Initiationsgeschichte." In: Maren Bonacker (ed.): Das Kind im Leser. Phantastische Texte als all-ages-Lektüre. Tagungsband zum wissenschaftlichen Symposium „Pinocchios Freunde", 7. bis 9. Mai 2004. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2007, pp. 135-151.
„L'ambivalenza dolceamara. Strutture narrative e autoriflessività in Eyes Wide Shut di Stanley Kubrick." In: Luigi Cimmino / Daniele Dottorini / Giorgio Pangaro (eds.): Il doppio sogno di Stanley Kubrick. Traumnovelle / Eyes Wide Shut: Contributi per una lettura comparata. Milano: Il Castoro, 2007, pp. 178-195. (Traduzione dal tedesco di Luigi Cimmino)
„Traumbilder. Visuelle Diskurse objektiver und subjektiver Wahrnehmung in den Filmen David Lynchs." In: Monika Schmitz-Emans / Gertrud Lehnert (eds.): Visual Culture. Beiträge zur XIII. Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Potsdam, 18.-21. Mai 2005. Heidelberg: Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Autoren, 2008, pp. 253-264.
„Verzweiflung in Ingmar Bergmans Filmen Das siebente Siegel und Wilde Erdbeeren." In: Hermes A. Kick / Günter Dietz (eds.): Verzweiflung als kreative Herausforderung. Psychopathologie, Psychotherapie und künstlerische Lösungsgestalten in Literatur, Musik und Film. Berlin: Lit Verlag 2008, pp. 277-291.
„Stumme Verzweiflung in Ingmar Bergmans Film Das Schweigen – Künstlerische Bewältigung eines überwältigenden Affekts." In: Hermes A. Kick / Günter Dietz (eds.): Verzweiflung als kreative Herausforderung. Psychopathologie, Psychotherapie und künstlerische Lösungsgestalten in Literatur, Musik und Film. Berlin: Lit Verlag 2008, pp. 293-310.
„Das Gesicht des Feindes. Ikonographie des Bösen in Sergej M. Ėjzenštejns Filmen." In: Bodo Zelinsky (ed.): Das Böse in der russischen Kultur. Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau 2008, pp. 248-262.
„Dialektik des Aliens. Darstellungen und Interpretationen von Außerirdischen in Film und Fernsehen." In: Michael Schetsche / Martin Engelbrecht (eds.): Von Menschen und Außerirdischen. Transterrestrische Begegnungen im Spiegel der Kulturwissenschaft. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2008, pp. 31-53.
„Das Wohl der Vielen und das Glück des Einzelnen: Happy End im Western." In: Hermes A. Kick (ed.): Glück. Ethische Perspektiven – aktuelle Glückskonzepte. Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag 2008, pp. 109-121.
„Kampf, Schmerzen, Tod: Existenzphilosophie und Grenzsituationen im Film." In: Dietrich von Engelhardt / Horst-Jürgen Gerigk (eds.): Karl Jaspers im Schnittpunkt von Zeitgeschichte, Psychopathologie, Literatur und Film. Heidelberg: Mattes Verlag , 2009, pp. 205-237.
„Superbias Töchter. Die sieben Todsünden, Neid und David Finchers Sieben (Se7en, USA 1995)." In: Birgit Harreß (ed.): Neid. Darstellung und Deutung in den Wissenschaften und Künsten.. Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag 2010, pp. 55-74.
„Konzeption, Ästhetik, Rekonstruktion: Dialogische Strukturen in Thea von Harbous und Fritz Langs Metropolis (1927)." In: Stefan Keppler-Tasaki / Fabienne Liptay (eds.): Grauzonen. Positionen zwischen Literatur und Film 1910-1960. München: Boorberg/edition text + kritik, 2010, pp. 204-234.
„Grenzsituation, Heilung und Versöhnung: Solaris von Andrej Tarkowskij." In: Hermes A. Kick / Günter Dietz (eds.): Trauma und Versöhnung. Heilungswege in Psychotherapie, Kunst und Religion. Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag, 2010, pp. 235-252.
„Väter und Söhne. Das Motiv der Versöhnung in Star Wars." In: Hermes A. Kick / Günter Dietz (eds.): Trauma und Versöhnung. Heilungswege in Psychotherapie, Kunst und Religion. Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag, 2010, pp. 253-282.
„'Piloten ist nichts verboten' und ‚Jede Nacht ein neues Glück': Unterhaltungskino und Filmmusik im Spannungsfeld ideologischer Werte" In: Christoph Henzel (ed.): Musik im Unterhaltungskino des Dritten Reichs. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2011, pp. 41-76.
"Subjectivity Unleashed: Haute Tension." In: Patricia Allmer / Emily Brick / David Huxley (eds.): European Nightmares. Horror Cinema in Europe Since 1945. London/New York: Wallflower/Columbia University Press 2012, pp. 103-114.
"Man muss den Kopf heben und sich als Mensch fuehlen lernen ..." Sergej Eisensteins Panzerkreuzer Potemkin (UdSSR 1925)." In: Stefan Keppler-Tasaki / Elisabeth K. Paefgen (eds.): Was lehrt das Kino? 24 Filme und Antworten. Edition Text und Kritik, 2012.
„Tod und Sterben in Film und Fernsehen.“ In: Michael Anderheiden / Wolfgang U. Eckart (eds.): Handbuch Sterben und Menschenwürde. 3 Vol. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012, pp. 1735-1764.
"'Ich lebe!' Fearless -- Grenzsituation, Trauma und Suche nach innerem Frieden." In: Hermes A. Kick / Günter Dietz (eds.): Frieden als Balance in Psychotherapie und politischem Handlungsraum. Prozessdynamische Perspektiven. Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag 2013, pp. 93-126
„Ahabs Enkel. Hass als archaische Kraft im populären amerikanischen Kino.“ In: Horst-Jürgen Gerigk / Helmut Koopmann (eds.): Hass. Darstellung und Deutung in den Wissenschaften und Künsten. Heidelberg: Mattes Verlag, 2013, pp. 153-182.
„Unschuld, Gewalt, Verdrängung. Pans Labyrinth und die Schrecken der spanischen Geschichte.“ In: Inklings. Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik 30 (2012), edited by Dieter Petzold. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2013, pp. 151-167.
„Verschwörungen und Verschwörungstheorien im Film.“ In: Andreas Anton / Michael Schetsche / Michael Walter (eds.): Konspiration. Soziologie des Verschwörungsdenkens. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013, pp. 239-258.
„Film(t)räume. Raum und Raumerfahrung im fantastischen Kino.“ In: Pascal Klenke / Laura Muth / Klaudia Seibel / Annette Simonis (eds.): Writing Worlds. Welten- und Raummodelle der Fantastik. Heidelberg: Winter, 2014, pp. 37-49.
„Im kinematographischen Kabinett des Dr. Caligari. Fremdkontrolle und Ich-Verlust im Film.“ In: Michael Schetsche / Renate-Berenike Schmidt (eds.): Fremdkontrolle. Ängste – Mythen – Praktiken. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2014, pp. 91-107.
„Bye Bye Life. Broadway-Totentanz und All That Jazz.“ In: KulturPoetik. Journal for Cultural Poetics. Heft 2, Vol. 15 (2015): Themenheft: Pathos des Letzten? Alter, Apokalypse und Endlichkeit im Lied nach 1945. Edited by Misia Sophia Doms, pp. 226-242.
„Leibfragmentierung, Schatten und die Figur des Nosferatu im Film. Fragmente einer komplexen Beziehung.“ In: Hermes A. Kick / Wolfram Schmitt (eds.): Leib und Leiblichkeit als Krisenfeld in Psychopathologie, Philosophie, Theologie und Kunst. Ansätze zu einer interdisziplinären Anthropologie von Entsprechen und Verantworten. Berlin/Münster: Lit Verlag, 2015, pp. 229-265.
„Kino der Katastrophen. Krise, Untergang und postapokalyptische Szenarien im populären Film.“ In: Violeta Dinescu / Hermes A. Kick (eds.): Katastrophen Überlebensstrategien. Ethik – Werte – Ziele für eine Gesellschaft in der Krise. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2016, pp. 179-197.
„Medienspuk. Geister und moderne Medien im populären Film“ In: Inklings. Jahrbuch für Literatur und Ästhetik 33 (2015), edited by Dieter Petzold. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 2016, pp. 113-129.
„Diesseits und jenseits der Frontier. Natur und Gesellschaft im amerikanischen Westernfilm.“ In: Claudia Schmitt / Christiane Solte-Gresser (eds.): Literatur und Ökologie. Neue literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven. Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag, 2017, pp. 169-182.
„Visions of Nature and Ecological Thought in German Feature Films“ In: Gabriele Dürbeck / Urte Stobbe / Hubert Zapf / Evi Zemanek (eds.): Ecological Thought in German Literature and Culture. Lanham (Maryland): Lexington Books, 2017, pp. 387-405.
„Star Trek Discovery – Where No Star Trek Series Has Gone Before? Utopie in Wiederholungen und Variationen.“ In: Hans Richard Brittnacher / Elisabeth Paefgen (eds.): Im Blick des Philologen. Literaturwissenschaftler lesen Fernsehserien. München: edition text + kritik, 2020, pp. 265-295.
„Medial induzierte Grenzerfahrungen durch Film und TV-Serien“ In: Wolfram Schmitt / Walter von Lucadou (eds.): Heidelberger Silvestergespräche. Widerständigkeit des Konkreten und Erweiterung von Welt in Wissenschaften und Künsten. Heidelberg: Mattes Verlag, 2020, pp. 145-162.

Misc.

„Jud Süß – Der antisemitische Propagandafilm" Part 1 (10.30 min.)
„Jud Süß – Der antisemitische Propagandafilm" Part 2 (8.50 min.)
Script for two documentaries on the occasion of the exhibition „Jud Süß: Joseph Süß Oppenheimer – Justizmord und Propaganda", Nibelungenmuseum Worms, June-October 2011, and June-August 2012
Film realisation/animation: Eichfelder Artworks

Contact
Prof. Dr. Habil. Matthias Hurst
Literature and Film Studies
Phone: +49 30 43733 218
Email: m.hurst[at]berlin.bard.edu

Thomas Hilgers

Germany
PhD in Philosophy
University of Pennsylvania

Thomas Hilgers is a research associate at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (the Academy of Fine Arts Düsseldorf) and at the Priority Program 1688, which is organized and funded by the German Research Foundation. He studied philosophy and film studies at the Free University Berlin and the University of Pennsylvania, and received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in December 2010. His main fields of research are aesthetics, philosophy of film, philosophy of technology, metaphysics, and the history of German philosophy since Kant. His book Aesthetic Disinterestedness: Art, Experience, and the Self was published by Routledge in 2017. Currently, he is working on a new book project. The objective of this project is to arrive at a temporal understanding of digital technologies.

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
Philosophy of Film and Media Theory
Philosophy of Technology
Metaphysics (Theories of Subjectivity, Selfhood, and Freedom, Theories of Time)
History of German Philosophy (especially Kant, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Adorno)

Selected Recent and Forthcoming Publications

Aesthetic Disinterestedness: Art, Experience, and the Self. New York and London: Routledge, 2017.
Perspective and Fiction. (German: Perspektive und Fiktion.) Ed. Thomas Hilgers and Gertrud Koch, Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2017.
“Intentionality, Mediality, and Technology.“ (German: “Intentionalität, Medialität und Technik“). Online publication of the German Society for Media Studies, 2018.
“Heroes, Freaks, and Dark Knights: Batman in Hollywood.“ (G: “Helden, Freaks und dunkle Ritter: Batman in Hollywood.“) In: Hollywood: In between Conformity and Critique of the Contemporary. (G: Hollywood: Zwischen Angepasstheit und kritischer Zeitgenossenschaft.) Ed. Sebastian Lederle et al., Bielefeld: transcript, forthcoming 2019.
“Boredom.“ (G: “Langeweile.) In: Handbook of Aesthetic Times. (G: Wörterbuch der ästhetischen Eigenzeiten.) Ed. SPP 1688. Hanover: Werhahn Verlag, forthcoming 2019.

Contact
Dr. Thomas Hilgers
Philosophy
Email: t.hilgers[at]berlin.bard.edu

Francesca Nicolodi

Italy, France, and the UK
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '22
Concentration: Ethics and Politics
Currently: Masters Degree in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE)

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
I entered Bard College Berlin as a lost kid and left as a confident woman.
I would probably start by acknowledging the incredible impact my idiosyncratic friends had on my experience at Bard College Berlin. My friends played an immense role in enhancing my intellect and ways of thinking. They all had a thought process often seen as transgressive and controversial. In class, we asked challenging questions and liked to play the devil’s advocate. I was expecting this from academia and was so happy to find it at BCB. University is a place where opinions are vocalized freely and where the objective of all interactions isn’t to think alike but to learn from each other’s perspectives through dialectics. Another significant factor that makes BCB incredible is that it gives you an enormous amount of freedom from the beginning. In my first year, I had to select my courses, set a schedule, and write 2,000-word essays with no imposed directions whatsoever. This was overwhelming yet stimulating. During high school, I didn’t choose my courses, and oftentimes professors in European liberal arts programmes still hold a sense of control to make sure students make ‘logical’ decisions. I was thrilled to have enrolled in a liberal arts university that was true to its name. I loved being able to take advanced classes as a freshman on the sole premise that I could do it. My first semester was a real struggle, to say the least. Coming from a traditional French education, reading Nietzsche in English on my second week of L&T was tough. BCB overloaded me with stimulating readings, which made me advance at an incredible rate, and in my second semester, I was able to keep up with my peers. Going back home for the holidays, I saw a real difference between my high school peers’ mentality towards academia and mine, which made me realize the knowledge and maturity I had gained in a few months. In addition, BCB professors didn’t create a competitive environment, which was amazing for my mental health and academic development. You were free to make everything as well as nothing out of your courses. Overall, Bard College Berlin gave me the space, time, and amazing friends to develop the potential I never knew I had.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
In a nutshell, studying at BCB is meeting a bunch of nerds who turn you into a nerd because they all speak in nerd language. I picked Bard College Berlin for its secluded feel, a university so small it felt like a big family. I enjoyed having fifty students in my year and being able to chat with professors at lunch. I loved being 45 minutes away from the city because my study time was spent in nature and peace. My days were very much about meeting with friends at REWE after class to pick up food and drinks and hang out on the hill in front of W16. We would discuss what we learned, exchange opinions on current events, and explain to each other new concepts and ideas. I long for those days when learning wasn’t only an in-class activity. In fact, I learned more from my friends than in the classroom. Marx, Freud, Da Vinci, and Chrétien de Troyes would transcend campus and follow us in the clubs, exhibitions, and parks of Berlin. It felt as if I was part of a sort of Frankfurt School or Cybernetic Culture Research Unit.
Truthfully, it was heartbreaking leaving Bard College Berlin. BCB shaped who I am today, and that is mainly thanks to the incredible classes and amazing friends I made there. More than anything, BCB and my Bardian friends taught me to love learning, which I never thought would happen, since I grew up with dyslexia and always struggled in high school. BCB truly surpassed my expectations as a liberal arts university.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Even though all my courses were amazing, I really enjoyed the Renaissance Florence core course. I had the privilege of having Prof. Dr. Laura Scuriatti, who I admire as a professor and definitely played a role in me appreciating this course. The Renaissance is such an intriguing time in art history because of the introduction of mathematics in art. I love the symmetry, bright colors, and Ancient Roman features of those paintings. In addition, I now can pinpoint symbolisms and identify themes, periods, and sometimes painters. I also very much enjoyed the courses that required philosophical mental gymnastics, such as Prof. Dr. Tracy Colony’s classes on existentialism, in which the point wasn’t only to talk about the readings, but to listen to Tracy get you to experience what they meant.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
The biggest impact BCB had on me was my mental transformation. I came to BCB not knowing anything about which field I wanted to settle in and ended up finding a passion and falling in love with dedicating my time and energy to it.
The people I met at BCB are ambitious and great creators, I had the chance to work on projects with a couple of them. After graduating, I invested six months in opening a bookstore in Spain, an idea that came from a fellow Bardian. Subsequently, I became the managing director for a magazine founded by another Bard alumni Aryana Arian, here in London. In addition, BCB allowed me to find other Roma academics and join the CEU Roma Students Association, thanks to the Open Society Foundations courses from which I took classes in the CEU Romani Studies Program. To this day, I keep in touch with the Roma I met at CEU to invite each other on projects and discuss topics related to Roma rights. On another note, since BCB gave me a humanities background, I wanted to balance it with some IT skills, so I enrolled in a cloud computing course for three months to learn the basics of Python and Bash. I followed the computing programme with a master’s degree in policy, which I knew I wanted to do because the policy courses at BCB were amazing.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am currently enrolled in an MSc in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE). Next year I will be studying policy and governance at Fudan University in Shanghai, as I am undertaking a double degree. I am also involved in a humanities-based magazine mentioned above called perediza, for which I write and execute business strategies. In addition, I am an academic representative at the Social Policy Department and elected National Union of Students delegate by the LSE student body to, in part, draft manifestos for the upcoming UK general elections and London mayor elections. Furthermore, I am also participating in the 2024 European Student Assembly organized by CIVICA to draft policy recommendations for the upcoming European Parliament election.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
My advice is to pick who you surround yourself with carefully. They shape you more than you think, and this includes social media! Take any opportunities that come your way. You are young, and no one takes you seriously: build your CV on anything you engage in and do the job well! Third, have an idea of where you are headed for the next five years and get stubbornly fixed on it, this will unconsciously guide you towards your goals. Also, don’t run away from your problems; they will only continue to look bigger and bigger!

Kerstin Honeit

Germany
MA in Fine Arts
Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin

Kerstin Honeit is an artist working with experimental documentary moving image formats. She lives in Berlin, where she studied visual arts and stage design at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule. In her film works she researches the mechanisms of representation in the production of hegemonic image worlds, in connection with cultural as well as linguistic modes of translation, especially in the cinematographic context. The focus here is on the politics of the (film) voice and especially on how voice as a queering event within moving images can unsettle the gaze regimes of dominant culture. Against the background of Honeit’s artistic practice, the publication Kerstin Honeit. Voice Works / Voice Strikes (ed. McGovern) has just been published by b_books. Honeit has taught at various art academies and is currently sharing the professorship for spatial concepts at the HBK Braunschweig with Candice Breitz. Her work is regularly presented at international film festivals and in exhibitions such as: Whitechapel Gallery, London; Hammer Museum, LA; CAC, Quito; Fajr International Film Festival, Tehran; n.b.k., Berlin; Off Biennale Cairo; Videoart at Midnight, Berlin; MMOMA - D’EST, Moscow; Schwules Museum, Berlin; HKW, Berlin; International Short Film Fest, Oberhausen; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Gallery 400, Chicago; Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin; MIX, New York.

Website: kerstinhoneit.com

Image by Dorothea Tuch

Contact:
Kerstin Honeit
Film
[email protected]

Erick Moreno Superlano

Venezuela
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '22
Concentration: Literature and Rhetoric
Currently: PhD in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The class discussions were the best part for me. They were enriching and really taught me how to think critically about others' ideas as well as question my own.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
I think I am not exaggerating when I say that the experience at BCB changed my life, so I would say: life changing! Not only did it change my way of thinking, but it also gave me the chance to go on studying at the graduate level.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
"A Lexicon of Migration" taught by Prof. Agata Lisiak. This course was challenging and engaging at so many levels. I decided after this course that I wanted to work on migration studies, and that is what I am doing now.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am pursuing a PhD in migration studies at the University of Oxford

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB provided me with the academic tools, the confidence, and also the administrative support necessary to successfully transition into graduate school.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
If you would like to learn how to think critically, apply to BCB. And take a class with Agata Lisiak!

Jakov Sharevski

North Macedonia
BA in Politics, Economics and Social Thought '22
Concentration: Politics
Currently: Policy and Communications Officer at eu travel tech

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
At Bard, you get the means to explore questions that you never knew how to approach, yet are questions that come to mind every day. It's a very liberating environment as it legitimizes and structures a thought process on virtually any topic, from very specialized ones in different fields, to ones that are at the heart of the human experience.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
It's very complicated to put it in a few words but here goes nothing: Liberating and very intellectually stimulating yet at times chaotic and overwhelming in the most positive way possible.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
The European Union course taught by Dr. Beirt Ebert has to be it. In a nutshell it both affirmed my interest in EU affairs and heavily influenced my choice to pursue a Master in European Public Policy and Public Administration, and later a career in the field as well.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
The answer is multilayered but two things pop out. First, BCB helped me get a clear idea of the professional direction I want to pursue 'when I grow up'. Second, and maybe more important from this perspective, BCB gave me the tools to have an analytical perspective not only on my studies and work, but also on my life in general. This helps me think about my broader role at the workplace and university but also in my personal life, and I think it's a quality that I will genuinely cherish forever.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
Currently, I live in Brussels and I work as a Policy and Communications Officer at a trade association called eu travel tech. I work mostly with policies in the fields of tech, transport, and tourism.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
You will likely never encounter an academic environment where you can have such close contact with truly amazing professors that have a genuine interest in the subject they teach as well as a dedication to teaching it in an engaging way. If that sounds good, definitely apply. All that said, the choice of courses can be overwhelming but professors will always be open to advising you on that, use that opportunity and make the most out of it. Finally, BCB is a long journey, be gentle to yourself and take one challenge at a time, your mental health is very important!

Nick Houde

USA
MA in Philosophy, art, and critical theory (PACT)
European Graduate School

Nick Houde is a researcher, writer, and musician based in Berlin. For the last three years he has worked as a research associate and co-curator at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) for the Technosphere Project and the Anthropocene Curriculum. Amidst these broader research areas, he has also written a number of texts and given public talks concerning a mixture of philosophy, technology, and politics. Some of this research has also spilled into sound composition and electronic music, usually under the moniker of Soft Steps or in collaboration with others.

He holds a BA in Urbanism/Geography from the University of Colorado at Denver and an MA in Philosophy, art, and critical theory (PACT) from the European Graduate School (EGS). He is also the co-founder of the Vertical Unions Working Group at Trust.

Personal website

Usahma Felix Darrah

Germany, Canada, Syria
PhD in Political Science
Heidelberg University

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.

Contact:
Dr. Usahma Felix Darrah
Political Science
u.darrah[at]berlin.bard.edu

Adelaida Ivan

Romania
MA Intercultural Communication
University of Bucharest

Adelaida Ivan studied German and English literature as well as intercultural communication in Bucharest, Heidelberg and Munich. She has received several grants for her cross-border research projects and is a former fellow at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies, Free University of Berlin. She is also an award-winning journalist and has been teaching at different institutions in Germany and Romania.

Photo credit: Arne Sattler

Contact
Adelaida Ivan
German Studies
a.ivan[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aziza Izamova

Uzbekistan
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '21
Currently: PhD student in History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University

Which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?
I received a BA in Humanities, the Arts and Social Thought with a concentration in Art and Aesthetics in 2021.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
Coming not only from a different cultural background but also from a whole other educational system, I was surprised to learn about the unique student-faculty dynamic at BCB. Back home the relationship between the professor and the student is very vertical: the instructor lectures and the student absorbs the information. At BCB, not only are students encouraged to express their disagreement or suggest materials for the class, but they establish a very different relationship with the faculty that are sincerely interested in students’ success. Office hours, film screenings and other university events were opportunities to create those unique relationships with students and professors. I feel very lucky to still maintain those connections.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?
BCB became not only the place to take classes but a place that gave me experiences I did not know I needed: it is where I learned about art history (the field I am pursuing as my long-term career); it brought me together with some of my dearest friends, and welcomed me into its diverse community.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
When I moved to Germany to study art history, I did not know anything about the subject, and was not aware of future professional prospects that this field of study may open and how it can help to improve the world. At university, I took an art history course that changed my life: Vision and Perspective with Geoff Lehman. Geoff’s class introduced me to the field of art history, and then I took a course with Aya Soika that showed me the opportunities for future research: Expressionism, Bauhaus and beyond: German Art and National Identity in the 20th Century. Geoff and Aya, and so many other faculty members at BCB were very supportive of my research and career interests. Aya curated an exhibition that piqued my interest in the field, and which encouraged me to continue studying art history by looking into ways I can contribute and integrate my background, my past and the history of my home country into my studies.

Where are you now and what do you do?
I am a PhD student in History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. My research interests include the Soviet and European avant-gardes, art production in Soviet Central Asia, and Islamic architecture.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?
Learn as much about BCB as you can: read present and past syllabi, reach out to current students, and learn a bit about life in Berlin. Studying at BCB means not only taking wonderful and challenging classes but also interacting with the city and student community. It is fine to come with or without a clear idea of what you want to do — you’ll have plenty of time to explore! Sometimes you’ll be pushed out of your comfort zone, so be ready to make some exciting discoveries about yourself!

Learn more about Aziza's path to a PhD at Harvard in this interview.

Martin Kenner

USA
PhD in History
Columbia University

Martin Kenner earned a PhD in History from Columbia University with a dissertation on The Decline and Fall of the British Financial Empire.

His field is economic history with a focus on imperialism and globalization. His current research is centered on a survey of the new literature on income and wealth inequality.

Contact
Dr. Martin Kenner
History
Email: [email protected]

Lucari Jordan

USA
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '21
Currently: Commercial Associate at Aurora Energy Research

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The fact that we could always talk to or debate with our professors at eye level. That, and the friends I made, of course.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
It went quicker than it felt, was more exciting then it seemed, and taught me more than I knew.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
It's difficult to choose just one as they work as a whole. One of my most memorable courses was Boris Vormann's Future of Work class. This course guided us from a historical analysis of how the labor market developed (I still bring up Theda Skocpol's "Protecting Soldiers and Mothers" at house parties, perhaps too often) through modern market design and issues towards a consideration of what future systems could be (and how to avoid the dreaded 'bullshit job' described by Graeber).

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
Personally, BCB did a lot to help me become a more flexible and resilient person with respect to living abroad and working with diverse people. Socially, BCB introduced me to people who would become my chosen family away from home. Intellectually, BCB influenced me by not influencing me and allowing me to chase tangents down rabbit holes, find the things that held my attention and felt important, and then question those things.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I have remained in Berlin, and when not working in my role as a Commercial Associate at Aurora Energy Research selling economic analytics of the power market, I spend most of my time renovating my raw diamond of an apartment, crafting random things, or hanging out with friends at the cinema, opera, or out on the Tempelhofer Feld.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
In order to get the most out of BCB, you should be open to learning about things you don't think are interesting or relevant to you, never take the question's assumptions for granted, consider texts critically but also constructively, and talk to your professors regularly. If you do most of those things, you'll come out of BCB with a better idea of what you're good at and what you want to do, as well as also being prepared to work toward what you want to achieve in a myriad of different ways.

Monika Grütters

Monika Grütters is a German politician and parliamentarian who has a wealth of experience in the arts, arts policy, and cultural sectors. She has been an elected member of the German Bundestag since 2005 and served as State Minister for Culture and the Media in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2013 to 2021. She is a member of several parliamentary bodies, including the Committee of Enquiry on Culture in Germany, the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment, the Committee on Cultural and Media Affairs, and the Subcommittee on Cultural and Educational Policy Abroad.

Prior to her membership in the Bundestag, Monika Grütters worked in public relations at the Berlin Museum for Transport and Technology and the Berlin publishing house Bouvier und Nicolai. She was assistant lecturer in public relations for the Cultural Management degree course at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. In 1992, Monika Grütters became the spokesperson of the Senate Administration for Science and Research in Berlin and was responsible for corporate communications at the Bankgesellschaft Berlin AG. From 1998 to 2013, she chaired the Executive Board of the “Brandenburg Gate” Foundation of the Bankgesellschaft Berlin. She studied German literature, art history, and political science at the Universities of Münster and Bonn and has served as an honorary professor for cultural management at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and at the Free University of Berlin.

Photo: (c) Christof Rieken

Katy Kirbach

USA
Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art
Royal Academy Schools, London

Katy Kirbach is a visual artist whose paintings draw on the histories of geometric abstraction and weaving, looking at the relationships between abstraction, craft, and so-called “women’s work”. She often begins a work by deconstructing and then re-weaving the canvas itself, questioning the assumed form and materiality of painting. Katy received her BA in Fine Art (2008) from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, and her Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art (2011) from the Royal Academy Schools, London. From 2012 to 2013, she was the Abbey Scholar in Painting at the British School at Rome, a prestigious 9-month residency awarded to emerging artists. From 2014 to 2018, Katy was a lecturer in the Painting and Drawing Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she taught courses in color theory as well as introductory, intermediate, and advanced painting.

Since moving to Berlin in 2018, she has had more time to focus on her own studio, and has also had the opportunity to be an artist-in-residence at Villa Lena, Tuscany, and TekTrope, Istanbul. In 2020, she was a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist grant. Her work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions, including RUSCHMAN, Chicago; salondergegenwart, Hamburg; The Green Gallery, Milwaukee; TekTrope, Istanbul; Bar4000, Chicago; Christian Larsen Gallery, Stockholm; the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, U.K.; and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Contact:
Katy Kirbach
Visual Arts
k.kirbach[at]berlin.bard.edu

Elisabeta Dinu

Romania
PhD in Public Policy
Central European University (CEU)

Elisabeta Dinu earned her doctoral degree in Public Policy from Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria in 2024, with a dissertation focused on the evolution of armed non-state actors. In the academic year 2024/25, she is a CIVICA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hertie School’s Center for International Security, where she investigates European defense industrial cooperation. Previously, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University in NYC, and at the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews in the UK. She has also been a Research Fellow at the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security and has taught for Bard College’s MA in Global Studies Program in NYC. During her doctoral studies, Elisabeta served as a Research Assistant, working with press archives in several languages, and worked as a policy advisor in the private sector, focusing on digital policy. She also worked in the Leadership Programs Department of Aspen Institute Romania and conducted fieldwork in Lebanon. Elisabeta holds an MA in Public Policy (Security Concentration) from CEU and an MA in Comparative Politics from the University of Bucharest. Her regional expertise includes the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and the politics of the European Union. Her research interests encompass security and non-state actors, strategy and organizations, as well as policy learning and innovation.

Contact:
Dr. Elisabeta Dinu
Public Policy
e.dinu[at]berlin.bard.edu

Océanne Fry

France/USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '21
Concentration: Ethics and Politics & Literature and Rhetoric
Currently: MAS in Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and Rule of Law at the Geneva Academy of Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Switzerland

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The sense of community within my class was the highlight of my time at BCB! The lasting friendships and deep connections made were invaluable and inspiring, academically and professionally.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Studying at BCB gave me a very broad view on a multitude of ethical, political, and philosophical elements which prepared me well for my current humanitarian career.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
“Doing ‘Justice’ After Atrocity” with Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom, taken during the spring 2019 semester. This oriented me towards my current MAS in Transitional Justice and opened my eyes to issues of enforced disappearance, genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
Specific professors, including my thesis advisor and second reader, were invaluable mentors to me in guiding my ensuing work and academic field of interest. I wrote my thesis on individual and systemic manifestations of mistrust of asylum seekers on the Greek hotspots as representative of EU policy. This influenced my decision to pursue my current MAS in Transitional Justice, within which I am further developing my BA thesis topic into a more detailed look at the assumptions made in credibility guidelines used during refugee status determinations. My BA and MA theses will cumulate into my upcoming PhD on the same topic. Having had the invaluable guidance and support of Prof Dr Kerry Bystrom, in particular, was instrumental in narrowing down my research interest which has continued to drive my graduate research.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I live in Geneva, Switzerland, where I am interning at the Convention Against Torture Initiative and studying in the MAS in Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and Rule of Law program at the Geneva Academy of Humanitarian Law and Human Rights

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
My advice is to speak to professors during office hours, to ask them to recommend additional readings in your specific field of interest, and to learn about their trajectory and their research. This was the single most beneficial and useful choice I made which I would recommend to all BCB students.

Mea Hoffmann

Mea Hoffmann (b. 1990) is a design and architecture curator, thinker and writer with a particular interest in the socio-political dimension of design. She has been at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany since 2018 where she has worked on various major travelling exhibitions including »Home Stories. 100 Years, 20 Interiors«, »German Design 1949-1989: Two Countries, one History« and »Plastic. Remaking Our World«. Most recently she curated »Iwan Baan: Moments in Architecture«, the first major retrospective on the work of Dutch photographer Iwan Baan. Mea holds a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities, The Arts and Social Thought from Bard College (Berlin/New York), where she is now a member of the Board of Governors, and a Master's degree in Design Curating and Writing from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Prior to the Vitra Design Museum she worked as Talent & Admissions manager and Event Curator at the DO School in Berlin. Mea's speaking engagements include various talks and panels, and she has written for and edited a range of publications.

Laura Kettel

Germany
MA North American Studies
Freie Universität Berlin

Laura Kettel is a PhD candidate at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she received her M.A. (2019) and B.A. (2016) in North American Studies. Her research interests include social policy development, inequality, and urban politics. Laura recently completed a fellowship at Yale University and has previously taught courses on social policy at poverty governance at the John-F.-Kennedy Institute at Freie Universität. Her current project examines homelessness policy in the United States, with a focus on local policy development and intergovernmental policymaking.

Contact:
Laura Kettel
Politics
[email protected]

Sam Zamrik

Syria
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '21
Double concentration in Ethics and Politics and Literature and Rhetoric via PIESC
Currently: Author, Fellow at Stiftung Mercator

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
Being part of an international community and taking classes that emphasize learning from each other and exchanging experiences. Also the accessible methods of approaching text and broaching big topics have had an incredible impact on my personal life and career, allowing me to properly situate myself in, and speak from, a grounded perspective.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
It was an enriching experience of learning, unlearning, and relearning. A full cycle of growth.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
The interdisciplinary education at BCB gave me the tools necessary to actively pursue my passions and career in politics and literature.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
In Berlin still. I published an award-winning bilingual book of poetry (ICH BIN NICHT) with one of Germany's biggest publishers (Hanser Berlin), performed in some of the country's largest venues and festivals, and obtained a fellowship at one of Germany's leading foundations (Stiftung Mercator) to develop and write an autofiction novel which I am currently working on. My first book is being taught at some universities here and in the US.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Do it. Come to Berlin and immerse yourself in the community, it will be an unforgettably enriching experience.

Zeynep Kivilcim

Turkey
PhD in Public International Law
Université Paris II

Zeynep Kıvılcım is an associate professor of public international law. She received her MA and PhD degrees from Université Paris II. Her work and research deal with human rights law, migration, and politics of legality with a critical gender perspective. She has taught at Istanbul University, Göttingen University, Osnabrück University, and Humboldt University.

Recent Publications:

“Feminism and Displacement”, in: The Routledge Global History of Feminism, edited by Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson, Routledge, 2022.
The Politics of Legality of the Authoritarian Liberal Regime in Turkey”, in: Regime Change in Turkey. Neoliberal Authoritarianism, Islamism, and Populism, edited by Ezgi Pınar, Errol Babacan, Melehat Kutun, Zafer Yılmaz, Routledge, 2021, p.196-212.
Migration Crises in Turkey”, in: Oxford Handbook of Migration Crisis, Cecilia, edited by Menjivar, Marie Ruiz, and Immanuel Ness, Oxford University Press, Oxford University Press, 2019, p.427-444.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Zeynep Kıvılcım
Public International Law
[email protected]

Josef Joffe

Dr. Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of German weekly Die Zeit. He is Senior Fellow of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Marc and Anita Abramowitz Fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution, and a courtesy professor of political science at Stanford University. Since 1999, he has been an associate of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. His areas of interest are US foreign policy, international security policy, European-American relations, Europe and Germany, and the Middle East. Raised in Berlin, he obtained his PhD degree in government from Harvard.

Image: Die Zeit

John Kleckner

USA
BFA in Painting
University of Iowa

John Kleckner is a visual artist working in painting, drawing, and collage. John is known for making finely detailed paintings, drawings, and collages that use mimesis, fragmentation, juxtaposition, synecdoche, and stylistic clashing to explore ideas and feelings about nature, resilience, solitude, perception, and balance. He has exhibited his artwork professionally since 2003, presenting 11 solo exhibitions at galleries in Athens, Berlin, Los Angeles, Milan, Paris, Palermo, and Stockholm. His works are featured in prominent collections including, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, Magasin 3 Konsthalle in Stockholm, Deste Foundation in Athens, the Miettinen Collection in Berlin, and the Saatchi Collection in London. He has exhibited in institutions such as the Athens Biennial in Greece, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam, CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain in Bordeaux, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Lissone, Kunstraum Innsbruck, the Marres Centre for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, the Riso Museo d’Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia in Palermo, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In 2021 he received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant, and in 2022 was among 3 finalists for the 26th Wilhelm Morgner Prize for painting in Soest, Germany.

John has been teaching at Bard College Berlin since 2013.

Courses taught:
FA103 Found Fragments & Layered Lines: Mixed-media Techniques for Drawing & Collage.
FA301 Advanced Painting: Material Matters & Technical Expression.
FA302 Advanced Painting: Oil Paint & After.
FA313 Hive Mind: Possibilities of Collaboration in Studio Practice.
FA317 Advanced Painting: Illusionistic Surfaces. 
Studio Art Summer Intensive course: Colorama (with Ken Buhler.)

Personal Website

Contact
Prof. John Kleckner
Studio Arts — Painting, Drawing, Collage
j.kleckner[at]berlin.bard.edu

Regina Knapp

Germany
PhD in Anthropology
Australian National University, Canberra

Regina Knapp received her MA from the Freie Universität Berlin where she studied anthropology and media studies. In 2011 she earned her PhD in anthropology at the Australian National University, Canberra. Her regional focus lies in the South-Pacific, particularly in Papua New Guinea. Her methodological approach grounds on her interest in visual anthropology and in the audiovisual documentation of cultural heritage and cultural change. She has extensive research experience and has worked on topics such as cultural conceptualisations of gender, time and temporality, person, exchange and culture change. Between 2012 and 2015 she was employed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig and conducted an ethno-linguistic research project on the documentation of Bena Bena language in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Currently she works as visual anthropologist on a project hosted by the University of Regina, Canada, on the value of shell-money and gift-exchange in the island region of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. She has produced a number of ethnographic films and compiled short film sequences. Her recent book on culture change and exchange, published by Berghahn press (2017), is a rich contribution to current anthropological debates and an outstanding ethnographic work on a Papua New Guinea Highland culture.

Contact
Dr. Regina Knapp
Anthropology
Email: r.knapp[at]berlin.bard.edu

Florian Duijsens

Netherlands
MA in Arts and Science; Liberal Studies
Maastricht University; The New School for Social Research

Born in the Netherlands, Florian Duijsens attended Maastricht University, where he received an M.A. in Arts & Sciences with a thesis about the politics of contemporary superheroes. With the support of a Fulbright Graduate Study Grant, Florian then attended the New School for Social Research in New York, graduating with honors and receiving an M.A. in Liberal Studies with a thesis about sentimentality as a rhetorical strategy in popular music, literature, and film.

Living in Berlin since 2007, he works as an editor, translator, and writer, and also teaches in the Language & Thinking program at Bard College in the US. Together with Katy Derbyshire, he founded and co-hosts the international event and podcast series, the Dead Ladies Show. Formerly the senior editor of Asymptote and the longtime fiction editor of SAND Journal, he is currently an editor at biannual art magazine BLAU International, and has also edited literary translations for Suhrkamp, Insel Verlag, V&Q Books, and World Editions. His own work has appeared in The Guardian and Daddy, among other publications, and he has translated the award-winning likes of Hanna Bervoets and Anne Vegter.

Contact
Florian Duijsens, M.A.
Liberal Studies
Interim Academic Director of the Internship Program
Email: f.duijsens[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aryana Arian Assl

Iran
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '20
Concentration: Arts & Aesthetics
Currently: MA in Culture, Criticism and Curation, University of the Arts London and Editor-in-Chief at perediza

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
The rewarding experience of having discussions in political economy, literature, art history, and philosophy with students from different backgrounds and concentrations.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Intellectually rewarding. It built the foundation for my critical thinking and discourse abilities.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
The “Renaissance Florence” Core course, taught by Dr. Geoff Lehman, taught me how to look at works of art critically and explore the interplay between artists, their creations, and their historical contexts. I wrote my final paper on the Persian Sibyl, a small painting part of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB allowed me to pick a master's program that is interdisciplinary and exciting—something that can build on the foundation of knowledge that BCB built. Furthermore, many essays I wrote at BCB, including my final essay for “Renaissance Florence” and my thesis, have paved the way for the work I am doing today at perediza.
Perediza is a humanities/philosophy-based magazine that tackles climate change, art, style, and, more broadly, life. BCB gave me the network, knowledge, critical thinking, and passion to create this magazine. Seven out of the roughly 15 creatives and writers who contributed to our first issue are BCB students! Either through writing magnificent critical and philosophical pieces, or contributing their beautiful art to the magazine, Bard College Berliners were a crucial part of putting perediza together.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am in London pursuing a master’s degree in Culture, Criticism, and Curation at the University of the Arts London. Furthermore, I serve as the Editor-in-Chief at perediza. We released our inaugural issue last year, and we are currently working on the second issue.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
If you are looking for an education where you will gain a strong foundation of knowledge in philosophy, culture, history, and more broadly, the humanities, BCB is the place to go. Not only will it reward you with engaging opportunities for discourse and critical thinking, but it will also allow you to find friends and a community of people that are passionate and immersed in theory, practice, or both. Furthermore, BCB is located in Berlin, renowned for its amazing exhibitions, historic landmarks, sights, culture, and diverse communities. BCB's small size also allows for you to engage in the classrooms and with the professors, offering a more communal learning experience that is very rare and hard to find!

Xiaojing (Soledad) Li

China
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '20
Currently: Pursuing an MA in Digital Sciences at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Université de Paris

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?
I am from Shenzhen, China and I was enrolled in the HAST program at BCB.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
I enjoyed people at BCB the most! I have suffered from mental health issues for 12 years. During my time at BCB, I received enormous help from people here. They warmed me up with their kindness and wisdom and made me brave enough to accept myself and make peace with my mental health issues.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?
It is like owning a Mary Poppins bag or opening an "Überraschungsei".

Did you have a course that left a lasting impression on you?
That’s so hard to choose! If I had to choose one, I would choose Julia Hart’s Staging of German Drama 21 Century. The course opened up my exploration in performing arts and after it, I started specializing in theater and had a wonderful time in BCB.

While at BCB, you initiated your sustainability project Rhythm of Bamboos that was funded by the Prince Claus Fund and the Goethe Institute. What is the project about and what led you to initiate it?
The Rhythm project is about building a sustainable community center out of bamboos for women and children in a rural village in China. Apart from the center, we designed a board game and curated two exhibitions for villagers to participate in the Rhythm center. I initiated this project with one of my best friends after graduation from BCB. (Aroud July 2021) Both of us are from China and are interested in community projects. We have been flatmates for 3 years so we know each other quite well. After a short brainstorming session, we started applying for grant with the Rhythm project! Before coming to BCB, I spend half a year doing community projects in urban villages in China.

Where are you now and what do you do?
I am pursuing my master's degree in Digital Sciences at the Center for Research Interdisciplinarity (CRI) in Paris now. As the name suggests, it is a research center that focuses on interdisciplinary studies. Besides the university time, I am interning remotely for AutSPACEs, a citizen science project for autistic people in London.

How did what you learned at BCB help you transition to where you are now?
It is not easy to make this sudden transition from arts to tech. I held doubts on my own at first. But BCB helped me believe in myself and taught me that it was never too late to start learning. : )

Any advice you would give to students in the HAST programs?
Do not feel afraid of trying new ideas out! You may get easily distracted (always!), but you will always explore new things about yourself and find new missing puzzles pieces of your jigsaw!

Zuka Bakradze

Georgia
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '20
Concentration: Economics
Currently: Global Supply Manager at Tesla

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin? What had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
I most enjoyed the intellectually stimulating environment and the close-knit community at Bard College Berlin (BCB). The small, discussion-based classes fostered a collaborative learning atmosphere where diverse perspectives were valued. The biggest impact came from the college’s emphasis on critical thinking and civic engagement, which encouraged me to explore complex societal issues deeply and holistically.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Studying at BCB was an enriching experience. The curriculum was interdisciplinary, blending economics, politics, and social thought, and the international student body provided a rich cultural exchange. The integration of Berlin’s vibrant intellectual and cultural scene into the academic experience made learning both dynamic and contextual.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
One course that left a lasting impression on me was "Global Citizenship." This course challenged me to think critically about the ethical dimensions of global issues and the role of international institutions. The discussions on case studies from various parts of the world were particularly eye-opening, helping me understand the complexities of implementing human rights/economic policies globally.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB definitely influenced my career path by equipping me with strong analytical and critical thinking skills. These skills have been invaluable in my roles, currently managing complex manufacturing processes and negotiate with suppliers at Tesla. The emphasis on interdisciplinary learning at BCB helped me approach problems from multiple angles, enhancing my ability to develop innovative solutions. However, it has to be stated that it is crucial that no graduate relies solely on the above but also provides an individual approach and showcases their personality as much as possible, both during & post the interview process.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am currently working as a Global Supply Manager for Capital Equipment at Tesla Inc. in Grunheide, Germany. In this role, I manage the Paint Shop’s sub-system manufacturing processes, oversee technology and supplier base expansion, develop RFQ packages, and implement lean sourcing strategies to improve operational efficiencies among many other ad-hoc topics.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
For students considering BCB, I would advise embracing the diverse and interdisciplinary nature of the program. Engage actively in the small, discussion-based classes, and take full advantage of the opportunities to integrate Berlin’s cultural and intellectual resources into your studies. This will not only enrich your academic experience but also prepare you for a variety of professional paths.

Tamara Kolaric

Croatia
PhD in Political Science
Central European University

Tamara Kolarić received her BA in Political Science from the University of Zagreb (2008), with a focus on domestic politics. She received her MA in Political Science from the Central European University in Budapest (2009) and has recently completed her PhD in Political Science also with the Central European University (2019). Her PhD dissertation, Hidden Dialogues with the Past: Cinema and Memory of the ‘Homeland War’, explores the strategies feature fiction films in contemporary Croatia use to negotiate the official, political memory of the ‘Homeland War’, the armed conflict that took place in the country between 1991-1995 following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Her research interests include qualitative methods and research design, collective memory, Croatian cinema, as well as post-Yugoslav cinema and politics. She is currently working on turning her PhD dissertation into publications.

At Bard College Berlin she is a Global Teaching Fellow for the 2019/2020 academic year.

Contact
Dr. Tamara Kolarić
Political Science
t.kolaric[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ahmad Mobayed

Syria
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '19
Currently: Lead of Strategic Programs at Le Wagon

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?
I am from Syria and I graduated from the BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought program.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
I thoroughly enjoyed the curriculum's diversity and the interdisciplinary approach, blending politics, economics, and philosophy. This combination was not only enriching academically but also deeply relevant to real life. Coming from an Eastern cultural background, Bard provided me with a unique opportunity to engage with and understand Western concepts and values in politics, ethics, and economics on a deeper level. This experience broadened my perspective and continues to influence how I navigate both professional and personal challenges.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?
Studying at Bard College Berlin was an intellectually stimulating and transformative. The interdisciplinary approach encouraged me to think critically and draw connections between diverse fields like politics, economics, and philosophy. The small, discussion-based classes fostered deep engagement with both professors and peers from around the world, creating a unique environment for exchanging ideas and exploring different perspectives. This unique blend of academic rigor and cultural diversity made the experience truly enriching and eye-opening.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
The course Origins of Political Economy left a profound impression on me as it delved into the foundational theories and debates that shaped modern economic and political thought. Exploring thinkers like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill allowed me to critically analyze the interplay between economics, politics, and society. What stood out was how these historical perspectives remain deeply relevant in understanding today’s global inequalities and systemic challenges. The course not only sharpened my analytical skills but also deepened my appreciation for the complexity of economic systems and their ethical dimensions.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
Bard College Berlin has profoundly shaped my professional and personal path. The interdisciplinary education and critical thinking skills I developed there have been pivotal in my work in social impact and migration, particularly in designing and implementing educational and employment programs for marginalized communities. The exposure to diverse perspectives and ethical frameworks at BCB inspired me to co-found initiatives that bridge cultural divides and promote inclusion. Beyond my career, BCB’s emphasis on intellectual curiosity and global citizenship continues to influence how I approach challenges and engage with the world.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am currently based in Berlin, where I work at the intersection of education, inclusion, and social impact. I co-founded and lead several initiatives that focus on up-skilling migrants and refugees, fostering their integration into the labor market, and connecting diverse talents with opportunities. One of my recent ventures at Le Wagon, where I work as Lead of Strategic Programs, combines AI & Data, German language learning, and professional mentorship to create pathways for individuals from underrepresented backgrounds to thrive in tech and other industries. Alongside this, I collaborate with NGOs and organizations to develop innovative programs that address systemic inequalities and empower marginalized communities across the EMEA region, including co-building an NGO Young Global Citizens that supports 150,000 forced migrants worldwide with quality digital education.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?
My advice is to embrace the opportunity for intellectual exploration and personal growth. BCB’s interdisciplinary approach will challenge you to think critically and connect ideas across fields, whether it’s philosophy, politics, economics, or arts. Take full advantage of the small classes and close engagement with professors—this is where the real learning happens. Also, immerse yourself in the vibrant international community; you’ll learn as much from your peers’ diverse perspectives as from the curriculum. Finally, approach your time at BCB with an open mind and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone—you’ll leave with not just an education, but a broader worldview and lifelong connections.

Margarethe Hattingh

South Africa
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '19
Currently: Master's in Banking and Finance, University of Vienna

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I was born in Hamburg, Germany to parents of South African origin on a diplomatic posting. I spent six months there before being flown to South Africa, my passport country and the home of my heart, where I lived for a dwindling portion of my life as time has taken me elsewhere.

At BCB I enrolled in the EPST program, deciding on a double-concentration in Economics and Politics during moderation in the second year.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

I enjoyed the challenge of it, and that it was something totally new. The challenge wasn’t solely intellectual, though that was a large part of it. The challenge also had to do with figuring out a new city, new people, making new friends, learning how to live alone and not be lonely... learning how to let friends go, and how important it is to ask for help when you need it. Beginning to understand, through these experiences, how to live. Better. Of course these sorts of challenges aren’t exclusive to Bard College Berlin, but I do believe BCB provides just the right balance of support (with regards to academics as well as the tedium of daily life) and freedom to let its students flourish.

This is true with regards to bureaucracy, mental health, and all types of student initiatives. The BCB student blog is a fantastic example of a school-sponsored platform that allows students to publish virtually anything they please—be it a political op-ed or poetry. Working for the blog during my four years at BCB I got to experience firsthand the care put into developing its content in line with the individual student contributor’s writing interests. My experience with helping organise a conference on campus during my senior year was also overwhelmingly positive as members of the administration reached out to ask how they could support our organizational team. The level of care at BCB is simply incredible.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

Challenging and worthwhile.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

The course that is most vividly etched in my memory is the second semester Forms of Love core. Contemplating the texts and concepts that are the focus of this particular core course struck a chord inside my soul. I had never before read the Bible or Rumi’s poetry with an intellectual eye; I doubt I would’ve ever given myself the opportunity to consider the contents of these texts earnestly if it weren’t for the seminar environment. When I did so, I found many of them resonated in my innermost being with great intensity: What is more important, more fundamental to our nature than love, in all its forms? (A rhetorical question I will leave unanswered as I believe there isn’t anything to reply.)

How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?

It might sound cliche, but I believe the most important thing I learned at BCB is how to be an ‘independent thinker’. This isn’t something that necessarily comes naturally; for the vast majority of my life, I have not been an independent thinker, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who occasionally wishes someone else would make all major life decisions for them. This is not solely my own fault but is in large part due to the fact that no one really asked me to think for myself before BCB. Actually, I’d go so far as to say independent thinking was, and remains, actively discouraged on many fronts. But at BCB there is no escaping the opportunity to think independently. It’s required in virtually every class, and it’s what makes the entire program so enriching.

What I mean by independent thinking isn’t clear-cut, but it stands opposed to text-book memorisation and is friends with exploration. Independent thinking involves close consultation with your own private thoughts and feelings and requires that you develop an understanding of where they come from, and then use this understanding to figure out what it is that’s immediately in front of you (a particular situation, person, or text, perhaps) and how you’d like to proceed in that context. I like to think of it as a muscle that you keep fit with repeated use; once you’ve flexed it, you won’t want to give up the power and freedom it brings. I hope I don’t let mine atrophy now that I’ve finished my BA.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

I am currently studying in a Master's program in Banking and Finance at the University of Vienna.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

My advice for if you are seriously considering BCB (possibly moving continents, leaving family behind, doing something totally new and different that will be challenging in all the ways you had no way of knowing it would be), you should think of why you’re interested and what you would be giving up if you came here. The ‘right’ reasons to come here are many -- the professors are fantastic, seminars are engaging, the core courses are why I came in the first place, you’ll probably make friends that last a lifetime, and hey, it’s Berlin. The intimate campus environment and level of academic engagement with primary texts necessary here is not for everyone, but I believe anyone can make a home for themselves at BCB if they’re willing to give this special place a try.

Markus Klimmer

Dr. Markus Klimmer is a management and policy consultant with an impressive career spanning business, government, and the arts. As a Partner at McKinsey, he was the co-founder and co-leader of their global Public Sector business. He later joined Accenture as a Senior Partner for Public Sector Strategy Consulting. Markus has served governments and international public sector organisations in more than 40 countries. He served in government twice – first as the chief economic advisor and campaign strategist for German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in his then-capacity as German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor, and later as policy and campaign strategist for Austria’s Federal Chancellor Christian Kern. As an entrepreneur, he is co-founder of HH2E, the fast-growing German green hydrogen company, and Daluma, the Berlin-based cult brand for health and lifestyle, amongst others. Markus is the Chairman of the Bauhaus Museum and Archive; Villa Aurora and Thomas Mann House Los Angeles (Artist’s and Scientist’s Residence Programme of Germany), and a Komische Oper Berlin Board Member. In 2019, he was appointed Artistic Advisor of the Opera Houses in Prague (extended to 2028), where he led ‘Musica non grata’, a programme to rediscover and celebrate the Czech-Jewish-German musical world between the wars. He is a Non-Executive Director of the leading classical music management company, HarrisonParrott Group. Markus is an Austrian citizen and lives in Berlin and London with his partner.

Kai Koddenbrock

Germany
Habilitation in Political Science
Goethe University Frankfurt

Kai Koddenbrock is a professor of political economy at Bard College Berlin. He is working on economic sovereignty and self-determination in the Global South and particularly on the role of the international monetary system and global and domestic financial markets in helping and constraining this quest. Located at the intersections of international relations and international political economy, he also works on geopolitics and geoeconomics and the new scramble for rare earths.

He co-founded with Ndongo Sylla and Maha ben Gadha the African Monetary and Economic Sovereignty conferences, which have been held in Tunis and Dakar in 2019 and 2022. He leads the Politics of Money Network with Benjamin Braun, funded by the German Research Council, and heads a research group at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

Kai has held academic positions at several German universities, worked for the United Nations in NYC, the World Food Programme in Rome and the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. He has been a fellow at Columbia University, the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies, Sciences Po, University of Sussex, as well as the Institute for Advanced Studies and the École des Hautes Études Internationales in Paris.

He has contributed essays to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and to Jacobin and Soziopolis among others. His most recent academic articles are: "Beyond financialisation: the longue durée of finance and production in the Global South" and "International financial subordination: a critical research agenda." He has recently edited Capital Claims: Power and Global Finance (Routledge), with Benjamin Braun, and African Monetary and Economic Sovereignty in the 21st Century (Pluto Press), with Maha ben Gadha, Ndongo Samba Sylla, Fadhel Kaboub and Ines Mahmood. His latest monograph was The practice of humanitarian intervention: Aid workers, agencies and institutions in the DR Congo (Routledge, 2015).

Kai tweets @kaikodden and his publications can be accessed through Google Scholar and on this PDF.

Most recent Publications:

Books:

Koddenbrock, K (2015): The practice of humanitarian intervention: Aid workers, agencies and institutions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Routledge, (Paperback 2018).

Edited Volumes:

Braun, B. and Koddenbrock, K. (2022): Capital claims: Power and Global Finance, Review of International Political Economy Series, Routledge.
ben Gadha, M., Kaboub, F., Koddenrbock, K., Mahmood, I., and Sylla, N. (2021): African Monetary and Economic Sovereignty in the 21^st Century, Pluto Books.

Peer-Reviewed Articles:

Alami, I., Alves, C., Bonizzi, B., Kaltenbrunner, A., Koddenbrock, K., Kvangraven, I., and Powell, J. (2022): International Financial Subordination – A critical research agenda, Review of International Political Economy.
Koddenbrock, K., Kvangraven, I., and Sylla, N. (2022): Beyond financialization: The longue durée of finance and Prodcuton in the Global South, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 46(4), 703-733.
Petry, J., Koddenbock, K., and Nölke, A. (2021): Financialization under state capitalism: Securities exchanges in emerging markets, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, online first.
Koddenbrock, K., Kvangraven, I., and Sylla, N. (2020): Financial subordination and uneven financialization in 21st century Africa, Community Development Journal, 56(1), 119-140.

Book Chapters:

Koddenbrock, K. and Mertens, D.: Geoeconomics and national production regimes. On German exportism and the integration of economic and security policy, in: Babic, M,. Dixon, A., and Liu, I. (eds.) (2022): The Political Economy of Geoeconomics: Europe in a Changing World. Palgrave.
Koddenbrock, K: Von der Relevanz der deutschen Internationalen Beziehungen zum Nutzen der politischen Ökonomie als Konfliktanalyse, in: Schöne, H and Bergem, W (eds.) (2022): Wie relevant ist die Politikwissenschaft?, Springer VS.

Photo by Astrid Dünkelmann

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Kai Koddenbrock
Political Economy
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: K24 2.11
Office hours: Tuesdays from 4-5pm

Ursula Kohler

Germany
MA in German Language and Literature
Universität Hamburg

Ursula Kohler studied German Language and Literature, Philosophy, and Art History in Munich, Toulouse, and Hamburg. She completed her MA at the Universität Hamburg with a thesis on the speech "Der Meridian" by Paul Celan. Ursula has been teaching German as a foreign language since 2003. From 2009 to 2021 she taught German at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. As a freelance script editor, Ursula worked for six years for film distributors and film producer. Since 1992 she has been working in various socio-cultural projects for a Senior Citizens’ Theater.

Contact
Ursula Kohler
German Studies
u.kohler[at]berlin.bard.edu

Clara Canales

Chile/Netherlands
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '19
Currently: Expansion Associate at a green transit tech firm

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I was born in Santiago de Chile and grew up primarily in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Within the Economics, Politics, and Social Thought degree I decided to concentrate on Politics.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

The community. BCB creates a unique space for students, teachers and staff to interact and think critically in and outside the classroom. The college community is small and intimate and I felt very comfortable there. I felt like I always had someone to turn to for help or advice, which I realize now is not a given in most academic institutions.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

A whirlwind. It feels like yesterday that I arrived to campus and started exploring Berlin. Every semester was so different. There were rarely dull moments. I got the chance to explore various of my interests in depth, from ethics and economics to experimental theater, and from globalization to environmental activism.

Every semester was different, because I was able to be part of interesting projects in and outside of academic life. Often my classes accompanied a hands-on project, such as “In Search of a History: Migration in Germany from World War II to the Present” with Marion Detjen, where I conducted ethnographic research with a Dutch family in Berlin, “Populism in Western Europe” with Timo Lochocki where we had the privilege to interview journalists at AFP, Handelsblatt and The Economist on “the rise of populism,” and “The German Public Sphere” with Ulrike Wagner, where I worked with two classmates on a video about religion and moving in the public sphere as a woman.

Through the school, I also had the opportunity to take on extracurricular projects, such as with my internship with migrantas, an art collective working to visualize the daily struggles of migrants, my collaboration with JUP (a youth organization) on a theater project sponsored by BCB’s civic engagement fellowship, or acting in BCB alumna Maria Khan’s rendition of Aristophanes’ Clouds.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

"Creation-research: New approaches to contemporary migration history in Germany" with Marion Detjen.
This course flowed out of a more traditional history course on German migration our class had taken the semester before. We were asked to turn our academic research into artistic projects. It showed me the power of liberal arts to go beyond traditional academic practice and attempt to foster greater cultural understanding. My project partner and I wrote a satirical lifestyle blog in which we critiqued the commercialization of integration efforts and the “Willkommenskultur” in Germany. The blog was called IntegrationGuru and, through trendy top 10 lists and short quizzes, it explained how to “fit into” German culture and keep up with the new trend of “integration.” Our projects were later displayed in two separate academic conferences and I was able to discuss my ideas on German integration policy with a greater audience. It inspired me to continue working on topics of migration and social integration and it sparked my interest in creative writing.

How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?

I have a strong theoretical foundation and the ability to tailor my ideas so different audiences can understand them. Bard College Berlin provided me with a strong theoretical framework with which to analyze current issues. When faced with a question, I am able to relate it to greater themes and have these influence how I come up with an answer. This skill has helped me critically evaluate professional and personal decisions and I trust it will continue to aid me in the future. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, my degree also taught me how to translate thoughts across disciplines and audiences. During my degree I learned different methodologies and academic languages specific to the various subjects I studied. Therefore, I have practice considering how best to communicate something to a specific group. This comes in incredibly handy when structuring presentations or writing project proposals.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

I am currently working at Via in Berlin. Via powers public mobility to enable more accessible transportation across the globe - the Berlin team is also the operations behind the BerlKönig and currently Berlin Sonderfahrdienst and BVG Muva. As part of the Expansion team I get to bring new transportation service to life from A to Z., from a technical, as well as operational perspective. Before that I worked as the Manager for Central Europe for ConceptZero, a green start-up focussed on developing eco-friendly and reusable alternatives to single-use products, such as reusable straws and compostable to-go containers, while completing a second BA degree at the Humboldt University. In the summer following my graduation I participated in a summer school at CEPAL (United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), where I studied the economic and social networks of recent migrants in Santiago de Chile.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

The degree and college are unconventional. Bard College Berlin, through its connection to the city, goes beyond what most liberal arts colleges in the US offer, but it also is not quite like a German university because of the intimate academic supervision the school grants. If you are an independent person and are looking for something quite different, you will see that pretty amazing things can happen in this space in between.

Ben Koerner

Sopo Kashakashvili

Georgia
BA in Humanities, the Arts and Social Thought '18
Currently: Artist and arts educator, working with commune6x3 and a sculpture park and reforestation project in Ghana

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

Living in dorms, sharing a kitchen, and embracing campus life taught me the essence of community - how it's built and what it can become. These experiences still influence my practice today. Collaborating with peers was transformative; co-founding a 'Cultural Journalism' YouTube channel at BCB connected me to the city and various projects, while teaching me technical skills like using cameras, recording audio, and working on sets. Having my first studio at the Factory allowed me to create projects, interventions, and exhibitions. Above all, the most memorable moments were the collaborations with students and professors, both on and off campus.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?

A wheel of fortune where you can get many tries.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

All the courses with professor Geoff Lehman and artist Dafna Maimon. Geoff taught me how to perceive and soak in various mediums of art, simply by spending time with them for hours. Nowhere else did I experience these kind of seminars. Dafna Maimon enhanced my knowledge on contemporary art and was the one who, at the end of my final year, encouraged me to apply to art schools. Both of them were my thesis advisors; I still think it was a perfect match.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

I believe BCB played a key role in my development as an artist. I am really happy I made a decision to pursue art school after completing my B.A. and got accepted to Städelschule with my portfolio. BCB gave me a very strong theoretical as well as practical knowledge over the years.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

Currently, I am mostly based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and Ghana. I work as an artist and educator teaching children and young adults courses on alternative education in arts and design. I work collectively with commune6x3 and simultaneously, am working on a sculpture park and reforestation project in Ghana with my long term collaborator artist, Larry Bonćhaka.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?

BCB (formerly ECLA of Bard) has been a great place for me to learn how to research, write, learn how to present, and look at art in all possible angles. As an artist now, I would not go back and change anything. The key is to stay focused, especially if you find an area you feel comfortable, passionate, and confident in- keep working.

Anastassia Kostrioukova

Russia/Canada
PhD in Comparative Literature / Russian and Slavic Studies
New York University

Anastassia Kostrioukova pursued literary studies at the University of Toronto, receiving her MA from the Department of Slavic Literatures and Languages. She received her PhD from the departments of Comparative Literature and Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University. Her research focuses on the interrelationship between science, politics, and literature in the nineteenth century. Research interests include cultural history of science, theories of power, the concept of the social imaginary, theories of realism and the novel, short fictional genres, periodical and serialization studies, and Russian literature in comparative perspective.

Photo Credit: Karim Ben Khelifa

Contact:
Dr. Anastassia Kostrioukova
Comparative Literature, Russian and Slavic Studies
[email protected]

Dina Toubasi

Palestine
BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '18
Currently: Executive Economist at Deloitte

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
I learned to think outside the box, and view the world with a critical perspective. Bard taught me to look at things through a multidimensional lens, and consider intersections of different fields and areas of life. As an Economics student, I learned to consider issues of social justice and ethics, and confidently express my opinions. Bard encouraged me to speak out whenever I witnessed injustice, and to embrace uniqueness and difference when I encountered them. My experience at Bard armed me with knowledge, and nurtured my curiosity. It taught me to seek answers, and never settle for surface-level narratives. I am forever grateful.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Enlightening!

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
“Pablo Picasso” with Dr. Geoff Lehman influenced the way I look at artwork. It taught me to look beyond the obvious, and to contextualize art in history, psychology, and deep personal experiences. It taught me that there are infinite ways in which an art piece may be viewed and interpreted, and that our personal experiences will always inevitably shape the way we see the world.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB encouraged me to take on roles that I believe have a high impact on the issues that matter most to me. I currently live in Dubai, and work as an Executive Economist for Deloitte, specializing in socio-economic impact assessments and primary data.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Always be yourselves, and keep talking! Embrace all that comes your way with love, and view every obstacle as an opportunity to grow!

Vanessa Schefke

Germany
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '18
Currently: Creative director at antoni Berlin

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

I loved taking a variety of what could be considered "niche" courses that I originally thought I wouldn't be interested in, but while taking the course I learned so much and it truly opened my perspective of the world. The teachers were also all incredible.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?

You're surrounded by highly interested individuals that are not afraid to learn about and debate anything.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

I had a creative writing class for one semester with the author Taiye Selasi which was an incredible experience. She completely altered and influenced how I see literature, how I read, and how I write today. If I could I would take that class again today.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

BCB gave me a broad range of interests, and showed me that if you're open to looking into a subject deep enough, no matter how mundane you might think it is, there's always something that you'll take with you. Now that I'm a creative director working in the ad space, this type of thinking has helped me immensely, when looking for new ideas for campaigns and brands.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

I'm a creative director currently at the agency antoni in Berlin.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?

If you love the arts and literature, this is the place for you!

Sergey Lagodinsky

Russia/Germany
PhD in Law
Humboldt University, Berlin

Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky is head of the EU/North America Department of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. He is an attorney and author, also working as a consultant on strategy and leadership. His areas of expertise include transatlantic relations, global security and international law.

Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky is head of the EU/North America Department of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin. He is an attorney and author, also working as a consultant on strategy and leadership. His areas of expertise include transatlantic relations, global security and international law.

Lagodinsky is a regular contributor to major German and international media outlets, like the BBC World Service, Deutschlandradio, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, and the international Russian-speaking TV network RTVi. He is a member of the Assembly of Representatives of the Jewish Community in Berlin. His recent book, Kontexte des Antisemitismus [Contexts of Antisemitism] (Metropol Publishing, 2013), explores the relationship between freedom of speech and protection against anti-Semitism in German and international law.

Contact
Dr. Sergey Lagodinsky
Law and International Relations
Email: [email protected]

Photo: Ruthe Zuntz

Michal Stroka

Czech Republic
Attended: BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought '18
Currently: Director of Korean Operations in Seoul for CzechInvest and CzechTrade, two Czech state agencies for business development

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I am originally from the Czech Republic and I was enrolled in the Economics, Politics, and Social Thought BA program. I double-majored in Economics and Politics and I graduated in May 2018.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

There were two aspects of studying at Bard College Berlin that I enjoyed the most. First, it was the very close and encouraging community that after four years became my family. From the professors, administration, and staff, to student body itself, everyone is very supportive and attentive to any issues that might arise. Second, it was the liberal arts approach to economics and political sciences. The interdisciplinary approach to economics that Bard College Berlin provides is of utmost importance and is often not emphasized enough when studying economics. Economics is in one way or another connected to all other spheres of human life and should be treated in such manner.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

The education you will receive at Bard College Berlin aims to make you very critical and self-reflective about everything you know and study. It gives you the tools to question anything that seems to be a given or a norm and then, according to your own judgement, change it or rethink it.

How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?

To focus on the Economics BA program and future opportunities, Bard College Berlin provided me with the basic and practical economic education upon which I can easily build so that I can then specialize in any direction I want. Furthermore, the liberal arts approach broadened my understanding and awareness of where and how economics fits within our societies. This, I believe, provided me with an advantage on the labour market as well as for my future studies.

Where you now and what are you doing?

I live close to Prague and work as a Project Manager in the Research and Development Department of CzechInvest, a business development agency.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

Do your readings and be proactive. There are many student initiatives which you can join and through which you can raise any suggestions about academics or student life at Bard College Berlin.

Geoff Lehman

USA
PhD in Art History
Columbia University

Geoff Lehman received his BA in humanities from Yale University, where he studied literature, philosophy, and art history in an interdisciplinary context. He received his PhD in art history from Columbia University, with a dissertation on the relationship between perspective and Renaissance landscape painting. Before coming to Bard College Berlin, he taught art history for several years in Columbia University’s core curriculum. His research interests include Italian Renaissance painting, the theory and history of perspective, landscape painting, phenomenological approaches to the interpretation of art, and the relationship between art, philosophy, and literature. He has co-authored a book with former Bard College Berlin colleague Michael Weinman, The Parthenon and Liberal Education (SUNY Press, 2018), a study of the Parthenon in relation to Plato and to ancient Greek music theory and mathematics. Other publications include articles or book chapters on Leonardo da Vinci’s depictions of nature (2019), on the relationship between Bruegel and Shakespeare (2020), and on Titian’s Allegory of Marriage (2022), among others. Recent courses taught at Bard College Berlin include Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric; Landscape, Land Art, and the City; Photography and Modernity; Raphael, Titian, and the Art of Painting; Vision and Perspective; and Las Meninas and the Pictorial Encounter.

Classes Taught at Bard College Berlin

Core Courses

Forms of Love
Renaissance Florence
Greek Civilization: Plato's Republic and Its Interlocutors
Objectivity. Saper vedere: Knowing How to See

Foundational and Advanced Modules

Art and Interpretation
Raphael, Titian, and the Art of Painting
Vision and Perspective
Pablo Picasso
Landscape, Land Art, and the City
Photography and Modernity
Representation
Perspective in the Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci
Methods and Interpretation: The Visual Arts
Mimesis
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Through the Looking-Glass: Art and the Oneiric
Las Meninas and the Pictorial Encounter

General Teaching Interests

Italian and Northern Renaissance art; art and viewer response; art theory and criticism; painting; photography

Contact
Dr. Geoff Lehman
Art History
Phone: +49 30 43733 205
Email: g.lehman[at]berlin.bard.edu

Thomas Eife

Germany/USA
PhD in Economics
University of Munich

Thomas Eife is Professor of Economics at Bard College Berlin. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Munich (2006) and a Master Degree in Economics from Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. At Bard College Berlin, he teaches in the Economics Section.

Thomas Eife’s research in monetary economics is on optimal inflation targets and on the measurement of inflation expectations. Specifically, his work on inflation expectations aims to improve the methods employed by central banks in eliciting these expectations from households and firms. Thomas Eife’s research in international economics is on productivity networks, their measurement and application in general equilibrium models. Prior to his appointment at Bard College Berlin, Thomas Eife held lecturer positions at the Mannheim Institute of Public Health and the Alfred-Weber-Institute of the University of Heidelberg.

google scholar

Contact
Prof. Dr. Thomas Eife
Economics
E-mail: t.eife[at]berlin.bard.edu

Nathan French

USA
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '18
Currently: French and Francophone Studies (Euromaster für Französische und Frankophone
Studien), Humboldt University Berlin

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I am from New Hampshire, in the United States. When I first arrived at Bard College Berlin I actually came as a “Begin in Berlin” student who would move to studying at Bard College in New York after my year abroad. However, after my year at BCB I made the decision to stay in Berlin for my degree. I was enrolled in the Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought BA program and my concentration was Ethics & Politics. I graduated in May 2018.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

There were many parts of my BCB experience that were indispensable to me, but to just choose two I would have to say that the international environment and the senior project were particularly important and formative for me.

You meet people from all over the world that bring lots of different value systems and moral frameworks to the table with them, which is particularly interesting to someone who studies politics, because you have people with different perspectives that you don’t necessarily consider when you’re coming from a different country. I think that in a classroom with students that are all American it can become very homogenous because they are all coming from a similar background. This is not the case at Bard College Berlin.

Secondly, writing the senior project was a very intensive and important experience for me during my time at BCB. I worked with Professor Catherine Toal on a thesis called “Describing the Working Class: From Fiction to Social Theory” and I was able to spend the year reading and deeply engaging with the writers Didier Eribon, Édouard Louis, and Annie Ernaux, as well as with the theorist Pierre Bourdieu. All of these thinkers and writers have had a large impact in how I see the world and access politics and social problems. The process of actually doing the research, reading, and writing for this project was at times strenuous, but it is the educational experience that I value most from my time at BCB. It was also my work on this project that made me confident in my choice to study French literature as a Master’s student.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

It would be easy here to talk about the core curriculum that structures our education here, but instead I think I’ll talk about one of the electives that has influenced my thinking to a large degree. During the second semester of my second year, I had the opportunity to take a course called Recognition taught by Katalin Makkai. In it, we were led through selections that constituted an overview of intellectual thought on recognition theory, and how we as human beings fundamentally understand, relate to, and recognize each other and ourselves. For the first half of the course we read the classics, working our way through Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and the French existentialists; Sartre, Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon. Then, after our spring break, we took what we learned and applied it to more contemporary thinkers on recognition politics; these included people like Nancy Fraser, K. Anthony Appiah, Charles Taylor, among others. This course had a strong influence on me because of the way it insisted on relating philosophical questions to the ‘real’ and messy world of politics, and more precisely, that space of what is often pejoratively called identity politics. Not only have I continued to engage on a deeper level with some of the thinkers we explored in this class, but I’ve also continued to think constantly about how philosophical ideas can be applied to lived social experiences, rather than being limited to academic seminars.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

Bard College Berlin helped me gain the confidence to think and speak for myself. I ask myself what I value and what I don’t value, instead of being a victim of popular opinion.

How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?

I’m fairly certain that I would like to continue studying and then to work in the field of education, whether that means teaching at high school level, or studying longer and teaching at the university level. I feel that the kind of broad liberal arts education that I received at Bard College Berlin has given me an overview of the many different fields in the humanities and social sciences, as well as provided me with the theoretical and linguistic knowledge I need to continue my education.

When I decided to stay at BCB after my first year, one of my major goals was to reach high proficiency in German and French, along with my other studies. Thanks to the wonderful language professors at BCB as well as having the opportunity to do an Erasmus exchange year at Sciences Po Paris, I was able to achieve that goal. So not only did I read many amazing texts and meet many different people from around the world, but I also left the university with two languages that I will hopefully practice and maintain for the rest of my life.

Where you now and what are you doing?

This fall I will begin a European Masters of French and Francophone Studies (Euromaster für Französische und Frankophone Studien) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Much of the program is taught in German as well as French, so for me, as a native English speaker, it is a way to continue my study of both of these languages and cultures.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

Make sure to come and visit the campus, but also keep in mind that after the first year or so, the greater Berlin community will be where you spend most of your time. So, make sure to try and get in touch with not only newer students about campus life and adjusting to BCB, but also with older students and how they like living in Berlin. There are some students on this page that are more than willing to respond to emails with any questions you may have.

Agata Lisiak

Poland
PhD in Media and Communication Studies
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

Agata Lisiak is Migration Studies professor and Academic Director of the Internship Program at Bard College Berlin as well as Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand. Agata earned an M.A. in International Relations (University of Economics Poznan, 2002), an M.Phil. in Literary Studies (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2005), and a Dr. Phil. in Media and Communication Studies (University of Halle-Wittenberg, 2009). She has held visiting fellowships at National Sun Yat-sen University, The Open University, and the University of Birmingham. She was a postdoctoral researcher at Humboldt University’s Institute of Social Sciences (2013-2017) and a Marie Curie Actions/EURIAS fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna (2013-2014). She has also worked in the cultural sector as a project coordinator and curator.

Agata works at the intersections of migration studies, urban sociology, and cultural studies. She is particularly interested in everyday urban encounters and imaginaries, feminist theory and practice, and developing creative, multi-sensory, and collaborative methods in urban and migration research. She has written about urban girlhood, migrant motherhood, walking in the city, urban sounds, cultural memory in post-socialist cities, and Rosa Luxemburg's political ecology, among many other topics. Most recently, she was the convener and lead of the OSUN-funded Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice project and served on the Steering Committee of the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network.

Agata is the writer, host, and producer of Spatial Delight, a podcast about space, politics, and power inspired by geographer Doreen Massey.

Selected academic publications

"You’ll never walk alone: Theorizing engaged walking with Doreen Massey." The Sociological Review. 2025.
"Notes on plant companionship: from Rosa Luxemburg’s herbarium to Jumana Manna’s Foragers." Journal of Visual Culture. 2024.
"Politics of maintenance and care: Rosa Luxemburg’s commonplace urban theorizing." City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action. 2022.
"Urban multiculture and xenophonophobia in London and Berlin." European Journal of Cultural Studies. 2019. (with Les Back and Emma Jackson)
“Poza girl power: dziewczyński opór, kontrpubliczności i prawo do miasta” [Beyond girl power: girl resistance, counterpublics, and the right to the city] Praktyka Teoretyczna 2.32 (2019): 47-63.
“Making something out of nothing: On failure and hope in community activism and research.” Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture Convivial Tools for Research and Practice. Ed. Mette Louise Berg and Magdalena Nowicka. London: UCL Press, 2019. 141-158. (with Alicja Kaczmarek)
“’A City Coming Into Being’: Walking in Berlin with Franz Hessel and Marshall Berman.” CITY: Critical analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action. 2019. (with Reece Cox, Flavia M. Tienes, and Sophia Zbinovsky Braddel; in collaboration with Ford Chandler, Reza Daftarian, Matei Gaginsky, Norë Krasniqi, Anna Liubimova, Zara London-Southern, Mariam Mchedlidze, Lana Praprotnik, Donovan Stewart, Tong Su, Lisa Vogel, and Xinyue Zhang)
“With a Little Help From My Colleagues: Notes on Emotional Support in a Qualitative Longitudinal Research Project.” Emotion and the Researcher: Sites, Subjectivities and Relationships. Ed. Dawn Mannay and Tracey Loughran. Emerald Books, 2018: 33-47. (with Łukasz Krzyżowski)
“Like Diamonds in the Sky: Imaginaries of Urban Girlhood.” The Routledge Companion to Urban Imaginaries. Eds. Miriam Meissner and Christoph Lindner. London: Routledge, 2018. 248-261.
“A sense of disorder: Urban orientations and migration.” Cities of the South/Cities of the North. Eds. Kerry Bystrom, Ashleigh Harris, and Andrew Webber. London: Routledge, 2018. 199-215.
"Mothering and othering in the city: Polish migrants in the UK." Families, Relationships and Societies. 2018.
“Other mothers: Encountering in/visible femininities in migration and urban contexts.” Feminist Review 117. 2018.
"Tacit Differences, Ethnicity and Neoliberalism." Gender, Place and Culture. 2017. (with Magdalena Nowicka)
"Making sense of absence. Tsai Ming-liang's cinematic portrayal of cities." CITY: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action 19.6 (2015): 837-856.
"Fieldwork and Fashion: Gendered and Classed Performances in Research Sites." Forum: Qualitative Social Research 16 (2), 2015.
"The Ballerina and the Blue Bra: Femininity in Recent Revolutionary Iconography." View: Theories and Practices of Visual Culture 5 (2014). Translation into Portuguese (by Manu Escrita): A Bailarina e o Sutiã Azul: Feminilidade na Iconografia Revolucionária Recente.
"Hip-Hop Representations of Urban Stillness: The Case of Poznan, Poland." CITY: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action 18.3 (2014).
Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2010.

Selected academic blog entries

Who Cares? Urban Youth and the Right to the City (with Elena Vacchelli). Discover Society. 2020.
Migrant Mothers in Austere Times. Discover Society 2017.
Fearing the Foreign on Europe's Streets. Public Seminar 2016.
Creative methods in migration research. Methods in Motion, Open University, 2016.
Affordable mothering and respectability. Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics, 2016.
Immigrant Mothers as Agents of Change. Public Seminar 2014.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Agata Lisiak
Migration Studies
Email: a.lisiak[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ian Lawson

New Zealand
PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science
University of Sydney

Ian Lawson has a PhD in the history of science from the University of Sydney, and an MA in philosophy from Otago University in New Zealand. His research focuses on early modern natural philosophy, especially ideas of vision, optics, and the use of optical instruments. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and is currently a fellow of the Bild Wissen Gestaltung Excellence Cluster at Humboldt University. He is working on a book about the way Robert Hooke's use of the microscope changed ideas about knowledge and the place of natural philosophy in English society.

Contact
Dr. Ian Lawson
History of Science
Email: i.lawson[at]berlin.bard.edu

Hana Khalaf

Egypt
BA '18
Currently: MA in North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I’m from Cairo, Egypt and was enrolled in the Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought BA program at BCB with the Literature & Rhetoric concentration.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

The first thing that comes to mind would be the size of the seminars as well as the thought-stimulating and safe environment they provided. Furthermore, the individual and friendly interaction with the faculty members made the whole experience very enriching and enjoyable, and instilled a sense of a tight-knit community that provides care, but also constantly challenges one’s views. I must add that my work on my thesis project with James Harker and Agata Lisiak was certainly one of the highlights and transformative moments of my time at BCB. Seeing how the project - titled: Destabilizing Eurocentric Feminism: Alternative Arab Feminism within an Intersectional, anti-Orientalist Framework - was being molded and slowly took shape was a reflection of my development as an unapologetic critical thinker and interdisciplinary academic.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

Studying at Bard College Berlin provided me with the tools to constantly self-reflect and be critical of everything including my own views, be open to a new Weltanschauung and continuously transform and develop.

How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?

As cliché as it may sound to answer this question, I choose to include a quote from the 1989 film Dead Poets Society: “Medicine, law, business, and engineering: these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”

The interdisciplinary nature of the education provided at BCB in the multi-faceted fields of the humanities enables one to gain awareness of the self with its many subjectivities and relationalities.

Furthermore, comprehending how the humanities and social sciences shape our very lives and society (e.g. a linguistic discourse can determine politics as reflected in current migration debates) gives any desired career choice or future outlook an individualized and inherent foundation. My time here - although I wish it had been longer - also helped me discover the fields I would like to specialize in, namely gender, queer and postcolonial theories within both the academic as well as the activist realm.

Where are you now and what are are you doing?

I am currently in Berlin and will continue my studies with an MA in North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the countless symposiums, workshops, conferences, art exhibitions and cultural outlets Berlin has to offer.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

You can see whether it is the place for you or not by getting a glimpse into the inner workings of the institution and community. If you can travel to Berlin, it’s the best way to physically get a sense of the campus, join the seminars/lectures (after doing the readings, of course), and most importantly talk to current students about their experiences. If you can’t, then check the course lists, go through the syllabi, do a reading or two, get in touch with the students featured on the website - they are always more than happy to help.

Alexander Papachristou

Alexander Papachristou (JD) is Executive Director of the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice, an international public interest law program of the New York City Bar Association, providing pro bono legal support to human rights, environmental, and investigative journalism organizations worldwide. He also serves on the Expert Group of the European Commission against SLAPP and the board of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Previously, Mr. Papachristou engaged in cross-border corporate finance in advisory and proprietary roles. He lived in Russia from 1989 to 1993, where he opened and ran the Moscow office of the international law firm White & Case and wrote a column for the Moscow Times. Mr. Papachristou is the former president of the Near East Foundation, which empowers vulnerable communities in the Middle East and Africa to overcome conflict, migration, and climate change and served on the advisory councils of Bard College’s Center for Civic Engagement and Princeton University's Program in Near Eastern Studies. He edited Blind Goddess: A Race and Justice Reader, which the New Press published in 2011. He received JD and LLM degrees from Harvard Law School and an AB degree from Princeton University and attended the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo, Egypt.

Sophie Lee

UK/Netherlands
BA in Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art

Sophie Lee is an artist and filmmaker. Her expanded moving image works reject linear narratives, instead combining emotional and fictive registers towards an affective storytelling. After studying at Slade School of Fine Art, London (BA, 2012) she completed a two year residency at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2016 - 2018). In 2018 she was a participant at Skowhegan residency, in Maine.

Recent exhibitions include Kunstfort Museum (Solo) (Kunstfort, NL); Royal Palace Amsterdam (Amsterdam, NL); Artists Unlimited (Solo) (Bielefeld, DE); Amsterdam Art Weekend (Amsterdam, NL); The Whitstable Biennale (Whitstable, UK); PS120 (Berlin, DE); Rogers Office (Los Angeles, USA); Yaby (Duo) (Madrid, ES); Zona Mista (Duo) (London, UK); November Film Festival (London, UK).

Contact:
Sophie Lee
Film Studies
s.lee[@]berlin.bard.edu

Philip Euteneuer

Germany
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '17
Currently: Working in research and education on economic and organizational democracy at Humanistic Management Practices

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at BCB?

Berlin, originally "Value Studies" at ECLA* then Humanities, Arts and Social Thought

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at BCB?

I enjoyed the conversations with other students, the small cohorts, and shared courses. Some professors/teachers had a big impact, Michael Weinman and Florian Duijsens come to mind.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?

It was an ambiguous time. We were presented with lots of interesting thoughts and texts but I wasn't yet ready to take them all up, remember them and integrate them into other life-areas. Only later did I realize that it shaped my way of thinking without me noticing or being able to remember many of the specific details form lectures or texts. Living off-campus felt like missing out, if I could go back I'd try to spend more time on campus with the people there.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
From Buzzfeed Listicle to Lyrical Essay. This was great: A smart teacher, a handfull of student who enjoyed texts and had sharp minds, and together we went through a bunch of fun and surprising texts. We studied different text formats, especially online writing, and wrote ourselves about pop-culture and everyday things but always bringing in all we learned in other classes.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

It made me curious and open to many different and even opposing ideas and viewpoints.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

I'm still in Berlin, working in research and education on economic and organizational democracy at "Humanistic Management Practices", trying to make the world a fairer more sustainable place.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?

While deciding for a college there are many factors to consider. One of those is surely the geographical location of the colleges you consider: City or countryside, abroad or domestic - such questions will and should influence your decision, but they should not have a higher priority than the questions concerning the colleges themselves. Bard College Berlin will benefit from students who are not merely interested in Berlin, but are passionate about the ethos of the place, its classes and its community. If you're unsure it is the college for you, really look at the syllabi of the past years. Also speak with some students if you can - that's the most reliable way to get a feeling for the kind of people you'll encounter there and the sort of questions that drive the community. The students will also be able to tell you what it's really like to live in Berlin, it may be different from what you imagine.

Read an interview with Philip on BCB's student blog>>

*ECLA was the historical name of the College until November 2013

Betsy Leimbigler

Canada
PhD in Political Science
Freie Universität Berlin

Betsy Leimbigler received her Ph.D. in political science at Freie Universität Berlin, and her Master’s and Undergraduate degrees from the University of Ottawa, Canada. She is a Research Associate at Freie Universitat Berlin, where she works on projects concerning the politics of health. She teaches courses at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Freie Universität Berlin as well as Bard College Berlin on power, globalization and health policy, and policy analysis. Her dissertation engaged with presidential power, institutional theories and discourse/framing. She has previously worked with the Canadian Commission for UNESCO and in various roles on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada.

Contact:
Dr. Betsy Leimbigler
Political Science
Email: b.leimbigler[at] berlin.bard.edu

Charity Ellis

USA
Master of Fine Arts
Massachusetts College of Art & Design

Charity B Ellis is an artist and researcher working four-dimensionally with video, sound, objects, space and gesture to probe what bodies do in space for a period of time. The hierarchy of time; the vibrant and interconnected spaces of the natural world; the dis/embodied relationships of body and machine; and change as a vital life force synthesize through her investigations as multi-channel intermedia environments, open-score performances, video essays and embodied sculptures.

With a professional background in commercial and independent film—ranging from pre-production to directing & cinematography to editing and film festival director, Charity Ellis also has extensive practical experience in sound and performance. Under her artist name, Charity Be, she has worked and exhibited internationally, including in the USA, Scotland, Mali, Senegal, South Africa, South Korea, and Germany. She has participated in international arts residencies and was one of two winners of the 2024 Bryan Robertson Artist Trust Award. Charity holds a BFA in Intermedia Art from Mills College, Oakland, California (2017) and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, Massachusetts (2022). Hailing originally from Chicago, Illinois, Charity Ellis spent many years in San-Francisco/Oakland, California and is, since 2021, based full-time in Berlin, Germany.

Contact:
Charity Ellis
Arts
c.ellis[at]berlin.bard.edu
www.charitybe.media

Talia Kracauer

USA
BA in Humanities the Arts and Social Thought '17
Currently: Has her own theater company in London

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at BCB?
I'm originally from Colorado, USA, and completed the HAST degree with an Arts and Aesthetics concentration.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at BCB?
Most of all, I enjoyed the close-knit relationships. I made lifelong friendships at BCB, and still keep in-touch with some professors. I think that the small class size offered me the opportunity to grow and learn in a way I never would have been able to elsewhere. Living in Pankow and studying in a completely international environment was a wonderful experience as well. Niederschönhausen is probably the weirdest place on earth, and its uniqueness definitely contributed to the bonds that were formed. If you know, you know.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Studying at BCB is what you make of it. That may seem a bit vague....but you really do get out what you put in at BCB. You have the opportunity to get one of the most personalized educational experiences I can imagine. You have the world at your fingertips, and Berlin can be an incredible place to explore your interests and grow.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
I think I was one of the first die-hard theatre students at BCB. I took every theatre course offered, every semester. There was no official theatre major at BCB, so it sort of felt like I was blazing my own trail in terms of choosing what I wanted to study. The small classes and personalized experience definitely contributed to my ability to discover my own practice, and gave me the confidence to pursue my master's degree in theatre.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I'm currently in London. I finished an MFA in Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in 2020, and have been working in theatre ever since. I have a small theatre company with which I self-produce devised work, and I also do freelance administration work for a couple of theatres around London. Day job-wise, I work box office at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, which I love. It's not glamorous, but it's a great way to meet other creatives and discover new opportunities. I have a show coming up in December at Camden People's Theatre, which is called Not a Girl Not Yet a Woman. I'll be performing in that one.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Have a good sense of humor and an open mind. The class selection will be more limited than that of a large university, but what you're getting in return is a lot of personalized attention and a truly one-of-a-kind environment. Also, be prepared to use shelf toilets.

Katalin Makkai

Hungary/Canada
PhD in Philosophy
Harvard University

Prof. Dr. Katalin Makkai received her PhD in philosophy from Harvard University. She was Assistant Professor in the joint Department of Philosophy of Barnard College and Columbia University before joining Bard College Berlin, where she is Professor of Philosophy. Makkai is the author of Kant’s Critique of Taste: The Feeling of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and editor of Vertigo (Routledge, 2013).

Courses taught at Bard College Berlin:
Core Courses:

Forms of Love
Renaissance Florence
Objectivity

Foundational and Advanced Modules:

Ethics and Authenticity
The Idea of the Aesthetic
Recognition
Phenomenology and Art
Kant's Critical Aesthetics
Freedom
Autonomy and Alienation
Kant's Critical Philosophy
Classical Texts in Ethics and Political Theory
Individual and Society
The 'Gaze'
Being Embodied: Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology
Morality and Psychoanalysis
What is a Photograph? (PY Reading Group)
Richard Moran's Authority and Estrangement (PY Reading Group)

Contact
Prof. Dr. Katalin Makkai
Philosophy
Phone: +49 30 43733 220
Email: k.makkai[at]berlin.bard.edu

Claire Lehmann

Claire Lehmann is a New York–based artist, writer, and curator. A former editor at Cabinet magazine, she recently cocurated "Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has contributed to projects at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Printed Matter LA Art Book Fair, and Andrew Roth Gallery/PPP Editions. Claire is a graduate of Harvard University's Visual and Environmental Studies department, where she also taught painting and drawing from 2005–2007.

Ken Roth

Kenneth Roth (JD) served for nearly three decades as the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organization, which operates in some 100 countries. Before that, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world, meeting with dozens of heads of state and countless ministers. He is quoted widely in the media and has written hundreds of articles on a wide range of human rights issues, devoting special attention to the world’s most dire situations, the conduct of war, the foreign policies of the major powers, the work of the United Nations, and the global contest between autocracy and democracy. Roth is currently writing a book about the strategies used by Human Rights Watch to defend human rights, drawing on his years of experience.

image: hrw

David Levine

USA
MA in English Literature
Harvard University

David Levine is an artist based in New York, and Berlin, whose work encompasses theater, performance, video and photography. His performance and exhibition work have been presented by Creative Time, MoMA, Documenta XII, Mass MoCA, PS122, the Luminato Festival, the Watermill Center, The Luma Foundation, Tanya Leighton Gallery, Blum and Poe, and Untitled Gallery, among others. His work has been featured in Artforum, Frieze, and the New York Times, and his writing has appeared in Parkett, Mousse, Cabinet and Triple Canopy.

He received a 2013 Village Voice OBIE award for his installation Habit, and was a 2013-14 Fellow in Visual Arts at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. In 2015, he lectured on the work of Bruce Nauman for the DIA Art Foundation's Artists on Artists series, and will exhibit new video and performance work in a solo exhibition at Toronto's TPW Gallery, as well the group exhibition Hotel Theory at REDCAT in Los Angeles. He holds an MA in English Literature from Harvard University.

As Bard College Berlin aims to open dialogue between different academic disciplines, so does the Studio Component aim to open a theoretical and practical dialogue between visual, performing, and performance art, as well as between studio practice and critical thought.

Although the Studio Component does offer discrete courses in visual arts and theater, its aim is to create an environment where, through shared studio spaces and equipment, as well as guest talks, critiques, and academic seminars, various artistic disciplines can engage with and influence on one another.

Publications:

"You Had to Be There (Sorta)" in Parkett, vol. 95, 2015
"A Genuine Subversion" in Mousse, No.41 Dec. 2013
"Interview with Marina Abramovic" Mono-Kultur, #35, Nov. 2013
"Interview with Alexandre Singh" BOMB Online, 12 November 2013
"International Art English" Triple Canopy #16, 2012
"Matter of Rothko" Triple Canopy, #13, 2011
"Parking Plots" Cabinet Magazine, #41, 2011
"Unsolicited Submission," Cultural Politics 6:1, 2010
"I Like Your Work: Art & Etiquette", Paper Monument (pamphlet #1), 2009
"Hopefuls" [artist's project], Cabinet Magazine #31, 2008
"Sin City: The Art of Howard Chaykin", Nextbook, 2008
"Bauerntheater Production Diary" Theater, 28:2, 2008
"Bauerntheater" [catalogue], Biorama Projekt/Kulturstiftung des Bundes, 2007
"Interview with Michael Thalheimer", BOMB.com 2007
"Actors at Work," [artist's project], Cabinet Magazine, #25, 2007
"Bad Art & Objecthood," Art/US #13, May-June2006
"Re-Public," Theater, 2005
"Babylon is Everywhere," Theater, 2004

Articles and reviews (selected):

Anna Altman, "A Real-Life GIF in Central Park", The New Yorker (online), May 15, 2015
Steven Squibb, "Faux Pas: David Levine's WOW", Artforum, May, 2014
Mike Thomsen, "Together We are None" (interview with David Levine), The New Inquiry, January 30, 2014
Andrew Russeth, "Do Opera Singers Lip-Sync?", Gallerist NY/New York Observer, January 28, 2014
Dan Fox, "Act Natural", Frieze, May/June 2013
Ryan Anthony Hatch, "Performance Geometries, a Primer", PAJ 35.2, March 2013
Daniel Schreiber, "Wie sind wir zu solchen Versagern geworden?" in Theater Heute, October 2012
Michael H Miller, "Daily Housework: In 'Habit,' David Levine Makes Acting a Chore", New York Observer, October 2, 2012
Anna Altman, "Choose Your Own Adventure" [review], The New Yorker online, September 28, 2012
Ben Brantley, "You Have a Role in this Play: Peeping Tom," [review] New York Times, September 24, 2012
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, "The Next Big Former Thing," Modern Painters, March, 2012
Amy Holzapfel, "The Habit of Realism," Theater 42:1, Winter, 2011
Michael H. Miller, "The Straight Story of the Matter of Rothko," August 12, 2011
Murray Whyte, "David Levine's Habit", Toronto Star, June 15, 2011
Paul David Young, "Evolutions of the Performance Aesthetic", PAJ 98, Spring, 2011
Caitlin Berrigan, "Specters: David Levine", EMPAC Uncertain Spectators Blog, January, 2011
Nikki Columbus, "Double Play," Artforum.com, June 1, 2010
Michael Rush, "Interview with David Levine," Art International Radio, May 7, 2010
Ana Texeira Pinto, "Susan Boyle, C'est Moi" [review], Von Hundert 010, 2009
Naoko Kaltschmidt, "Hopeful" [review], Spike, Autumn 2009
Dominikus Mueller, "Hopeful" [review], Artforum, October 2009
Kari Rittenbach, "Keeping the Hope Alive", Art in America.com, July 8, 2009
Alexis Soloski, "Mr. High Concept", The Village Voice, March 17-24,2009
"Christian Hawkey in conversation with David Levine," The Believer, Winter, 2009
Astrid Mania, "Berlin Dispatches," Art Review #25, September, 2008.
Marvin Carlson, "David Levine's Bauerntheater: The Return of the Matrix" TDR, Fall, 2008, 52:3
Walter Robbins, "Art Opening as Theater in Berlin", Artnet, June 24, 2008
Wolfgang Behrens, "Wer Erntet die Dickste Kartoffeln?" Theater der Zeit, June 2007
Anja Quickert, "Das Kartoffel-Konzept" TheaterHeute, June, 2007
Daniel Volzke, "Ertragreich," Tagesspiegel , May 21, 2007
Sally McGrane, "An Actor Out Standing in his Field" The New York Times, May 20, 2007

In the Media:

A Real-Life GIF in Central Park
Anna Altman (The New Yorker)
May 15, 2015

Act Natural - Interview with David Levine
Dan Fox (Frieze)
May/June 2013

You Have a Role in This Play: Peeping Tom
The New York Times
September 23, 2012

David Levine: Hopeful (PDF)
Dominikus Müller (ArtForum)
October 2009

Keeping the Hope
Kari Rittenbach (Art in America)
July 8, 2009

Spring Guide: David Levine Messes with Imperfection in Venice Saved: A Seminar
Alexis Soloski (The Village Voice)
March 17, 2009

An Actor Outstanding in His Field
Sally McGrane (The New York Times)
May 20, 2007

David Levine: Hopeful (PDF - German)
Naoko Kaltschmidt (Spike Art Quarterly)
Autumn 2009

Personal website:
www.david-levine.net

Avi Feldman

Canada
PhD in Practice in Curating
University of Reading

Dr. Avi Feldman (born in Montréal) holds a law degree and is a member of Israel Bar Association. He also holds a PhD in Practice in Curating from the Department of Art at the University of Reading. In the context of his thesis research, Feldman organized 'Playing Hide and Law' at tranzit, Bratislava (2017), and the exhibition, workshops, and performance series 'Motions for the Agenda' at Artport Tel Aviv (2015-2017). Between 2018 and 2021, he has been organizing exhibitions and events under the 'Agency for Legal Imagination' (Ludlow 38/Goethe Institut NYC; teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden (HfBK); and researching questions of law and art in China. Since 2020, Feldman lives in Berlin-Wannsee where he founded in 2021 the gallery Wannsee Contemporary, dedicated to exploring past, present and future conditions of Berlin-Wannsee.

Photo credit: Goethe-Institut New York/Gareth Smit

Contact:
Dr. Avi Feldman
a.feldman[at]berlin.bard.edu

David Kretz

Austria
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '16
Currently: PhD student in Germanic Studies and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I am from Vienna, Austria and enrolled in the Value Studies B.A. in 2012, which is now the B.A. in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

It's been a transformative experience on many levels. Before I came to Berlin I studied Philosophy and Business in Vienna. Studying at BCB taught me to see the world through even more different disciplines, to feel at home in them, but – more importantly – it challenged me to look at it without any disciplinary glasses, to experience it always anew as fresh, strange, and wondrous. I was quite active in university politics and that, too, has helped me to grow as a person and taught me some good lessons. Many of my colleagues, and also quite a few of my teachers, have become close friends.

How has the college influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

After BCB, I first enrolled in an MA in Contemporary Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. Since 2018, I am a PhD student in Germanic Studies and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. There I continue to work on a project that really started for me with my BCB senior thesis: on the figure of the poet and the figure of the translator as two paradigms for political action in moments of crisis.

Stephan Müller

Germany
PhD in Economics
University of Kassel

Stephan Müller holds a PhD in Economics (2015) from the University of Kassel. He studied economics, mathematics, and philosophy of science. He attained an MA in Economics (2002) after studying at the University of Mannheim and the University of California, Berkeley, and received an MA in Mathematics from the University of Göttingen (2009). Before joining Bard College Berlin, he was a post doctoral fellow at the Chair of Microeconomics at the University of Göttingen.

His research interests are in the fields of behavioral economics, evolutionary economics, and organizational economics. Stephan Müller is an economist who applies theoretical and empirical methods to understand the social, economic, and institutional determinants of agent’s behavior, such as consumers, employees, and managers, both on the individual and the societal level, and explores managerial and policy implications thereof. He analyzes the dynamics and interaction of behavioral and institutional determinants of individual decision-making, such as monetary incentives, behavioral and cognitive biases, and social norms. His research has been published in a number of journals including: Management Science, Theoretical Economics, Journal of Public Economics, European Economic Review, and Games and Economic Behavior.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Stephan Müller
Economics
Email: s.mueller[at]berlin.bard.edu

Elaine Leong

Germany
PhD in Art History (Freie Universität Berlin)
Technische Universität Berlin

Elaine Leong is currently the Minerva Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. She gained her doctorate in Modern History from the University of Oxford in 2006. She was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick. In 2006 and 2007, she held short-term fellowships at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Huntington Library.

Elaine Leong's research is centered upon medical and scientific knowledge transfer and production. Her interdisciplinary projects use theories and methods in the history of the book and the history of reading to elucidate practical knowledge and quotidian activities within the domestic sphere.

She is currently working on two book-length projects. The first, Treasuries for Health: Making Recipe Knowledge in the Early Modern Household, is the first major study of informal "science" and medicine in early modern English Households. The second, Reading Rivière in Early Modern England, uses the story of Lazare Rivière's bestselling Praxis medica/The Practice of Physick to explore the production, transfer and codification of vernacular medical knowledge in early modern Europe. With Alisha Rankin (Tufts University), Leong edited Secrets and Knowledge: Medicine, Science and Commerce 1500-1800 (Ashgate Publishing, 2011).

Her article "Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household," (82, 2008) was awarded the 2009 J. Worth Estes Prize by the American Association for the History of Medicine and the 2010 Jerry Stannard Award.

Contact
Dr. Elaine Leong
History
Email: [email protected]

Noa Levin

Israel, France
PhD in Philosophy
Kingston University

Currently an associated researcher at Centre Marc Bloch Berlin, Noa Levin recently completed her PhD in philosophy at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, London. Levin’s doctoral thesis, ‘Expression and Perspectivism in Benjamin and Deleuze after Leibniz', interrogated the baroque origins of Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze’s conceptions of modernity and philosophies of film. She contributed a book chapter to the volume Material und Begriff. Arbeitsverfahren und theoretische Beziehungen Walter Benjamins, Hamburg: Argument Verlag (2019).

Her wider research interests include the philosophy and histories of technology and science, critical theory, aesthetics and political theory, explored through links between Early Modern and Twentieth Century French and German European Philosophy.

Contact
Dr. Noa Levin
Philosophy
Email: n.levin[at]berlin.bard.edu

Maria Khan

Pakistan
Academy Year '10 and BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '15
Currently: Assistant Professor - Department of Literature, Bard High School Early College

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at ECLA*/Bard College Berlin?

I completed a BSc in Economics at the Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore before joining ECLA* in the fall of 2010 for the Academy Year program. What drew me here was the idea of a small residential college which would give me the opportunity to have close interaction with my professors and my peers. I also wanted to pursue my studies in Europe, since the history and culture of this continent had always fascinated me. After finishing the program, I left Berlin hoping to pursue my Master's at the London School of Economics, but life had something else destined for me. I was unable to find any funding for my education at LSE and I had to return to Pakistan. Gradually I felt a need for a kind of education that is for the soul, so I decided to continue my undergraduate studies at ECLA of Bard. I came back in the fall of 2012 and enrolled in the second year of the BA program.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

It is difficult to summarize my experience, but two things influenced me strongly. First, I went to almost all of the museum trips and excursions which the school organised in Berlin. These travelling experiences shaped my perspective, formed long lasting memories and gave me an in-depth view of the history and culture of Berlin. Second, I simply relished writing papers. As demanding as it might have been, writing essays helped me understand myself better and develop a way for expressing my thoughts. I was fortunate to have received excellent supervision from the faculty as well. The high point was writing my BA thesis, Enlightenment on the Indian Subcontinent: Religious Reforms in Lessing's «Nathan» and Iqbal's «Javid Nama», which looked at religious reforms during the period of Enlightenment and their manifestations in postcolonial literature.

How has the college influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

After I graduated, I took a small break to do some organic farming, and then I pursued my plan to study arts education. I am interested in understanding what the medium of drama can teach us about values and ethics. I completed an MPhil in Arts Education followed by a PhD in eighteenth-century German literature and performance studies at the University of Cambridge (2015-2016). As part of my PhD I explored the reception of Goethe's Faust among Turkish-German secondary school students. Currently I am Assistant Professor in the Department of Literature at Bard High School Early College in New York City.
Maria's personal website: http://www.mariakhan.work/

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013

Ana María Gómez López

Colombia/USA
MFA
Yale University

Ana María Gómez López creates durational works based on archival research related to the life sciences. Her projects use botanical specimens, prosthetic implants, lens-based media, and recorded sound to explore the shifting boundaries between humans and their natural environment. Ana María’s works have been exhibited recently at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (USA), the American University Museum (USA), the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (DE), and MU Art Space (NL). In 2015, she was the recipient of the Premio Nacional de Artes (National Award in the Arts) from the Universidad de Antioquia (CO). Her teaching experience includes the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (DE). She completed her MFA at the Yale University School of Art and has carried out artist residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Max Planck Institute for History of Science. She is currently a resident artist at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam.

Photo credit: Marcus Lieberenz

Sven Fischer

Germany
PhD in Economics
Philipps-Universität Marburg

Sven Fischer is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) at Philipps-Universität Marburg. He holds a PhD in Economics (Dr. rer. pol., 2023) from School of Business and Economics at Philipps-Universität Marburg. He also attained a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from Ruhr-Universität Bochum and a Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Politics and Economics from Philipps-Universität Marburg. He has several publications in international peer-reviewed journals, covering topics such as the political economy of natural disasters and institutional economics. His research interests include the fields of development economics, environmental and resource economics, and institutional economics.

Most recent publications in peer-reviewed journals:

Farzanegan, M.R., and Fischer, S., 2024. The impact of a large-scale natural disaster on local economic activity: evidence from the 2003 Bam earthquake in Iran, Empirical Economics. DOI: 10.1007/s00181-024-02676-y.
Fischer, S., 2024. The impact of the Trump presidency on the perception of corruption in the United States, Applied Economics Letters. DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2024.2363294.
Farzanegan, M.R., Fischer, S., and Noack, P., 2024. Natural disaster literacy in Iran: Survey-based evidence from Tehran. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 100, 104204. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.104204.
Farzanegan, M.R., and Fischer, S., 2022. Is It Right to Fight? Evidence from Russia and Ukraine. Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy. DOI: 10.1515/peps-2022-0011.
Farzanegan, M.R., and Fischer, S., 2021. Lifting of International Sanctions and the Shadow Economy in Iran—A View from Outer Space. Remote Sensing, 13(22), 4620. DOI: 10.3390/rs13224620.
Fischer, S., 2021. Post-Disaster Spillovers: Evidence from Iranian Provinces. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 14(5), 193. DOI: 10.3390/jrfm14050193.

Contact:
Dr. Sven Fischer
Economics
s.fischer[at]berlin.bard.edu

Annette Loeseke

Germany
PhD in Art History
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Annette Loeseke is an art historian with a research focus on museum studies and curatorial studies. Her research interests include critical museum studies; curatorial ecosystems; empirical visitor/stakeholder studies; and cultural-political activism. Her current research deals with curatorial experiments about mining colonial photographic archives and exhibiting agency, protest and resistance. She was a Scholar-in-Residence at Cornell University's Institute for Comparative Modernities in Ithaca, NY, and a Senior Visiting Fellow at University College London (UCL) in Qatar. As a lecturer in museum studies at New York University (NYU) Berlin, she co-convened the conference Rethinking Museums Politically at Technical University Berlin in 2017 and the panel discussion Decolonize Mitte! Berlin's Humboldt Forum, Museum Island and the Palace at NYU Berlin, in collaboration with Humboldt University in Berlin, in 2018.
Recent publications include the chapters Challenging the Framing of 'Asia' and the Role of the KVVAK (Royal Dutch Asian Art Society): The Asian Pavilion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (in Kunsttexte, special issues, ed. by Iside Carbone and Helen Wang, in print), Transhistoricism: Using the Past to Critique the Present (in Simon Knell, The Contemporary Museum, 2019) and Experimental Exhibition Models (in Suzanne MacLeod et al, The Future of Museum and Gallery Design, 2018).

Aya Ibrahim

Egypt
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '15
Currently: Currently Multimedia Editor and News Reporter at Deutsche Welle, Berlin

Where are you from originally and which program were you enrolled in at Bard College Berlin?

I am originally from Egypt, I was enrolled in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Thought BA program. My concentration was Ethics and Politics and I graduated in May 2015.

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

Hands down it was the close-knit residential community that the students enjoy at Bard College Berlin. I think that living together strongly enhanced the learning process and made it much more layered and unique. I also really enjoyed working on my senior project with faculty member Ewa Atanassow, it was great to work on a topic/question in depth for a whole year. For my senior project I did a close reading of Aswany's Yacoubian Building, focusing on the book's portrayal of pre-Tahririan Egypt, to understand some of the features of revolutionary violence. It was definitely different from simply taking a class which normally lasts a semester and is usually about more than one question or topic.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

Bard College Berlin has helped me become an overall better thinker.

How do you think the education you received at Bard College Berlin will help you in the future?

The thinking beyond the obvious and literal that this kind of education instills in you is an absolute advantage in today's world. I am interested in journalism and the non-profit world, and I feel that due to my education I am able to think about these very complex issues with a different approach. I got a preview of what that would look like when I spent a semester of my third year interning at two non-profits in New York City-there I had the chance to apply many of the critical skills I had acquired in a professional setting. I hope that in the future I will be able to contribute to the rethinking of journalism so that it can work better and more efficiently for the sake of the public good.

Where you now and what are are you doing?

I live in Berlin-Mitte and work as an Online Editor at the Arabic Service of the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW). In my capacity as Editor I am part of a team that manages the online presence of the network; my focus is on programs aimed at our younger viewers. I am also involved in a number of DW's outreach programs aimed at the North Africa and Middle East region. I am also still working on my German.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

Visit if you can! Spend a couple of days on campus before deciding to attend. While you're on campus talk to everyone from students to cafeteria staff and faculty members. Attend as many classes as possible, do the readings for them and join the discussion, this will give you a good impression as to whether or not Bard College Berlin is a good fit for you.

Jacques Séguin

Dr. Jacques Séguin is a French heart surgeon who, after 20 years of surgery performing over 4,000 open-heart surgeries and authoring more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, founded several medical technology companies. He has always been interested in interventional cardiology techniques as well as surgery. Séguin was the driving force behind the creation of Corevalve, the first non-surgical aortic valve replacement, and Recor, a leader in definitive high blood pressure treatment. He supports the Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC) at Bard College Berlin, a scholarship program for students from regions of conflict.

Jana Lozanoska

Macedonia
Doctor in Peace and Conflict Studies
United Nations University for Peace

Jana Lozanoska, teaches human rights and international law, she has obtained her doctorate degree from the United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica with focus on Hannah Arendt’s political theory and principle of human dignity as rethking of human rights. She holds an LL.M degree in international humanitarian law from the University of Geneva and Graduate Institute for International Studies, Switzerland. Her research interests are at the intersection of human rights, international criminal law, visuality, and technology. Currently, she is working on research related to X-rays as evidence in front of the International Criminal Court by examining their nature as court evidence on the one hand and as evidence in art-exhibitions on the other hand, in formulating phenomenological aesthetics of X-rays. She has published several manuscripts regarding the interrelation between justice, technology, and temporality. As a lawyer she has submitted several initiatives in front of the Constitutional Court and the Ombudsman in addressing human rights, respect, and protection. Lozanoska also has contributed to the first NGO report to the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review, worked for the Maldives Mission at UNOG during the establishment of the Human Rights Council. She has written in several daily newspapers as columnist and frequently published on Res Publica, she has published two poetry books and one short novel “Living Room” that deals with the interaction between painting, photography, politics of identity, and neuroscience, and has been shortlisted for the best novel prize (Utrinski Vesnik) in 2015.

Contact:
Jana Lozanoska
Human Rights
[email protected]

Ariane Friedländer

Germany
MA in Cultural Anthropology and Educational Sciences
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Ariane joined Bard College Berlin in 2020. She also teaches German at other language institutes and at refugee reception centers. In addition, she provides advanced training courses at specialist publisher Klett/Langenscheidt and at Berlin School of Economics and Law. Ariane started her career at Carl Duisberg Centrum in Berlin, where she taught German and worked as educational coordinator between 2003 and 2018.

While studying Cultural Anthropology and Educational Sciences at Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Ariane specifically focused on adult educational theory, media aesthetics and the mass media reception of everyday culture. Her master thesis analyses the genesis and operating principles of daily talk shows in German private television in the 1990s against the background of medieval village courts. She then complemented her education with postgraduate studies in German as a foreign language at Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 2003 and with a diploma in Journalism from Freie Journalistenschule Berlin in 2020.

Besides her career as a teacher, Ariane is a keen writer and journalist. Her work mainly deals with the social transformation and cultural evolution of her hometown Berlin over the past three decades, captured in daily life and in the biographies of its inhabitants.

Contact:
Ariane Friedländer
German Studies
[email protected]

Till Luge

Germany
Ph.D. Candidate in South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania

Till Luge received his MA in Religious Studies, Ottoman History, and Indology at Heidelberg University and is currently finishing his doctorate in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a research fellow in the ANR-DFG research project “New Religiosities in Turkey: Reenchantment in a Secularized Muslim Country?” at the Orient-Institut Istanbul and a visiting researcher at the Max-Weber-Kolleg in Erfurt. Till Luge’s research focuses on religions in the cultural continuum of the Turkic, Persianate, and Indic worlds. It fuses ethnographic and textual approaches, while concentrating on the encounter between Islam and Indian religions in South Asia from the late medieval to the modern periods as well as Islam and new spiritualities in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey during modernity.

Sybille Luhmann

Sybille Luhmann studied political science and French at the University of Melbourne, Australia, where she completed her Bachelor Degree in 2009. Shortly thereafter she enrolled in the Master of Philosophy Programme in Politics at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, graduating in 2011. Since then she has worked for the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, Germany, and in 2013 she began her PhD project at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin with the support of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW). Her main goal is to develop an app that measures conscious and subconscious levels of collective identity in Europe.

Research Interests
European integration; Emotions and Politics; Identity Politics; Integrative Processes in International Organisations

Alfred Freeborn

Great Britain
PhD in History
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Alfred Freeborn is a historian of psychiatry based in Berlin. He is currently a Research Scholar in the Department on Knowledge Systems and Collective Life (Benson) and a former member of the Research Group on Practices of Validation in the Biomedical Sciences (Keuck) at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. Alfred investigates changes in how psychiatric research has been evaluated as part of the postwar globalization of biomedicine. Alfred read History at the University of Cambridge, receiving the Cambridge Historical Society Prize and was awarded an Isaac Newton Trust scholarship to complete an MPhil in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science where he worked on diverse areas of research from Enlightenment cartography to twentieth-century social theory. In 2020, Alfred was a visiting scholar at the German Historical Institute in London and a visiting lecturer in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, where he taught courses on the history of the human sciences. In 2024, he received the Early Career Prize of the History of the Human Sciences journal for his work on postwar methodological reforms in psychiatric diagnosis. Currently, he is involved in several collaborative projects in the history of biomedicine while also completing his first monograph Biomedical Madness: Schizophrenia and the Making of Biological Psychiatry.

Contact:
Alfred Freeborn
a.freeborn[at]berlin.bard.edu

Bruno Macaes

Portugal
PhD in Political Theory
Harvard University

Bruno Macaes is currently on leave while serving as State Secretary for European Affairs in the Government of Portugal.

Bruno Macaes received his PhD from Harvard University in 2006. His dissertation was awarded the Richard Herrnstein prize for the best dissertation in the social sciences by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Before coming to Berlin, he was Assistant Professor of International Studies at Underwood International College in South Korea. He is writing a book on the technological transformation of human nature. His first essay on the topic was recently published in The New Atlantis.

Classes Taught at Bard College Berlin:
Electives

Political Economy
Cosmopolitanism
The Age of World Literature
Wittgenstein on Culture and Value
The Crisis of Democracy
Evolution

Contact
Dr. Bruno Macaes
Political Theory
Email: b.macaes[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aurelia Cojocaru

Moldova
BA in Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought '14
Currently: Assistant Professor in the Program in Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?

I tremendously enjoyed the intellectual intensity of the college. Furthermore, I always found the structure of the program quite original. Not quite a typical liberal arts program, not quite a “Great Books” program… A lot of responsibility on the student’s shoulders, which I tend to see as an advantage. And, of course, I cherish Berlin and its culture.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at Bard College Berlin?

“Intensity” is the word. It is a very small and young place, however it has had a quite vivid history. Also, one should not forget how much history is around and in the buildings of Niederschönhausen where the college is located.

How has the college influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

I think many of us came to ECLA* with an idea or a goal already and saw it growing or going in new directions during the program—this is the reason why diversity, even within the same BA program, has always been a key feature. I was equally interested in philosophy, art and literature, with the latter however dominating (I write poetry). During the four years of the BA I had the chance to better understand where I want to go next in those fields. Inevitably I ended up being one of those interdisciplinary-minded people, but I hope I can do it as rigorously as possible.

Any advice you would give to students considering Bard College Berlin?

Visit the campus if you have the chance (and attend a seminar). Talk to a student or to alumni.

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013

Seraphine Maerz

Germany
PhD in Political Science
Central European University

Seraphine Maerz was a postdoctoral fellow at Bard College Berlin during the academic year 2018-19, teaching courses on statistics, advanced quantitative methods and research design. She received her PhD in Political Science from the Central European University, Budapest, in December 2017. Seraphine's research concentrates on the survival strategies of authoritarian regimes in Central Asia and beyond. She is particularly interested in how autocratic leaders use the Internet to justify and stabilize their rule. She is trained in qualitative and quantitative methods and works with set-theoretic approaches, quantitative text analysis, and other computational methods. For regular updates, please visit her personal homepage here.

Stefania Maffeis

Italy
Habilitation in Philosophy
Freie Universität Berlin

Stefania Maffeis is assistant professor (Privatdozentin) at the Philosophy Department of the Freie Universität Berlin. Her teaching and research interests are based in political and social philosophy, with a special focus on the transnational circulation and social history of political thought, on theories of migration and postcoloniality, on practice and critique theories, on transnational democracy and citizenship.

Stefania Maffeis has just finished a habilitation project and long-term research study on the transnational circulation of the idea of politics in the work and in the reception of Hannah Arendt between the US-American and the German cultural fields, which will be published in December 2018 by Campus Verlag (Transnationale Politische Philosophie. Hannah Arendt in Werk und Rezeption - Deutschland/USA, 1941-2010). The research project was carried out between 2010 and 2017 on a DFG-Position (Eigene Stelle) at the Philosophy Department of the Freie Universität Berlin. During this time, Stefania Maffeis also taught several courses in Practical and Political Philosophy. 2013 she was DAAD research fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities of Bard College (in Annandale-on-Hudson).

Stefania Maffeis studied Philosophy and the Humanities in Parma, Italy and in Berlin, graduating with a work on the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and the social hermeneutics of Pierre Bourdieu. In 2001, she moved to Berlin, where she achieved a PhD in philosophy with a study on the history and the social conditions of philosophy in the former GDR and in Germany after the Unification, focusing on the reception of Friedrich Nietzsche (Zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik. Transformationen der DDR-Philosophie 1945-1993, Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus, 2007). After her PhD and before 2010, Stefania Maffeis worked several years as a translator and language teacher (Italian and German), and was a guest instructor for Philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Contact
Dr. Habil. Stefania Maffeis
Philosophy
Email: [email protected]

Manuel Gebhardt

Germany
MA in Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University

After completing his M.A. in Philosophy, Religion and Political Sciences with a thesis on the principles of “Sustainability and Global Justice” at the University of Bamberg, Manuel joined Harvard’s German PhD Program to pursue his dissertation, analyzing the potential of “Aesthetic Education in times of ecological crisis”, drawing on concepts from German Idealism (Schiller, Fichte) and linking them to a new reading of aesthetics in the light of French Theory (J-L Nancy, Bruno Latour).
Manuel has been teaching several seminars on philosophy (most recently: “A critical Theory of Love”) and academic writing in Bamberg, as well as language classes at Harvard and in Berlin. After finishing his dissertation, Manuel intends to dedicate himself to his true vocation: teaching liberal arts and languages!

Contact:
Manuel Gebhardt
German Language and Literature
[email protected]

Dafna Maimon

Finland/Israel
MFA
The Sandberg Institute

Dafna Maimon is an artist based in Berlin, whose practice includes short films, performance, online TV shows, texts, sculptures and interventions. In her work she explores and engages with human narratives that challenge stereotypical constructions in order to question the unclear limits of identity, the self and the body. Her projects showcase the economy of affect-based ties as well as materialize through them, casting value on community and collaboration on a grassroots level.

Dafna Maimon has shown her work in institutions and art spaces such as Kunst-Werke (Berlin), PS1 Moma (New York), Centre for Contemporary Arts Uzajdowski Castle (Warsaw), Lilith Performance Studio (Malmö), Based in Berlin, Crikoteka, Tadeusz Kantor Center (Krakau), HAU 2 (Berlin), Moscow Museum of Modern Art, W139 (Amsterdam), 1646 (The Hague), Project Native Informant (London) New Orleans Film Society with Deltaworkers (New Orleans) and Le Magasin (Grenoble).

She was a 2015 artist resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin). In 2014 The Swedish Arts Council granted her a 6-month residency at IASPIS Stockholm. Other residencies include Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council New York.

Maimon is a founding member of the artist collective Baby Darwin, who was commissioned by ARTE Creative to create the 18-episode online TV show Fitness For Artists TV 2013-2015. Her video-installation The Unbearable Presence Of Roots won the Workspace Zaal 5 Video Art prize from Film House, The Hague in 2010. She has been awarded grants from The Mondriaan Foundation Netherlands, The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, The Finnish Arts Promotion Center and The Finnish Cultural Foundation.

She has lectured and taught at the Royal Institute of Art Stockholm, The European Exchange Academy, Beelitz Heilstätten and New School, New York, Advanced Projects Class.

Maimon studied in Amsterdam and holds a BA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and an MFA from The Sandberg Institute.

Contact
Dafna Maimon
Artist
Email: d.maimon[at]berlin.bard.edu

Michael Steinberg

Dr. Michael P. Steinberg is the Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor of History and Professor of Music and German Studies at Brown University. From 2016 to 2018 he was the president of the American Academy in Berlin. At Brown, he served as the founding director of the Cogut Institute for the Humanities between 2005 and 2010. He was a member of the Cornell University Department of History between 1988 and 2005. Educated at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, he has been a visiting professor at these two schools as well as at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris and the National Tsing-hua University in Taiwan. His main research interests include the cultural history of modern Germany and Austria with particular attention to German Jewish intellectual history and the cultural history of music. His most recent publications include the edited volume Makers of Jewish Modernity (2016), winner of the National Jewish Book Award for non-fiction, and The Trouble with Wagner (2018).

Lina Majdalanie

Lebanon
PhD in Theatre and Performing Arts
Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III

Lina Majdalanie is a Lebanese actress, director and playwright. Her works include: Do I Know You?(2017), A Drop of Sweat (2015), 33 rpm and a few seconds (2012), Photo-Romance (2009), Appendice(2007), I Had A Dream, Mom (video, 2006), Biokhraphia (2002), and others.

Among the projects she curated are Relatively Universal (HAU-Berlin 2017), Beyond Beirut (Mousonturm-Frankfurt, 2016), Vues (Kunsthalle-Mulhouse, 2015) and Motion-Less (Tanzquartier-Vienna, 2009).

She taught at HEAD (Geneva, 2008-2013), DasArts (Amsterdam, 2012) and Goethe University (Frankfurt, 2016). In 2010-2014, she was a member of the Home Workspace Curricular Committee Ashkal Alwan in Beirut. In 2009-2010 she was a fellow of the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" of Freie Universität, Berlin.

She opted for the pseudonym "Lina Majdalanie" in April 2015.

Contact
Dr. Lina Majdalanie
Performance
Email: [email protected]

Maria Frederika Malmström

Sweden
PhD in Social Anthropology
School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University

Maria Frederika Malmström is Associate Professor at The Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies. In January 2017, she started a collaborative research project The Materiality of Suspicion and the Ambiguity of the Familiar: Nigerian and Egyptian Cityscapes together with Professor Mark LeVine, Assistant Professors Ulrika Trovalla and Eric Trovalla. This project is funded by FORMAS. In January 2018, she started the research project Making and Unmaking Masculinities and Religious Identities through the Politics of the Ear in Egypt. This research project is funded by RJ. She is currently Visiting Research Scholar in the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, Graduate Center, CUNY, New York City. Malmström is author of The Streets Are Talking to Me: Affective Fragments in Sisi's Egypt.

Contact:
Dr. Maria Frederika Malmström
Anthropology
[email protected]

Julia Gehring

Germany
MA in German and Italian Language and Literature, Stuttgart University
MA in German as a Foreign Language, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Julia graduated with a Master of Arts in German and Italian language and literature from the University of Stuttgart, where she wrote her thesis on early Italian opera. Furthermore she holds a Master’s degree in the teaching of German as a foreign language from Humboldt University Berlin; during her studies she focussed on inter- and intralingual factors in language-learning difficulties. She has been teaching German for more than ten years and also works as a literary translator.

Contact:
Julia Gehring
German Studies
j.gehring[at]berlin.bard.edu

Pia Marais

Pia Marais was born in South Africa in 1971. She studied sculpture and photography at art academies in London, Amsterdam and Düsseldorf, and then went on to study film at the Deutsche Film und Fernseh Akademie in Berlin, where she resides. Marais created four short films: Loop (1996), Deranged (1998), Tricky People (1999), and 17 (2003). After several engagements in film business as a casting director and assistant director, she directed The Unpolished, her first feature film, which has been screened at many international film festivals and has won various prizes, among them the Golden Tiger Award (Rotterdam 2007). Her second feature film, At Ellen's Age, was developed at the Residence of the Cannes Festival. Her latest film, Layla Fourie, was screened at the official competition of the Berlin Festival and won an honorary award.

Erëmirë Krasniqi

Kosovo
BA in Value Studies '13
Concentration: Art and Aesthetics & Literature and Rhetoric
Currently: Art curation, leads the Oral History Initiative

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?

I came to Bard College Berlin in 2009, a year after Kosovo gained independence and ten years after the end of the war. Given the many societal transitions at the time, the academic training I had previously received was understandably at an unsatisfactory level. Additionally, arts and humanities were not highly valued disciplines, as society was largely focused on survival. Coming from a war-torn country, BCB played a crucial role in helping me rebuild my value system and provided a sense of stability and continuity. It encouraged me to pursue my interests in art, literature, and philosophy, making me a more attentive reader of both text and image. Furthermore, recognizing how these intellectual traditions intersect and complement each other not only made my approach to problems more interdisciplinary but also allowed me to view the world as more interconnected rather than a fragmented place.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?

Overall, it was a beautiful and uplifting experience. It was at BCB that I realized how closely acquiring knowledge is tied to happiness.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

The curriculum largely centred on key texts from Western intellectual history, beginning with Plato and ending with Derrida. In the middle of this journey, during my second year, I took a course on Wittgenstein on Culture and Value. Wittgenstein, with his reflexive approach questioning the limits of the discipline, presumably so, marked the end of philosophy at the turn of the 20th century. This course had a profound impact on me, making me more pragmatic and decisive by teaching me the value of constructive and strategic silence. As Wittgenstein famously said, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," highlighting the importance of not basing philosophical questions on false premises, as they can lead to false philosophical problems.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

I went on to pursue a degree in Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College in the US, largely influenced by the Literature courses I took at BCB, as well as the third year I spent studying Cultural Studies at Trent University, which BCB generously supported this year of self-discovery, giving us full autonomy to design our own educational experience.

When I joined a team of researchers of different generations and backgrounds in further building the oral history archive, I remembered that many of the foundational texts we read at BCB were originally oral dialogues or literatures that weren’t written down, and that instilled in me a deep appreciation for oral sources and the importance of building digital infrastructure to preserve them.

When it comes to Art courses I took at BCB, this influence is evident in my work as an art writer, where I’ve contributed to global art magazines like Frieze and Artforum among others. The knowledge I gained from courses such as Values of Renaissance Florence, Representation, What is Modern Art?, and Aesthetic Categories had trained me to have a sustained focus on works of art and taught me to build and identify multiple layers when reading and writing about them. I still deeply miss Geoff Lehman’s courses, but also trips to Florence, where we spent entire sessions with him analysing paintings in the context of the period texts we had read.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

I am currently based in Pristina, Kosovo, where I have spent the past seven years leading the Oral History Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating a publicly accessible and searchable multilingual digital “living archive.” The oral history archive contains thousands of hours of life stories, capturing diverse experiences of people from different walks of life across Kosovo. My work during this time has focused on engaging with local histories, particularly those that have left behind few or no tangible traces. By collecting testimonies, I've sought not only to understand these lived experiences but also to narrate a collective history that celebrates shared authority and that goes beyond ideologically-driven narratives, thereby addressing the long silences in academic discourse.

My work lies at the intersection of memory studies, contemporary art, and curatorial practice. While building an oral history archive, I developed an interest in giving these stories a spatial dimension. I conceive exhibitions as narrative environments that offer a platform for reexamining local histories—whether written official histories or culturally ingrained narratives. When narrative exhibitions visually represent and engage with contemporary history, they become arenas for discussion, imagination, and the exploration of inhabitable worlds that reside between personal memory and public history.

Most recently, I curated the Kosovo Pavilion at the 60th edition of the International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. This curatorial project also dealt with under the radar histories of labour and explored less visible subjects of history. Under my curation, Kosovo received its first-ever Special Mention for National Participation, marking a significant achievement. While Kosovo had strong presentations at previous editions of the Biennale, this was the first time we received an acknowledgment, and that was a major milestone for our local art scene on such a prestigious platform.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?

The liberal arts education at BCB did not specifically prepare me for a particular career or job market. Instead, through its thematically designed courses, it focused on helping me discover my niche as a thinker and practitioner within the context of my own life and work. In these times of polycrisis, I believe this approach is invaluable as it taught me to embrace uncertainty and transform it into a learning process. From my experience, unresolved questions that initially don’t fit into my thought system often gain depth and significance as perspectives shift and these questions become connected to other webs of meaning. BCB equips you to handle uncertainty (even when the world seems utterly confusing) by fostering your capacity for independent and interdisciplinary thinking. This, in turn, offers significant flexibility and adaptability in any job market. But, ultimately, BCB freed me from the basic concerns of job-seeking and guided me toward finding meaning and purpose in my work.

Adina Maricut

Romania
PhD in Political Science
Central European University, Budapest

Adina Maricut was a postdoctoral fellow at Bard College Berlin during the academic year 2016-17, teaching courses on comparative politics, policy analysis, and EU governance.

She earned an Erasmus Mundus Masters Degree in Public Policy from the University of York and the Central European University (2012) and a PhD in Political Science from the Central European University (2016). Her research interests lie in the area of European Union (EU) politics and European public policy and governance. Her dissertation explored the evolution of institutional behavior in the EU's area of freedom, security and justice-covering contentious issues such as immigration, asylum, and counter-terrorism policy. Her postdoctoral research examines EU institutional responses to crisis situations in connection with the phenomenon of politicization. Additionally, Adina has expertise in comparative public administration and higher education in post-communist contexts. She has previously taught at the Central European University in the Roma Access Program and the School of Public Policy.

Classes taught at Bard College Berlin
Understanding Systems of Power: Foundations of Comparative Politics
Participation, Deliberation, and Democracy: Policy Analysis and Engagement
Crises in the European Union

Selected Publications

'With and without Supranationalisation: The Post-Lisbon Roles of the European Council and the Council in Justice and Home Affairs Governance'. Journal of European Integration (in production).

(2015). 'Forms in Search of Substance: Quality and Evaluation in Romanian Universities'. European Educational Research Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 113–125. (with Geven, K.)

(2015) 'A Merry-Go-Round of Evaluations: Moving From Administrative Burden to Reflection on Education and Research in Romania'. In Curaj, A., Matei, L., Pricopie, R., and Salmi, J. (eds) The European Higher Education Area: Between Critical Reflections and Future Policies. Springer International Publishing, pp. 665-684. (with Geven, K.)

(2015) 'Why Do Romanian Universities Fail to Internalize Quality Assurance?'. In Curaj, A., Deca, L., Egron-Polak, E., and Salmi, J. (eds) Higher Education Reforms in Romania: Between the Bologna Process and National Challenges. Springer International Publishing, pp. 43–61. (with Geven, K., Sabic, N., Santa, R. and Sârbu, O.)

April Gertler

USA
MFA in Photography
Bard College

April Gertler received her BFA (1997) at the California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA and her MFA (2002) at Bard College, New York. After studying at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2003, April moved to Berlin where she has been based since 2005. April is the Founding Director of PICTURE BERLIN which she started in 2009.

April’s work ranges from collage, drawing, photography, performance, and social practice. Her work has been exhibited internationally and most recently in France, Germany, New York, and Denmark. April regularly brings people and ideas together from various places and sources to create something new. This can be seen through examples of various projects: In 2012 April and the artist Adrian Schiesser started Sonntag, which uses a domestic space to present works by Berlin based artists; April and Adrian make the exhibiting artist's favorite cake which is served along with coffee and tea. The event is usually the third Sunday of the month in Berlin, but April and Adrian have brought the project to Copenhagen, Paris, New York, London, and in May they will be taking it to Amsterdam.

April has recently developed a new format of performance by marrying the concepts of a Baking Show with Lecture Performance. While performing the project titled TAKE THE CAKE, she bakes a cake live while she speaks about feminist discourse that highlights elements of capitalistic desire. The performance has been performed multiple times.

April’s biggest ongoing project is PICTURE BERLIN - a hybrid residency art academy based in Berlin which engages the international residents in an ongoing dialogue on photography and contemporary art through walks, exhibitions, one on one meetings, and discussions. The program is currently in its 6th edition in 2015.

Contact
April Gertler
Artist
Email: a.gertler[at]berlin.bard.edu

Anisa Shaikh

Pakistan
BA in Value Studies '13
Currently: Program developer in edtech

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?

I actually spent most of my time at what was the European College of Liberal Arts before it became Bard College Berlin. I then graduated and did my final year as a BCB student. I enjoyed the immersion, at first I struggled with how small it was (we were less than 20 in total) but I came to realize the conversations, the bonds, the reflections unfolded perhaps for that reason. I wouldn't have had that without the little bubble. The biggest impact, was probably that it brought me to a place I might never have ended up, I learned, I loved, and built a life for myself in Berlin.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?

Challenging in every sense - frustratingly so, beautifully so.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.

This won't be as brief and not about one course. Geoff Lehman inspired my absurd obsession with the picturesque, Laura Scuriatti the inquiry into modernism and post colonial thought, Matthias Hurst for showing me to how watch movies with a gentle dissection rather than brute analysis, Bartholomew Ryan for whistling while I worked, Tracy Colony for the wonder and validation in tiny realizations, David Hayes for shaving my cluster of thoughts into sharpened nibs, Thomas Norgaard for holding ethics up to stark light in any context (others and my own), Bruno Macaes for taking the stigma out of approaching modern day politics without cringing, Dirk Ehnts for how to make friends with Germany, David Levine for engaging with space and feelings in a way I hadn't previously imagined.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?

I could speak of the thinking and writing and texts which were all part of an internal constellation that fanned out without my even fully realizing it. However, ultimately for me - my place was not in academia, it was in supporting students for the rest of my career which I have done diligently and well. It helped me form questions without always waiting for an answer.

Where are you now and what are you doing?

I live in Kreuzberg, Berlin (still). I work in education over a decade now and for the last 5 years in ed-tech. I am a program developer/manager, student support, and career specialist.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?

It's a dynamic institution with experts in their field curating journeys rather than a curriculum. It has an incredibly diverse student body in what is arguably one of the most interesting cities in the world to live in. It gives you an escape but puts you at the centre of it. Choose this over the big, traditional uni experience - you won't get lost unless that is what you want.

Robert Martin

USA
PhD in Philosophy, Yale University
Cellist and Philosopher

Robert Martin stepped down in July 2019 from his administrative duties at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York) as Vice President for Policy and Planning, and Director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. He continues as Professor of Philosophy at Bard, teaching currently at Bard College Berlin.

At Bard since 1994, Martin became Founding Director of the Conservatory of Music in 2005. He was Dean of Graduate Studies from 1994 to 2005, Associate Dean of the College from 1994 to 2001, Vice President for Academic Affairs from 2001 to 2014, and Artistic Co-director of the Bard Music Festival from 1994 to 2017.

Martin studied cello at the Curtis Institute of Music with Leonard Rose and Orlando Cole, and liberal arts at Haverford College. He made his New York recital debut, with pianist Richard Goode, in the Young Concert Artist Series. During his doctoral studies in philosophy at Yale University he was principal cellist of the New Haven Symphony and cellist of the Group for Contemporary Music, then at Columbia University.

After receiving his Ph.D. he pursued a dual career in music and in philosophy, holding joint appointments at SUNY/Buffalo and Rutgers University. He was cellist of the Sequoia String Quartet from 1975 to 1985, during which time the ensemble made many recordings and toured internationally. He was Assistant Dean of Humanities at UCLA, and also founded and produced the Los Angeles chamber music series "Music for Mischa." He produced and performed in the series “Music for the Exhibitions: Musicians from the Bard Festival” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He was cellist of the Bard Festival String Quartet, and served from 1999 to 2004 as president of Chamber Music America. He is editor of and contributor to many books and articles on philosophy and music.

Contact
Dr. Robert Martin
Music and Philosophy
r.martin[at]berlin.bard.edu

Gale Raj

Malaysia/USA
PhD in Development Studies
University of Manchester

Gale Raj is Professor of Politics at Bard College Berlin. She holds a PhD in development studies from the University of Manchester Global Development Institute (2012) and teaches in the Politics concentration at Bard College Berlin. Her research is on labor governance in global production networks with a focus on the global electronics industry and outsourced manufacturing in the Asia Pacific region. Her research aims to understand how networked relationships and power asymmetries across different actors, such as governments, firms, and civil society organizations, shape and influence processes and outcomes for workers in outsourced factories of globalized industries.

Raj held previous faculty positions at the University of Manchester and Queen Mary University of London. She has been the recipient of research grants from the British Academy and the German Research Fund. She is currently a principal investigator of a research project on geographical reconfigurations of global production networks in a post-COVID-19 global economy (funded by the German Research Fund 2023 to 2026). Raj is an editor in chief at the journal Competition and Change. In 2019, she co-edited the Handbook on Global Value Chains (Edward Elgar).

Publications (selection)

Raj-Reichert, G. (2022) "Labour geography I: Labour agency, informal work, global south perspectives and ontology of futures," Progress in Human Geography, 03091325221144455
Marlsev, K, Staritz, C, and Raj-Reichert, G. (2022) "Rethinking Social Upgrading in Global Value Chains: Worker Power, State‒Labour Relations and Intersectionality", Development and Change. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12705
Raj-Reichert, G., Staritz, C., and Plank, L. (2022) 'Conceptualising the regulator-buyer state in the European Union for the exercise of socially responsible public procurement in global production networks', Journal of Common Market Studies. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcms.13285
Helmerich, N, Raj-Reichert, G, and Zajak, S (2020) ‘Exercising associational and networked power through the use of digital technology by workers in global value chains’, Competition and Change, Vol. 25, no. 2: 142-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1024529420903289
Raj-Reichert, G (2020) "The powers of a social auditor in a global production network: the case of Verité and the exposure of forced labour in the electronics industry." Journal of Economic Geography. Vol. 20, no. 3: 653–678.
Raj-Reichert, G (2020) "Global Value Chains, Contract Manufacturers, and the Middle-Income Trap: The electronics industry in Malaysia." Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 64, no. 4: 698-716.
Raj-Reichert, G, Zajak, S, and Helmerich, N (2020) "Introduction to special issue on digitalization, labour and global production." Competition and Change, Vol. 25, no. 2: 133-141.
Ponte, S, Gereffi, G, and Raj-Reichert, G (2019) Handbook on Global Value Chains, Edward Elgar Publishing.
Raj-Reichert, G (2015) "Exercising power over labour governance in the electronics industry." Geoforum, Vol. 67: 89-92.
Nadvi, K, and Raj-Reichert, G (2015) "Governing health and safety at lower tiers of the computer industry global value chain." Regulation & Governance, Vol. 9, no. 3: 243-258.
Raj-Reichert, G (2013) "Safeguarding labour in relocated factories: Health and safety governance in an electronics global production network." Geoforum, Vol. 44: 23-31.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Gale Raj
Politics
g.raj[at]berlin.bard.edu

Susanne Märtens

Germany
PhD in Art History
Freie Universität Berlin

Susanne Märtens received her PhD from the Free University of Berlin. Her dissertation focused on the relation of high and low art in 18th century British culture, concentrating on the grotesque body in caricature and capriccio. She held a research position at the Forschungszentrum für Europäische Aufklärung (FEA) in Potsdam, working on 18th century German periodicals. She held teaching appointments at Humbold University (Berlin), the Academy of Fine Arts Dresden, the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK), and is currently holding a research and teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts Kassel. Her teaching and research interests include 18th and 20th century, as well as contemporary art and aesthetics. Her current work focuses on the writings of the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, especially on his theory of the Baroque (1908/9).

Contact
Dr. Susanne Märtens
Art History
Email: s.maertens[at]berlin.bard.edu

Michael David Harris

USA
Academy Year 2011-2012
Currently: Associate at Latham & Watkins LLP

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin?
Focus on critical thinking and questioning a popular idea, and close reading of a text that became useful for a legal career.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
First, it was a community and second, it was a college. The courses were very interesting and the faculty became our close friends.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Took a class “On Terrorism” where we read about theories of terrorism and the growing security state to combat it.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
Definitely attracted me to working in international business and global transactions.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am Associate at Latham & Watkins LLP.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Definitely experience the most of Berlin while there. Try to stay connected with colleagues after you leave. I still have a close friend from my ECLA years.

Catherine Toal

Ex Officio
Dean of Bard College Berlin

PhD in English and American Literature
Harvard University

Prof. Dr. Catherine Toal is Dean of Bard College Berlin. She received her PhD from Harvard University, where her dissertation was awarded the University's prizes in Nineteenth-Century Literature and American Literature. She has held a Junior Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. Her research and teaching interests encompass nineteenth-century French, English, American and German literature, and literary and critical theory. In 2016, her book The Entrapments of Form: Cruelty and Modern Literature, was published by Fordham University Press, and received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Modern Language Initiative. Her work has also appeared in the journals Comparative Literature, Nineteenth-Century Literature and the Journal of European Studies.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Catherine Toal
Dean
Phone: +49 30 43733 216
Email: c.toal[at]berlin.bard.edu

Gavin McCrea

Ireland
PhD in Creative and Critical Writing
University of East Anglia

Gavin McCrea holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. His first novel, Mrs Engels (Scribe, 2015) was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize and the Walter Scott Prize, and longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His second novel, The Sisters Mao, is forthcoming in September 2021. During quarantine, Gavin completed his first work of non-fiction, a memoir about his relationship with his mother; entitled Cells, this will be published by Scribe in 2022. Most recently, he was commissioned by John Murray/Hachette to write a collection of essays on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Gavin's articles have appeared in the Paris Review, the Guardian, the Irish Times, Catapult and Lithub.

Personal website >>

Contact:
Dr. Gavin McCrea
Creative and Critical Writing
g.mccrea[at]berlin.bard.edu

Photo: Eugene Langan

Surya Suran Gied

Germany
University of the Arts Berlin
Master of Fine Arts

Surya Suran Gied (*1980 in Cologne, Germany) studied at the University of the Arts Berlin and graduated with an MFA in 2008. In her work, she explores the feeling of fragmentation and the accompanying abstraction of one's own identity in the form of painting, installation, sound, and video.

After graduation, she went to Seoul, South Korea on a DAAD scholarship and was a guest artist at Seoul National University. This was followed in 2013 by a residency at the Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, South Korea. In 2015, she received a grant from the Robert Bosch Foundation for an exhibition project in Washington, DC. In 2020, she was awarded the Berlin Senate Research Fellowship and the following year won the Dieter Ruckhaberle Fellowship Award. Surya Gied received a one-year fellowship from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 2022 and was awarded the German Academy Casa Baldi Fellowship in 2023. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions worldwide including Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien Berlin, Hillyer Art Space in Washington DC, PyeongChang Biennale South Korea, University Delaware USA, Savvy Contemporary Berlin, and Galerie Wedding Berlin. Surya Gied lives and works in Berlin.

Since 2010 Surya Gied develops and leads courses, workshops and seminars at Universities and Museums in the field of painting and drawing. References include among others Kunsthochschule Kassel, University of Kassel, CODE University Berlin, and Bode Museum Berlin.

Contact:
Surya Suran Gied
Painting
[email protected]

Mariel McKone Leonard

USA
Doctor of Sociology (Dr.rer.soc.)
University of Mannheim

Dr. Mariel McKone Leonard is a survey methodologist and evaluation consultant with over a decade of experience. She specializes in methods of sampling and recruiting small, rare, and vulnerable populations, as well as conducting research within sensitive contexts. Previously, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) where she supported projects improving representation within samples of populations affected by racism via an array of probability and non-probability sampling methods.

Dr. Leonard studied political science at the College of William and Mary and Georgetown University. In 2020, she received her doctorate from the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Mannheim. Her dissertation focused on measurement error in identification of honor killings worldwide; work from her dissertation has been referenced as evidence by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in the United Kingdom. Prior to moving to Germany, Dr. Leonard worked at Westat, supporting the design and testing of surveys.

Contact:
Dr. Mariel McKone Leonard
Sociology
m.leonard[at]berlin.bard.edu

Laura Scuriatti

Italy
PhD in English Literature
University of Reading

Prof. Dr. Laura Scuriatti obtained a degree in Modern Languages and Literatures (English and German) at Milan State University (Italy). In 1999-2002 she held an AHRB scholarship and received her PhD in English Literature from the University of Reading (UK). She has been teaching at Bard College Berlin since 2003; in 2023 she held a position of Visiting Professor at the University of Perugia (Italy).

Her research focuses on Anglo-American avant-garde and modernism from a comparative perspective, feminist aesthetics, and life-writing.

Laura Scuriatti is a member of the research network Writing 1900.

Classes taught at Bard College Berlin

Foundational and Advanced Modules

Forms of Life-Writing
Virginia Woolf and the Modern in Literature
Happy in Berlin? The Myth of Berlin in the 1920s
Detective Fiction
(Forced) Migration and Exile: Journeys into Imperial Spaces
Realism, Naturalism, "Verismo", Magical Realism: The Metamorphosis of a Style
Rewriting Shakespeare. The Case of The Tempest
Writing the Self: Autobiography and/as Fiction?
Theory of the Novel
Words and Images: Manifestos of the Avant-Garde (co-taught with art historian Aya Soika)
History and Theory of the Novel: Tristram Shandy
Literature, Collections and Museums

Core Courses

Global Modernisms
Joyce's Ulysses: A Modernist Epic
Renaissance Florence

Supervision interests: English and German modernist and contemporary literature; interdisciplinary projects in modernist and avant-garde literature and the visual arts; gender studies; critical theory.

Publications
Books

Mina Loy's Critical Modernism (University Press of Florida, 2019)

Edited volumes

I. Fantappiè, F. Giusti and L. Scuriatti (eds), Rethinking Lyric Communities (ICI Press, 2024), pp. 135-158.
(With Arunima Bhattacharya and Richard Hibbitt), Literary Capitals in the Long Nineteenth Century. Spaces beyond the Centres (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds. Modernist Aesthetics and the Utopian Lure of Community (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019)
(With Sara Fortuna), Dekalog 5. Dogville (London/New York: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2012)
(With Caroline Patey), The Exhibit in the Text: Museological Practices of Literature (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009)
Berlin Babylon. Antologia di giovani scrittori tedeschi (Milan: Mondadori, 2004)

Book chapters

L. Scuriatti, "Mina Loy's Interrupted Communities", in I. Fantappiè, F. Giusti and L. Scuriatti (eds), Rethinking Lyric Communities (ICI Press, 2024), pp. 135-158.
L. Scuriatti, "Fragmentary, Elusive, Modernist: The Mina Loy Papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library", in J. Callison, M. Feldman, A. Svendsen and E. Tonning (eds), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modernist Archives (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), pp. 55-69.
"Untimely, Modern City. Literary Interventions on Florence as an Intellectual Capital at the Turn of the Century", in A. Bhattacharya, R. Hibbitt and L.Scuriatti, Literary Capitals in the Long Nineteenth Century. Spaces beyond the Centres (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), pp. 207-231.
"Modernism and the Baroque: Two Strange Bedfellows in Mario Praz's Oeuvre", in Elisa Bizzotto (ed.), Mario Praz. Voice Centre Stage (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019)
"Together, on Her Own: A Survey of Mina Loy’s Textual Communities", in L. Scuriatti (ed.), Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds. Modernist Aesthetics and the Utopian Lure of Community (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019).
Sea changes: the Sea, Art and Storytelling in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Isak Dinesen's Tempests and Marina Warner's Indigo in: C. Ferrini, R. Gefter Wondrich, P. Quazzolo, A. Zoppellari, Civiltà del mare e navigazioni interculturali: sponde d'Europa e l' "isola" Trieste (Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2012).
'Dogville and the Problem of Objectification' in S. Fortuna and L. Scuriatti (eds), Dekalog 5. Dogville (London/New York: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2012).
(With Sara Fortuna), 'Introduction' and 'Interview with Lars von Trier', in S. Fortuna and L. Scuriatti (eds), Dekalog 5. Dogville (London/New York: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2012).
"The Autobiography as Collection, the Collection as Autobiography: Mario Praz's House of Life", in: C. Patey and L. Scuriatti (eds), The Exhibit in the Text: Museological Practices of Literature (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009).
"Bodies of Discomfort: Mina Loy, the Futurists and Modernist Feminism" in: A. Kershaw and A. Kimyongür (eds.), Women in Europe between the Wars: Politics, Culture and Society (London: Ashgate, 2007).
'Walking the Tightrope: Sacheverell Sitwell's Rewriting of the Mediterranean in Southern Baroque Art', in: C. Patey, G. Cianci and F. Cuojati, Anglo-American Modernity and the Mediterranean (Milan: Cisalpino, 2006).
"Designers' Bodies: Women and Body Hair in Contemporary Art and Advertising" in: K. Lesnik-Oberstein (ed.), The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006).
'Looking for the Self in the City: Roma Tearne's Photographic Autobiography', in R. Colombo and D. Scudero (eds.), Nel corpo delle città: Roma Tearne (exhibition catalogue) (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2004).
"Hiding the Narrative: the Spaces of Fiction in The Good Soldier" in: V. Fortunati and E. Lamberti (eds.), Ford Madox Ford and the Republics of Letters (Bologna: CLUEB, 2002).

Journal articles

L. Scuriatti, "Strange Characters: Dialogic Selves and Cosmopolitanism in Carl Van Vechten's Peter Whiffle", Comparative Critical Studies, 18, Issue supplement (October 2021): 85–107.
L. Scuriatti, "Transnational Modernist Encounters in the Provinces: Lacerba, Mina Loy and International Debates on Sexual Morality in Florence", Forum for Modern Language Studies, 53/3 (July 2017): 303–313.
"Negotiating Boundaries: The Economics of Space and Gender in Mina Loy's Early Poems", Feminismo/s, 5 (June 2005): 71-84.
(with Marina Della Giusta), " 'The Show Must Go On': Making Money Glamorizing Oppression", European Journal of Women's Studies, 12/1 (2005): 31-44.
"A Tale of Two Cities: H. G. Wells's The Door in the Wall, illustrated by Alvin Landon Coburn", The Wellsian, 22 (1999): 11-28. Rpt. in: John Partington (ed.), The Wellsian. Selected Essays, 1976-2003 (Oss: Equilibris, 2003).

Contact
Prof. Dr. Laura Scuriatti
English and Comparative Literature
Phone: +49 30 43733 208
Email: l.scuriatti[at]berlin.bard.edu

Hannah Goldstein

Sweden/USA
BA in Photography and Human Rights, Bard College, NY, USA
Master class, Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, Berlin, Germany

Hannah Goldstein lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She has been working as an artist for the past 15 years with her main medium being photography and collage. One of her main themes is feminism and female histories. She moves freely in the realms of self-documentary, narrative portraits and dealing with archives. She also works with installation and video. Goldstein has a B.A in photography and human rights from Bard College, New York. She spent one year in residency at the Royal Collage of Art in Stockholm, as well as doing a one-year Master class with Arno Fischer at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, Berlin. Her work has been exhibited in various countries, most recently in France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany. In 2013 Goldstein self-published her book family business. She is part of the feminist art collective Die bösen Mösen with Thérèse Kristiansson. Goldstein is also the co-founder of Kaetha, a curatorial collaboration with Katja Haustein. She has been teaching photography since 2010.

Hannah Goldstein is represented by Jacob Hoerner Galleries Melbourne, Australia.

Contact
Hannah Goldstein
Artist
h.goldstein[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aya Soika

Germany
PhD in Art History
University of Cambridge

Aya Soika was born and raised in Berlin. She received a PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2001 (King’s College), where she also held a Junior Research Fellowship at New Hall and taught in the Department of History Art, serving as Director of Studies for several Cambridge colleges. She joined our faculty in October 2005.

Research & Publications:
Aya’s teaching and research focus on 20th century art, with particular emphasis on the intersection of art, culture, and politics in Germany. Her scholarly work includes
studies on artists and architects during the ‘Third Reich’, such as on the painter Emil Nolde, the sculptor Georg Kolbe (2023) or the architect Mies van der Rohe (2024). She is the author of the catalogue raisonné of Max Pechstein’s oil paintings (2011, 2 vols) and co-editor of the Handbuch Werkverzeichnis Œuvrekatalog Catalogue raisonné (2023), a companion that extends beyond art history to encompass fields like art restoration, provenance research, and law. Over the years, Aya has co-curated numerous exhibitions, more recently Emil Nolde. A German Legend at the Neue Nationalgalerie at Hamburger Bahnhof (2019), Escape into Art? The Brücke Artists during the Nazi Period (2019) and Whose Expression? The Brücke Artists and Colonialism (2021/22) at the Brücke Museum in Berlin. She is currently working on an upcoming show that explores the Brücke group’s work in the applied arts (Brücke Museum, 2026).

General Teaching Interests:
German Visual Culture in the 19th, 20th and 21st Century
Modernism and its Theories
Berlin’s Museum Controversies (class taught in cooperation with Andrea Meyer, TU Berlin)
German Memorial Culture
Architecture and Urban Developments in Berlin

Books:

Mies van der Rohe im Nationalsozialismus. Das Brüssel Projekt, 1934. (Mies van der Rohe in the Third Reich. The Brussels Project, 1934.)
Schriftenreihe Mies van der Rohe Haus, vol. 11, ed. by Ingolf Kern and Wita Noack, Form + Zweck: Berlin 2024, 286 pages [including English translation]
Handbuch Werkverzeichnis, Œuvrekatalog, Catalogue Raisonné. Co-editor, together with Ingrid Pérez de Laborda and Eva Wiederkehr Sladeczek, De Gruyter: Berlin, 2023, 390 pages (with 30 contributions of scholars and practitioners, co-author of introduction and two additional texts)
Emil Nolde – eine deutsche Legende. Der Künstler im Nationalsozialismus. Essay- und Bildband. [English book title: Emil Nolde. The Artist during the Third Reich] Munich/London/New York: Prestel Verlag 2019. German and English editions. Co-editor, together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring for Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin and Nolde Stiftung Seebüll. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin in Hamburger Bahnhof (12.04.-15.09.2019) [Co-Curator of the Exhibition of the same title, with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring]
Emil Nolde – eine deutsche Legende. Der Künstler im Nationalsozialismus. Chronik und Dokumente. Munich/London/New York: Prestel Verlag 2019. German edition only. Chronology of the years 1927–1967, discussion of 103 documents. Co-author, together with Bernhard Fulda. Co-editor, together with Bernhard Fulda and Christian Ring for Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin and Nolde Stiftung Seebüll. Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin in Hamburger Bahnhof (12.04.-15.09.2019)
Flucht in die Bilder? Die Künstler der Brücke im Nationalsozialismus. Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2019. German and English editions. Study of the lives and work of Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Pechstein and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff during the period 1933 – ca. 1948. Co-author, together with Meike Hoffmann (single author of chapters 1-6, 9 chapters in total). Co-editor, together with Meike Hoffmann and Lisa Marei Schmidt for the Brücke Museum, Berlin. The book accompanies the exhibition at the Brücke-Museum and the Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin (24.04.-11./18.08.2019) [Co-Curator of the Exhibition of the same title, with Meike Hoffmann und Lisa Marei Schmidt]
Der Traum vom Paradies. Max und Lotte Pechsteins Reise in die Südsee. Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag 2016. Single authored monograph: Study of the artist's trip to the German South Seas in summer 1914, including transcriptions of his and his wife's travel diaries, 224 pages. Edited by Kunstsammlungen Zwickau. Published on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunstsammlungen Zwickau (09.07- 03.10.2016) and Städtisches Kunstmuseum Spendhaus Reutlingen (29.10. 2016 – 22.01.2017) [Co-Curator of the Exhibition of the same title, with Petra Lewey]
Weltenbruch. Die Künstler der Brücke im Ersten Weltkrieg. 1914-1918. Munich/London/New York: Prestel Verlag 2014. Single authored monograph: Study of the Artists of the former group Die Brücke during the First World War, 240 pages. Edited by Magdalena M. Moeller for Brücke Museum, Berlin. Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same title at Brücke Museum, Berlin (1.08.2014-16.11.2014) [Co-Curator of the Exhibition of the same title, with Magdalena Moeller]
Max Pechstein. The Rise and Fall of Expressionism. Part of the Series: Interdisciplinary German Cultural Studies. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter 2012. Biography on the German Expressionist artist Max Pechstein. Co-authored monograph, together with Bernhard Fulda, 432 pages
Max Pechstein. Das Werkverzeichnis der Ölgemälde. Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2011, Vol. 1: 1905 – 1918. Vol. 2: 1919-1954. Catalogue Raisonné of Max Pechstein's paintings, 1188 pages, including 1243 entries, as well as essays on reception history, collectors and Œuvre of Max Pechstein. Single authored monograph/catalogue, ed. Max Pechstein-Urheberrechtsgemeinschaft
Max Pechstein, Ein Expressionist aus Leidenschaft. Retrospektive. Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2010. Co-editor, together with Peter Thurmann and Andrea Madesta. Exh.-Cat. Kunsthalle zu Kiel (19.09.2010–09.01.2011), Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg (6.3. – 26.6.2011), Kunstmuseum Ahlen (10.07.–30.10.2011)
Sonderband Gruppe und Individuum in der Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke. 100 Jahre Brücke. Neueste Forschung. Jahrbuch der Dresdner Gemäldesammlungen. Volume of essays, proceedings of the conference on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the group in 2005. Co-editor (Redaktion), together with Birgit Dalbajewa und Konstanze Rudert, Berlin and Dresden 2007 [Co-organisor of the Conference of the same title, with Birgit Dalbajewa und Konstanze Rudert]
Expresionismo Brücke. Symposium No 4. Ed. Aya Soika, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 2005 (in Spanish, the symposium was organized by Javier Arnaldo)

Articles and contributions to exhibition catalogues and edited volumes:

Gel(i)ebte Kunst – Das Kunsthandwerk der Brücke, Exh. cat. Brücke Museum Berlin 2026 (forthcoming)
„Erich Heckel during the First World War“. In: Vivian Endicott Barnett: Erich Heckel, Exh. cat. Neue Galerie New York, Prestel Verlag: Munich, New York 2025 (forthcoming)
„Mies van der Rohe, Alfred Rosenberg und der ‚Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur‘“. In: Anke Blümm, Elizabeth Otto, Patrick Rössler (eds): „…ein Restchen alter Ideale“. Bauhäuslerinnen und Bauhäusler im Nationalsozialismus, Wallstein Verlag: Göttingen 2025 (forthcoming)
„Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – ‚Ich bin überzeugt, dass sich der Wert unserer Arbeit immer deutlicher zeigen wird.‘“ In: Exh. cat. Bauhaus und Nationalsozialismus, ed. Anke Blümm, Elizabeth Otto and Patrick Rössler for Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Hirmer Verlag: Munich 2024, pp. 98-101
„Das Ende des Bauhauses in Berlin. Von der vorläufigen Schließung bis zur Selbstauflösung“. In: In: exh. cat. Bauhaus und Nationalsozialismus, ed. Anke Blümm, Elizabeth Otto and Patrick Rössler for Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Hirmer Verlag: Munich 2024, pp. 54-59
„The Artist Collective Brücke From Today’s Perspective“. In: German Expressionism. The Artist Group Brücke and the Beginnings of Modernism. Exh. cat. Moderna Museet, Stockholm, anlässlich einer großen Brücke Ausstellung (21 September 2024 – 9 March 2025), Hirmer Verlag: Munich, pp. 63-80 [English and Swedish editions]
„Mies van der Rohe und der Nationalsozialismus.“ In: Mies und die ‚Unvollendete Moderne‘ – Das Revolutionsdenkmal von 1926, Schriftenreihe Mies van der Rohe Haus, Bd. 8, Form + Zweck: Berlin 2023, pp. 43-68
„Franco und Beethoven, wie schaff‘ ich das bloß?” Georg Kolbe und der Streit um die Moderne: Versuch einer Einordnung in die kunstpolitische Situation der Jahre nach 1933. In: Georg Kolbe im Nationalsozialismus. Kontinuitäten und Brüche in Leben, Werk und Rezeption, ed. by Elisa Tamaschke and Julia Wallner for Georg Kolbe Museum Berlin, Aufbau Verlag: Berlin, 2023, pp. 82-114, German and English edition, also available as open access:
https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/148488
„Kunst und koloniale Realität in der ‘Deutschen Südsee’. Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein und der Exotismusdiskurs in der Malerei der Moderne”. In: Mechthild Duppel-Takayama, Rolf Parr, Thomas Schwarz (Hrsg.): Exotismen in der Kritik. Series Szenen/Schnittstellen, Bd. 11, Fink/Brill: Paderborn 2023, S. 127-148
„Provenienzforschung im Werkverzeichnis?” (with Ingrid Pérez de Laborda), in: Kunstchronik. Monatsschrift für Kunstwissenschaft, Museumswesen und Denkmalpflege, ed. Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in München, 76, July 2023, 7, pp. 340-346
https://doi.org/10.11588/kc.2023.7.102124
„Einleitung“ (with Ingrid Pérez de Laborda and Eva Wiederkehr Sladeczek). In: Handbuch Werkverzeichnis – Œuvrekatalog – Catalogue raisonné, De Gruyter: Berlin 2023, pp. 11-19
„Werkverzeichnisse der Moderne” (mit Gisela Geiger). In: Handbuch Werkverzeichnis – Œuvrekatalog – Catalogue raisonné, De Gruyter: Berlin 2023, pp. 355-368
„Stiftungsförderung” (with Martin Hoernes, Ernst von Siemens Kulturstiftung). In: Handbuch Werkverzeichnis – Œuvrekatalog – Catalogue raisonné, De Gruyter: Berlin 2023, pp. 252-264
“Mies van der Rohe und der Nationalsozialismus”. In: Mies und die unvollendete Moderne, ed. by Wita Noack / Mies van der Rohe Haus, Berlin, 2023 (forthcoming)
“’Franco und Beethoven, wie schaff’ ich dies bloß?’ Georg Kolbe und der Streit um die Moderne: Versuch einer Einordnung in die kunstpolitische Situation der Jahre nach 1933”. In: Georg Kolbe im Nationalsozialismus. Kontinuitäten und Brüche in Leben, Werk und Rezeption, ed. by Elisa Tamaschke and Julia Wallner / Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin 2023 (forthcoming)
“Kunst und koloniale Realität in der ‘Deutschen Südsee’. Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein und der Exotismus-Diskurs in der Malerei der Moderne”. In: Exotismen in der Kritik, ed. by Mechthild Duppel, Rolf Parr, Thomas Schwarz, Fink: Stuttgart 2023 (forthcoming)
“Erich Dieckmann im Nationalsozialismus”. In: Stühle. Dieckmann! Der vergessene Bauhäusler Erich Dieckmann, ed. by Manon Bursian for Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Kulturstiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle/Saale 2022, 208 pages, pp. 105-115
Texts of key paintings by Kirchner, Nolde, Heckel, Pechstein and Schmidt-Rottluff. In: Die Sammlung der Nationalgalerie. Bestandskatalog 1905 bis 1945 (2 vols), ed. by Maike Steinkamp and Emily Joyce Evans, Neue Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, 2022
“Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and His Studios in Dresden and Berlin”. In: Kirchner and Nolde. Expressionism, Colonialism. Catalogue published on occasion of the exhibitions at the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Brücke-Museum, Berlin, Munich: Hirmer 2021, pp. 196-205 (separate German, Dutch and Danish editions)
“’Kulturelle Erzeugnisse’ aus Deutsch-Neuguinea. Emil Nolde: Briefe aus Neuguinea (1914).” Transcription and commentary, in: Beute. Eine Anthologie zu Kunstraub und Kulturerbe. Edited by Isabelle Dolezalek, Bénédicte Savoy and Robert Skwirbilies, Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2021, pp. 249-254, commentary from p. 251
“The Role of the Nazi Period in Exhibitions on German Expressionism. Reflections on the Relationship between Artworks and Historical Contexts”. In: Unmastered Past? Modernism in Nazi Germany. Art, Art Trade, Curatorial Practice, ed. by Meike Hoffmann und Dieter Scholz, Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag 2020, pp. 300-311 (separate German edition)
“Emil Nolde im Bundeskanzleramt. Zur Wandelbarkeit historischer Bewertungen“. In: Historische Urteilskraft 02. Das Magazin des Deutschen Historischen Museums, ed. by Raphael Gross, Stiftung Deutsches Historisches Museum, Munich: Beck 2020, pp. 34-38 (separate English translation)
“Max Pechsteins Rahmen”. In: Unzertrennlich. Rahmen und Bilder der Brücke-Künstler, ed. by Werner Murrer, Lisa Marei Schmidt, Daniel J. Schreiber, Ausst.-Kat./Exh.-Cat. Brücke-Museum, Berlin, Buchheim Museum, Bernried, Munich: Hirmer 2020, pp. 420-432
„Ada Noldes ‚Jahre der Kämpfe‘. Das Streben nach Anerkennung in der NS-Zeit“. In: Ada Nolde. „Meine vielgeliebte“. Muse und Managerin Emil Noldes, ed. by Astrid Becker, Christian Ring, Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann 2019, pp. 178-189
“Emil Nolde und die Ausstellung ‘Entartete Kunst’”. In: Emil Nolde in seiner Zeit. Im Nationalsozialismus, Tagungsband zum Symposium veranstaltet von der Stiftung Seebüll Ada und Emil Nolde in Kooperation mit der ‚Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung‘,ed. by Christian Ring, Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, Munich/London/New York: Prestel 2019, pp. 30-53
„Ein Exklusivvertrag mit Folgen. Max Pechstein und Wolfgang Gurlitt“. In: Wolfgang Gurlitt. Zauberprinz. Kunsthändler-Sammler, Exh.-Cat. Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz und Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2019, pp. 177/181-185
“Erich Heckels Madonna von Ostende. Eine vergessene Ikone des Berliner Kronprinzenpalais.” In: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, ed. by Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, vol. 58 (2016), Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag 2019, pp. 101-115
“Ein Künstler reagiert. Emil Nolde und die Ausstellung Twentieth Century German Art.” In: London 1938. Defending ›Degenerate‹ Art. Mit Kandinsky, Liebermann und Nolde gegen Hitler, ed. by Lucy Wasensteiner and Martin Faas, Exh.-Cat. The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide, London; Liebermann-Villa, Berlin, Wädenswil: Nimbus Verlag 2018, pp. 201–207 (bilingual German/English edition)
„Emil Noldes Südsee-Aquarelle im kolonialen Kontext“. In: Sønderjylland-Schleswig Kolonial – Eine Spurenlese, ed. by Marco L. Petersen, University of Southern Denmark Studies in History and Social Sciences, Bd. 569, Syddansk Universitetsforlag, Odense 2018, Chapter 15, pp. 277-304 (bilingual German/English edition, with English summary)
'Max Pechstein'. In: Allgemeines Künstler Lexikon (AKL). Ed. Bénédicte Savoy, Andreas Beyer and Wolf Tegethoff, De Gruyter: Berlin / New York 2018, pp. 494-497
'Künstlerreisen in die Südsee. Emil Nolde und Max Pechstein'. In: Inspiration des Fremden. Die Brücke-Maler und die außereuropäische Kunst. Almanach der Brücke, vol. 4. Ed. Kunstmuseum Moritzburg. On the occasion of an exhinition of the same title at Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle / Saale (13.11.2016-29.01.2017), Sandstein Verlag: Dresden, S. 105-113
“Erich Heckel’s Gemälde Atelierszene, 1911 / Steine, 1939”. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Albertinum. In: Patrimonia (Schriftenreihe der Kulturstiftung der Länder, ed. Kulturstiftung der Länder und den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden), 2017, S. 16-30
'The Sale of Emil Nolde's New Guinea Watercolours to the German Imperial Colonial Office'. In: Tributes to Jean Michel Massing, ed. by Phillip Lindley and Mark Stocker, Turnhout: Brepols/Harvey Miller Publishers, pp. 255-268
Five short essays on the provenance of paintings from the (former) Berlin Nationalgalerie Expressionist collection (by Lyonel Feininger, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Franz Marc and Emil Nolde). In: Die schwarzen Jahre: Kunstwerke in den Jahren 1933 bis 1945, ed. Dieter Scholz and Maria Obenaus. The publication accompanies an exhibition of the same title at Hamburger Bahnhof/Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (21.11.2015 – 21.08.2016), pp. 71-75, 107-109, 114-117, 121-124, 129-131
"Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Das Bad des Kranken (Der barmherzige Samariter), 1917 (Private Collection)"; „Erich Heckel, Der barmherzige Samariter, Holzschnitt-Triptychon, 1915 (Brücke-Museum, Berlin)". In: CARITAS. Nächstenliebe von den Frühen Christen bis zur Gegenwart. Exhibition catalogue of Diözesanmuseum Paderborn (23.07.2015 – 13.12.2015), Petersberg 2015: Michael Imhof Verlag, pp. 630, 631, 634
"Die doppelt bemalte Leinwand im Werk der Brücke". In: Der doppelte Kirchner. Die zwei Seiten der Leinwand. Exhibition catalogue of Kunsthalle Mannheim (06.02.2015 – 31.05.2015) and Kirchner Museum Davos (21.06.2015 – 08.11.2015), ed. Inge Herold, Ulrike Lorenz and Thorsten Sadowsky, Cologne 2015: Wienand Verlag, pp. 124-133 (German and English edition)
„Max Pechstein: Auf der Suche nach einem baltischen Arkadien". In: Zwei Männer – ein Meer. Pechstein und Schmidt-Rottluff an der Ostsee. Exhibition catalogue of Pommersches Landesmuseum Greifswald (29.03. – 28.06.2015), ed. Birte Frenssen, Greifswald 2015, pp. 11-37
Eleven short essays on works from the Neue Nationalgalerie Expressionist collection. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Stehende, 1912, wood sculpture; Badende am Strand, 1913; Potsdamer Platz, 1914; Belle-Alliance-Platz, 1914;Rheinbrücke bei Köln, 1914; Atelierecke, 1919/20; Zwei weibliche Akte, 1921; Wiesenblumen und Katze, 1931/32), Max Pechstein (Sitzendes Mädchen, 1910; Sommer in den Dünen, 1911; Am Strand von Nidden, 1911; Doppelbildnis, 1910), Otto Mueller (Zwei Mädchen, 1925/28), Erich Heckel (Selbstbildnis, 1919), Emil Nolde (Pfingsten, 1909; Papua-Jünglinge, 1914; Die Sünderin, 1926) and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (Bildnis Walter Niemeyer, 1921). In: Moderne Zeiten. Die Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin zu Gast in der Kunsthalle Würth Schwäbisch Hall,ed. C. Sylvia Weber, Udo Kittelmann, Dieter Scholz, as part of exhibition of the same title (23.05. – 01.5.2015), Künzelsau: Swiridoff Verlag, pp. 56-57, 66-69, 70-77, 80-83, 86-93, 166-167, 188-189 (English and Hebrew translation for the exhibition catalogue Twilight Over Berlin: Masterworks from the Nationalgalerie, 1905-1945, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 20.10.2015 – 07.06.2016)
'Emil Nolde and the national-socialist dictatorship'. In: Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937. Exhibition catalogue of Neue Galerie, New York (13.03.2014 – 30.6.2014), ed. Olaf Peters, Munich, London, New York: Prestel Publishing 2014, pp. 184-193 [with Bernhard Fulda]. Translated into Swedish : '"Han är i själva verket tyskarnas tysk". Emil Nolde och Nazidiktaturen'. In: Emil Nolde – Färgstormar, Exhibition catalogue of Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde (07.03.2015 – 30.08.2015) and Göteborgs Kunstmuseum (03.10.2015 – 17.01.2016), ed. Karin Sidén, Catrin Lundeberg, Christian Ring, Stockholm: Carlsson bokförlag 2015, pp. 105-112
'"Deutscher bis ins tiefste Geheimnis seines Geblüts" Emil Nolde und die nationalsozialistische Diktatur'. In: Emil Nolde, Retrospektive. Exhibition catalogue of Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main 05.03. – 09.06.2014) and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebaek (05.07.-19.10.2014), ed. Felix Krämer, Munich, London, New York: Prestel Publishing 2014, pp. 45-55 [with Bernhard Fulda]. Translated into English and Danish: '"German down to the deepest mystery of his origins." Emil Nolde and the National Socialist Dictatorship'. In: Emil Nolde. Retrospective, pp. 45-55; ‚"Tysk Ind I Sit Blods Dybeste Hemelighed". Emil Nolde Og Det National-Socialistiske Diktatur'. In: Emil Nolde. Liv Og Vaerk, as above, pp. 45-55
'Das Leben Christi / The Life of Christ, 1911-12'; 'Schlachtfeld / Battlefield, 1913'. Catalogue texts on nine-part polyptych and painting. In: Emil Nolde, Retrospective (as above), pp. 248, 253
'Die Originalität der Brücke'. In: Zeitschrift für Kunsttechnologie und Konservierung (ZKK), Heft 1/2013 (Werner'sche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms), pp. 77-90
'Heckel im Ersten Weltkrieg'. In: Erich Heckel – Der große Expressionist: Werke aus dem Brücke-Museum Berlin. Exhibition catalogue of Stadthalle Balingen (29.06.2013 – 29.09.2013), ed. Magdalena M. Moeller, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2013, pp. 184-189
'Max Pechstein, ein „Maler Tourist". „Allein, Allein, in einer noch nicht verfälschten Einheit von Mensch und Natur"'. In: Max Pechstein auf Reisen. Utopie und Wirklichkeit. Exhibition catalogue of Kunsthaus Stade (16.09.2012 – 20.01.2013), Kunstsammlungen Zwickau (9.02. – 12.05.2013), Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg (01.06. – 01.09.2013), Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2012, pp. 28-34
'Max Pechsteins „Erinnerungen"'. In: Max Pechstein auf Reisen. Utopie und Wirklichkeit. Exhibition catalogue of Kunsthaus Stade (16.09.2012 – 20.01.2013), Kunstsammlungen Zwickau (9.02. – 12.05.2013), Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg (01.06. – 01.09.2013), Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2012, pp. 22-26 [with Bernhard Fulda]
'Max Pechstein und die Literatur'. In: Wort wird Bild. Illustrationen der „Brücke"-Maler. Almanach der Brücke 2. Ed. Hermann Gerlinger and Katja Schneider. Published on the occasion of an exhibition with the same title at Stiftung Moritzburg, Kunstmuseum des Landes Sachsen Anhalt, Halle (05.02.2012 – 03.06.2012), Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2012, pp. 109-111
'Max Pechsteins letzter „Erinnerungsdank an die versunkene Pracht der Südsee" '. In: Die Brücke und der Exotismus: Bilder des Anderen. Ed. Ralph Melcher and Christoph Wagner. Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag 2011, pp. 76-8
Max Pechstein, Ein Expressionist aus Leidenschaft. Retrospektive. Exhibition catalogue of Kunsthalle zu Kiel (19.9.2010 – 09.01.2011), Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg (6.3. – 26.6.2011), Kunstmuseum Ahlen (10.07. – 30.10.2011), ed. Aya Soika, together with Andrea Madesta and Peter Thurmann, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2010
'Erich Heckel im Ersten Weltkrieg'. In: Erich Heckel. Aufbruch und Tradition. Eine Retrospektive. Exhibition catalogue Schleswig Schloss Gottdorf (16.05.2010 - 29.08.2010), Brücke-Museum, Berlin (19.09.2010 - 16.01.2011), ed. Magdalena M. Moeller, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2010, pp. 78-87
'Im Kreis von Freunden: Max Pechstein und die Förderer seiner Kunst'. In: Gemeinsames Ziel und eigene Wege. Die „Brücke" und ihr Nachwirken. Almanach der Brücke 1. Ed. Hermann Gerlinger and Katja Schneider, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2010, pp. 78-89
'"Um die guten Franzosen kennen zu lernen, muß man nach Deutschland gehen!" Max Pechstein und die französische Moderne'. In: Deutscher Expressionismus. 1905-1913. Brücke-Museum Berlin. 150 Meisterwerke. Exhibition catalogue Groninger Museum (13.12.2009 - 11.04.2010), ed. Magdalena M. Moeller and Marietta Jansen, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2009, pp. 45-55 (German and Dutch Edition)
'Max Pechstein, der "Führer" der "Brücke"', Anmerkungen zur zeitgenössischen Rezeption'. In: Neue Forschungen und Berichte, Brücke-Archiv, Heft 23/2008, Munich: Hirmer Verlag 2008, pp. 79-94
'Max Pechstein – Außenseiter oder Wegbereiter?' In: Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Berichte, Beiträge, Dresden 2005, Band 32 (Sonderband: "Gruppe und Individuum in der Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke. 100 Jahre Brücke – Neueste Forschung"), Dresden 2007, pp. 79-87
'Max Pechstein: Outsider or Trailblazer?'. In: Bridging History: New Perspectives on Brücke Expressionism, ed. Christian Weikop, Farnham: Ashgate 2011, pp. 163-176 (English translation of the essay 'Max Pechstein - Außenseiter oder Wegbereiter?', chapter 8 in a collection of twelve essays by different authors)
'Das Kolloquium in Dresden – Gruppe und Individuum in der Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke' (with Birgit Dalbajewa and Konstanze Rudert). In: Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Berichte, Beiträge 2005, Band 32 (Sonderband: "Gruppe und Individuum in der Künstlergemeinschaft Brücke. 100 Jahre Brücke – Neueste Forschung"), Dresden 2007, pp. 9-11
'Ein ungeliebtes Vorbild – Max Klingers Einfluss auf Max Pechstein und die Brücke'. In: Eine Liebe. Max Klinger und die Folgen. Exhibition catalogue Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (11.03.2007 – 24.06.2007), Kunsthalle Hamburg (11.10.2007 - 13.01.2008), ed. Hubertus Gaßner and Hans-Werner Schmidt, Kerber: Bielefeld 2007, pp. 71-74
'Im Dienste der Architektur: Die Brücke und die Dresdner Raumkunst'. In: Die Brücke in Dresden. 1905-1911. Exhibition catalogue Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (20.10.2001 – 06.01.2002), ed. Birgit Dalbajewa and Ulrich Bischoff, Cologne: König 2001, pp. 272-277
'Ein Südseeinsulaner in Berlin'. In: Die Brücke in der Südsee – Exotik der Farbe. Exhibition catalogue Saarlandmuseum, Saarbrücken (22.10.2005 – 08.01.2006), ed. Ralph Melcher, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz 2005, pp. 71-83
'Max Pechstein, "lider" de Brücke'. In: Aya Soika (ed.), Expresionismo Brücke, Symposium No. 4, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid 2005, pp. 73-95
'Kandinsky. Chronicle'. In: Kandinsky: Watercolours and other Works on Paper. Exhibition catalogue Royal Academy of Arts, London, ed. Frank Whitford, London: Thames and Hudson 1999, pp. 209-215 (English and German edition)

Reviews and short articles (selection):

„Ein ‘Platz an der Sonne’? Max Pechstein und Palau”. In: Exh. cat. Max Pechstein – Die Sonne in Schwarzweiß, Museum Wiesbaden: Hessisches Landesmuseum, Hirmer Verlag: Munich 2024, pp. 61-64 (illustrations pp. 60-65)
„Mit und ohne Namen: Gesichter in Schwarzweiß. Max Pechsteins Holzschnittserien Köpfe und Exotische Köpfe”. In: Exh. cat. Max Pechstein – Die Sonne in Schwarzweiß, Museum Wiesbaden: Hessisches Landesmuseum, Hirmer Verlag: Munich 2024, pp. 67-70 (illustrations pp. 66-71)
„Zwischen Kolonialarchitektur und Going Native auf Palau und Käwieng. Emil Nolde und Max Pechstein in der Kontaktzone der deutschen Südsee (1913/1914)” In: Falser, Michael (Hrsg.), Deutsch-koloniale Architektur als globales Bauprojekt um 1900 und als transkulturelles Erbe heute, München, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, 2023, pp. 398-401
“Grete Ring. Dealing in Modernism: From Cézanne and Renoir to Liebermann und Kokoschka.” In: The Burlington Magazine. New Research on Art and Its History, 165, December 2023, pp. 1359-1361
“Erich Heckel: A New Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints”. In: Print Quarterly, XI, 2023, 2, pp. 106-109
“Zwischen Kolonialarchitektur und Going Native auf Palau und in Käwieng. Emil Nolde und Max Pechstein in der Kontaktzone der deutschen Südsee (1913/14). In: Deutsch-koloniale Architektur als globales Bauprojekt um 1900 und als transkulturelles Erbe heute, ed. by Falser, Michael, Munich, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, 2023, pp. 398-401 (forthcoming)
“Erich Heckel’s Prints: A new Catalogue Raisonné”. In: Print Quarterly, London, 2023 (forthcoming)
“Ernst Barlach on the 150th Anniversary of his Birth. Albertinum, Dresden 8th August 2020-10th January 2021” (Exhibition Review), in: The Burlington Magazine, no. 163, January 2021, pp. 70-72
“Emil Nolde im Nationalsozialismus: eine kurze Übersicht der Forschungsergebnisse” (mit Bernhard Fulda)
“Im Fokus. Schluss mit Lustig?” Interview zwischen Norbert Bisky, Gabriele Knapstein und Aya Soika (Fragen von Gesine Bahr und Ingolf Kern), SPK Jahresbericht der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz 2019, pp. 16-27, forthcoming, soon available online
“Zur Situation der Brücke-Künstler im Nationalsozialismus”
“Emil Nolde” (up to date biography)
„Nolde: Briefe aus Neuguinea (1914)“, kommentiert von Aya Soika, in: Translocations. Anthologie: Eine Sammlung kommentierter Quellentexte zu Kulturgutverlagerungen seit der Antike
“Max Pechstein”. In: Astrid Becker, Emil Nolde als Sammler: Heckel, Jawlensky, Kirchner, Klee, Marc, Schmidt-Rottluff u.a, ed. Nolde Stiftung Seebüll, Munich/London/New York: Prestel Verlag 2018
“Die Brücke”. In: Lektüre - Bilder vom Lesen - Vom Lesen der Bilder, ed. Cathrin Klingsör-Leroy for Franz Marc Museum, Munich: Schirmer Mosel Verlag 2018
“Max Pechstein, Junge Frau mit rotem Barett, 1910”. In: Kunstmuseum Bern Meisterwerke, ed. Matthias Frehner and Valentina Locatelli, Kunstmuseum Bern, p. 219, illustration pp. 222-223
“Thema Fälschung. Hat die Kunstbranche aus dem Fall Beltracchi gelernt?” Interview with Restauro-Editor Friederike Voigt. In: Restauro, 3/2017, S. 42-45
“Der doppelte Heckel. Ein Hauptwerk des Brücke-Malers Erich Heckel kommt ins Dresdner Albertinum”. In: Arsprototo. Das Magazin der Kulturstiftung der Länder, 1/2017 (Title of edition: Kunst im Zwiespalt. Deutsche Moderne während der NS-Zeit), S. 32-35
'Das Kunsthaus Dahlem: vom Staatsatelier Arno Brekers zum Ausstellungsraum'. In: Kunstchronik, 69, vol. 1, January 2016, pp. 41-46
'Caravaggio aus der Asche. Kunst und Krieg ausgestellt: von einigen Werken blieben dem Berliner Bode-Museum nur noch verkohlte Reste'. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 24.03.2015, no. 70, p. 11
'"Mit herzlichstem Gruss Dein Max". Den Kunstsammlungen Zwickau gelingt mit dem Ankauf von Briefen und Postkarten Max Pechsteins eine kleine Wiedervereinigung'. In: Arsprototo. Das Magazin der Kulturstiftung der Länder, 1/2015, pp. 30-33
'Emil Nolde im Netzwerk der Moderne'. In: Kunstchronik, 66, 6, June 2013, pp. 304-309
'Schmidt-Rottluff's Woodblocks'. In: Print Quarterly, 30, 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 77-78
'Übermaltes Pechstein-Werk: Mit Mikroskalpell und Lupenbrille'. In: DIE ZEIT, Nr. 5 / 2012, 31.01.2012
'Otto Lange'. In: Print Quarterly, 29, 4, Dec. 2012, pp. 434-435
'Feininger – The Loebermann Collection'. In: Print Quarterly, 25, 2, March 2008, S. 193-195
'Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Das fotografische Werk'. In: The Burlington Magazine, vol. 149, no. 1253, 1/2007, p. 560
'Max Beckmann in Amsterdam'. In: Print Quarterly, 24, 4, Dec. 2007, pp. 442-443
'Utopia and Revolt'. In: Print Quarterly, 24, 3, March 2007, p. 300
'Kirchner's Self Portraits'. In: Print Quarterly, 23, 3, March 2006, pp. 317-318
'Brücke'. In: Print Quarterly, 23, 1, Jan. 2006, pp. 85-88
'Beckmann'. In: Print Quarterly, 22, 4, Dec. 2005, pp. 478-479
'Pechstein'. In: Print Quarterly, 21, 4, Dec. 2004, pp. 443-444
'German Expressionist Prints'. In: Print Quarterly, 21, 3, June 2004, pp. 313-316
'Kirchner'. In: Print Quarterly, 21, 2, June 2004, pp.195-199
'Kollwitz'. In: Print Quarterly, 20, 2, June 2003, pp. 197-202
'Münter'. In: Print Quarterly, 19, 2, June 2002, pp. 207-211
'The German Woodcut'. In: Print Quarterly, 17, 4, Dec. 2000, pp. 209-211
'Worpswede'. In: Print Quarterly, 17, 4, Dec. 2000, pp. 396-399
'The Swiss Graphic Society'. In: Print Quarterly, 16, 4, Dec. 1999, pp. 380-381

Contact
Prof. Dr. Aya Soika
Art History
Phone: +49 30 43733 303
Email: a.soika[at]berlin.bard.edu

Elizabeth Merrill

Currently a Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin with a project on Artistic Knowledge in Renaissance Siena, Elizabeth Merrill received her PhD in Art History from the University of Virginia in 2015 with a project on Francesco di Giorgio and the Formation of the Renaissance Architect. She was previously a visiting lecturer at the University of Virginia in the School of Architecture, and a pre-doctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute Berlin. She also held pre-doctoral research fellowships at the Morgan Library and Drawing Institute in New York and at Humboldt University Berlin. She has been an instructor in the University of Virginia's program in Vincenza, Italy, and in a number of courses in the university's McIntire department of Art. She joins Bard College Berlin to co-teach the core course on Renaissance Florence.

Andrea Meyer

Germany
PhD in Art History (Freie Universität Berlin)
Technische Universität Berlin

Andrea Meyer is a lecturer at the Art History department of the Technische Universität Berlin. Her area of interest lies in the field of modernism, museum and collection history, art criticism and transatlantic cultural transfer. Since 2014 Andrea has been teaching a series of joint seminars with Bard College Berlin (Art Production in the modern Age, Art and the First World War, Art and National Socialism, Cultures of Display, Collecting Curating Critiquing).

Publications

Books

The Museum is Open. Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750-1940, hrsg. v. Andrea Meyer u. Bénédicte Savoy, Berlin/Boston 2014.

Museumsgeschichte. Kommentierte Quellentexte 1750-1950, hrsg. von Kristina Kratz-Kessemeier, Andrea Meyer u. Bénédicte Savoy, Berlin 2010

Deutschland und Millet. Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2007, Berlin/München 2009.

Französische Kunst – Deutsche Perspektiven 1870 – 1945. Quellen und Kommentare zur Kunstkritik, hrsg. von Andreas Holleczek u. Andrea Meyer unter Mitarbeit von Friederike Kitschen u. Knut Helms, Berlin 2004 (teils in französischer Übersetzung erschienen in: Perspectives croisées. La critique d'art franco-allemande 1870-1945, hrsg. von Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Mathilde Arnoux u. Friederike Kitschen, Paris 2009).

In guter Gesellschaft. Der Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie Berlin von 1929 bis heute, Berlin 1998.

Articles (Selection)

The Journal Museumskunde – "Another Link between the Museums of the World," in: The Museum is Open. Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750-1940, hg. v. Andrea Meyer u. Bénédicte Savoy, Berlin/Boston 2014, S. 179-190.

with B. Savoy: "Towards a Transnational History of Museums – An Introduction," in: The Museum is Open. Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750-1940, hg. v.Andrea Meyer u. Bénédicte Savoy, Berlin/Boston 2014, S. 1-16.

with B. Savoy: "Transnationale Museumswissenschaften," in: Experimentierfeld Museum. Internationale Perspektiven auf Museum, Islam und Inklusion, hg. v. Susan Kamel u. Christine Gerbich, Bielefeld 2014, S. 117-131.

with B. Savoy: "Wie national sind Nationalgalerien? Einige Überlegungen zum weltweiten Museumsboom seit 1800," in: Die Gründung der Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Der Stifter Wagener und seine Bilder, hrsg. v. Birgit Verwiebe u. Angelika Wesenberg, Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau 2013, S. 221-235.

"Museumswandel / Museums in Transition," in: A-Z. Begriffe des Ausstellens/Terms of Exhibiting, hrsg. v. Petra Reichensperger, Berlin 2013, S. 261-2, S. 294-5.

"Notre maître à tous nous." Liebermann and Millet, in: Max Liebermann and International Modernism. An Artist's Career from Empire to Third Reich, hrsg. von Marion Deshmukh, Françoise Forster-Hahn u. Barbara Gaehtgens, New York/Oxford 2011, S. 63-77.

Contact
Dr. Andrea Meyer
Art History
Email: a.meyer[at]berlin.bard.edu

Francisca Rocha Gonçalves

Portugal
PhD in Digital Media
FEUP (University of Porto)

Francisca Rocha Gonçalves is a researcher from Porto, currently living in Berlin. Recently worked on the AQUATAG project at the IGB Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries. Has a background in biological sciences with a degree in Veterinary Medicine from ICBAS (University of Porto), a Multimedia Master in Interactive Music and Sound Design from FEUP (University of Porto), and a PhD in Digital Media from FEUP (University of Porto). The research focuses on acoustic ecology in artistic creation as a tool for environmental awareness concerning underwater soundscapes. Developing artistic artefacts that reveal the problem of noise pollution in underwater environments makes it possible to understand changes in vibration and particle motion, both vital components in aquatic life.

Combining interests in sound, technology, art and science, it aims to raise societal and environmental awareness through artistic practices and sound art. A great passion for biology and music led to a demand to find synergies between nature and sound. Bridging these two worlds, Francisca attempts to find new musical approaches, not only for musical compositions but also for live performances.

Presently is working for ICARUS, collaborating with Dr Johannes Goessling and James Diamond. ICARUS is an arts-science project that focuses on the photonic properties of diatoms and creates upscaled ice sculptures of their internal shells.

Co-founder of the artistic collective Openfield Creative Lab.

Co-founder of Ocean Soundscape Awareness project – ØSAW.

Contact:
Dr. Francisca Rocha Gonçalves
Arts
f.rochagoncalves[at]berlin.bard.edu

Gorana Misic

Croatia
PhD in Political Science
Central European University, Budapest and Vienna

Education Manager of OLIve Program

Dr. Gorana Misic received her PhD in Public Policy from the Central European University (CEU) in 2018. At Bard College Berlin she is Education Manager of OLIve Program, where she oversees the implementation of the curriculum, and works with OLIve faculty and students.

Before arriving at BCB in 2020, Gorana worked at the CEU Center for Teaching and Learning. She taught PhD courses related to foundations in teaching in higher education, creating a teaching portfolio, facilitating discussions, and teaching with case studies and simulations. She also worked on academic development, served as a teaching mentor, and has experience working with faculty on innovative teaching projects related to experiential learning and online teaching. Her research in the field of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning focuses on academic development of early career teachers, online mentoring, online ‘emergency’ pedagogy as a response to Covid-19, experiential learning, and including students as partners in higher education teaching and learning.

Previously, Gorana worked in Transparency International Croatia on projects related to financing of political parties and electoral campaigns, conflict of interests and freedom of information. Following this background, her PolSci research interest focuses on political financing and money in politics, regulations and compliance, and anti-corruption policies. Gorana’s PhD dissertation explored the impact of political financing regulations on party corruption in Croatia and Serbia. In her discipline, Gorana taught courses related to policy process and analysis, accountability of political parties, corruption control, public management, and comparative public budgeting.

Courses offered in AY 2020/2021:
MA Application Seminar (Fall 2020)
Critical Inquiry and Contemporary Social Problems (Spring 2021)

Further links:
Twitter
LinkedIn

Contact

Dr. Gorana Misic

Education Manager, Open Learning Initiative (OLIve)
Email: g.misic[at]berlin.bard.edu

Diana Adela Martin

Romania
ISU '09, Academy Year '10, Project Year '11
Currently: Senior Researcher at University College London (Engineering Ethics)

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
The community I got to know, being fully imemrsed into the educational activities, continuing to discuss ideas from classes on the street, walking towards the cafeteria, dining, back on campus. I loved it.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Rich in ideas and interesting conversations. An oasis of respite for dedicating to "the life of the mind" inside a vibrant city.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
I came to ECLA after doing an udnergrad degree in philosophy and logic in Bucharest. I liked to discover every course and each course had something special. If I were to highlight a few courses, these are the ones that brought together philosophy and literature, that sought to look at literary texts through the prisms of cultural theory or philosophy. Courses given on the apocalypse and how ending is a part both of biblical beliefs and literary texts (Judith Wolfe), on the rhetoric of King's James Bible (Catherine Toal) and the ontological dimensions of multiple selves in Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet (Bruno Macaes).

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
BCB (then called ECLA Berlin) opened my mind as to how values, liberal arts, and societal considerations can be integrated in education, and I contineud to pursue a career in education. In 2015 I started a PhD in engineering education research at Dublin Institute of Technology, where I investigated how ethics is being integrated in 23 engineering programmes in Ireland. Afterwards I went to TU Eindhoven (The Netherlands) for a postdoctoral position where my focus was on how external partners may be involved in educational activities and how this may impact engineering students' understanding of their societal responsibilities. After the postdoc, I moved to London for a permanent research position with the Centre for Engineering Education at UCL. So the interest in bringing the societal aspect in education remained with me after ECLA/BCB and turned into a career that I love. Big thanks to everyone for the experience.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am a Senior Researcher at University College London in the UK, working in the area of engineering ethics education and capacity development in engineering education research. As voluntary roles, I am the co-chair of the Ethics SIG of SEFI - The European Society of Engineering Ethics Education, Europe Board representative in REEN - Rsearch in Engineering Education Network, and the Associate editor of the journal Science and Engineering Ethics and of the European Journal of Engineering Education.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
BCB attracts many bright and very smart people. I would advise to choose humbleness and kindess in daily interactions over wanting to be or appear the smartest. It will lead, I think, to a more enriching experience and the possibility of pleasant surprises.

Taun N. Toay

Ex Officio
Annandale-based Managing Director of Bard College Berlin

Toay is Chief Financial Officer of Bard College. He has been involved in Bard College Berlin since 2011 in his position as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Chief of Staff, in which he was responsible for the satellite campuses' integration with the main campus. He has been a Managing Director since 2015.

Toay also is Managing Director of the Levy Economics Institute where he holds a research analyst position, focused on macroeconomic modeling and gender-aware analysis.

He was a Fulbright research grantee to Greece for 2005–06 and an affiliate of the University of Piraeus and has served as a visiting lecturer in the economics department at Bard College.

Toay holds an M.Phil. in Economics from the New School for Social Research.

Publications (selected)

"Co-operative Banking in Greece: A proposal for rural reinvestment and urban entrepreneurship" (with D.B. Papadimitriou), Research Report to the Observatory of Economic and Social Developments, Labour Institute, Greek General Confederation of Labour, 2014
"Direct Job Creation for Turbulent Times in Greece" (with R. Antonopoulos and D. B. Papadimitriou), Research Project Report to the Observatory of Economics and Social Development, Labour Institute, Greek General Confederation of Labour, 2011
"From Unpaid to Paid Care Work: The Macroeconomic Implications of HIV and AIDS on Women's Time-tax Burdens" (with R. Antonopoulos), in The Fourth Wave: An Assault on Women, Gender, Culture, and HIV/AIDS in the 21st Century (UNESCO-SSRC), 2009
"Expensive Living: The Greek Experience under the Euro" (with T. Pelagidis), Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, 2007

Nina Tecklenburg

Germany
PhD in Theater Studies
Freie Universität Berlin

Prof. Dr. Nina Tecklenburg is a theatre maker and scholar. She is a co-artistic director of the performance group Interrobang and has collaborated with award-winning performance groups and artists such as Gob Squad, She She Pop, Lone Twin Theatre, Rabih Mroué amongst others. Works she has (co-)created have been shown at the Public Theater NYC, Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, The Barbican London, Wiener Festwochen, Esplanade Singapore, Kunsten Festival des Arts Brussels, Theatre de la Ville Paris, Sophiensaele Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin and many more. In 2017-18 she was a guest professor at Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts Berlin and has taught at various institutions such as Bern University of the Arts, Freie Universität Berlin, University of Hildesheim, Berlin University of the Arts. Her current artistic and academic research interests include theater and digital culture, new narrative practices in contemporary performance, politics of participation, performance activism. She is part of the research project Viral Theatres (VolkswagenStiftung) and author of Performing Stories: Narrative as Performance (Seagull Books 2022, German original: transcript 2016, second edition). She recently co-edited Hybrid Futures. Theatre and Performance in the Post/pandemic Anthropocene (special edition of International Journal for Performing Arts and Digital Media, 2023) and co-directed Chat Inferno (2022, nominated for Heidelberger Stückemarkt 2023) and Die Philosophiermaschine (2020, invited to Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen 2023).

Research and Teaching Interests

Theory and history of performance art, postdramatic theater, performance and art practice as research, narrative theory, autobiography, applied theater, artistic approaches and methods in devised theater, theater after the postdramatic (new book project)

Further links
Interrobang website

Contact
Prof. Dr. Nina Tecklenburg

Theater and Performance
Email: n.tecklenburg[at]berlin.bard.edu

Catherine Toal

Ireland
PhD in English and American Literature
Harvard University

Dean

Prof. Dr. Catherine Toal is Dean of Bard College Berlin. She received her PhD from Harvard University, where her dissertation was awarded the University's prizes in Nineteenth-Century Literature and American Literature. She has held a Junior Research Fellowship at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. Her research and teaching interests encompass nineteenth-century French, English, American and German literature, and literary and critical theory. In 2016, her book The Entrapments of Form: Cruelty and Modern Literature, was published by Fordham University Press, and received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Modern Language Initiative. Her work has also appeared in the journals Comparative Literature, Nineteenth-Century Literature and the Journal of European Studies.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Catherine Toal
Dean
Phone: +49 30 43733 216
Email: c.toal[at]berlin.bard.edu

Hanan Toukan

Jordan/USA
PhD in Politics and International Studies
SOAS, University of London

Hanan Toukan is Professor of Politics and Middle East Studies. Her research sits at the intersection of Middle Eastern studies, international politics, critical theory, political theory, colonial/postcolonial studies, contemporary art theory, visual cultures and cultural studies. Her writings are concerned with the political and social roles art and cultural institutions play in our lives; the function(s) of art in international politics; museums and exhibitionary practices; migration and the movement of art objects; and the politics of knowledge production in and about the memories, displacements, racializations, histories and ecologies of Global South contexts. She was previously visiting Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and History of Art at Brown University and Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies of the Middle East at Bamberg University. She is also a recipient of several research awards including most recently from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Toukan completed her PhD at SOAS, University of London were she won the Middle East Studies Association of North American Malcolm H. Kerr Award for best PhD in the Social Sciences for 2012.

Toukan is the author of The Politics of Art: Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan published with Stanford University Press (2021).

Her academic writing has also been published in Perspectives on Politics (2022) Journal of Visual Culture (2021), International Journal of Cultural Studies (2019), Radical Philosophy (2018), Cultural Politics (2016), Jerusalem Quarterly (2016), Journal for Palestine Studies (2013), Arab Studies Journal (2011), Review of Middle East Studies (2011) and SCTIW Review (2014). She has published book chapters in Leila Farsakh (ed.), Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Statehood (University of California Press, 2021); Viola Shafik (ed), Documentary Filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa (Cairo University Press, 2021); Friederike Pannewick and Georges Khalil (eds.), Commitment and Beyond: Locating the Political in Arabic Literature since the 1940s (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2015); and Dina Matar and Zahera Harb (eds.), Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Lebanon and Palestine (IB Tauris, 2013).

Toukan is also a writer whose work has appeared in various catalogues, art publications and journals such as Jacobin (2022, with Sultan Doughan), Rusted Radishes (2022) Art Forum (2021, with Adila Laidi Hanieh), e-Flux (2021), openDemocracy (2021), Jadaliyya (2012, 2011), Ibraaz (2013, 2012), Unmade Film (2013) ed. Uriel Orlow (Zurich: edition Fink), and The Abraaj Capital Art Prize catalogue (Spectral Imprints) (2012), amongst others.

She serves as an editorial member of the Journal of Visual Culture collective and as a contributing editor at Jerusalem Quarterly. She is currently co-editing a volume on Palestinians, memory culture, and the politics of injury and erasure in Germany.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Hanan Toukan

Politics and Middle East Studies
h.toukan[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ramona Mosse

Germany/USA
PhD in English and Comparative Literature
Columbia University

Ramona Mosse received an M.A. (Honours) in English Literature from Edinburgh University, where she studied classics, literature, and philosophy. She earned a PhD (with distinction) in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University with a dissertation on tragedy and utopia in Cold War culture.

Ramona has taught at Columbia University, at Barnard College, and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Previously, she was a Fellow at the International Research Center for Interweaving Performance Cultures at the Freie Universität Berlin and, more recently, a Principles of Cultural Dynamics Fellow at the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Her work has been published in Anglia, Theater Journal, THEWIS, Performance Philosophy Journal and The Baffler, among others. Ramona is also a Core Convenor of the Performance Philosophy Network. Her research interests include: modernity and tragedy, cultural politics of the Cold War, the posthuman and non-human in performance, aurality in theatre/sound studies, the environmental humanities. She is currently writing a monograph on theatrical performance in the Anthropocene and is editing, with Anna Street, a volume on genre in performance and philosophy. Ramona also works as a dramaturg and translator.

Contact
Dr. Ramona Mosse
English and Comparative Literature
Email: r.mosse[at]berlin.bard.edu

Denise Kripper

Argentina
Academy Year '08/09, ISU '09
Currently: Associate Professor of Latin American literature and translation studies at Lake Forest College, translation editor at Latin American Literature Today, author

ECLA* has offered a great intellectual community: from the deans and professors, to the staff and students, we all formed a tight-knit community where students' interests were fostered and their critical viewpoints challenged. While at ECLA, the interdisciplinary curriculum allowed me to explore a wide array of classes, from Film Studies and World Literature, to Philosophy and Art History.

In 2010, I was invited back to ECLA to help coordinate that year's Annual Conference, after a proposal I had put forward on the topic of translation. It was a fascinating week-long symposium with important international lecturers discussing the role of the translator and the possibility of intercultural awareness through translation.

The following year, I started my PhD in Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University, from which I graduated in 2016. My dissertation, entitled The Translator's Fictions: the Translator as Protagonist in Contemporary Spanish and Latin American Literature, explored the recent upsurge in the representation of translation and the task of the translator in literature, and was very much inspired by my work in Berlin. I am currently Associate Professor of Latin American Literature and Translation in the Modern Languages & Literatures Department at Lake Forest College near Chicago.

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013

Looking back, what did you most enjoy about your time at Bard College Berlin/what had the biggest impact on you while studying at Bard College Berlin?
I enjoyed expanding my intellectual horizons and engaging with new (for me) areas of study. I made long-lasting friendships and learned a lot about myself. My time at the college cemented my desire to pursue graduate studies and continue on with a PhD.

How would you describe, in a nutshell, the experience of studying at BCB?
Studying in Berlin was a formative experience. It was exciting and fun, and challenging in the best possible way.

Write briefly about one of your courses that left a lasting impression on you.
Prof. Matthias Hurst's film courses were very insightful in opening new interpretations of what a "text" could be. Through his analysis of film scenes, I learned how to do good close readings, which would later become invaluable in my literary work, both as a scholar and as a translator.

How has BCB influenced the path you've taken since completing the program?
It was truly decisive in everything that I did after in ways I'm still discovering! It's brilliant that after so many years I'm still learning about the impact of that experience both in my personal and professional life.

Where are you now and what are you doing?
I am currently Associate Professor at Lake Forest College in the US, where I teach Latin American literature and translation studies. I am also the translation editor at Latin American Literature Today. I've recently published a book called Narratives of Mistranslation: Fictional Translators in Latin American Literature.

Any advice you would give to students considering BCB?
Don't be afraid of going outside your comfort zone & get to know your professors

Razieh-Sadat Mousavi

Iran
MA in History of Science
University of Tehran

Razieh-Sadat Mousavi is currently finishing her PhD thesis at the Humboldt University of Berlin. She works on the early Islamic astronomical books through textual and contextual analyses with a special focus on a ninth-century textbook on Ptolemaic astronomy. She is interested in the role of literary forms as mobile carriers of meaning and how they played a role in the transmission process of scientific concepts across cultures. Mousavi is a predoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Her study also received support from the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion, Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period,” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Mousavi’s other research interests include the history of cosmology and mathematical modelling of the universe, as well as the cultural dimensions of Medieval scientific practices.

Contact:
Razieh-Sadat Mousavi
History
[email protected]

Joel Mu

Australia
Curator

Joel Mu is an Australian curator. He has worked with artists, writers, theorists, DJs, dancers and choreographers to present new work in galleries and theatres, as well as site-specific events and online publications. In 2015, he started Berlin’s M.I/mi1glissé (M.I), an independent curatorial programme and gallery space. M.I’s event-oriented artist-projects have been hosted in Berlin and Paris with respective solo and group-exhibitions by Christophe de Rohan Chabot, Eleanor Weber, Esben Weile Kjær, Anne Sofie Madsen, Adam Fearon, Anna Zett, Garrett Nelson, Guillaume Maraud, Anne Fellner & Burkhard Beschow, HellFun, i.Ruuu, Alley Catss, Julian Weber, Aurora Sanders, Nuri Koerfer, Mark Soo, Julian Stalbohm, Yves Scherer, Spyros Rennt, Tommy Camero and others.

http://mi1glisse.com/
@groupsandindividuals

Contact
Joel Mu
Curating
Email: [email protected]

Cristina Groeger

USA
Project Year 2008/09
Currently: Assistant Professor of History, Lake Forest College, Illinois, USA

When I explain what my time at the European College of Liberal Arts (ECLA*, now Bard College Berlin) was like to friends in the States, I usually say "it's what a liberal arts college should be like." When I attended, the college was certainly smaller than even "small" liberal arts colleges in the States, it didn't have a typical array of majors and concentrations, but from day one, it was evident to me that it took the idea of liberal arts very seriously. Most impressively, I believe, was that it encouraged continued self-reflection about the form and purpose of education. Aided by the small size and the young age of the program, Bard College Berlin is an institution in which every individual matters and has a great deal of influence in shaping the learning environment. During my time here, self-reflection was not idle talk; it had immediate effects on the school community. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to participate in this close-knit intellectual community, surrounded by students and faculty engaging with each other in class and at meal-times.

After graduating from college in the United States, I decided to enroll in ECLA's Project Year, which I found to be a great combination of regular seminars and independent research. For me, the seminars were a way to explore new areas of literature, philosophy, and history that I had not had a chance to in college, as well as learn from my classmates and professors. The independent tutorial structure of the PY program gave me the flexibility to pursue my own interests as they morphed through the year. The faculty I worked with always had my own interests and intellectual growth at heart. Being in the vibrant city of Berlin, encouraged through college facilitated trips and transportation/museum passes, was also an incredible boon, and dovetailed with my own interest in German history and the German language. For me, ECLA was a time of reflection, growth, and exploration, and I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone who is intellectually curious to become part of the community of Bard College Berlin.

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013

Julia Hart

USA
BA in German Literature and Theater Studies, Yale University
BA in Theater Directing, Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hamburg

Julia Hart is an American theater director living in Hamburg. After graduating from Yale University in 2003 with a B.A. in German Literature and Theater Studies, Julia directed her first shows in the former East Germany with a fellowship from the Robert Bosch Foundation. She spent a year working on Off-Broadway theater productions as a choreographer and assistant director until she was awarded a Fulbright Grant in 2005 to research theater post-reunification. After working at the Theatertreffen Festival, Maxim Gorki Theater, Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Julia began the directing program at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater in 2008. Since then she has directed plays in English and German, ranging from contemporary American playwrights to the German classics and has received three scholarships from the DAAD for her achievements. Her work has been shown at Kampnagel, Schauspielhaus Hamburg Malersaal and Rangfoyer, Stadttheater Bremerhaven, and the Lichthof Theater Hamburg.

Since 2013 Julia has been developing performances and plays based on documentary material. She has been awarded grants from the Hamburg Kulturbehörde to create three original productions at the Lichthof Theater in Hamburg. Her work has also been shown at the Hamburg’s festival for the independent arts’ sector Hauptsache Frei.

Julia has also been working with Greenpeace Germany since the fall of 2017 to develop performances in the public space to bring attention to the air pollution in Germany caused by the auto industry.

Her upcoming show “DER HAMBURGER KODEX” (May 2018) is an interdisciplinary performance investigating how to stage philosophical thoughts while exploring ways of interacting with audiences of all ages.

Further links
Personal website

Contact
Julia Hart
Theatre Studies
Email: j.hart[at]berlin.bard.edu

Marylea van Daalen

Member Emerita

Marylea van Daalen is the founding director of the Kempinski Arts Support Programme. She has extensive international experience in the world of culture and the arts.

Marylea chaired the Board of WICE Paris (as President) and was a member of the Boards of the State Opera "Unter den Linden," the German Symphony Orchestra, and the Fulbright Commission, all in Berlin. She also served on the Boards of the Moscow Conservatory and the MAK Museum in Vienna.

Sophia New & Dan Belasco Rogers (plan b)

Plan B are the British artists Sophia New and Daniel Belasco Rogers who have been working together and based in Berlin since 2001. The work is both site specific and relationship specific and often takes personal daily data as the main material to be made public through a practice than spans visual art, new media, performance, installation and socially engaged practice. It has been shown in festivals, exhibitions, theaters and on the streets of many different cities. They both regularly teach on a variety of arts courses in Germany and abroad.

Further links
plan b website

Contact
Sophia New, MA
Artist
Email: s.new[at]berlin.bard.edu

Dan Belasco Rogers, BA
Artist
Email: d.rogers[at]berlin.bard.edu

Photo by Chris de Lutz

Tobias Neubelt

Germany
MA in German as a Foreign and Technical Language
Technische Universität Berlin

Tobias Neubelt studied History, German Language, and German Literature at Freie Universität Berlin, as well as German in the Context of Multilingualism at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and German as a Foreign and a Technical Language at Technische Universität Berlin. He has worked as part of an intercultural translation project as well as an instructor at the University of Delhi followed by employments at Freie Universität Berlin and Technische Universität Berlin. His academic interests include contrastive linguistics and intercultural communication.

Contact:
Tobias Neubelt
German Language
Email: t.neubelt[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aslı Vatansever

Turkey
PhD in Sociology
University of Hamburg

Aslı Vatansever (PhD University of Hamburg, 2010) is a sociologist of work and social stratification with a focus on precarious academic labor. After she was dismissed from her office as associate professor and got banned from public service in Turkey for having signed the Peace Petition of the Academics for Peace in 2016. She was hosted as a guest researcher at the Leibniz Zentrum Moderner Orient (October 2016-May 2017) and at the Centre Marc Bloch (June-July 2017); as a Scholar Rescue Fund Fellow at the Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies at the University of Padova (September 2017-August 2018); as a research associate at the Re:Work Institute of the Humboldt University, Berlin (September 2018-August 2020), and as a guest lecturer at the University of Padova (October-December 2020).

Her books include Ursprünge des Islamismus im Osmanischen Reich. Eine weltsystemanalytische Perspektive (Hamburg: Dr. Kovač, 2010), Ne Ders Olsa Veririz. Akademisyenin Vasıfsız İşçiye Dönüşümü (Ready to Teach Anything. The Transformation of the Academic into Unskilled Worker, Istanbul: İletişim, 2015 – co-authored with Meral Gezici-Yalçın), and At the Margins of Academia. Exile, Precariousness, and Subjectivity (Brill: 2020).

Contact:
Dr. Aslı Vatansever
Director of Development and Philanthropy
+49 30 43733 118
[email protected]
Sociology
E-Mail: a.vatansever[at]berlin.bard.edu

Michaela Nocker

Michaela Nocker studied psychology, German literature, German as a Second Language and theater dramaturgy in Graz, Vienna and Delhi. She earned her M.A. in German Literature and Language at the Karl Franzens University Graz, with emphasis on modern theater adaptations.
For many years, she worked as a project assistant at the Literaturhaus Graz, on various theater productions in Austria, and in project management in cultural institutions abroad, such as the Goethe Institute in Sri Lanka and the Austrian cultural forums in Washington DC and New Delhi.
She has been teaching German as a foreign language at several institutions in Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin), India and Nepal, conducting workshops in improvisation theatre, and offering drama educational programs. As a founder and director of the performing artist collective UNVEILED in Kathmandu, she stages international theater productions and supports the female empowerment movement in Nepal.

Boris Vormann

Germany
PhD in Political Science
Freie Universität Berlin

Professor of Politics, Director Politics Concentration
Boris Vormann is Professor of Politics and Director of the Politics Section at Bard College Berlin. He is also a principal investigator at the John-F.-Kennedy Institute's Graduate School of North American Studies (Freie Universität Berlin) and an associated researcher at the Chaire de Recherche du Canada en Études Québécoises et Canadiennes at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He serves on the editorial board of American Studies/Amerikastudien, A Quarterly, and has held visiting positions at the CUNY Graduate Center, Harvard University, Sciences Po Paris and New York University.

Vormann's research and teaching lie at the intersection of comparative political economy and economic geography and focus on the role of the state in globalization and urbanization processes; nations and nationalism; and the crisis of democracy. Vormann is a regular commentator on public policy debates for different media outlets (including The Economist, Deutsche Welle, Tagesschau, and Deutschlandfunk). His current research project examines the role of the state in building the urban logistical infrastructures of expanding global trade networks.

Books
Vormann, Boris, and Christian Lammert. 2023. Legitimizing Authority: American Government and the Promise of Equality. Translated by Susan H. Gillespie. Routledge: London and New York, NY.

–––, Christian Lammert, and Markus Siewert (eds.). 2023. Handbuch Politik USA. Vollständig überarbeitete 3. Auflage. Springer VS: Wiesbaden.

–––, and Heike Paul (eds.). 2023. USA: Eine Demokratie und ihre Anachronismen. Special Issue, Zeitschrift für Politik.

–––, and Christian Lammert. 2022. Das Versprechen der Gleichheit. Legitimation und die Grenzen der Demokratie. Campus: Frankfurt am Main.

–––, and Michael Weinman (eds.). 2021. The Emergence of Illiberalism: Understanding a Global Phenomenon. Routledge: New York, NY.

–––, Heike Paul and Cedric Essi (eds.). 2021. Common Grounds? American Democracy after Trump. Amerikastudien/American Studies: A Quarterly, Special Issue. Winter: Heidelberg.

–––, Christian Lammert, and Markus Siewert (eds.). 2020. Handbuch Politik USA. Vollständig überarbeitete Neuauflage. Springer VS: Wiesbaden.

–––, and Christian Lammert. 2019. Democracy in Crisis: The Neoliberal Roots of Popular Unrest. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA.

–––, and Christian Lammert. (eds.). 2019. Contours of the Illiberal State: Governing Circulation in the Smart Economy. Campus/The University of Chicago Press.

–––, and Christian Lammert. 2017. Die Krise der Demokratie und wie wir sie überwinden. Aufbau Verlag: Berlin.

–––, Lammert, Christian, and Markus Siewert (eds.). 2016. Handbuch Politik USA. Springer VS: Wiesbaden.

–––. 2015. Global Port Cities in North America: Urbanization Processes and Global Production Networks. Routledge: London and New York, NY.

–––. 2012. Zwischen Alter und Neuer Welt. Nationenbildung im transatlantischen Raum. Synchron Publishers: Heidelberg.

–––, Kolboom, Ingo and Alain-G. Gagnon (eds.). 2011. Québec. Staat und Gesellschaft. Synchron Publishers: Heidelberg.

Photo by Milena Schlösser

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Boris Vormann
Professor of Politics
Director Politics Concentration

Dorothea von Hantelmann

Germany
PhD in Art History
Freie Universität Berlin

Associate Dean, Professor of Art and Society

A theorist, scholar, writer and curator whose work is at the forefront of new developments in contemporary art and exhibition culture, Dorothea von Hantelmann joins Bard College Berlin following her service as documenta Professor at the University of Kassel.

Dorothea von Hantelmann has held research positions at the Free University, Berlin and at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has curated and co-curated exhibitions and interdisciplinary projects at the Vienna Festival; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; the International Venice Architecture Biennale; and Villa Empain, Brussels and has written and edited numerous publications including How to Do Things with Art – The Meaning of Art's Performativity; Die Ausstellung: Politik eines Rituals [The Exhibition: Politics of a Ritual]; and Notes on the Exhibition, in the "100 Notes - 100 Thoughts" series of documenta.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Dorothea von Hantelmann
Associate Dean, Professor of Art and Society
Phone: +49 30 43733 234
Email: d.vonhantelmann[at]berlin.bard.edu

Benjamin Hochman

Israel/USA
The Juilliard School, Graduate Diploma, Orchestral Conducting
Mannes School of Music, Master of Music, Piano
The Curtis Institute of Music, Bachelor of Music, Piano

The New York Times wrote of pianist and conductor Benjamin Hochman, “classical music doesn’t get better than this.” Winner of Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has performed as piano soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Israel, and Prague Philharmonic Orchestras. His recitals and chamber music appearances include Carnegie Hall, the Louvre, Suntory Hall, and the Lucerne Festival.

Hochman’s debut album as conductor and concerto soloist was released on Avie Records in 2019: Mozart Piano Concertos No. 17 and No. 24 with the English Chamber Orchestra. The New York Times remarked: “The stylistic insight, elegance and sparkle of Mr. Hochman’s pianism are beautifully matched by the playing of the orchestra.”

Hochman’s previous recording for Avie, “Variations”, included works by Oliver Knussen, Luciano Berio, George Benjamin, Peter Lieberson, and Johannes Brahms. It was selected by the New York Times as one of the Ten Best Classical Recordings of 2015.

A graduate of The Juilliard School’s conducting program where he studied with Alan Gilbert and was the recipient of the Bruno Walter Scholarship and Charles Schiff Award, Hochman served as musical assistant to Louis Langrée at the 2016 Mostly Mozart Festival, and participated in the 2018 Tanglewood Conducting Seminar. Recent and forthcoming conducting engagements include Santa Fe Pro Musica, Orlando Philharmonic, and The Orchestra Now. At the recommendation of the Solti Foundation US, he served as cover conductor to Rafael Payare and Bramwell Tovey at San Diego Symphony in the 2019-20 season.

He is a Steinway Artist and serves on the piano faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Website:
www.benjaminhochman.com

Contact:
Benjamin Hochman
b.hochman[at]berlin.bard.edu

Andrea Ottone

Italy
PhD in History
University of Naples Federico II

Andrea Ottone earned a Bachelor in Philosophy from the Sapienza University of Rome and a PhD in History from the University of Naples ‘Federico II.’ He is currently a member of the EMoBookTrade project for which he explores the economic and legal background of early modern printing press technology. In 2018 he was Ahmanson fellow at UCLA, and since 2019 he has been a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. His research moves within the scope of the Italian Renaissance, resulting in publications mainly on topics related to book history, censorship, religious and intellectual history. He recently coedited the volume, Privilegi librari nell'Italia del Rinascimento (Milano: FrancoAngeli, 2019), and his coedited volume, Publishing Sacrobosco’s ‘De sphaera’ in Early Modern Europe. Modes of Material and Scientific Exchange, is under contract with Springer.

Contact:
Dr. Andrea Ottone
History
a.ottone[at]berlin.bard.edu

Christiane von Hardenberg

Christiane von Hardenberg holds a doctorate in economics and is a best-selling author of several books, investor, and entrepreneur. She is married and a mother of four sons as well as an art lover. After spending over a decade as an editor for leading economic publications such as the "Financial Times Deutschland," "Süddeutsche Zeitung," and "Die Zeit," she resigned, taking her finances into her own hands, investing in the Berlin real estate market and global financial markets. With a twinkle in her eye, she speaks of managing what she calls the smallest family office in Germany during this time. Her experiences balancing family breakfasts and the stock market are chronicled in her bestseller "Selbst investiert die Frau," published by Rowohlt. This was followed by around 100 "money matters" columns on Zeit Online, where she aims to encourage women and young people, in particular, to take responsibility for their personal finances. In the fall of 2023, her second book, "Mach mehr aus deinem Geld," was published, also becoming a bestseller. Since spring 2024, she has been writing regularly for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. At the end of 2023, she founded the Wealth Academy, where she teaches women the tools to make self-determined financial decisions and build their own wealth.

Christiane and her family love to explore our wonderful planet. They have lived on three continents and collectively traveled to more than 40 countries, from Australia to Vanuatu.

Israel Waichman

Israel
PhD in Economics
Kiel University

Israel Waichman is Professor of Economics and Director of the Economics Section at Bard College Berlin. He holds a PhD in Economics (Dr. sc. pol., 2009) from the University of Kiel. While engaged in his PhD studies, he also completed the advanced study program in International Economics Policy Research at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. He also attained a European Master in Law and Economics (2003) and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Haifa, Israel. Prior to his appointment at Bard College Berlin, Israel Waichman was an Assistant Professor for Environmental and Resource Economics at the (Alfred-Weber-Institute) University of Heidelberg.

Prof. Dr. Waichman is a behavioral economist using controlled experiments to study issues mainly related to environmental economics and sustainability. In particular, his research focuses on institutions that could potentially overcome collective-action problems (such as avoiding the tragedy of the commons and preventing climate change) and also on experimental investigations of environmental policy instruments (e.g., testing different emission permit trading schemes). A third research focus is on data-sharing instruments and the environment (e.g., self-verification instruments, enabling adequate disclosure of Scope 3 emissions).

Prof. Dr. Waichman’s research was published in internationally renowned journals among them Nature Communications, European Economic Review, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Journal of Environmental Economics & Management, Experimental Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economics Letters, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Economic Psychology, and Environmental & Resource Economics. Moreover, Israel Waichman serves as an associate editor of Nature Portfolio Journal (npj) Climate Action.

Finally, Prof. Dr. Waichman is also interested in the practical implementation of behavioral and experimental methods. He was the academic advisor to a European Commission project using behavioral experiment to investigate the merits of geographical indication regulation. He is also among the founding members of SINE, a Berlin-based Think, and Do Tank offering solutions for data-sharing dilemmas, and he consults startups on go-to-market strategies.

Courses taught
Principles of Economics
Microeconomics
Mathematics for economics
Statistics
Econometrics
Experimental Economics
Cost Benefit Analysis
Environmental and Resource Economics

Publications in peer-reviewed journals

“Trading off autonomy and efficiency in choice architectures: Self-nudging versus social nudging”, in press, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (with Johannes Diederich, and Timo Goeschl) Link
“Supply-chain data sharing for scope 3 emissions”, 2023 npj Climate Action, 2(7) (with Aurel Stenzel). Open access link
“The creation of social norms under weak institutions”, 2022 Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 9(6), 1127-1160. (with Florian Diekert, Tillmann Eymess, and Joseph Luomba)
"Challenging the conventional wisdom: Experimental evidence on heterogeneity and coordination in avoiding a collective catastrophic event," 2021 Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 109, 02502 (with Till Requate, Markus Karde, and Manfred Milinski)
"The effects of contemporaneous peer punishment on cooperation with the future", 2020, Nature Communications, 11, 1815 (with Joannes Lohse) Open access link
"Is there no "I" in "TEAM"? Interindividual-intergroup discontinuity effect in a Cournot competition experiment", 2020 Journal of Economic Psychology, 77, 102181 (with Korbinian von Blackenburg)
"Linking wealth and punishment effectiveness: Punishment and cooperation under congruent heterogeneities", 2020 Economic Inquiry, 58, 86-103
"Tell the truth or not? The Montero mechanism for emissions control at work", 2019 Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 95, 133-152 (with Till Requate, Eva Camacho Cuena, and Ch'ng Kean Siang)
"When punishment strikes late: The effect of a delay in punishment and punishment feedback on cooperation and efficiency", 2019 Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 12(1), 1-17 (with Lukas Stenzel)
"Payment procedure and generalizability of social dilemma experiments", 2016 Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 9(3-4), 200-216 (with Andreas Voss)
"Group size and the (in)efficiency of pure public good provision". 2016 European Economic Review, 85, 272–287 (with Johannes Diederich, and Timo Goeschl)
"Old age and prosocial behavior: Social preferences or experimental confounds?", 2016 Journal of Economic Psychology, 53, 118–130 (with Sara E. Kettner)
"Reciprocity in labor market relationships: Evidence from an experiment across high-income OECD countries", 2015 Games, 6, 473-494 (with Ch’ng Kean Siang, Till Requate, Aric Shafran, Eva Camacho-Cuena, Yoshio Iida, and Shosh Sharabani)
"Communication in Cournot competition: An experimental study", 2014 Journal of Economic Psychology, 42, 1-16 (with Ch’ng Kean Siang and Till Requate)
"Do short-term laboratory experiments provide valid descriptions of long-term economic interactions? A study of Cournot Markets", 2014 Experimental Economics, 17(3), 371-390 (with Hans-Theo Normann and Till Requate)
"Equal split in the informal market for group train travel", 2013 Economics Letters, 118(2), 327-329 (with Till Requate, and Artem Korzhenevych)
"Investment incentives under emission trading: An experimental study", 2012 Environmental and Resource Economics, 53(2), 229-249 (with Eva Camacho-Cuena, and Till Requate)
"Farmers' performance and subject pool effect in decentralized bargaining markets", 2012 Economics Letters, 115(3), 366-368 (with Christiane Ness)
"On the role of social wage comparisons in gift-exchange", 2011 Economics Letters, 112(1), 75-78 (with Ch’ng Kean Siang, and Till Requate)
"“A profit table or a profit calculator?” A note on the design of Cournot oligopoly experiments", 2011 Experimental Economics, 14(1), 36-46 (with Till Requate)
"Managers and students playing Cournot - evidence from duopoly and triopoly experiments", 2011 Applied Economics Letters, 18(2), 115-120 (with Ch’ng kean Siang, and Till Requate)
"A comparison of bootstrap and Monte-Carlo testing approaches to Value-at-Risk diagnosis", 2010 Computational Statistics, 25(4), 725-732 (with Helmut Herwartz)
"A Cournot experiment with managers and students: Evidence from Germany and Malaysia", 2010 B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 10, Article 30 (with Ch’ng kean Siang, and Till Requate)
"Comercios de derechos de emisión, adopción de tecnología y heterogeneidad de industrias: un enfoque experimental", 2009 Cuadernos Económicos de I.C.E., 77, 69-94 (with Eva Camacho-Cuena, Till Requate, and Jose Luis Zofío, in Spanish)

Ulrike Wagner

Germany
PhD in German and Comparative Literature
Columbia University

Ulrike Wagner received her Ph.D. in German and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 2012. She holds an M.A. degree in North American Studies and German literature from the Free University of Berlin (2005) and was a visiting Fulbright scholar in the Department of Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University. Between 2009 and 2012 she was a member of the bi-national PhD-Net “Das Wissen der Literatur” at the Humboldt University and an associated member of the university’s collaborative research center “Transformationen der Antike.” Her research and teaching have been awarded with a Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Berlin State Library, an Elsa-Neumann Dissertation Fellowship, and a Trinity College Graduate Fellowship. At Bard College Berlin she is the director of the German Studies Program, has taught in the “Language and Thinking” program and developed courses on European and American Romanticism, Germany’s Jewish Enlightenment, literature and culture of the Weimar period in Berlin, the history of German literature through the lens of human-animal relationships, feminism and community, and current debates in the German public sphere.

Research
The history and practices of philology; relations between German Romanticism and American Transcendentalism in the context of religious debates, historicism, classicism, aesthetics, and the rise of the liberal arts model of education; German-Jewish women writers; feminist theory and practice.

Courses offered at Bard College Berlin
Comparative Perspectives on the Romantic Revolution
Poetry and Poetics
Enlightenment Media and the Rise of Berlin's Haskalah
Menschen-Tiere and Tier-Menschen: Creaturely Perspectives in German Literature and Culture (in German)
Goldene Zwanziger/Roaring Twenties: Art and Culture in Weimar Berlin (in German)
Jewish Berlin from the Enlightenment to the Present (in German)
The German Public Sphere (in German)
Social Change and the German Public Sphere (in German)
Feminism and Community (OSUN Network Course, co-taught with Laura Scuriatti)
German for Reading Knowledge
German Conversation
German A1 – C2
Academic Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Selected Publications

Book Manuscript (in progress)
Transcendental Philology: Emerson, Fuller, Nietzsche, and the Migrations of a Method

Journal Articles and Book Chapters
“Fanny Lewald (1811 – 1889).” The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition, eds. Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar, 151-174 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024). [link]

“Nineteenth-Century American Translations of German Philology.” Germanic Philology: Perspectives in Linguistics and Literature, eds. Tina Boyer and Heiko Wiggers, 177-201 (Delaware: Vernon Press, 2024). [link]

“Baukunst und Satzbaukunst als Wissens- und Lebensdisziplin: Herder und Goethe im Dialog.” “Kunst kommt von Können oder von Kennen her:” Künste und Ästhetik bei Johann Gottfried Herder, ed. Stefan Greif, 93 – 105 (Heidelberg: Synchron Publishers, 2024). [link]

“Religious Experience, Storytelling, and Ethical Action in Muhammad Iqbal's Javid Nama and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan,” co-authored with Maria Khan. Literature and Theology 36.4 (2022): 407-430. [link]

“On Dialogical Writing, Self-forming, and Salon Culture: Rahel Varnhagen, Henriette Herz, and Fanny Lewald.” Special Issue on “Women Philosophers in Hegel’s Time.” Hegel Bulletin 43.3 (2022): 438-466. [link]

“Everyday Aesthetics and the Practice of Historical Re-enactment: Revisiting Cavell’s Emerson.” Over and Over and Over Again. Re-Enactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts and Theory, eds. Cristina Baldacci, Clio Nicastro, and Arianna Sforzini, 113-120, Cultural Inquiry, 21 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022). [pdf]

“Schleiermacher’s Geselligkeit, Henriette Herz, and the ‘Convivial Turn.’” Conviviality at the Crossroads: Poetics and Politics of Everyday Encounters, eds. Oscar Hemer, Maja Povrzanović Frykman, and Per-Markku Ristilammi, 65-87 (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). [pdf]

“Utopias of Purposelessness: Sacred and Secular Sociability around 1800.” Groups, Coteries, Circles and Guilds: Modernist Aesthetics and the Utopian Lure of Community, ed. Laura Scuriatti, 17-40 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019). [link]

“Herder und die Philologie. Fünf Thesen zu einer produktiven Beziehung. Am Beispiel des Volksliedprojekts,” co-authored with Kaspar Renner. Herder Jahrbuch/Herder Yearbook 13 (2016):13-41. [link]

“Origin as Fiction and Contest: Herder’s Reinvention of Religious Experience in Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie.” Herder and Religion. Contributions from the 2010 Conference of the International Herder Society at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, ed. Staffan Bengtsson et al., 57-71 (Heidelberg: Synchron Publishers, 2016). [link]

“Transcendentalism and the Power of Philology: Herder, Schleiermacher, and the Transformation of Biblical Scholarship in New England.” Amerikastudien/American Studies 57.3 (2012): 419-445. [pdf]

“Herders Anthropologie und die Funktion einer Sprache der Liebe und Freundschaft.” Liebe als Metapher. Übertragungskonzepte eines interpersonalen Verhältnisses, eds. Walter Delabar and Helga Meise, 121-150 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012). [link]

“Der Mensch siehet nur, wie ein Mensch siehet: Modern Functions of Ancient Greek Literature in Light of Herder’s Anthropological Thinking.” Herder Jahrbuch/Herder Yearbook 11 (2012): 107-129. [link]

“From Words to Worlds: De l’Allemagne and the Transnational Recasting of the Ancient Past.” Germaine de Staël: Forging a Politics of Mediation, ed. Karyna Szmurlo, 247-262 (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2011). [link]

“The Aesthetics of bildende Nachahmung: A Transatlantic Dialogue between Karl Philipp Moritz and Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Yearbook of German-American Studies 45 (2010): 33-59. [pdf]

Edited Volume
Herder and Religion. Contributions from the 2010 Conference of the International Herder Society at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, eds. Staffan Bengtsson, Heinrich Clairmont, Robert E. Norton, Johannes Schmidt, and Ulrike Wagner (Heidelberg: Synchron Publishers, 2016). [link]

Contact
Dr. Ulrike Wagner
Director, German Studies Program
Phone: +49 30 43733 209
Email: u.wagner[at]berlin.bard.edu

Laura López Paniagua

Spain
PhD in Contemporary Art
Universidad Complutense de Madrid & Freie Universität, Berlin

Laura López Paniagua completed her PhD thesis “Memory in the Work of Mike Kelley” (2015), holding both DAAD and Mutua Madrileña scholarships for doctoral studies in Germany (Freie Universität, Berlin, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Doctor Europeus). Since 2015, López Paniagua has taught on the subjects of contemporary art, cultures of remembrance, education, philosophy, and psychology of art at Bard College Berlin, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, and the Martin-Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg. She lectures internationally, with interventions at institutions such as Barnard College (Columbia University), NYU, MOCAD, and 21er Haus. As an art critic and historian, she frequently collaborates with art journals such as DARDO, and Mousse magazine, and publishes regularly at Eikasia, Revista de filosofía. She often works with artists, art galleries, and institutions such as the Schinkel Pavillon and the Venice Biennale. She has recently published her first monograph, Mike Kelley: Materialist Aesthetics and Memory Illusions (Mousse Publishing, 2020), and is currently working on initiatives that bind sustainability and contemporary art.

Courses taught at Bard College Berlin:

Contemporary Art and the Anthropocene: Creating Alternative Ways of Conceptualizing and Inhabiting the Planet
Exceeding the Frame: Approaches to the Contemporary Sublime in Art
Introduction to Twentieth-Century Art: From Van Gogh’s Starry Night to Jeff Koons’ Made in Heaven
Academic Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Photo by John Miller

Contact
Dr. Laura López Paniagua
Contemporary Art
l.lopez[at]berlin.bard.edu

Tarek Ibrahim

Germany/USA
MA in Art and Architectural History
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Tarek Ibrahim received his BA in Art History from New York University in 2000 and his M Arch at Columbia University in the City of New York and Parsons The New School for Design in 2008. He moved to Berlin shortly thereafter, where he worked for several years as a practicing architect, most notably at the firm of Sauerbruch Hutton, before returning to academia in 2012. He received his Master’s in Art and Architectural history from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2016. Mr. Ibrahim is currently a research associate for the director general of the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace, which opened at the end of 2020. In addition, he is writing his PhD on the life and work of the German architect Johann Adam Rennebaum as a mirror of - and a window onto - the German expatriate community in Egypt around 1900. His thesis on the architecture of Shepheard’s Hotel of Cairo was published by the German Archaeological Institute in 2019.

Contact:
Tarek Ibrahim
Art and Architectural History
t.ibrahim[at]berlin.bard.edu

Andreas Martin Widmann

Germany
PhD in German Literature
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz

Andreas Martin Widmann received a PhD in Modern German Literature from the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz. He has taught in the German Departments of Royal Holloway College and University College London, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is a faculty member of the summer school program of Middlebury College, VT. His research interests include historical fiction, literature and ecology, literature of exile and creative writing. He is the author of one academic monograph (Kontrafaktische Geschichtsdarstellung, 2009), as well as of various articles and essays on 20th century literature, film and popular culture in journals and edited volumes, and the editor of the first academic study on the life and work of Hans Keilson. He has written two novels (Die Glücksparade, 2012 and Messias, 2018) and is currently working on a third one.

Contact
Dr. Andreas Martin Widmann
German Studies
Email: m.widmann[at]berlin.bard.edu

Natalia Irina Roman

Romania
Project Year '06-07 & Installation Year '07-08
Currently: German & Romanian Installation Artist, City Researcher and Curator

ECLA* was the beginning of my Berlin chapter and stay, same as the city – an unfolding muse. It was where I plunged into a world of Installation Art, Video and Theatre. ECLA meant for me Visual Arts. Meaning also many nights in the basement studios, running through the city filming abandoned Christmas trees in the January cold, more winters in a row, or recording a trip from Pankow to Potsdamer Platz with the U2 subway.

After ECLA, I have pursued a Master of Public Policy at the Hertie School of Governance, followed by a graduate programme in Fine Arts at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. I have been researching and working with art spaces in Berlin ever since, with a focus on site-specific art and multimedia installations. I worked among others for the Martin-Gropius-Bau (exhibition organization), the Berlin International Film Festival (film fair organization) and Hertie Foundation (artistic consultancy). I have put together, among others, large-scale site-specific installations for the Reinbeckhallen in Berlin Schöneweide, for the Round the Corner Gallery @ Teatro da Trindade in Portugal, for the forgotten ball room Prachtsaal Neukölln, for the industrial Peter-Behrens-Halle or for the former malt factory District Berlin. One of my most rewarding achievements to date is the project Along the Lines, a project through which I have transformed former signal towers along the Ring Bahn and the S-Bahn 3 in Berlin into art spaces, seen from passing by trains and from train platforms. I have orchestrated this project in collaboration with Deutsche Bahn and the prestigious Hauptstadtkulturfonds, among other wonderful project partners. Lately I have been focusing more and more on the public space, and my collaborators span over many fields. Recently, I have also taught a practice class to the MFA students of the programme in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies, at the Bauhaus University, which has been another rewarding experience. This coming summer, I will be teaching a new class - again a class taking place both in the campus of the Bauhaus University in Weimar and on regional trains.

ECLA was for me a place for imagination and self-discovery. A place both in Berlin and an oasis of its own, both school and community of people, both challenge and room for own initiative. And it was probably also what inspired me to live for years in a House Project in Berlin Moabit after I left the campus, a place with a story of its own – former squat, now association – but like ECLA, a community where we all know each other and have resources for making beautiful projects happen.

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013

Image: Natalia in a former signal tower, part of her project Along the Lines, 2019

Caroline Patey

France/Italy
Chair of English Literature
University of Milan

Caroline Patey read humanities at the University of Paris III, graduating (Licence ès Lettres) in 1971 after a year abroad in Dublin as a student at UCD. She then moved to Milan, Italy, where she completed her studies (MA) with a final dissertation on the poetics of T.S. Eliot (1973). Since 1976, she has taught English Literature at the University of Milan. Since 2010, she has been the Chair of English Literature in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Milan.

Research

a. Modernist Studies
Her principal research commitment has been dedicated to the art and work of James Joyce, a writer who has accompanied her scholarly life until quite recently and probably will do so for ever. In the early eighties, Caroline Patey started addressing the Renaissance, soon concentrating on the politics of the Shakespearean stage as well as the areas of visual arts and Anglo-Italian cultural circulation. Ever since, her research has oscillated between the two poles of Renaissance and Modernist Studies — which happily sometimes interact, as for instance in Ford Madox Ford’s Holbein writings or the Shakespearean subtext of avant-garde writers. In 2010 and 2011 Caroline Patey has co-chaired two modernist conferences in Milan: ‘Shakespeare and the Modernist Imagination’ and ‘Parallaxes. Joyce Meets Woolf ‘. The proceedings of the first one, co-edited with Giovanni Cianci, have been published in 2014, Will the Modernist. Shakespeare and the European Historical Avant-Gardes, Oxford/Bern/Berlin: Peter Lang. In September 2014, Caroline Patey has organized and co-chaired in Paris (Paris-Sorbonne 3) the international conference ‘Cosmopolis. Ford Madox Ford and the Cultures of Paris’; proceedings published by Rodopi in 2016. Also to be mentioned is the authored volume on Virginia Woolf, Gita al faro. Circumnavigazioni, Milano, Mimesis.

b. Transnational literatures and cultural transfer
In recent years, Caroline Patey’s research has become increasingly comparative in scope and methods, focusing on visual and textual modernity in Ford, Woolf and Conrad, following the trail of anthropology and literature, and also concentrating on urban culture and literature, in the works of Henry James, Conrad, Ford, and Isherwood. Together with Giovanni Cianci, she has promoted and coordinated the inter-university program on Anglo-American Modernity and the Mediterranean that has received state funding in 2003 for two years, as well as the inter-university research program ‘Transits. The Nomadic Geographies of Anglo-American Modernism’, state-funded for two years. Both research programs culminated in international conferences: Milan in October 2005 and Palazzo Feltrinelli, Gargnano, in October 2008. The proceedings of Anglo-American Modernity and the Mediterranean (2006) have been printed in English and attracted positive reviews and much attention. The proceedings of Transits. The Nomadic Geographies of Anglo-American Modernism have been published by Peter Lang, Oxford, June 2009.

c. Museum Studies
In the field of museum studies, Caroline Patey has co-chaired a double panel at ESSE 2006 in London on the museological practices of literature, with proceedings (co-edited with Laura Scuriatti) published in 2009, The Exhibit in the Text. The Museological Practices of Literature, Oxford, Peter Lang. Museological interests and research have then led her to work on Sir John Soane and to explore the impact of his architecture on British Literature. She has edited and introduced the first Italian translation of Soane’s Crude Hints for a History of My House for the Italian publisher Sellerio and communicated some of the results of her work at the British Academy Conference in Pisa (April 2008) with a paper entitled ‘The Poetry of Architecture: John Soane’s Passions and Appropriations’. She has also worked on the important and hereto unexplored relations between Henry James and the Wallace Collection. Patey’s interest for writers’ houses and the memory of places have led to the DVD Nowhere Home. Space and Place in British Modernism, written by her and directed by Giulia Ciniselli (47 minutes). The film has been presented at the Transits Conference in 2008 and invited in Berlin for a screening and at a Virginia Woolf Conference in Milan, May 2009. In November 2010, Caroline Patey has organized, together with Béatrice Laurent (then Université des Antilles et de la Guyane) and Nathalie Vanfasse (Université d’Aix en Provence), an international conference dedicated to ‘Provence and the British Imagination’. The proceedings have been published in print and digital form under the same title in Milan, 2013, Ledizioni.

Teaching assignments, administration, cultural initiatives
Caroline Patey’s teaching assignments are many, divided between BA and MA lectures. She is on the board of the Doctorate program in English Studies. She has been responsible for the International relations and Erasmus program of the Department of Modern Languages. For the department, she has promoted various study days and cultural initiatives

‘Strangers in Paris — Literature and the arts, 1900-1930’ (1999) to
‘Wilde at Heart. A Celebration of the Centenary’ (2000)
‘Feeding on Words. Oralities between Food and Language’ (2002)
‘Ulisse ha ottant’anni e li porta molto bene’, dedicated to the eightieth birthday of Joyce’s Ulysses; in collaboration with Libreria Einaudi
‘Joyce in opera’, May 2006
Celebration of Samuel Beckett’s centenary in Milan, with the major conference ‘Tra le lingue, tra i linguaggi. Cent’anni di Samuel Beckett’, 30 November-1 December 2006, and a month-long Project of workshops, seminars and lectures (Progetto Beckett, November 2006) organized with the cooperation of Piccolo Teatro, Milano. The proceedings of the Conference have been published with the same title in December 2007.
2011, Passione/traduzione. Un mestiere di oggi e domani tra schermo, parola e pagina. Quattro incontri ideati da Caroline Patey e co-coordinati da Alessandro Costazza, Edoardo Esposito e Caroline Patey
Autumn 2012/ Spring2013, Hamlet in viaggio. Traduzioni, riscritture, performance e incontri, in collaborazione con il Teatro Franco Parenti.
February/April 2015 il ciclo di otto incontri, ‘Appetiti in scena. Banchetti carestie, cannibalismi, feste e cerimonie nel teatro europeo’, in collaborazione con il Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Coordinato da Caroline Patey.
February/May 2016, Shakespeare Everywhere. Il drammaturgo elisabettiano al Piccolo Teatro di Milano – Teatro d’Europa, co-coordinated with Mariacristina Cavecchi
‘William Hogarth in Time. Metamorphoses and Afterlives in European Literatures and Cultures’, An International Conference, Milan, January 2018, publication of Proceedings scheduled for January 2020.

Other Assignments

Member of the scientific board of the journal Letteratura/Letterature, directed by Dante della Terza and Edoardo Esposito. Journal indexed in SCOPUS. http://www.libraweb.net/riviste.php?chiave=98
2014-2018, delegate for the Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere in the scientific board of the journal ACME, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia di Milano
Together with Alessandra Marzola (Università degli Studi di Bergamo), Caroline Patey directs a series of British and Anglophone Literary Studies, Prismi, Classici nel tempo, Milano: Mimesis.
Memberships in Associazione Italiana di Anglistica/AIA, European Association of English Studies ESSE, Associazione Sigismondo Malatesta, James Joyce Italian Society, Ford Madox Ford Association, Società Italiana di Letteratura Comparata, Virginia Woolf Society in Italy

Recent Visiting Fellowships:
Vassar College, March/May 2017
University of California, Berkeley, May/June 2017

Contact
Caroline Patey
English Literature
Email: c.patey[at]berlin.bard.edu

Nadania Idriss

USA
MA in Art History
University of Victoria

Nadania Idriss is the founder and managing director of Berlin Glas e.V. and Berlin Glassworks GmbH. Born in Berkeley, California, she studied medieval art and architecture of the Middle East. Nadania worked at the British Museum in London, moved to Paris in 1999 to work at UNESCO, and in 2005 she relocated to Berlin. She was always a volunteer in youth clubs and museums, as she enjoys working with communities. Opening Berlin Glas was, therefore, a culmination of everything she considers to be her purpose. Berlin Glas e.V. and Berlin Glassworks provide artist collaborations, classes for the general public, programmes with youth and migrant communities, artist residencies, and bi-lateral exchanges with international universities, as well as teaching sculpture with the art academies in Berlin. Nadania is currently President of the Glass Art Society.

Contact
Nadania Idriss
Studio Art
n.idriss[at]berlin.bard.edu

Hannes Klöpper

Germany
Academy Year 2006-2007
Currently CEO of HelloBetter

I originally come from Germany and graduated from the 2006/2007 Academy Year at ECLA*. I hold a Dual-Master's in Public Administration from Columbia University and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, as well as a B.A. in International Relations from the Technische Universität (TU) Dresden. In 2012, I wrote a book in collaboration with Yehuda Elkana on the future of the university in the digital age. In addition to that, I worked on the "New Digital Society" project in 2010/2011 as an associate of the "Stiftung Neue Verantwortung," and was also one of the initiators of the "Causa Guttenberg" blog. Until 2017, I was the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the online education start-up iversity with offices in Bernau and Berlin.

I am currently working on a new venture in the digital mental health care space: HelloBetter. Founded as a university spin-off in 2015 (under the name GET.ON Institut), HelloBetter is one of the leading providers of online psychological health trainings in German-speaking countries. I joined in January 2019 to scale the business, and in January 2020 I was appointed CEO.

My time at ECLA was a somewhat monastic experience. It was rather small and out of this world, but in a good way. The college was full of interesting and diverse groups of people. Certainly, one of the strengths of the program was that we had around forty students from twenty countries. We also had students from countries you wouldn't necessarily otherwise have international students from. In that respect, it was different from other institutions. The approach of team-teaching and the value-based education were particularly interesting. It was a special kind of experience… it's rather hard to summarize the value of a liberal arts education in a sentence. It offers you the opportunity to engage some of the big questions in life. As a person, and as a member of society, you do encounter these questions time and again, throughout the rest of your life. You think through these eternal questions against the backdrop of your life experience and learn about that of others past and present, real and imaginary. These experiences help when it comes to making value judgments, assessing the right course of action or choosing a path in life. They help you to contextualize, to see the world through someone else's eyes and find your own way of relating to different perspectives. It is crucially important for society in general as well as for all of us as individuals that there is no such thing as knowledge as such – knowledge that just exists in abstract as objective truth. It always has to be understood in a context and that is something that the liberal arts help you appreciate.

The ECLA experience very much influenced my future academic development. The interest in education had been there before: even though I had just graduated with my B.A. degree, I was still checking out online what kind of new Bachelor programs were coming up, and kept track of the university landscape in general. Yet during my first term at ECLA, we read The Republic, which, in a way, is all about education and it had me hooked. At Hertie and Columbia I continued to study political theory and philosophy with a special emphasis on education. This in turn influenced my career choice and hence it is no coincidence that I'm building an education, rather than a food delivery or other ecommerce startup.

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013.

Joshua Paul

USA/UK
PhD, Sociology
Goldsmiths, University of London

Joshua was awarded a PhD in Sociology (2013) by Goldsmiths, University of London, a MA in Sociology (2007) from City University UK and a BA in Ethnic Studies (2006) from the University of California. From 2013 to 2015 he was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London where he conducted research investigating the conceptual and practical status of race, with particular attention to the epistemological, political and ethical formations of postracialism. Before joining Bard College Berlin he was a Senior Lecturer of Sociology at Coventry University in England. In 2018 Joshua was awarded a grant by the Disruptive Media Lab which funded an oral research project examining the changing demographics of Coventry through an ethnographic investigation of the city’s market. Joshua’s research interests center on the problematic of postracialism –can ‘race’ be dispensed with when it is perceived as socially real and has significant material consequences? And, can ‘race’ ever be justified as an acceptable category if it (re)produces ‘natural’ and hierarchical differences which explain and validate racism? His current ethnographic project empirically investigates the contention that in the doing of multiculture - the actions and the social practices of the everyday – ‘differences’ might be un-made or rendered ‘differences that do not make a difference’. His research has been published in a variety of academic journals including Identities, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Ethnicities.

Marcela K. Perett

Czech Republic/USA
PhD in Medieval History
The University of Notre Dame

Marcela K. Perett earned a BA in English and Environmental Economics from Middlebury College in 1999, an MTS (Masters in Theological Studies) in Church History from the University of Notre Dame in 2003, and a PhD in Medieval History from the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. Awards supporting her research include the Solmsen Fellowship from the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Edward Sorin Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame.

Research Interests

In every age and every society, there are people who consider the mainstream culture to be sick, corrupt and hopeless and who look for ways to disengage from it. Perett's research revolves around the writings of such people. She focuses on the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century Bohemia and England, a time when Christianity was a universal religion and dissent (social, political, cultural) took on religious dimensions. Her research poses questions about the ways in which ordinary people, for the most part with very little formal education, expressed religious dissent and what attracted them to radicalized modes of religion. She also studies propaganda (religious and other) and Christian radicalism and fundamentalism.

Perett has written articles/book chapters on the role of vernacular songs in religious propaganda of the Hussite movement, on the influence of John Wyclif's Eucharistic writings in Bohemia, and on the shift to writing theological treatises in the vernacular. She is currently preparing two articles, one about Jan Hus and his role as a public intellectual, and the second about the Eucharist in the Lollard and Hussite movements. She has recently finished a book-length study of the vernacular writings by Hussite reformers, entitled Vernacular Preachers, Fractious Partisans, and Rebellious Religion: The Historical Dynamics of the Hussite Movements in Late-medieval Prague.

A historian trained in the interdisciplinary context of Notre Dame's Medieval Institute and a close reader by instinct, Marcela Perett find herself continually interested in the ways in which methodologies from other disciplines might illumine her work, both as a writer and as a teacher.

Teaching

At Bard College Berlin, she has taught a variety of courses. Since her coming to Bard College Berlin, she has served as the coordinator of the first year Core Class called "The Forms of Love," which introduces students to the literature and culture of the medieval period through writings about love. She has also taught a number of seminars, on "Imperialism: Ancient and Modern," "Christianity and the Church," and "Islam and the West." She regularly supervises students' senior theses, most recently on John of Damascus and icons, and has taught the Senior Research Colloquium for thesis-writers.

Luis Miguel Isava

Venezuela
PhD in Comparative Literature
Emory University

Luis Miguel Isava holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Emory University (Atlanta, USA) and is a Full Professor in the Department of Language and Literature at Universidad Simón Bolívar (Caracas, Venezuela). He is currently a Guest Researcher at Freie Universität (Berlin). His research focuses on contemporary poetry and poetics, the intersections of literature and philosophy, as well as theory, aesthetics, and film studies.

His work includes a book-length study of Rafael Cadenas’ poetry, Voz de amante (Lover’s Voice, 1990), and a book on poetic theory, Wittgenstein, Kraus, and Valéry: A Paradigm for Poetic Rhyme and Reason (2002). His most recent publication is De las prolongaciones de lo humano. Artefactos culturales y protocolos de la experiencia (On the Prolongations of the Human: Cultural Artifacts and Protocols of Experience, 2022).

As a translator, he has rendered into Spanish the poetry of Saint-John Perse, Enrico Testa, Emily Dickinson, and Paul Celan. He is currently working on the translation of Poena Damni, a trilogy by the Greek poet Dimitris Lyacos. He also prepared a new translation of Walter Benjamin’s essay La obra de arte en la época de su reproducibilidad técnica (The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility) in 2016, including an introduction, notes, and additional commentary.

In addition, he has published articles on literary theory, aesthetics, film, music, visual arts, and poetry in various journals and collective volumes. He is currently working on a book-length study of Jorge Luis Borges’ fiction within the framework of his theory on the “protocols of experience.”

Contact:

Luis Miguel Isava

Comparative Literature
l.isava[at]berlin.bard.edu

David Martínez Perucha

Spain
PhD in Romance Languages
Free University of Berlin

David Martínez Perucha received a PhD in Romance Languages from the Free University of Berlin (FU), an MA in Philosophy from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and another MA in Philosophy and Romance Languages from the FU in Berlin, where he has taught literature of the Spanish Golden Age. He has published translations from German and English into Spanish.

At Bard College Berlin he teaches the introductory course Language and Thinking (L&T), and Spanish at all levels, including the preparation courses for the official Spanish language exam (DELE). The language class work is based on a communicative teaching approach aimed at developing students' oral and writing skills through interaction and the introduction of authentic language in form of text, film or music. A great deal of importance is also given to students' personal experiences as a contributing element to the learning process, as well as to linking classroom language learning with the language activities in everyday life situations.

Recent publications

Erika Fischer-Lichte, Ästhetik des Performativen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2004; Estética de lo performativo, Abada, Madrid 2011 (translation)
La traducción del orden natural al ámbito humano. El pensamiento político de Tommaso Campanella, Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2014.

Julia Püschel

Germany
Dr.rer.pol. in Economics
Freie Universität Berlin

Prof. Dr. Julia Püschel is an economist who researches and teaches since 2015 at the interdisciplinary John-F.-Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. She has received her education at Freie Universität Berlin, the College of Europe in Bruges and at Princeton University in New Jersey. Julia Püschel’s work analyzes long-term, structural trends in labor markets and her recent projects particularly explore and analyze the ways in which digitalization transforms our labor markets. Her teaching and research projects are characterized by their interdisciplinarity and mirror the joy and necessity of looking at complex social challenges from several perspectives.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Julia Püschel
Economics
j.pueschel[at]berlin.bard.edu

Saskya Jain

India
MFA in Creative Writing
Boston University

Saskya Jain grew up in New Delhi and is the author of two novels, Fire Under Ash (Penguin Random House), shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt Prize, and Geeta Rahman at Championship Point (Simon & Schuster), nominated for the Times of India AutHer Award and the Tata Literature Live Book of the Year Award. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Intelligent Life, The Economist, The Caravan, The Baffler and DIE ZEIT, among others. Educated at Berlin’s Freie Universität and Columbia University, New York, she holds an MFA in Fiction from Boston University. She has taught creative writing and literature at Hong Kong University, Grinnell College and Dartmouth College, and has held writing residencies at Hedgebrook and Art Omi (USA), Sangam House (India) and Toji Cultural Centre (South Korea). She was the 2024 Dorothea Schlegel Artist in Residence at Freie Universität Berlin.

Contact:
Saskya Jain
Creative Writing
s.jain[at]berlin.bard.edu

Yana Zabanova

Russia
Academy Year 2005/2006
Currently: Research Analyst at the European Stability Initiative

The year at ECLA* was a very special time for me. I had just graduated from my university in Russia (I had majored in Economics and Public Administration) and wanted to take some time off and study something completely different before deciding what to do next. The idea of immersing myself in the study of philosophy, art and literature was incredibly appealing. When else would I be able to devote an entire year to such seemingly "impractical" but intellectually gratifying pursuits? Looking back, there are so many things I enjoyed at ECLA: having a nurturing environment where I was free to develop my interests, attending small-sized classes with a low student-to-faculty ratio, building lasting friendships, discovering Berlin and all the great things this city has to offer, traveling visa-free in Europe… I loved how saturated with new experiences and discoveries my life at ECLA was. I also enjoyed being part of the tight-knit, diverse community.

ECLA has reinforced my interest in art and literature (in particular, I became fascinated with modern art, something I had known very little about before). I try to keep art and culture part of my everyday life – I go to a lot of concerts and exhibitions, take piano lessons, and am thinking of taking free online courses in the humanities. Professionally, as a political analyst focusing on the EU's neighbouring countries, I am often reminded of the impact of certain ideas on the way policies are made and identities are shaped. Finally, I fell in love with Berlin during my year at the college. After completing a Master's in International Relations at the Central European University in Budapest, I came back to Berlin and have been living here ever since. I did a Master's in Public Policy at the Hertie School of Governance, and, since 2009, I have been working as a research analyst at the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin-based think tank, focusing on the South Caucasus and Moldova. In addition to doing research and writing reports, I also helped make a documentary film on Moldova in the summer of 2012.

My advice to current or prospective students: Bard College Berlin is a great place for being young, exploring your intellectual interests and creating great memories. Make the most of your time here!

*ECLA was the historical name of Bard College Berlin until November 2013

Channing Joseph

USA
MS in Journalism
Columbia University

Channing Gerard Joseph is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and creative nonfiction author with more than two decades of experience producing impactful stories on racial inequality, LGBTQ+ culture, economic hardship, and a broad range of other coverage areas. A former staff editor at the Associated Press and The New York Times, where he edited the work of two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, Joseph’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and many others.

He is also a recognized global authority on African American LGBTQ+ history and culture. Joseph’s groundbreaking research on Black queer history has been featured by the National Archives and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and fellowships from the Leon Levy Center for Biography and the Logan Nonfiction Program.

In 2022, he was named a TED Fellow, honoring him as one of 20 global “visionaries” whose work is sparking “future-shaping change around the world.” His official TED Talk, “How Black Queer Culture Shaped History,” has gone viral, receiving more than 1.5 million views.

Joseph regularly appears in international media and has been featured on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, Deutsche Welle, BBC World News, CBS News, Canada’s CBC, and France24.

A sought-after lecturer and public speaker, he has delivered keynote addresses and presentations at institutions worldwide, including Princeton University, Columbia Law School, New York University, Humboldt University, and King's College–London. Joseph holds degrees from Oberlin College (B.A.) and Columbia University (M.Sc. in Journalism). For the last three years, he has served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.

Contact:
Channing Joseph
c.joseph[at]berlin.bard.edu

YANG Qiao

PhD in History
Hebrew University of Jerusalem

YANG Qiao 楊巧 is a postdoctoral fellow at Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. She works on experts and institutions of knowledge in China and the Islamic world, with a special focus on the Mongol Empire (13th–14th centuries). Her current book project, Heavenly Knowledge, World Empire, examines how Chinese and West Asian astronomers encountered the Mongol world rulers and each other in the 13th-14th centuries. Qiao is leading the working group “Ability and Authority” at MPIWG, where she develops a project on diviners in Yuan (1271–1368) China. Qiao’s research interests include history of astronomy/astrology, history of divination, social and cultural history of the Mongol Empire, and cross-cultural contact between premodern China and the Islamic world.

Contact:
Dr. YANG Qiao
History
[email protected]

Dina Ramadan

Egypt
PhD in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
Columbia University

Dina A. Ramadan has been Assistant Professor of Arabic in the Division of Languages and Literature at Bard College Annandale since 2010. Dina is visiting professor at Bard College Berlin for fall 2018.

Dina holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies from Columbia University, and a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo. Her teaching interests include twentieth-century Arabic literature, the Arabic language, Middle Eastern cultural production (particularly film and visual arts), Arab intellectual thought, nationalism, and postcolonial theory. Dina’s current book project focuses on the development of the category of modern art and the relationship between aesthetics, education, and middle class subjectivity in early twentieth-century Egypt. She is also conducting research on cultural and artistic initiatives during the early years of the Nasserist regime. Dina has served as senior editor of the Arab Studies Journal since 2010, and guest edited a themed issued on the visual arts (Spring 2010). She is a founding member of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA). Articles, book chapters, and reviews published or forthcoming in Arab Studies Journal, Art Journal, Journal of Visual Culture, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and others. Dina has been invited to lecture on the cultural politics of the region at a number of museums and academic institutions including the New Museum, the Tate Britain and Modern, SOAS University of London, European University Institute and the American Research Center in Egypt. For the academic year 2013-14 she was a EUME post doctoral fellow at the Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien.

Contact
Dr. Dina Ramadan
Arabic Literature and Culture
Email: [email protected]

Sumrin Kalia

Pakistan
PhD in Political Science
Freie Universität Berlin

Sumrin Kalia is a post-doctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin and fellow at the Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London. Her research examines civil society and political culture from a post-colonial, socio-historical perspective, focusing on processes of (de-)democratization from below. She completed her PhD in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin where she studied linkages between populist parties and civil society organizations. Her research uses comparative case studies to understand economic, socio-cultural, and institutional influences on civil society and political competition. Her scholarship aims to link Area studies literature with organizational analysis, institutional theory and political sociology. She is currently working on a book manuscript and a series of articles which explore populism in Pakistan.

Contact:
Dr. Sumrin Kalia
Political Science
s.kalia[at]berlin.bard.edu

Asad Raza

MA at New York University
USA

Asad Raza combines experiences, human and non-human beings, and objects in his work. Often exploring dialogical exchanges and rejecting disciplinary boundaries, Raza conceives of art as a metabolic, active experience. Absorption, in which a group of cultivators create over 300 tons of "neosoil," was shown as the 34th Kaldor Public Art Project in Sydney in 2019, and at the Gropius Bau, Berlin in 2020. For Untitled (plot for dialogue), in 2017, he installed a tennis-like game in a deconsecrated sixteenth-century church in Milan. Root sequence. Mother tongue—first exhibited at the 2017 Whitney Biennial--combines twenty-six trees, caretakers and objects. Schema for a school was an experimental school at the 2015 Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennial. Raza premiered Minor History, a filmed dialogue with his 91 year old uncle, at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2019.

Raza’s projects often inhabit intimate settings such as The Bedroom, at the 2018 Lahore Biennale. For home show (2015), which took place at his apartment in New York, Raza asked artists and friends to intervene in his life, while Life to come (2019) at Metro Pictures featured participatory works and Shaker dance. Raza was artistic director of the Villa Empain in Brussels in 2016-7. With Hans Ulrich Obrist, he curates a series of exhibitions on Édouard Glissant, including Mondialité, Trembling Thinking at the Americas Society in New York, and Where the Oceans Meet at MDC Museum of Art and Design, Miami.

Raza's collaborative practice includes serving as a dramaturge for group exhibitions such as 2014’s A stroll through a fun palace in the Venice Architecture Biennale, and Solaris Chronicles for LUMA Arles. He served as dramaturge for a series of exhibitions by the artist Philippe Parreno. From 2009-2013, he served as producer and director for Tino Sehgal’s exhibitions, including presentations at the Guggenheim Museum and Tate Modern and the Roman Agora of Athens, Greece. From 2003-2007, he was active as a political activist, teacher and organizer in New York. Of Pakistani background, Raza studied literature and filmmaking at Johns Hopkins and New York University, where he helped organize a labor strike in 2006. He has written for Jan Mot Newspaper, Kaleidoscope, Frieze, modern matter, n+1, NERO, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Spike, and Tennis magazine.

Contact Information
Asad Raza
Artist
a.raza[at]berlin.bard.edu

Jaya Remond

Jaya Remond received her PhD in 2014 from the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled The Kunstbüchlein: creating and transmitting artistic know-how in Renaissance Germany, deals with printed artists' manuals of the sixteenth century. Concentrating on the function and strategy of these training books, her study examines the authors' goals, the specificity of their pedagogical mission, and the ways in which artistic knowledge (including basic geometry, the mastery of perspective and human proportions) is selected, framed, and presented. Jaya's research interests focus on Northern European art 1400 -1700, artistic theory and practice in the early modern period, print culture, and the migration of artists and objects. Her work has been supported by research grants from the Graduate School of Art and Science at Harvard University where she was a presidential scholar, from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, the Kress Foundation, and the Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte.

Justin F. Kennedy

USA
MA in Choreography
HZT Berlin

Justin F Kennedy (b. 1983) is a Berlin-based community dance & vocal artist, teacher, DJ and dramaturg hailing from St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Justin´s research centers around communal transformation, sophisticated amalgamation, and cultural critique, and is often expressed as: speculative (science fiction) operas, street interventions and film. Notable projects of late include: Apocalypso (2025), Skars without the Rs (2023), Cannibalizing the Conductor (2022), as well as ongoing collaborations with Joy Mariama Smith & Ligia Lewis, and guest teaching professorships in choreography at SNDO Amsterdam and Bard College Berlin.

Contact:
Justin F. Kennedy
Dance
[email protected]

Alex Martinis Roe

Australia
PhD in Fine Arts
Monash University, Australia

Alex Martinis Roe is an artist based in Berlin. Her current projects focus on feminist genealogies and seek to foster specific and productive relations between different generations as a way of participating in the construction of feminist histories and futures. She is currently completing her project To Become Two, which is a series of six film installations, workshops, performance-based events, and a book. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Badischer Kunstverein, Germany (2017); The Showroom, London (2017); ar/ge kunst Galerie Museum, Bolzano (2017); Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2017); Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Amsterdam (2016); Rongwrong, Amsterdam (2014); Archive Kabinett, Berlin (2014); Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2013). She was a fellow of the Graduate School for Arts and Sciences, University of the Arts, Berlin (2013-2016) and holds a PhD from Monash University, Australia (2011).

Martin Rosefeldt

Martin Rosefeldt studied literature and political sciences in Munich and Paris before joining the International Filmschool in Cologne to study screenplay writing.

As an editor and dramatic advisor, Martin Rosefeldt has been working for film production companies (Constantin, Senator, Rommel Film), TV stations (ZDF; ARTE), and film institutions (BKM). He has also been active as a screenwriting teacher at Humboldt University in Berlin and the Goethe Institute in Santiago, Chile.

Martin Rosefeldt has co-operated with directors such as Romuald Karmakar, Valeska Grisebach, Tomy Wigand and Pia Marais, with whom he is currently working on a drama for Eikon Film and a fiction film for Pandora Film.

Riaz Partha Khan

USA
PhD in Political Science
University of Chicago

Riaz Partha Khan received his PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 2001. He has taught courses in history, politics, economics, literature, and philosophy at research universities, liberal arts colleges, and study-abroad sites in the US, Germany, South Africa, and Bangladesh. He held faculty positions at New York University, Asian University for Women, and BRAC University. His teaching interests are in political theory, philosophy, and global history. His current research explores the relation between legal violence and modern political institutions from a global-historical perspective. His findings focus on the effects of the rule of property, legal exceptions, and segregation at local, national, and transnational levels on the formation of post-imperial forms of territorial and constitutional nation-states.

Contact:
Dr. Riaz Partha Khan
Political Science
rkhan[at]berlin.bard.edu

Thomas Rommel

Germany
Habilitation in English philology
University of Tübingen

Rector and Provost August 2012 - June 2015
Professor of Literature

Research Interests

His research interests focus on 18th-century literature and the history of ideas, Romanticism, literature and economics, and literary theory in the context of digital humanities. He is now working on Liberal Arts education in the context of the Bologna process.

University Education

Thomas Rommel became a Professor of Literature in 2001. He was educated at the University of Tübingen where he received his Ph.D. in 1995 and the Habilitation (venia legendi in English philology) in 2000.

Before joining Bard College Berlin, he held positions at Jacobs University, Northern Arizona University (USA), and Joensuu University (Finland; Socrates Vierailera professori). He was a visiting scholar at Columbia University and Rice University in the United States.

Fellowships and Awards

In 2002 Rommel was the first recipient of the Krupp College Teaching Award.
In 2003 he was awarded the "Bremer Kooperationspreis" for innovative cooperative projects in the area of postcolonial and transcultural studies, with Bremen University (INPUTS).

Publications
(selected)

Grundbegriffe der Literatur. Münster. LIT, 2012.
Plagiate - Gefahr für die Wissenschaft? Eine internationale Bestandsaufnahme. Münster: LIT, 2011.
50 Klassiker der Weltliteratur. Bücher lesen und verstehen. Hamburg: merus verlag, 2006; reprint Contumax GmbH & Co. KG, 2013 Literaturspalten. Bücher lesen und verstehen. Hamburg: merus verlag, 2006.
Das Selbstinteresse von Mandeville bis Smith. Ökonomisches Denken in ausgewählten Texten des 18. Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg: Winter, 2006.
Mapping Uncertain Territories. Space and Place in Contemporary Theatre and Drama. (Contemporary Drama in English; 13). Ed., with Mark Schreiber. Trier: WVT, 2006.
Studium Literaturwissenschaft. Arbeitstechniken und Neue Medien. With Hans-Werner Ludwig. Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag (UTB), 2003.
Adam Smith für Anfänger. Der Wohlstand der Nationen. Eine Lese-Einführung von Helen Winter und Thomas Rommel. (Philosophie für Anfänger; 30708). With Helen Winter. München, DTV, 1999. Third edition July 2006.
Italian translation: La riccezza delle nazioni. Guida e commento. Gli elefanti, Garzanti, 2001.
"Anglistik im Internet". Proceedings of the 1996 Erfurt Conference on Computing in the Humanities. Ed., with Doris Feldmann and Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1997.
"And trace it in this poem every line" Methoden und Verfahren computerunterstützter Textanalyse am Beispiel von Lord Byrons Don Juan. (Tübinger Beiträge zur Anglistik; 15). Tübingen: Narr, 1995.

Other Professional Activities

Thomas Rommel was a member of the Executive Committee of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, ALLC.
He is one of the co-founders of Prolepsis. The Heidelberg Review of English Studies. Together with Peter Paul Schnierer (University of Heidelberg) and Richard Utz (University of Northern Iowa, USA) he is on the editorial board of Prolepsis.
He is on the board of administrators of the "Stiftung Post-Stipendium von 1742."

Frank Ruda

Vita

2011- Visiting Lecturer at Bard College Berlin (Germany)

2010 - Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy, Scientific Research Centre in Ljubljana (Slovenia)

2008 - Researcher at the Collaborative Research Project (SFB) 626 in philosophy with Prof. Dr. Georg W. Bertram

2008 - Doctorate at the University of Potsdam with Prof. Dr. Christoph Menke and Prof. Dr. Manfred Schneider

2005-2008 - Scholarship at the doctoral program „Forms of Life and the Know how of Living" at the University of Potsdam and the Europe-University Viadrina (Frankfurt / Oder)

1998-2005 - Study of Philosophy and German Literature at the Ruhr-University Bochum and the École pratique des Hautes Études (Paris)

Classes taught at Bard College Berlin:
Continental Philosophy Today
Hegel's Philosophy of Right
Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Hegel: Contemporary Actualizations

Research Interests
Aesthetics
German Idealism, esp. Kant and Hegel
Descartes
Contemporary French Philosophy, esp. Badiou, Deleuze, Rancière
Political Theory, esp. Marxism and Post-Marxism
Psychoanalysis

Further Affiliations
Co-Editor of the book series morale provisoire at Merve-publishing, Berlin.
Member of the Centre for Studies in German Idealism (Pristina)
Member of the Editorial Board: Crisis and Critique (Journal)
Member of the Editorial Board: Insolubilia (Book series)

Publications

Books

The Dash: Vicissitudes of Absolute Knowing, together with Rebecca Comay, (in preparation; with MIT-Press).

Abolishing Freedom: A Plea for the Contemporary Use of Fatalism, Lincoln 2015: Nebraska University Press (forthcoming).

For Badiou: Idealism without Idealism, Evanston 2015: Northwestern University Press (forthcoming).

Hegel's Rabble: An Investigation into Hegel's Philosophy of Right. With a Preface by Slavoj Žižek, London / New York 2011: Continuum.

Hegels Pöbel. Eine Untersuchung der "Grundlinien der Philosophie des Recht. Mit einem Vorwort von Slavoj Žižek, Konstanz 2011: Konstanz University Press.

Reviews of Hegel’s Rabble:

Review by Adrian Johnston at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Review by Jacob Blumfeldt in Hegel Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain (Volume 34 / Issue 02 / October 2013, pp 280-285):

Review by Jason Smith in Radical Philosophy

Review by Matt S. Whit in Theory and Event 15.4 (2012):

In the German daily newspaper Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, 2011)

PW Portal

Review by Patrick Eiden-Offe in the Merkur Heft 06 / Juni 2012 (S.510-522) :

Review by Thomas Telios and David Remer in Neue Politische Literatur, Jg. 57 (2012), 158-159.

In Diàlogo Filosófico, Ano 28, Septiembre / Diciembre III, 174-176.

Online-Reviews:

http://www.gespenst-der-armut.org/hegels-pobel-frank-ruda8

http://culturmag.de/rubriken/buecher/neue-bucher-zu-friedrich-hegel-von-frank-ruda-undsusan-buck-morss/43552

http://www.thiele-und-thiele-consult.de/science-review-letters/sciencereview_ge/417_ge.html

Edited Books

History, Reason and Thought: Contemporary Readings of Kant and Hegel, ed. together with Daniel Martin Feige (in preparation, under consideration by Routledge).

Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Materialism, ed. with Agon Hamza, London: Palgrave 2015 (in preparation).

Generische Formen in den Künsten, ed. together with Kirsten Maar and Jan Völker, Munich:Fink 2015 (forthcoming).

Art and Contemporaneity, ed. together with Jan Völker, Zurich: diaphanous 2015 (forthcoming).

Die Sinnlichkeit der Künste: Beiträge zur ästhetischen Reflexivität, ed. together with Georg W. Bertram and Daniel M. Feige, Zurich: diaphanes 2014 (under contract, forthcoming).

Chiesa, Lorenzo, Der Möglichkeitspunkt der Freiheit. (Morale Provisoire # 4), ed. together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2014 (forthcoming).

Catherine Malabou, Die Ontologie des Unfalls. (Morale Provisoire # 3), ed. together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2011.

Beyond Potentialities? Politics Between the Possible and the Impossible, ed. together with Mark Potocnik / Jan Völker, Berlin: diaphanes 2011

Translated Books

Zupančič, Alenka, Der Geist der Komödie: The Odd One In. (Morale Provisoire # 5), ed. and translated together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2014.

Badiou, Alain: Die Kommunistische Hypothese. (Morale Provisoire #2), ed. and translated together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2011.

Badiou, Alain: Ist Politik denkbar? (Morale provisoire #1), ed. and translated together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2010.

Rancière, Jacques: Ist Kunst widerständig?, ed. and translated together with Jan Völker Berlin: Merve 2008.

Badiou, Alain: Dritter Entwurf eines Manifests für den Affirmationismus, ed. together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2007.

Edited Journal Issues

Idealism, Art, Politics, and Ideology, Special issue of “Stasis”, ed. together with Jan Völker, Moscow 2015. (forthcoming)

Crisis and Critique: “Politics and Religion Today”, ed. together with Agon Hamza, Prishtina: 2015 [http://www.crisiscritique.org/].

Crisis and Critique: “Critique Today”, ed. together with Agon Hamza, Prishtina: 2014 [http://materializmidialektik.org/category/revistajournal/ ].

Science and Thought. Special International Issue of Filozofski Vestnik, ed. together with Jan Völker, Ljubljana 2012.

Schwerpunkt: Reflexivität in den Künsten. Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, ed. together with Georg W. Bertram and Simone Mahrenholz, Hamburg 2010.

Articles / Book Chapters

2015

“Hegel, Rabble, and Consequences”, in: The Cambridge Guide to Hegel's Philosophy of Right, ed. by David James, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015. (in preparation)

“Hegel and Predestination”, in: Slavoj Žižek and Dialectical Materialism, ed. by Frank Ruda and Agon Hamza (in preparation).

“Inheritance and Genius. On A Possible Link Between Freud And Hegel”, in: Inheritance, ed. by Tim Dean, Durham: Duke University Press 2015 (in preparation).

“Life at the End. On Hegel, Life and Living”, in: Logos, Moscow 2015 (forthcoming).

“Generisch, Spekulativ” [Generic, Speculative], in: Generische Formen, by Kirsten Maar, Frank Ruda, and Jan Völker, München: Fink 2015. (forthcoming)

“First as ‘Politics’, then as ‘Art’”, in: Idealism, Art, Politics, and Ideology, special issue of “Stasis”, ed. together with Jan Völker, Moscow 2015. (forthcoming)

“Die Eumeniden schlafen, aber... Rächende und strafende Gerechtigkeit bei Hegel” [The Eumenides sleep, but… Avenging and Punishing Justice in Hegel], in: Affekt und Urteil, ed. by Michael Lüthy, Berlin: transcript 2015. (forthcoming)

“Dawn of the Dead, Dawn of the Mad. Politik der Untoten” [Politics of the Undead] (with Mark Potocnik), in: Suspensionen: Zur Epistemologie des Untoten, ed. by Carolin Blumenberg, Alexandra Heimes, Erica Weitzmann, Sophie Witt, München: Fink 2015. (forthcoming)

“We are All Hot Girls in a Mental Asylum. The 'Hollywood Left' and Contemporary Democracy”, in: Art and Contemporaneity, ed. by Frank Ruda und Jan Völker, Berlin: diaphanes 2015. (forthcoming)

“Allgemeinheit ohne Einheit vs. Einheit ohne Allgemeinheit. Eine Grundsatzdebatte” [Universality without Unity vs. Unity without Universality. A Fundamental Debate], in: Die Sinnlichkeit der Künste: Beiträge zur ästhetischen Reflexivität, ed together with Georg W. Bertram and Daniel M. Feige, Zürich: diaphanes 2015. (forthcoming)

"Die Formel der unendlichen Entbindung, mit einer Antwort auf Zdravko Kovbe" [The Formula of Infinite Unbinding, with an Answer to Zdravko Kovbe] (Slovene Translation), in: Problemi Ljubljana 2015. (forthcoming)

"Less than Nothing, More than Thought", in: More Than A Lot, ed. by Bruno Besana and Ozren Pupovac, Sydney: re-press 2015. (forthcoming)

"For a Platonism of the Not-All”, in: Repeating Žižek, ed. by Agon Hamza, Durham: Duke University Press 2015. (forthcoming)

“Who Thinks Reductively? Capitalism's Animals”, in: theory@buffalo, issue 15, Buffalo 2015. (forthcoming)

“What is to be Judged? On Infinitely Infinite Judgments and Their Consequences”, in: Žižek and Law, ed. by Laurent de Sutter, London / New York: Routledge 2015. (forthcoming)

“The Immanence of Truths: Badiou with Hegel”, in: Hegel and Badiou, ed. Jim Vernon / Antonio Calcagno 2015. (forthcoming)

2014

"Dichtung und Wirklichkeit. Dreieinhalb Paradigmen" [Poetry and Reality. Three and a Half Paradigms], in: Kunst und Wirklichkeit, ed. by Michael Lüthy, Berlin: transcript 2014, 47-64.

“Die Geburt der Komödie aus dem Geist der Komödie” [The Birth of Comedy From the Spirit of Comedy] (with Jan Völker), in: Zupančič, Alenka, Der Geist der Komödie. The Odd One In. Morale Provisoire # 5, ed. and translated together with Jan Völker, Berlin: Merve 2014 258-264.

“Recht ohne Recht. Hegel als Theoretiker universaler Empörung” [Right Without Right. Hegel as Theorist of Universal Indignation], in: Zur Architektonik praktischer Vernunft – Hegel in Transformation, ed. by Hartmut Rosa and Klaus Vieweg, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot 2014, 47-64.

“How to Think What One Cannot Think? Inaesthetics of the Flesh”, in: Aesthetics of the Flesh, ed. Felix Ensslin, Berlin: Sternberg Press 2014, 303-320.Uc “Introduction”, in: Crisis and Critique, Vol. 1. No. 3, 2014 (with Agon Hamza), 4-11 [http://materializmidialektik.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/intro.pdf].

“How to Act as if One Were Not Free. A Contemporary Defense of Fatalism”, in: Crisis and Critique, Vol. 1. No. 3, 2014, 174-199 [http://materializmidialektik.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/rud.pdf].

“Kakšna je tvoja dialektika? Badioujeva in Žižkova predelava negacije” [What is your Dialectic? Badiou and Zizek on Negation], in: Problemi, Ljubljana, Vol. 3, No. 14 /14, 107-142.

“Gelungene Kommunikation” [Functioning Communication], in: Texte zur Kunst, Berlin, Juni 2014, 24. Jahrgang, Heft 94, 108-113.

“Idealism without Idealism. Badiou's Materialist Renaissance”, in: Angelaki. The Journal for Theoretical Humanities, London: Taylor & Francis 2014, 85-98.

“Entlassen. Remarks on Hegel, Sacrifice, and Liberation”, in: Crisis and Critique. Special Issue, ed. by Acheronta Movebo, 111-128 [http://materializmidialektik.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/06/CC-2-Entlassen.pdf].

"Conditioning Communism: Badiou, Plato and Philosophy as Meta-Critical Anamnesis", in: Badiou and the Political Condition, hg. von Marios Constantinou, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2014, 56-75.

"The Indignant of the Earth", in: Crisis and Critique, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2014, 67-88.[http://materializmidialektik.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Ruda_Indignant.pdf].

2013

“The Necessary Critique of Divine Violence” (with Jan Völker), in: Agamben and the Coming Politics: Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives, ed. by Tom Frost, London / New York: Routledge 2013, 75-96.

“Père-Versionen des Passiven” [Père-Versions of the Passive], in: Theorien der Passivität, ed. by Kathrin Busch and Helmut Draxler, München: Fink 2013, 258-275.

“Heglove prve beside” [Hegel's First Words] (Slovene Translation), in: Problemi, Ljubljana, 2013, 29-82.

"Was ist eine geschichtliche Sequenz? Zur philosophischen Analyse von Prozessen der Veränderung" [What is a Historical Sequence? On the Philosophical Analysis of Processes of Change], Können wir der Geschichte entkommen?, ed. by Christian Schmidt, Frankfurt (Main) / New York: Campus 2013, 219-240.

“Die Notwendigkeit des unmöglichen Ganzen: Brechts ‘Jahrhunderttext’”(with Eva Marlene Heubach) [The Necessity of the Impossible Whole: Brecht's ‘Text of the Century’], Fatzer Jahrbücher, 2013, 18-33.

“Remembering the Impossible. For A Meta-Critical Anamnesis of Communism”, in: The Idea of Communism 2: The New York Conference, ed. Slavoj Žižek, London / New York: Verso 2013, 137-165.

“An Army of Me. Review of ‘Badiou and Philosophy’”, in: Notre Dame Philosophical Review, on: http://ndpr.nd.edu/recent-reviews/.

“Thinking Politics Concretely: Negation, Affirmation and the Dialectics of Dialectics and Non-Dialectics”, in: Thinking - Resisting - Reading the Political, ed. by Stephen Packard et.al., Zurich: diaphanes 2013, 137-154.

2012

“Iz gozda na plan” [Out of the Woods], in: Filozofski vestnik, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2/2012, Ljubljana 2012, 169-190.

“Antworten zur Philosophie A. Badious” [Answers on the Philosophy of A. Badiou], in: Information Philosophie, 2012.

“The Speculative Family, or: Critique of the Critical Critique of Critique”, in: Science and Thought. Filozofski Vestnik, Vol. XXXIII, No. 2, Ljubljana 2012, 53-76.

“How to Do Things With Faith? A Review of Simon Crichtley's Faith of the Faithless”, http://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2012/593.

“Remembering, Repeating, Working Through Marx: Badiou and Žižek and the Re-Actualizations of Marxism”, in: Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 3-2012, Vol. 66, No. 261, Brussels: 2012, 293-320.

“Die Spekulative Familie” [The Speculative Family], in: Texte zur Kunst, Berlin, Juni 2012, 22. Jahrgang, Heft 86, 172-176.

“A Politics of Aesthetic Indetermination: An Interview of Jacques Rancière” (with Jan Völker), in: Everything is in Everything. Jacques Rancière Between Intellectual Emancipation and Aesthetic Education, ed. by Jason E. Smith / Annette Weisser, Zurich: JRP Ringier Kunstverlag 2012, 10-33.

2011

“The Event of Language as Force of Life: Agamben's Linguistic Vitalism” (with Lorenzo Chiesa), Angelaki. The Journal for Theoretical Humanities, London / New York: Verso 2011, 163-180 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0969725X.2011.621233].

“Was tun mit der Wissenschaft?” [What should we do with science?) (with Jan Völker), in: Catherine Malabou, Die Ontologie des Unfalls (Morale Provisoire # 3), Berlin: Merve 2011, 97-104.

(Translation) Maximilien Robespierre, “Entwurf einer Erklärung der Rechte” [Sketch of a Declaration of Rights], in: Die Revolution der Menschenrechte: Grundlegende Texte zu einem neuen Begriff des Politischen, ed. by Francesca Raimondi and Christoph Menke, Frankfurt / Main: Suhrkamp 2011.

(Translation) Etienne Balibar, “Bürger-Subjekt. Antwort auf die Frage Jean-Luc Nancys: Wer kommt nach dem Subjekt?” [Citizen-Subject. Answer to Jean-Luc Nancy’s Question: Who Comes After the Subject)], in: Die Revolution der Menschenrechte: Grundlegende Texte zu einem neuen Begriff des Politischen, ed. by Francesca Raimondi and Christoph Menge, Frankfurt / Main: Suhrkamp 2011.

“Wie sich im Scheitern orientieren?” [How to orient oneself in failure?] (with Jan Völker), in: Alain Badiou, Die Kommunistische Hypothese, (Morale provisoire #2), Berlin: Merve 2011, 175-185.

“Thèses sur une morale provisoire communiste” [Thesis on a Communist morale provisoire] (with Jan Völker), in: L’idée du Communisme 2., ed. by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, Paris 2011: Lignes, 215-237.

“Back to the Factory. A Plea for a Renewal of Concrete Analysis of Concrete Situations”, in: Beyond Potentialities? Politics between the Possible and the Impossible, ed. by Frank Ruda, Mark Potocnik and Jan Völker, Berlin: diaphanes 2011, 39-54.

2010

“Radikale Reflexion – Phänomenologie der Kunst bei Merleau-Ponty” [Radical Reflection – Phenomenology of Art in Merleau-Ponty], in: (eds.) Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, Heft 55, 2 Jahrgang, 2010, ed. by Maria Moog-Grünewald and Joseph Früchtl, Hamburg: Meiner, 275-287.

“Was ist das Reale des zeitgenössischen Realismus? Canetti, Jameson, Badiou” [What is the Real of Contemporary Realism? Canetti, Jameson, Badiou], in: Realismus in den Künsten der Gegenwart, ed. by Dirk Linck, Michael Lüthy, Brigitte Obermayr, and Martin Vöhler, Berlin: Diaphanes 2010, 159-174.

"Was es heißt, ein Marxist in der Philosophie zu sein?" [What does it mean to be a Marxist in Philosophy?] (with Jan Völker), in: Badiou, Alain: Ist Politik denkbar? (Morale provisoire #1), Berlin: Merve 2010: 135-165.

“Lenin und das Glück” [Lenin and Happiness], in: Happy Days: Lebenswissen nach Cavell, ed. by Kathrin Thiele and Katrin Trüstedt, München: Fink 2010, 100-106.

"Proletarischer Aristokratismus und das Gattungswesen Mensch. Marx mit Badiou" [Proletarian Aristocratism and the Human Species Being. Marx with Badiou] in: Der sich selbst entfremdete und wiedergefundene Marx, ed. by , Helmut Lethen, Falko Schmieder, and Birte Löschenkohl, München: Fink 2010, 277-292.

2009

“Zmoremo, torej moramo” [We can, so we must], in: Filozofski Vestnik, Ljubljana, Vol. XXX, No. 3 / 2009, 61-74.

“Humanism Reconsidered, or: Life living Life”, in: Filozosfki Vestnik, Ljubljana, Vol. XXX, No. 2, 2009, 175-197.[http://filozofskivestnikonline.com/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/79/94]

“Verhältnislos. Zur Kompossibilität von Politik und Kunst” [Without Relation. On the Compossibility of Politics and Art] (with Jan Völker), in: Inästhetik Nr.2, ed. by Tobias Huber and Marcus Steinweg, Berlin: diaphanes 2009, 113-120.

“Politique de l'indétermination estéthique” [Politics of Aesthetic Indetermination] (with Jacques Rancière and Jan Völker), in: Jacques Rancière: Politique de l'esthétique, ed. by Jérôme Gâme, Aliocha Wald Lasowski, Paris: Archives Contemporaines 2009, 157-175.

“Was ist ein Marxist? Lenins Wiederherstellung der Wahrheit des Namens” [What is a Marxist? Lenin’s Reconstitution of the Truth of the Name], in: Namen. Benennung, Verehrung, Wirkung (1850-1930), ed. by Tatjana Petzer, Sylvia Sasse, Franziska Thun-Hohenstein and Sandro Zanetti:, Berlin: Kadmos 2009, 225-242.

2008

“Alles verpöbelt sich zusehends! Namenlosigkeit und generische Inklusion” [Everything is visibly becoming mobized! Namelessness and Generic Inclusion], in: Soziale Systeme 14 (2008), Hb. 2, ed. by Sina Farzin, Sven Opitz, Urs Stäheli, Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius 2008, 210-228.

“Von der Treue als subtraktiver Institution” [Of Fidelity as Subtractive Institution], in: Ereignis und Institution. Anknüpfungen an Alain Badiou, ed. by Gernot Kamecke, and Henning Teschke, Tübingen: Narr 2008, 69-96.

“Nachwort” [Afterword] (with Jan Völker), in: Rancière, Jacques: Ist Kunst widerständig?, Berlin: Merve 2008, 91-109.

2007

“Wir müssen das affirmative Begehren hüten” [We have to protect the affirmative desire] (with Alain Badiou and Jan Völker), in: Badiou, Alain: Dritter Entwurf eines Manifests für den Affirmationismus, Berlin: Merve 2007, 37-54.

“Namenlosigkeit, von nichts zu Nichts oder Vom Pöbel zum Proletariat” [Namelessness, from nothing to Nothing or from the Rabble to the Proletariat], in: Latenz. 40 Annäherungen an einen Begriff, ed. by Stefanie Diekmann and Thomas Khurana, Berlin: Kadmos 2007, 158-163

Smaller Works

Entries on: “Communism”, “Factory”, “Nature”, “Prescription”, “Saturation”, “Subtraction”, in: The Badiou Dictionary, ed. by Steve Corcoran, Edinburgh 2014: Edinburgh University Presp. (forthcoming)

“Philosophieren heißt leben zu lernen. Rezension zu A. Sell”, in: DZPhil 62 (2014) 1, 164-171.

Entries on: “Thomas Hobbes: Naturzustand”, “René Descartes: Genius Malignum”, “Immanuel Kant: Volk von Teufeln” in: Gedankenexperimente, ed. by Georg W. Bertram, Stuttgart 2012: Reclam.

Review: “Heideggerscher Vitalismus” [Heideggerian Vitalism. Review of Three Books by G. Agamben], Rezension zu G. Agamben, in: DZPhil 59 (2011) 3, 18-23.

“Unvereinbarkeit macht Dinge klar” [Irreconcilability Clarifies] (Interview with Jan Völker), in: Formate der Unsicherheit, ed. by Goethe Institut, Munich 2011, 9-11.

(Translation) Alain Badiou, “Das Reale dieses Krisenspektakels” [The Real of This Crisis Spectacle], in: TAZ, 13.11.2008.

“Ideology” (with Lars Bullmann), in: Encyclopedia of Social Theory, ed. by Austin Harrington, Barbara L. Marshall and Hans-Peter Müller, New York 2006: Verso, 264-267

Conference Papers / Lectures

“Wider das Soziale. Für eine Politik des A-Sozialen”, Hagen, March 2015.

“Organization, Free Association and Immanent Critique”, Berlin, January 2015.

“Freiheit und Indifferenz”, Berlin, January 2015.

“Für eine Politik der Flüchtlinge”, Weimar, December 2014.

“How Can Something Be Present and Yet Not Exist?” Weimar, December 2014.

“Für eine Politik der Flüchtlinge”, Weimar, December 2014.

“Contemporary Usages of Predestination”, Saint Petersburg 2014.

“On the Emancipatory Power of the End (of History, Art and All Related Matters)”, Saint Petersburg, November 2014.

“Inhumanism. A Manifesto”, Moscow, November 2014.

“For A Comic Fatalism”, Prague, October 2014.

“What is to be Done (With Hegel's Monarch)?”, Cambridge, September 2014.

“First as ‘Politics", then as ‘Art’”, Berlin, July 2014.

“Hegel, Resistance and Release”, Dublin, June 2014.

“Generisch-Spekulativ”, Berlin, Mai 2014.

“The Un-Animal. Marx and the Nature of Capitalism”, Montréal 2014.

“The Impossible In-sight. Or: How to Screen What Cannot be Seen?”, New York 2014.

“Contemporary Platonism”, Ljubljana 2014.

“Who Thinks Reductively? Marx and the Nature of Capitalism”, Ljubljana 2014.

“Entlassen. Rethinking Externalization with Hegel”, Ljubljana 2014.

“Hollywoods Linke. Oder: Warum und wie man filmisch Demokratiekritik betreibt”, Offenbach 2014.

“Elements of An Emancipatory Theory of Sacrifice”, Berlin 2013.

“Elements of An Emancipatory Theory of Sacrifice”, Canterbury 2013.

“German-French Fatalism. Descartes, Schmid, Diderot, Hegel”, Zagreb 2013.

“Einleitung” (with Daniel M. Feige) to the conference “Der Wert der Kunst”, Berlin, September 2013.

“The Ontico-Ontological Indifference”, Berlin 2013.

“The Real is the Plastic, The Plastic is the Real (isn't it?)”, Frankfurt am Main 2013.

“Empörte Welt, Welt der Empörung. Hegel und der politische Affekt”, Flensburg 2013.

“The Dash: Working Through Absolute Knowing”, Birkbeck, London 2013 [http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2013/05/the-actuality-of-the-absolute-hegel-our-untimelycontemporary/]

“Introduction”, to Lorenzo Chiesa “Psychoanalysis, Religion, Love”, ECLA 2013.

“Mirror, Mirage, Image. Lacan and the Ego as Surface”, ECLA, Berlin 2013.

“A Yet Unknown Hegel (with Badiou)”, Ljubljana 2013.

“A Defence of Fatalism”, Ljubljana 2013.

“Identifying with Loss. Old Problems With New Phenomena”, Helsinki 2012.

“At the End? Gegenstoß!”, Telos and Totality, Maastricht 2012.

“Acting as if one is not free”, Kingston University, London 2012.

“Fighting Irresolution”, Institute for Philosophy, Bristol 2012.

“Die Eumeniden schlafen, aber... Rächende und strafende Gerechtigkeit bei Hegel”, Berlin 2012.

“Indecision. A Problem of and for Philosophy”, Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow 2012.

“Everday Life and Modern Science”, Berlin 2012.

“The State and History, or: History against the State?” ECLA, Berlin 2012.

“Teleology and Mechanism in the Real World”, ECLA, Berlin 2012.

“Fatalismus als Befreiung. Descartes wider die Unentschiedenheit”, Frankfurt 2012.

“Von der unmittelbaren zur wirklichen Revolte”, Salon Polarkreis, Berlin 2012.

“Die Notwendigkeit des unmöglichen Ganzen” (with Eva Heubach), Fatzer Tage, Mülheim 2012.

“Warum man das Undenkbare denken muss. Eine materialistische Antwort”, What is Thinking?, Seminar: documenta, Kassel 2012.

“Dialectics, Contradiction, Iteration. Learning by Dividing (Hegel)”, The Actuality of German Idealism, Berlin 2012.

“Recht ohne Recht. Hegel als Theoretiker universaler Empörung”, Hegel in Transformation, Jena 2012.

“Marx and Human Property”, ECLA, Berlin 2012.

“Who thinks abstractly? Hegel and the Properties of Philosophical Practice”, ECLA, Berlin 2012.

“Descartes / Badiou”, Ljubljana 2012.

“More Void than Void. Descartes' Subtractive Adventure”, Ljubljana 2012.

“Vagabunden der Leere. Pynchons Gegen den Tag”, Abschiedskolloquium für Manfred Schneider, Gerlewe 2012.

“Pöbel oben, Pöbel unten. Hegel, Paris, London und die Zeit der Revolte”, Helle Panne, Berlin 2012.

“Transindividuelle Bürgerschaft und Vervielfältigung des Klassenkampfes. Balibars Spinozismus”, Luxemburg 2012.

“Man hat immer Recht, gegen Reaktionäre zu revoltieren. Beitrag zu einem Streitgespräch mit Micha Brumlik”, Communitas, Commune, Communismus, Essen 2012.

“Was ist eine geschichtliche Sequenz? Zur philosophischen Analyse von Prozessen der Veränderung”, Leipzig 2012.

“Einleitung” [Introduction] (with Jan Völker) to the lecture and discussion with Udi Aloni, morale provisoire, Berlin 2011.

“On (the Impossible Necessity of) Philosophical Forcing”, Revolution, Democracy, Philosophy, Istanbul 2011.

“Denken, was man nicht denken kann. Descartes über das Andere im Subjekt”, Ästhetik des Fleisches / Aesthetics of the Flesh, Stuttgart 2011.

“Hegel's Rabble”, Historical Materialism, London 2011.

“Chinese Dialectics. Hegel in the Far East”, Historical Materialism, London 2011.

“The Rabble to the Monarch. Hegelian Thoughts on Communism”, Columbia University, New York 2011.

“Remembering the Impossible. For a Meta-Critical Anamnesis of Communism”, Idea of Communism III, New York, October 2011.

“Lacans vier Diskurse, Badious vier Affekte”, Lacanian Summer, Bochum 2011.

“Introduction and Response” (with Jan Völker), to the lecture and discussion with Alain

Badiou: “For a Contemporary Conception of the Absolute”, morale provisoire at the Volksbühne, Berlin 2011.

“Was kommt?”, response to Eric Santner, Salon Populaire, Berlin 2011.

“Can Animals be Political? A Question of Philosophy and Indifference”, The Human Animal in Politics, Science and Psychoanalysis, Maastricht 2011.

“For a Society of Materialist Friends of Hegel's Dialectics”, Book launch of Hegels Pöbel with Slavoj Žižek, Berlin 2011.

“Agamben's Linguistic Vitalism” (with Lorenzo Chiesa), Agamben & The Future of Law, Politics and Philosophy, Newcastle 2011.

“Liebe und Wissenschaft” (with JanVölker), Goethe Institut, Essen 2010.

“Negating the Negative. Response to Ray Brassier”, Cutting the Not. Negativity and Reflexivity, Maastricht 2010.

“Conditions of a morale provisoire. Introduction to Philosophy under Conditions”, Philosophy under Conditions, ICI, Berlin 2010.

“Einleitung” (with Jan Völker) to the lecture and discussion with Lorenzo Chiesa unter dem Titel “The Partisan's Morale Provisoire”, morale provisoire, Berlin 2010.

“Thinking Politics Concretely: Negation, Affirmation and the Dialectics of Dialetics and Non-Dialectics”, Thinking - Resisting - Reading The Political, Gießen 2010

“Einleitung” (with Jan Völker) to the lecture and discussion with Jelica Sumic-Riha:“The 21st Century has not yet begun”, morale provisoire, Berlin 2010.

“Einleitung” (with Jan Völker) to the lecture and discussion with Alberto Toscano: “A Scalpel and a Compass: Morale Provisoire and Cognitive Mapping”, morale provisoire, Berlin 2010.

“Thesen zu einer kommunistischen morale provisoire” (with Jan Völker), Die Idee des Kommunismus, Berlin 2010.

“Einleitung” (with Jan Völker) to the lecture and discussion with Christoph Menke: “Wie frei urteilen?”, morale provisoire, Berlin 2010.

“Einleitung” (with Jan Völker) to the lecture and discussion with Rado Riha: “Die Idee ale Denken der Politik”, morale provisoire, Berlin 2010.

“Marx und das Ereignis. Zur wirklich kommunistischen Aktion beim frühen Marx”, Vortrag bei der philosophischen Gesellschaft, Basel 2010.

“Badiou's Fundamentals. Introducing Badiou”, Versus Laboratory, Berlin 2010.

“Idealism without Idealism. For a Renewed Materialist Reading of the 11th Thesis”, Eternity and Change, Ljubljana 2009.

“Marx's Whitman? Response to J. Rancière”, SFB 626 Workshop with Jacques Rancière, Berlin 2009.

“We can, so we must: Be Communists”, Book launch Of an Obscure Disaster, Amsterdam 2009.

“The Will and its Double. Hegel, Marx, Badiou. Answering P. Hallward”, Historical Materialism, London 2009.

“Retroactively Contemporaneous. Introduction to the Conference Art and Contemporaneity”, Art and Contemporaneity, Paris 2009.

“Experience et surgissements imprévisibles. Réponse a F. Heidenreich”, Colloque Hans Blumenberg, Paris 2009.

“Realismen”, Introduction to Section 3 of the annual conference of the CRC 626, Berlin 2009.

“Badiou's Renaissance: Living with or without an Idea”, Towards a Philosophy of Life, Liverpool 2009.

“Thinking De-Liaison between Hegel and Marx: From the Rabble to the Proletariat (and back)”, Politics and Thought, Maastricht 2008.

“We don't Love the War, but We are not afraid of it. Introducing Badiou”, Introduction to Alain Badiou at the KW, Berlin 2008.

“In-Different Multiplicities. A Response to B. Besana”, More than a Lot. Displacements in Ontology, Maastricht 2008.

“Proletarischer Aristokratismus und das Gattungswesen Mensch. Marx mit Badiou”, Der von sich selbst entfremdete und wiedergefundene Marx, Frankfurt / Oder 2008.

“Namen der Wahrheit. Lenin und Badiou”, Journée d'études 'Signes', Paris 2008.

“Treue als subtraktive Institution”, Romanistentag, Vienna 2007.

“Generische Inklusion. Hegel und der Pöbel”, Inklusion / Exklusion. Theoretische Perspektiven, Basel 2007.

“Theater and Philosophy. A Response to O. Feltham”, Workshop with O. Feltham und C. Fynsk, Berlin 2007

Sinem Kilic

Germany
PhD Candidate in Philosophy
Freie Universität Berlin / Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Sinem Kılıç received her MA (Magistra Artium) in Philosophy, Musicology and Classics ("with distinction") from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz (2014). Since 2015, she is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin with a dissertation project on Plato's Philosophy of Music and Its Echo in the Renaissance, affiliated to the Research Training Group "Philosophy, Science and the Sciences" at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and funded by the DFG. Her research interests encompass philosophy of music, aesthetics, ethics, ancient and late ancient philosophy (Plato, Aristotle, Apuleius), Arabic philosophy, Renaissance philosophy, and 19th and 20th century philosophy (Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Nietzsche, Adorno).

Contact
Sinem Kılıç, PhD candidate
Philosophy
Email: s.kilic[at]berlin.bard.edu

Damiano Sacco

Italy
PhD in Theoretical Physics
Kings College London

Damiano Sacco is an affiliated fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI) Berlin, where he also carried out his postdoctoral research from 2018 to 2020. After being awarded his PhD in theoretical physics (string theory) by King’s College London in 2017, his research turned to post-Kantian European philosophy. His current research lies primarily in modern and contemporary aspects of the continental philosophical tradition, focusing in particular on the works of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, and Emanuele Severino. He has published in both theoretical physics and philosophy in numerous international journals; at present, he is working on a book-length study of the relationship between the histories of physics and metaphysics in the Western tradition.

Contact
Dr. Damiano Sacco
Philosophy
Email: d.sacco[at] berlin.bard.edu

Michael Saman

USA
PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures
Harvard University

Michael Saman is a teacher of German language and culture and a researcher in German intellectual history. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has taught for colleges and universities including NYU, Princeton, UCLA, Brown, and William & Mary. His doctoral thesis was on Goethe’s reception of Kant’s philosophy; he is currently preparing a book manuscript on classical German thought in the work of W.E.B. Du Bois; his future research will turn to the work of the electronic music group Kraftwerk, viewed in the context of twentieth-century German politics and cultural history.

Dr. Saman’s research has appeared in journals such as the Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte and the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race. His recent work on eighteenth-century intellectual history has been recognized with both the annual Essay Prize and the Richard Sussman Prize of the Goethe Society of North America. He is co-editor of the Forum “Race, Imperialism, and the Age of Goethe,” which appears in the 2024 volume of the Goethe Yearbook.

Selected Publications
“W.E.B. Du Bois in Berlin, 1926: Political Mourning, the Rise of the Worker, and a Pan-Africanist’s Rethinking of Blackness in Europe,” forthcoming in German Studies Review 47, no. 3 (October 2024)

“Race, Imperialism, and German Intellectual History: Reflections Toward a Rethinking of the Canon,” Goethe Yearbook 31 (2024)

“Reason Has Its Epochs: Schiller, Goethe, Golgotha, and the Intertextual Construction of the Absolute in Hegel,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 96, no. 1 (March 2022)

“Thinking Outside of Philosophy: Goethe, Lévi-Strauss, Propp,” German Quarterly 94, vol. 4 (Fall 2021)

“Du Bois and Marx, Du Bois and Marxism,” Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 17, no. 1 (Spring 2020)

“Another, Higher Understanding: Goethe’s Late Kantianism, Makarie, and the Absolutes of Gender in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 94, no. 1 (March 2020)

“Towards Goethean Anthropology: On Morphology, Structuralism, and Social Observation” link Goethe Yearbook 27 (2020)

“A Discourse of a Different Kind: On Fabulation and Method in Goethe’s Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten” Monatshefte 108, no. 4 (Winter 2016)

“Constructions of Goethe Versus Constructions of Kant in German Intellectual Culture, 1900–1925,” Goethe Yearbook 21 (2014)

“Senghor’s Other Europe,” Savannah Review 1 (2012)

Contact:
Dr. Michael Saman
German Studies
m.saman[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aysuda Kölemen

Turkey
PhD in Political Science
University of Georgia, Athens, USA

Aysuda Kölemen received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Georgia, Athens, USA in 2010. Her research interests include public opinion and discourses on redistribution, politics of new religiosities, and democratic backsliding. She is currently working on authoritarianization and civil resistance in Turkey.

Dr. Kölemen coordinates the Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative at Bard College Berlin.

Contact
Dr. Aysuda Kölemen
Political Science
Email: [email protected]

Özlem Savas

Turkey
PhD in Cultural Studies
Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien

Özlem Savaş earned a Dr.Phil in Cultural Studies from the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2008). She worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Design at Bilkent University (2008-2018) and as a research fellow at the Berlin Institute of Integration and Migration Research (BIM) at Humboldt University (2018-2021). She also held visiting fellowships at The Brandenburg Center for Media Studies (ZeM) and the University of Konstanz as well as a teaching appointment at Berlin University of Arts.

Özlem has carried out ethnographic research projects that intersect migration studies, media studies, and cultural studies with a particular focus on everyday practices. Her current research interests focus on migration and exile; affect, feeling, and emotion; and digital cultures. She has published on collective and political feelings of migration, affective digital media practices, diasporic aesthetics and material cultures of the everyday, and visual culture in political Islam. Her current ethnographic research addresses contemporary exilic atmospheres in Berlin with a special focus on affective culture of new migration from Turkey and explores collective, public, and political potentials of emotions and affects.

Selected academic publications:

“Rakı Table Conversations of New Migration from Turkey: Emotion, Intimacy and Politics,” in Material Culture and Forced Migration: Materializing the Transient. Eds. F. Yi-Neumann , A. Lauser, A. Fuhse and P. J. Bräunlein. London: UCL Press, forthcoming in 2021.
“Affective Digital Media of New Migration from Turkey: Feelings, Affinities, and Politics,” International Journal of Communication 13, 2019, pp. 5405-26.
“Migrant Journeys of Loss, Uncertainty, and Hope,” Paragrana: International Journal of Historical Anthropology 28(2), 2019, pp. 95-100.
“Facebook Communities About Nostalgic Photos of Turkey: Creative Practices of Remembering and Representing the Past,” Digital Creativity 28(1), 2017, pp. 48-57.
“Taste Diaspora: The Aesthetic and Material Practice of Belonging,” Journal of Material Culture 19(2), 2014, pp. 185-208.
“The Muslim “Crying Boy” in Turkey: Aestheticization and Politicization of Suffering in Islamic Imagination,” in Rhetoric of the Image: Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East. Eds. C. Gruber and S. Haugbolle. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013, pp. 103-126.
“The Collective Turkish home in Vienna: Aesthetic Narratives of Migration and Belonging,” Home cultures 7(3), 2010, pp. 313-340.

Contact:
Dr. Özlem Savaş
Cultural Studies
o.savas[at]berlin.bard.edu

Maria Scaroni

Dance artist
MA in Italian Modern Literature
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

Maria F. Scaroni is a dance artist. She interprets choreographic works, creates dances and hosts dance workshops. Trained independently, moved to Berlin in 2004, where she works as a freelance dancer performing/creating with Jess Curtis, Jeremy Wade, Frank Willens, Tino Sehgal, Venia Rovisco, Hannah Hegenscheidt, Wilhelm Groener, (a.o.). Since 2011 Maria collaborates with Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, (Until Our Hearts Stop, Sketches/Notebook, with its follow-up initiative Supernova, and Built To Last), sharing with her and part of the Berlin dance community the commitment to improvisation as a performance event (City Lights, Auf den Tisch!, Politics of Ecstasy). Scaroni’s choreographic works focus on the process of collaboration, play with durational experiences and are featured by a crossbreeding between performance, choreography and installation. Maria teaches in Berlin’s University HZT and is involved in developing independent training programs (in Berlin, P.O.R.C.H. and ROAR) researching the body as material. She holds a Masters degree in Italian Modern Literature, with a thesis on education and dance.

Read more: https://mariafscaroni.wordpress.com/about/

Contact
Maria F. Scaroni
Artist
[email protected]

Alice Lacoue-Labarthe

France
MA in Germanic Studies
Université Paris-Sorbonne

After completing her MA in Germanic studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne and graduating from the École Normale Supérieure, Alice started a PhD in German and literary studies at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne and at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her dissertation explores the "Poetics of contemporary German-language exile narratives in the context of the 'refugee crisis'". She is currently a doctoral researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin). Alongside her academic work, Alice also works as a translator.

Contact
Alice Lacoue-Labarthe
German Studies
a.lacoue-labarthe[at]berlin.bard.edu

Friederike Schäfer

Germany
PhD in Art History
Humboldt University

Friederike Schäfer is an art historian and curator working as a postdoc researcher in the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective” at Freie Universität Berlin since 2021. From 2017 to 2021, she was an academic associate in the Media Arts department at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG). As part of the Cluster of Excellence “Bild Wissen Gestaltung. Ein interdisziplinäres Labor” (Image Knowledge Gestaltung. An Interdisciplinary Laboratory”) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, she pursued her doctoral thesis “An Anarchitectural Body of Work. Suzanne Harris and the Downtown New York Artists’ Community in the 1970s” (forthcoming with De Gruyter). She received several fellowships for conducting research, such as at the Canadian Center for Architecture, Montréal, the Bard Graduate Center, NYC, the CAA annual conference in LA, and the Terra Summer Residency, Giverny, France. In 2021, she was awarded a Terra Publication Grant to publish her doctoral thesis with De Gruyter. Schäfer has worked on international exhibitions including dOCUMENTA (13), the KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, and the archive project “re.act.feminism 2—a performing archive.” She has also carried out collaborative research and exhibition projects, for instance at the nGbK Berlin; Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg; Badischer Kunstverein; and Kunsthalle Mannheim.

Publications

An Anarchitectural Body of Work. Suzanne Harris and the Downtown New York Artists’ Community in the 1970s, De Gruyter, Berlin 2023 (forthcoming).

Networks of Care. Politiken des (Er)haltens und (Ent)sorgens, nGbK Berlin, Berlin 2022. (Ed. with Anna Schäffler; Nanne Buurman)

10%. Concerning the Image Archive of a Nuclear Research Center, Spector Books, Leipzig 2021. (Ed. with Susanne Kriemann; Klaus Nippert; Judith Milz et al.) (Also available in German as Das Bildarchiv eines Kernforschungszentrums betreffend.)

UMBAU. HfG Online Journal, #1, December 2021. (Founding member/Editorial Team Issue 1 with Ariana Dongus; Katharina Weinstock)

Metropolitan Views II. Berlin, Berlin. Kunstszenen 1989-2009, Deutscher Kunstverlag, München/Berlin 2010. (Ed. with Conny Becker; Christina Landbrecht)

Metropolitan Views. Kunstszenen in Berlin und London, Deutscher Kunstverlag, München/Berlin 2008. (Ed. with Conny Becker; Charlotte Klonk; Franziska Solte)

Contact
Friederike Schäfer
Art History

Christina Landbrecht

Germany
PhD in Art History
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Christina Landbrecht is a curator and an art historian based in Berlin. She was Assistant Curator and Personal Assistant to the Director at Berlinische Galerie, Berlin’s museum for Modern Art, Photography, and Architecture from 2009 to 2012. There she organized the solo exhibitions of Nan Goldin and Boris Mikhailov and a site-specific musical installation by artist and composer Ari Benjamin Meyers designed for the museum’s entrance. From 2013 to 2017 she was a Research Assistant at Humboldt University and started her PhD thesis to be published in 2024 with Konstanz University Press. In it she analyzes the debate around artistic research, tracing its beginnings back to the turn of the millennium and discussing the twists and turns it took in the two decades that followed. Since March 2018 she is Program Director of Arts at Schering Stiftung Berlin. The mission of the foundation is to initiate projects at the intersection of art and science as well as the support of educational programs in both disciplines. The foundation has its own exhibition space where two exhibitions per year are presented. Landbrecht has curated several exhibitions there starting in 2019; she’s organized solo shows of artists such as Sissel Tolaas, Anna Virnich, Zheng Bo, Susanne M. Winterling, Jenna Sutela, Annika Kahrs, and Tabita Rezaire with Yussef Agbo-Ola.

Photo credit: PolasBerlin / Iveta Ryseta

Contact:
Dr. Christina Landbrecht
Art History
c.landbrecht[at]berlin.bard.edu

Sandra Schäfer

Germany
PhD in Art
Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg

Sandra Schäfer deals in her artistic work with the production of urban and trans-geographical spaces, history and visual politics. She is interested in the margins, gaps and discontinuities of our perception of history, political struggles, urban and geopolitical spaces. She works with film and video installations including stills/photography. Therein she puts a particular focus on the role of the camera and the visual regimes that are implicated in these visual technologies as well as their social role. Her PhD in Art at HfbK Hamburg focuses on situated militancy in visual and spatial politics. Her works were shown worldwide with recent exhibitions at the Berlin Berlinale Forum Expanded (2016, 2017); Depo, Istanbul; La Virreina, Barcelona; National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; Camera Austria, Graz; House of World Cultures, Berlin; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin; Center for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe; etc. Furthermore, she is an associated member of the feminist film distributor Cinenova in London. She also has an extensive repertoire in public speaking at various conferences and events.

More information on her work can be found at www.mazefilm.de

Contact
Dr. Sandra Schäfer
Visual Art
Email: [email protected]

Nina Schallenberg

Germany
PhD in Art History
Freie Universität Berlin

Nina Schallenberg studied art history, philosophy and modern German literature in Berlin and Paris, and wrote her doctoral thesis at the Freie Universität Berlin on the mise en scène of the sculptures of Rodin, Rosso and Brancusi. After having served as curatorial assistant and curator at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne she has been head of collections at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen from 2010 to 2017. In 2017 she has been appointed curator at the Nationalgalerie / Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. Apart from her museum career she has been engaged in research projects at the German Center for Art History in Paris and the DFG-network “Theory of Sculpture”. She had teaching positions at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, in 2016/2017 she was Chillida Visiting Professor at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main. Her curatorial and research interests are focused on the history of sculpture, on European modernism and European and US-American art from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Contact
Dr. Nina Schallenberg
Art History
Email: n.schallenberg[at]berlin.bard.edu

Lotte Leerschool

Netherlands
MFA in Painting
Bard College

Lotte Leerschool is an artist based in Berlin, Germany. She studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf graduating as a protégé of Prof. Peter Doig. During her studies in Düsseldorf she was a guest student of the class of Prof. Rita McBride and a tutor for Prof. Durs Grünbein. She was an exchange student at the Royal College of Arts in London and has recently received her MFA in Painting from Bard College.

Lotte’s work is informed by her background in movement studies and movement notation. She has exhibited in various institutions and artist-led spaces, including: GUTS Berlin, Container [Editions NYC], Wandtachive, LIAR, Tom Dick or Harry, Display London, K21 Kunstsammlung NRW.
Lotte is currently leading the studio project ‘Crelle’ in Berlin.

Contact:
Lotte Leerschool
Painting
l.leerschool[at]berlin.bard.edu

Elisa R. Linn

Germany
Master of Arts in Curatorial Studies
Goethe-Universität and Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule

Elisa R. Linn (Elisa Linn Roguszczak) is a writer, curator, scholar, and a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study, Curatorial Program. Since 2022, she has been the co-director of the Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V., where she curated Jürgen Baldiga's first retrospective, among others. Currently, Linn is teaching at Leuphana University and AdbK Vienna, where she is pursuing her PhD in philosophy with Marina Gržinić. In her curatorial and theoretical practice, she is concerned with politics of self-organization and migratory aesthetics, challenging modernist conceptions of the nation-state. She has held the interim professorship of the chair of Art Theory and Mediation, representing Prof. Dr. Kerstin Stakemeier at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg in the summer semester of 2022. Linn has lectured at The New School, Barnard College (Columbia University), Pratt Institute, Städelschule, among others. She has co-curated projects at The Kitchen, South London Gallery, the Whitney Museum, The Bronx Museum, and National Gallery Prague. She has contributed to publications and magazines such as Mousse, ArtAsiaPacific, BOMB, Jacobin.

Contact:
Elisa R. Linn
Arts
e.linn[at]berlin.bard.edu

Chris Scherer

Australia
BA in Dance Performance, Advanced Diploma in Acting
AC Arts, Adelaide

Chris Scherer is an Australian born cross-disciplinary artist living in Germany. He is working across fields of performance and ceramics.

With 6 years of full time education, Chris obtained a Bachelor of Dance Performance and a Advanced Diploma in Acting from ACArts, graduating in 2009. He has devised and performed work in various mediums with it having been presented in numerous festivals throughout Australia, Europe, Asia and America. Chris makes accessible, topical, image based work using collision and fusion processes of performance and presentation. He is a rule-breaker who rejects the boundaries of traditional art forms, ensuring his audiences have memorable, personal and unique experiences.

As a performer and collaborator, Chris is working internationally as a freelancer in diverse artistic mediums. Since 2012, Chris has worked closely with visual artist Tino Sehgal as an interpreter and manager. He has worked with a variety of independent artists in the Berlin dance scene (including Dragana Bulut, Laurie Young and Johanna Lemke) and with the dance theatre company Total Brutal/ Nir de Volff. He was a guest artist at Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz between 2014-2017 and is currently a guest artist at Schauspielhaus Hamburg in the production of Lazarus by David Bowie and Enda Walsh (directed by Falk Richter).

To balance a career that is heavily orientated around bodily practices, he was drawn to ceramics. Working with stoneware, he is interested in the production of functional homewares which enrich daily rituals.

Website:
http://www.chrisscherer.com.au/

Image: Barbara Dietl

Contact:
Chris Scherer
Ceramics Instructor
Email: c.scherer[at]berlin.bard.edu

Florian Scherübl

Germany
PhD in German Literature
Humboldt-University Berlin

Florian Scherübl currently teaches Modern German Literature at the TU Dresden. He received a dual B.A. in Philosophy and Germanistik from the University of Regensburg (2011) and a M.A. in German Literature from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (2015). After receiving a scholarship from the regional Ad-Infinitum-Foundation he started his PhD at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. From 2017 until his disputation in 2021 he was a member of the PhD-Net “Das Wissen der Literatur” at HU Berlin. In the academic year 2018/19 he was a visiting scholar at New York University. During his PhD he has worked continually as a teacher for German as a Foreign Language (DaF). He is the editor of the volume “Verabschiedungen der “Postmoderne”. Neuere Historisierungen von “Theorie” zwischen “Post-Truth”-Narrativen und Generationengeschichte“ (transcript: Bielefeld 2022) and author of the upcoming book „Weltauflösungen. Instabile Erzählwelten in der deutschen und französischen Literatur (1945-1965)“ (Rombach: Freiburg 2023).

His research interests are based in the fields of narratology, philological methodology, philosophy and literature, the history of theory, poetry, German literature of the 20^th and 19^th century (Nietzsche, Heine), German Romanticism and the thought of Gilles Deleuze.

Contact:
Dr. Florian Scherübl
German Studies
f.scheruebl[at]berlin.bard.edu

Timo Lochocki

Germany
PhD in Comparative Politics
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Timo Lochocki is a transatlantic fellow with the Europe program at the German Marshall Fund, where he directs research activities on European diversity and party politics. He studied social psychology and international politics in Germany, Norway, and the United States and holds a PhD in comparative politics from the Humboldt University Berlin.

His research focuses on the intersection between international policy challenges (migration and matters of European Integration, in particular) and European party politics. Lochocki's GMF Europe policy paper "The Unstoppable Far Right? How established parties' communication strategies and media reporting of European affairs affect the advances of right-wing populist parties" won the award for the best paper at the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) Conference 2015. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the varying electoral advances of right-wing populist parties in Europe over the last 30 years.

Timo Lochocki regularly comments European and German party politics for national and international news outlets as Der Tagesspiegel, The Economist, Politico Europe or The London Times and is a lecturer for European Politics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In addition to his native German, Lochocki speaks fluent English and Norwegian, and has a working knowledge of French and Swedish.

Contact
Dr. Timo Lochocki
Political Science
Email: t.lochocki[at]berlin.bard.edu

Dorothea Schöne

Germany
PhD in Art History
University of Hamburg

Dr. Dorothea Schöne is an art historian, curator, writer, and the director of the Kunsthaus Dahlem in Berlin. She studied art history, political science, sociology, and philosophy at the Leipzig University and received a Fulbright grant to conduct research at the University of California, Riverside. In 2015 she obtained a PhD in art history with a dissertation on postwar modernism in Berlin (summa cum laude). Her current research concentrates on postwar modernism, artists groups and networks in the late 19th and early 20th century, exhibition exports as a tool of foreign policy and geo-strategy, exile and migration and its impact on art.

In 2006-2009 Schöne was as curatorial assistant at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she worked for the exhibition Art of Two Germanys: Cold War Cultures in 2009, which also traveled to Nuremberg and Berlin in 2010. She subsequently worked as a freelance curator and art historian, and as the program director of the art television station ikonoTV.

Schöne is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the German Academic Exchange Program, the German Historical Institute in Washington D.C., the Ryerson Image Centre in Toronto/CA and the Getty Research Institute. Her publications focus on German postwar art (including the history of the Städelmuseum after 1945), on art criticism and the history of the reception of German postwar art in the United States, and on contemporary art from the Middle East.

In June 2017, an exhibition on exile and remigration after 1945 prepared by Schöne opened at the Kunsthaus Dahlem.

Contact
Dr. Dorothea Schöne
Art History
Email: [email protected]

Markus Schultze-Kraft

Germany/El Salvador
PhD in Political Science
University of Oxford

Markus Schultze-Kraft is a political scientist with extensive experience in interdisciplinary research, policy analysis and university teaching in/on the global South (International Crisis Group, Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, Universidad Icesi in Cali/Colombia). His research, teaching and advisory work focuses on transnational organized crime, crimilegality and crimilegal governance, peacebuilding, violent conflict transformation, peace education and historical memory, inclusive development and security, and hybrid political orders in Latin America, West Africa and the Western Balkans. Markus holds an MA (Diplom) in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin, an MPhil in Latin American Studies and DPhil in Political Science from the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College). Among his recent publications is the monograph Crimilegal Orders, Governance and Armed Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Contact:
Dr. Markus Schultze-Kraft
Political Science
[email protected]

Michele Luchetti

Italy
PhD in Philosophy
Central European University

Dr. Michele Luchetti is a researcher working in the history and philosophy of science, as well as a theater practitioner and instructor. His academic research combines epistemological and historical insights to investigate issues related to measurement, conceptual change, and performative practices in science and medicine. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bielefeld. He obtained a PhD in Philosophy from the Central European University in Budapest in 2020 and held research positions at the University of Geneva and at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. His research has been published in several international research journals, and he is currently editing a topical collection on “Validity and Coordination in the Biomedical and Human Sciences” for the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. Beside his academic work, Michele is trained in the traditions of theater anthropology and social theater, and uses theater laboratories as collective research tools aimed at symbolic expression and social integration. He was recently artist-in-residence at the Grotowski Institute (Poland, 2022) and at the Umbrian Theater Center (Italy, 2024), and he holds regular workshops in Italy and Switzerland, often in collaboration with social and medical institutions.

Contact:
Dr. Michele Luchetti
Science
[email protected]

Reinhard Schumacher

Germany
PhD in Economics
University of Potsdam

Reinhard Schumacher holds a PhD in economics, and a diploma degree in administrative science. He has taught at Universität Potsdam, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Universität Siegen, and GIBT Colleg e.V. Berlin, and has been a Research Fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University. His research interests include the history of economic thought, international political economy, trade theory and policy, and development economics. He is the co-founder and co-host of the academic podcast Ceteris Never Paribus: The History of Economic Thought Podcast.

Selected academic publications (peer-reviewed):

“Theory in Closer Contact with Industrial Life: American Institutional Economists on Competition Theory and Policy”, Journal of Institutional Economics, 2021, Vol. 17(5), pp. 781-798, with Matthew T. Panhans.
“Some Effects of EU Sugar Reforms on Development in Africa”, Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, 2021, Vol. 56(5), pp. 288–294, with Johannes Paha und Timon Sauter.
“Altering the Pattern of Trade in the Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith and the Historiography of International Trade Theory”, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2020, Vol. 42(1), pp. 19-42.
“Karl Menger’s Unfinished Biography of His Father: New Insights into Carl Menger’s Life through 1889”, Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, 2020, Vol. 38B, pp. 155-189, with Scott Scheall.
“Do Not Take Peace for Granted: Adam Smith’s Warning on the Relation Between Commerce and War”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2019, Vol. 43(3), pp. 785-797, with Maria Pia Paganelli.
“The Vigorous and Doux Soldier: David Hume’s Military Defence of Commerce”, History of European Ideas, 2018, Vol. 44(8), pp. 1141-1152, with Maria Pia Paganelli.
“Karl Menger as the Son of Carl Menger”, History of Political Economy, 2018, Vol. 50(4), pp. 649-678, with Scott Scheall.
“Adam Smith and the “Rich Country – Poor Country” Debate: 18th Century Views on Economic Progress and International Trade”, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2016, Vol. 23(5), pp. 764-793.
“Adam Smith’s “Two Distinct Benefits” from Trade: The Dead End of “Vent-for-Surplus” Interpretations”, History of Political Economy, 2015, Vol. 47(4), pp. 577-603.
“Deconstructing the Theory of Comparative Advantage”, World Economic Review, 2013, Issue 2, pp. 83 105.
“Adam Smith’s Theory of Absolute Advantage and the Use of Doxography in the History of Economics”, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 2012, Vol. 5(2), pp. 54-80.

Contact:
Dr. Reinhard Schumacher
Economics
Email: r.schumacher[at]berlin.bard.edu

Daniel Seiple

Daniel Seiple is an American artist whose work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art and social practice. He employs an array of media in projects that explore urbanity, spatial politics and site-based poetics. He is a founding member of the artist collective eteam (2000-2002), creator of the residential exhibition space Homie (2005-2009), and co-founder of the group KUNSTrePUBLIK in which he worked as curator, artist, researcher and activist at Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum (2006-2011) and in other public art contexts.

Seiple’s work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and public places worldwide including the 5th Berlin Biennial, Musée du Château des ducs de Wurtemberg in Montbéliard, France and Bronx Museum of Art, New York. His projects have received numerous grants including from the Berlin Senate, German Federal Cultural Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. He has attended residencies around the world including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, LMCC World Views, New York, ARCUS, Japan and Vasl Arts, Pakistan. In 2013, Seiple was awarded the Watson Visiting Fellowship at Syracuse University, New York.

A comprehensive monograph of his work, Organized Excursions, was published by Distanz Verlag in 2014, and he co-edited the book, Skulpturenpark Berlin_Zentrum, published by Walther König Verlag in 2010. His most recent solo show opened at Adamski Gallery, Berlin in 2015.

Ruizhi Ma

China
MA in History of Science
Tsinghua University

Ruizhi Ma is a research assistant and doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Humboldt University of Berlin (HU Berlin). Before joining the Research
Training Group “Philosophy, Science, and the Sciences” (funded by the DFG) at HU Berlin in 2019, he received his master’s degree in the Department of History of Science
at Tsinghua University (2019) and his BA at Peking University (2017).

Ruizhi specializes in Classical Arabic and Ancient Greek Philosophy with a focus on the Aristotelian tradition. He is now completing his doctoral dissertation “Avicenna’s
Theory of Color and Color Perception in its Greek, Arabic, and Latin Contexts,” supervised by Prof. Stephen Menn, Prof. Peter Adamson, and Prof. Lukas Mühlethaler. The goal is to reconstruct and interpret Avicenna’s response to the long-going debate on the ontological status of color, and the physical basis and psychological mechanism of visual perception.

In May 2025, he will join the Department of Classics at HU Berlin as a postdoctoral fellow, working on the Project "Visions of the History of Greek philosophy in Late Antiquity and in the Greek and Arabic Middle Ages" led by Dr. Anna Izdebska. Additionally, he is currently developing Classical Chinese Philosophy as his next area of specialization. His upcoming publication plans include writing a monograph on Chinese Islamic philosophy, focusing on the tradition of Han Kitāb. He is also deeply interested in Classical Indian Philosophy, especially the natural philosophy within the School of Vaiśeṣika.

Contact:
Ruizhi Ma
Philosophy
r.ma[at]berlin.bard.edu

Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi is an author, photographer and screenwriter. She holds a BA in American Studies from Yale and an MPhil in International Relations from Oxford. In 2005 she published the seminal essay "Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)," offering an alternative vision of African identity for a transnational generation. In 2011 she made her fiction debut with the short story "The Sex Lives of African Girls," selected for Best American Short Stories 2012. In 2013 Selasi's first novel, the New York Times bestseller Ghana Must Go (Penguin Press), was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. With director Teddy Goitom of Stocktown Films, Selasi is Executive Producer of AFRIPEDIA, a 6-part documentary about African creatives. For producers Fernando Meirelles and Hank Levine (CITY OF GOD) Selasi narrated EXODUS, a feature documentary about global migration. Released in 2015 her TED talk "Don't ask where I'm from, ask where I'm a local" has become required viewing for a multicultural generation. Selasi lives in Berlin.

Eva Meyer-Keller

Germany
Dance and Choreography
Amsterdam School for New Development (SNDO)

Eva Meyer-Keller (1972) lives and works in Berlin.

She works at the interface of performance and visual art. Before graduating from the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam she studied photography and visual art in Berlin (HdK) and London (Central St. Martins and Kings College).

Her artwork is distinctive due to its meticulous attention to detail. Eva often uses everyday objects from her immediate surroundings, things that she finds at home, in the supermarket or in the tool shed. This inevitably lends the work an obsessive, domestic aesthetic. Her working method is marked by a constructive disregard for the imposition of any boundary between visual and performing arts.
Her works include the performances DEATH IS CERTAIN (2002 performed in more than 200 venues around the world), PULLING STRINGS (KunstenFestivaldesArts, Brussels, 2013), the installations VOLKSBALLONS (2004 Palast der Republik, 2013 Centre Pompidou-Metz) und HANDMADE (NGBK Berlin, Bonniers Konsthall Stockholm, Palais de Tokyo Paris).

Eva develops projects alone and in collaboration with other artists, such as Uta Eisenreich, Sybille Müller and Kate McIntosh. She also lends herself as a devisor and performer to other choreographers and works as a dramaturgical advisor/ mentor.
She has worked with Baktruppen, Jérôme Bel, Christine De Smedt/ les Ballets C de la B (9x9), Juan Dominguez, Kate McIntosh and Agnes Meyer-Brandis.

Since 2010 she has ongoing teaching positions at several degree programs across Europe. HZT/UdK in Berlin, DOCH (Dans och Circus Högskolan) and the MA course 'The Autonimous Actor' in Stockholm, ZHdk in Zürich. For the winter semester 2013/14 she was guest professor at the university of Hildesheim.

Contact
Eva Meyer-Keller
Performance
Email: e.meyerkeller[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ross Shields

USA
PhD in German Studies and Comparative Literature
Columbia University

Ross Shields is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin. His current project argues that Goethe’s morphology develops through a critical reading of Kant’s Critique of Judgment, and that the concept of the “nexus” developed through this reading anticipates the aesthetic program of early twentieth century modernism. He received his PhD in German Studies and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 2019. His research interests include literary modernism, aesthetics, pictorial and musical theories of form, literary theory, the philosophy of language, and the history of science.

Project lead at the Science and Religion Project.

Contact
Dr. Ross Shields
German Studies and Comparative Literature
r.shields[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ajla Škrbić

Bosnia and Herzegovina
PhD in International Law
University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar

Ajla Škrbić is an associate professor of public international law from Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 2021 to 2023, she served as an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. Since 2023, she has been working at the Technische Universität Dresden, where she teaches several courses at the Chair of International Law, European Law and Public Law.

Škrbić is a certified lecturer on international law for the Civil Service Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was a fellow of the United Nations International Law Programme (2017) and a participant in the Women in International Law Mentoring Program (2022-2023) and the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict (2023) of the American Society of International Law. Škrbić has received several awards for her work, including the Danubius Young Scientist Award for Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research and the Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe (2017).

Her research interests encompass public international law, human rights, transitional justice, and democracy. Beyond academia, she frequently provides expert consultations to international and non-governmental organizations within her area of expertise, including the Council of Europe and the European Commission.

Contact:
Ajla Škrbić
Ethics and Politics
[email protected]

Ariane Simard

Germany/USA
MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction
University of California, Irvine

Ariane Simard holds a BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction from the University of California, Irvine.

She has studied formally with the writers Leonard Michaels, Grace Paley, Mary Gaitskill, Bharati Mukherjee, and Jim Krusoe.

Ariane teaches her students how to discover their own writing voice through the process of critical inquiry, on topics ranging from art and literature to social justice.

Contact
Ariane Simard
ESL Writing
Email: a.simard[at]berlin.bard.edu

Agatha Siwale

Zambia
PhD in Public Policy
Central European University

Agatha Siwale is a Global Post-doctoral Teaching Fellow in Public Policy and Policy Analysis for the 2018/2019 academic year. Her research interests are in international development policy, natural resource governance, collective action and citizen participation, and institutions. Her doctoral thesis analyses artisanal and small-scale mining in the Zambian context and seeks to understand why resources have failed to trigger rural development in these communities. Prior to beginning her PhD at the Central European University (CEU), she served as head of research at the Policy Monitoring and Research Centre (PMRC), a Zambian think tank. She has tutored at the University of Zambia and also lectured at Northrise University in Zambia. She completed her doctoral studies in Public Policy at the CEU, and holds an MSc in Applied Development Studies from the University of Reading, UK and a BA in Development Studies and Public Administration from the University of Zambia.

Contact
Dr. Agatha Siwale
Public Policy
Email: a.siwale[at]berlin.bard.edu

Clio Nicastro

Italy
PhD in Aesthetics and Theory of Arts
University of Palermo

Clio Nicastro is currently a VolkswagenStiftung Fellow at ICI Berlin. She completed a PhD in Aesthetics and Theory of Arts at the University of Palermo (Italy). In 2015 she moved to Berlin as a DAAD postdoctoral fellow working on the German filmmaker Harun Farocki. From 2016-2018 she was a postdoctoral fellow at ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry as part of the two-year program Errans in Time (2016-2018).

She has published her work in academic volumes as well as in film and art journals. Amongst other topics, she has written on Harun Farocki, Philip Scheffner and Merle Kroeger, and Adelina Pintilie. In 2016, she co-founded together with Saima Akhtar and Rosa Barotsi, the project In front of the Factory: Cinematic Spaces of Labour. From 2018 she has been co-curating together with Hannah Proctor and Nadine Hartmann the series of reading groups and screenings Spellbound (Diffrakt, Berlin), which aims to explore experiences of collective mental contagion such as fainting fits, possession, the mimetic aspects of both hysteria and eating disorders, the regimentation of gesture and trances. She is the author of La Dialettica del Denkraum in Aby Warburg (Palermo University Press, 2022) as well as the co-editor with Cristina Baldacci and Arianna Sforzini of the volume Over and Over and Over again. Reenactment Strategies in Contemporary Arts and Theory (ICI Berlin Press, 2022). Since 2022 she is part of the board of directors of the Harun Farocki Institute.

Contact
Dr. Clio Nicastro
Cultural Theory
Email: c.nicastro[at]berlin.bard.edu

Isabell Spengler

Germany
MFA in Film and Video / Meisterschülerin Experimental Film
California Institute of the Arts / UdK Berlin

Isabell Spengler (Berlin) is an artist working in the field of Expanded Cinema. Her films, video installations and live-film performances are connecting various forms of experimental film and performance practice. In her works she examines social and media-technological changes, gender constructions and power relations in everyday situations. Inhabiting a world of self-designed costumes, props, language, logic and time-structure, her fantastic looking protagonists struggle to fit in, appropriate, transform or just live in the real environments they encounter. Since 2006 Isabell Spengler has created a series of conceptual films and installations, analyzing and mediating the construction of imaginary worlds in dialogues with choreographers, musicians and film colleagues.

She was a founding member of the performance group Ex Machinis, the film collective Holiday Movies initiative, and is currently part of the feminist art collective Maternal Fantasies. Further collaborations as (co-)director, performer and writer - often involving a project-based rotation of theses roles - with Antonia Baehr (make up productions), Jule Flierl, Neo Hülcker, Steffi Weismann (Die Maulwerker), Lucile Desamory, Daniel Adams, Alice Könitz and Corinna Schnitt.

Her works have been presented worldwide at festivals and in exhibitions since 1998, including solo exhibitions in Berlin, Toronto, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv; and festival presentations at the Festival Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal/CAN, the MIX New York Film Festival/USA and at the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale 2012, 2010, 2009, 2007). For her work she received grants and awards from the Senat for Culture and Europe Berlin, Arthur Boskamp-Foundation, ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, EMARE - European Media Artists in Residence Exchange, Künstlerinnenprogramm Berlin, Hauptstadtkulturfonds, DAAD, Kodak Eastman Scholarship and most recently the Bremen Award for Videoart for her installation Voice Elevator, which will be exhibited at the GAK - Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Summer 2021.

She has taught experimental film, media art and performance at the Berlin University of the Arts as a lecturer and as a guest professor from 2004-2014; at the Novia Scotia College of Art & Design in Halifax, Canada (2017); at the Universität Potsdam (2017) and at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (2018-2019). In 2022 she is invited to teach as a guest professor for film and performance at the Justus-Liebig-Universität in Gießen.

Films/installations (selection):
Die Hörposaune (with Antonia Baehr and Jule Flierl, 2021), Voice Elevator (with Neo Hülcker, 2021), Suspended Time (with maternal fantasies, 2020), Echo Chamber (2017), Jurmala (2016), Two Days at the Falls (2015), Vivianne Starlight (2014), Father, Mother, what should I film today? (2012), Osmosis of the Unicorn (2009), LINT LENT LAND (2009), The Pitch (2008), Telepathy Experiment I (2007), Syncpoint (2007), Lantouy (2006), Permanent Residents (2005), The Natural Life of Mermaids (2004), Transformation in the Land of Enchantment (2003), Psychic Tequila Tarot (1998).

Websites/links:
www.isabellspengler.net
www.maternalfantasies.net
www.make-up-productions.net

Contact:
Isabell Spengler
Film and Video
i.spengler[at]berlin.bard.edu

Photo credit © Anja Weber

Gilad Nir

Israel/Germany
PhD in Philosophy
University of Chicago

Gilad Nir received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 2017 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Potsdam. He has written on Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, his philosophy of mind, and his philosophical anthropology, as well as on Heidegger’s conception of history and his critique of traditional metaphysics. Nir's current research project focuses on the historical transformation of concepts and principles of reasoning.

Publications (selection):

“Understanding Misunderstanding”, in Intercultural Understanding After Wittgenstein, ed. by Carla Carmona, David Pérez Chico and Chon Tejedor. Anthem Press. 2023.
“Truth and the Limits of Ethical Thought: Reading Wittgenstein with Diamond”, in Limits of Intelligibility: Issues from Kant and Wittgenstein, ed. by Jens Pier. Routledge. 2022.
“Toward a Resolute Reading of Being and Time,” in The Southern Journal of Philosophy Vol. 59, No.4, December 2021, pp. 572-605.
“Heidegger on the Unity of Metaphysics and the Method of Being and Time,” in The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 74, No. 3, March 2021, pp 361-396.
“The Tractatus and the Riddles of Philosophy“, in Philosophical Investigations 44:1 (2021), pp 19-42.

Contact:
Dr. Gilad Nir
Philosophy
[email protected]

Elena B. Stavrevska

Macedonia
PhD in Political Science
Central European University

Elena B. Stavrevska holds a Masters degree in International Relations and European Studies and a PhD in Political Science from the Central European University. In her research and publications, she has focused on (post-)conflict governance, European Union's approach to peacebuilding, and interpretive methodologies in peace and conflict studies. Her dissertation analyzed the different conceptions of peace in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and their impact on people's agency, existing systems of inequality and inclusion/exclusion from peace processes. Elena has worked on a number of international research projects involving conflict governance in Europe, specifically Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Georgia, and Cyprus. She has previously taught at the Department of International Relations at the Central European University.

Enuma Okoro

Nigeria/USA
Masters in Divinity
Duke University

Enuma Okoro, is a Nigerian-American author, essayist, curator and lecturer. She is a weekend columnist for The Financial Times where she writes the column, “The Art of Life,” about art, culture and how we live, and she is the curator of the 2024 group exhibition, “The Flesh of the Earth,” at Hauser & Wirth gallery in Chelsea, New York. Her broader research and writing interests reflect how the intersection of the arts and critical theory, women's studies, philosophy and contemplative spirituality, and ecology can speak to the human condition and interrogate how we live with ourselves and others. Underlying this interrogation is a deeper interest in knowledge systems, and the power of narrative and story. She writes, lectures, curates and hosts public conversations with the grounding premise that stories, through their varying mediums, are how we challenge old or false narratives, free our imaginations and tell new and expanded truths that shift perceptions and instigate change. And she believes that stories are everywhere. Okoro has published four books of nonfiction. Her fiction and poetry are published in anthologies, and her nonfiction essays and articles have been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Aeon, Vogue, The Erotic Review, The Cut, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, NYU Washington Review, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and more.

Contact:
Enuma Okoro
e.okoro[at]berlin.bard.edu

Mikael Omstedt

Sweden
MA in Geography
University of British Columbia

I am a political economist and historical geographer working at the intersections of uneven development, politics of money and finance, and the history of capitalism. I am currently writing a dissertation at the University of British Columbia, Canada which examines the historical geographies of the early US Federal Reserve System through multiple sites across the “American” and “Global” South. While I spend a lot of time in archives, theoretically my work is animated by an ambition to bring conceptions of uneven development formulated at the relative peripheries of capitalism “back” to its ostensible core in order to deconstruct the widespread universalization of US capitalism evident among boosters and critics alike. My work has appeared in Antipode, Geoforum, and Environment & Planning A.

Contact:
Mikael Omstedt
Politics
m.omstedt[at]berlin.bard.edu

Helene Strauss

Professor in the Department of English at the University of the Free State, South Africa

Research Associate at Bard College Berlin, Fall 2019

Helene Strauss is Professor in the Department of English at the University of the Free State, South Africa, where she served as departmental chair from 2012 until June 2019. She earned her PhD from the University of Western Ontario in 2006, and subsequently joined the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Canada, as Assistant Professor. Her academic awards include a Canadian Governor General’s Gold Medal for her doctoral research; a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2009-2012); and two consecutive ratings from the South African National Research Foundation (2013-2024). She currently serves on the Executive Board of the Association for Cultural Studies as the Organisational Secretary (2016-2022), as well as on the Editorial Boards of journals such as Ariel: A Review of International English Literature and English in Africa. She has supervised and examined a combined total of 44 MA, PhD and Postdoctoral students (36 completed).

Her research and teaching interests span topics such as Southern African, African and African diasporic literature and (visual) culture; feminist and queer aesthetic activisms; protest cultures; materialisms old and new; mining; and documentary film. Recent major publications and research collaborations include co-edited special issues of the journals Interventions and Critical Arts; a book titled Contemporary African Mediations of Affect and Access, co-edited with Jessie Forsyth and Sarah Olutola (Routledge, 2017); participation in the ‘Affective Archives’ project convened since early 2017 by Derek Hook (Duquesne U, Pittsburgh, US) and Margarita Palacios (Birkbeck, London); an invitation by Homi Bhabha, Director of the Mahindra Humanities Centre, Harvard University, to participate in the “Global Humanities Curriculum Workshop” (December 10-11, 2018); and an invitation by Peter Vale and Ronit Frenkel from the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Studies to participate in a colloquium on “Thinking SA post-2012” (January 2017). She has published numerous book chapters and articles in venues such as Subjectivity; a/b: Auto/Biography Studies; Social Dynamics; Journal of African Cinemas; Wasafiri; Safundi and English Academy Review. She is currently finalising a monograph titled Wayward Feeling in Contemporary South African Visual Culture.

Mareike Stoll

Germany
PhD in German Studies
Princeton University

Mareike Stoll holds a PhD from Princeton University and has been teaching German as a Second Language to college students for more than 8 years by now. She has contributed to a new online coursebook for learning German, developed in Princeton by James Rankin and defended her dissertation on German photobooks of the 1920s and 1930s in October 2015. She stayed in Princeton and worked as a full-time Lecturer in the German Department until June 2016 before returning to Berlin.

Mareike earned her M.A. in Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin and in Art History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2005, and holds a Princeton M.A. in German Studies (2011). She further earned a certificate in Princeton's Program of Media and Modernity. Between 2005 and 2008 she worked as a full-time gallery assistant at a gallery specializing in photography, Kicken Berlin, earning hands-on experience in handling art-works, creating image constellations and helping to curate exhibitions.

Her book entitled ABC der Photographie. Photobücher der Weimarer Republik—for which she was awarded a research and publication grant by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie (DGPh)—was published with Walther König in January 2018.

Mareike’s research interest is the reading of images and texts, and any combination thereof. Mareike has published articles on a variety of topics, such as the notion of guilt as connected to capitalism in the writings of Walter Benjamin, on cityscapes in German post-war photobooks by photographers like Abisag Tüllmann and Jitka Hanzlová, on the correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, as well as most recently on metaphors of collective memory in Uwe Johnson’s Jahrestage and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.

Contact
Dr. Mareike Stoll
German Language
Email: m.stoll[at]berlin.bard.edu

Joon Park

South Korea
BA in Studio Art and Psychology
Boston College

Joon Park (b. 1986, Seoul, South Korea) earned his BA degrees in Studio Art and Psychology from Boston College, USA.
He is a 2012 recipient of the Mima Weissmann fellowship at the ceramics program at Harvard University. In 2013, he moved to Germany and worked at the historic Bauhaus pottery workshop, Keramische Werkstatt Margaretenhöhe under the master potter Young-Jae Lee as an intern and, consequently, a freelance potter. His sculptural ceramics work has been exhibited and published in various countries, including the US, the UK, Italy, and China.

Since 2017, he has worked at Bard College Berlin as a studio art manager to facilitate student production and art program logistics.

Contact:
Joon Park
[email protected]

Marianna Szczygielska

Poland
PhD in Comparative Gender Studies
Central European University

Marianna Szczygielska received her PhD in Comparative Gender Studies at the Central European University in Budapest. Her work engages human-animal studies, queer theory, and feminist science and technology studies to examine the history of zoos and animal collections from an intersectional perspective. She was awarded the Feminist Animal Studies Fellowship in honor of Marti Kheel at the Wesleyan University (CT). She has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Science and CEFRES French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences in Prague within the Bewildering Boar project. Between 2018 and 2022 Marianna has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin. Her latest research project explores the history of keeping elephants in captivity in Eastern Europe with a focus on the trajectories of colonial trades in zoo specimens and ivory. Marianna is an Associate Editor of the Humanimalia journal. She is currently working on her monograph titled Captive Sexualities: Species, Race, and Zoos.

Select Publications:

Szczygielska, Marianna (2021). “Od kości słoniowej do plastiku, czyli nienaturalna historia wymierania w epoce antropocenu.” [“From ivory to plastic, or the unnatural history of extinction in the age of the Anthropocene.”] Kultura Współczesna 113(1): 28-42.
Steinbock, Eliza, Marianna Szczygielska, and Anthony Clair Wagner, eds. (2021). Tranimacies: Intimate Links Between Animal and Trans* Studies. London: Routledge.
Szczygielska, Marianna (2020). “Elephant Empire: Zoos and Colonial Encounters in Eastern Europe.” Cultural Studies 34 (5): 789–810.
Szczygielska, Marianna and Olga Cielemęcka (2019). “Plantarium: Human-Vegetal Ecologies.” Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, and Technoscience 5 (2): 1–12.

Contact:
Dr. Marianna Szczygielska
Comparative Gender Studies
m.szczygielska[at]berlin.bard.edu

Gregor Quack

Germany
PhD in Art History
Yale University

Gregor Quack is a critic, curator, and historian of modern and contemporary art, specializing in the relationships and conflicts between artistic form and social realities. He holds a BA in Art History from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Master's degrees from Columbia University and Stanford University, and recently completed his PhD in Art History at Yale University under the supervision of Pamela M. Lee with a dissertation entitled "The Social Fabric: Franz Erhard Walther and the Sociological Turn of Art in Postwar Germany." Before graduate school, he was an art critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and has since continued to write for national newspapers and publications such as frieze, Artforum, and Texte zur Kunst. As a curator, he has worked as director of the Boros Collection, founded a student-run gallery, and (co-)curated exhibitions at the Cantor Arts Center, the Yale University Art Gallery, and galleries in New York, Cologne, and Seoul.

Cory Tamler

United States
M.Phil. Theater and Performance Studies
CUNY Graduate Center

Cory Tamler is a writer, performance-maker, and dramaturg whose practice is rooted in theater, performance as research, and community organizing. Cory takes strong elements of both storytelling and experimental thinking from her background in playwriting and physics. She has created and participated in research-based performance projects in the United States, Germany, and Serbia.

As a core artist with Maine-based civic arts organization Open Waters since 2010, Cory has written a play based on the lives and work of small-scale farmers in Southern Maine, led collaborative writing-science workshops with marine biologists and community members, and co-written a book of performance scores that help readers and performers step into the scales of migratory Penobscot River fish. She co-facilitated the In Kinship Archives and Performance Fellowship with Darren Ranco and Jennie Hahn, which has developed into In Kinship Collective, an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural group that follows the tradition of Wabanaki Guiding and centers Indigenous knowledge and experience to create new interdisciplinary works in conversation and relationship with Wabanaki guides and watersheds.

Cory has taught playwriting, performance, theater history, and more in many contexts since 2010, including in the Department of Theater at Brooklyn College (2016–2020). She holds a B.Phil. in creative writing and philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh, and an M.Phil. in theater and performance studies from The Graduate Center, CUNY, where she is currently a Ph.D. candidate. She is a former Fulbright scholar (Berlin) and DAAD fellow (Gießen).

Contact
Cory Tamler
Theater and Performance
c.tamler[at]berlin.bard.edu

Anthony Quickel

USA
PhD in Islamic Studies
University of Marburg

Anthony Quickel is a historian of science. He is currently a postdoctoral scholar in Department III: Artifacts, Action, Knowledge at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin as part of the “Metals, Minerals, and the Life Cycle” Working Group. His research examines different aspects of the ways in which inanimate natural materials, specifically metals and minerals, were understood and utilized in medieval Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean, particularly during the Mamluk Sultanate (1250-1517).

Anthony completed his PhD at the University of Marburg, with a dissertation entitled “Egypt’s Quiet Sixteenth Century: Transformation and the Production of Knowledge Across the Mamluk-Ottoman Transition,” which is under preparation as a monograph. Between 2019–2022, he was the project coordinator of the DFG-ANR-funded EGYLandscape Project, a joint German-French cooperation, which investigated Egypt’s past landscapes and environment during the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries. He was also a researcher on the DFG-ANR-funded DYNTRAN (Dynamics of Transmission) Project from 2015–2017. Anthony has been involved with several scientific committees, including the Ta’ziz Scientific Cooperation and the TransOttomanica Project. He is the author of several articles relating to Egypt’s pre-modern environmental history, as well as the co-editor of a forthcoming volume about nature during the Mamluk Sultanate. During multiple academic terms from 2016–2021, Anthony was an adjunct instructor of Middle East History at the American University in Cairo, from which he also obtained his master’s degree.

Contact:
Dr. Anthony Quickel
a.quickel[at]berlin.bard.edu

Magdalena Taube

Germany
PhD in Modern German Literature
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Magdalena Taube is a Berlin based journalist and researcher. She earned a PhD in modern German Literature at Humboldt University Berlin with a research focus on digital journalism. Her doctoral research won several research grants from various German foundations. Magdalena is managing editor of the online magazine berlinergazette.de which won several media and journalism awards being one of the few digital publications in Germany that focus on civic journalism. Since 2010 Magdalena has been teaching digital literacy and journalism at Humboldt University Berlin, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Hochschule Hannover and Hokkaido University Sapporo.

Contact
Magdalena Taube
Digital Journalism
Email: m.taube[at]berlin.bard.edu

Michael Thomas Taylor

Canada / USA
PhD in German
Princeton University

Michael Thomas Taylor works primarily as a translator and editor in Berlin. From 2007 to 2012, he taught at the University of Calgary as assistant professor of German, and from 2012 to 2017 as assistant, then associate professor of German and humanities at Reed College. His coauthored book Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories (written with Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn, and Annette F. Timm; University of Calgary Press, 2020) was selected as a 2021 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. He has also co-curated exhibitions combining histories of sexuality with contemporary art, most recently Trans Trans in Berlin at the Schwules Museum in 2020, to be shown again in Munich at the Amerikahaus in 2022. Significant scholarly translations include History, Space, and Place by Susanne Rau (Routledge, 2019), Uexküll’s Surroundings by Florian Sprenger and Gottfried Schnödl (forthcoming), and Making an Entrance: Appearing on Stage from Racine to Nietzsche by Juliane Vogel (forthcoming), in addition to other research. Recent translations of trade publications include The Essence of Berlin-Tegel: Taking Stock of an Airport’s Architecture (jovis, 2020).
He holds a PhD in German from Princeton University (2007).

Website: http://michaeltaylor.de

Contact
Dr. Michael Thomas Taylor
German Language and Literature
m.taylor[at]berlin.bard.edu

Thomas Raysmith

Australia
PhD in Philosophy
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Thomas Raysmith grew up in Melbourne, Australia. He completed his PhD at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2022. His dissertation dealt with the question of whether a history of philosophy is possible. He primarily writes on German Idealism and Romanticism, conceptions of analysis drawn the global history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic.

Contact:
Thomas Raysmith
Philosophy
t.raysmith[at]berlin.bard.edu

Yuan Tao

China
Master of Theological Studies (MTS)
Harvard Divinity School

Yuan studied history and classics as an undergraduate student at Peking University. In 2017 she moved on to a master's program at Harvard Divinity School and received her Master of Theological Studies in 2019 with a focus on the history of Christianity. She is presently a PhD candidate at the Technische Universität Berlin and a Predoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in the research group “Experience in the Premodern Sciences of Soul & Body, ca. 800–1650.” Her dissertation is on Jesuit theories of sound in 17th century Europe and China.

Contact:
Yuan Tao
Philosophy
[email protected]

Rebecca Rukeyser

USA
MFA in Fiction
Iowa Writers' Workshop, University of Iowa

Rebecca Rukeyser is the author of the novel The Seaplane on Final Approach (2022; Doubleday/USA and Granta Books/UK). Her work has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Believer, Granta, The Guardian, and Zyzzyva, among others, and was awarded the Berlin Senat Endowment for Non-German Literature. She holds an MFA from the the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Contact
Rebecca Rukeyser, MFA
Fiction Writing
Email: [email protected]

David C. Terry

USA
MFA in Sculpture
University of Pennsylvania

David C. Terry is an artist, independent curator and cultural producer as well as the Director and Curator of Grants and Exhibitions at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) where he oversees the Fellowships, Curatorial/Exhibition, Residency and Alumni Programs. Prior to coming to NYFA, Mr. Terry was Assistant Director at the Pelham Art Center, where he directed the exhibition, educational and outreach programs. Born and raised in Washington, D.C. and a New York City resident for 21 years, Mr. Terry's professional career covers a wide range of curatorial, artistic, administrative and academic experience. He has taught a variety of classes including objective and figurative drawing, abstract and figurative sculpture, portraiture and environmental and site-‐specific sculpture to students of all age ranges. He earned his BA at the College of William and Mary, and while earning his MFA in Sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Terry began his administrative, curatorial and teaching career at the Philadelphia Arts League. Mr. Terry is a working artist, a curator with over 100 exhibitions and curatorial productions and experiences to his name, as well as a juror, and a panelist for the New York State Council on the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural affairs, Bronx Council on the Arts, Westchester Biennale and the Westchester Arts Council's '50 for 50' Festival, the Alexander Rutsch Award in Painting, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Artist in Residence Program, Lumen Arts Festival, and a member of the GIA Support for Individual Artists Group Steering Committee as well as Board Member of the College Art Association and the Executive Member of the Fine Arts Federation. Mr. Terry's awards include Artists in the Marketplace Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts; BRIO, Bronx Council on the Arts; The Puffin Foundation; New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture, the Arts and Business Council's Arts Leadership Institute Award and the Elizabeth Foundation's Residency Grant and the Node Center for Curatorial Studies' Innovators Grant.

Yvonne Toepfer

Yvonne Toepfer received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon in 2014 and was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow there until 2015. Before joining Bard College Berlin, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of German at Montana State University in Bozeman. She has taught a variety of lower and upper division courses in German language (A1-C1), world and German literature, film, literary theory, as well as research/capstone both in English and German, and both in the traditional and online learning environment at Montana State University and the University of Oregon. Between 2015-2017 she actively served as the German Faculty adviser for the German Klub at MSU. She also holds a B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Oregon (2006) and a transfer certificate (2003) from Foothill College, Los Altos Hills in California.

Her research interests have extended to the art, philosophy, literature and their intersections, resulting in a comparative and interactive approach in her teaching, and include early 19th century German literature, fairy tale studies, folklore, narrative studies, feminist and gender studies, and film studies (e.g. afterlife of the literary and traditional tales in the 20th and 21st century and the modern representation of the villain character as a reiteration of the Byronic hero) and also explore the concepts of the sublime, the fantastic and absolute chaos. She has presented on these topics in several public forums (e.g. at both American Comparative Literature Association and the German Studies Association conferences).

Recently published article:

“Hoffmann et les Contemporains: A Mosaïque Mouvante du “Marchand de Sable.”” Transl. Victoire Feullebois. Otrante No. 39 (2016): 15-27.

Simona Toroțcoi

Romania
PhD in Political Science
Central European University

Simona Toroțcoi received her PhD in Political Science from the Central European University (CEU) as a Yehuda Elkana Fellow. Her PhD dissertation titled “From International Commitments to Institutional Reality – The Case of Higher Education Policy in Europe" focuses on explaining the implementation gap of voluntary, commonly agreed social inclusion and quality policies within the European Higher Education Area.

Simona has been a visiting scholar at CIPES - Center for Research in Higher Education Policies in Portugal, and received her MA degree in Public Policy from CEU with a specialization in Higher Education Policy. Simona also holds a MSc. in Public Administration from Leiden University.

Her main research interests include the study of public policies especially higher education, youth employment and political participation, and minority policies.

Simona is a Global Teaching Fellow at Bard College Berlin for the 2020/2021 academic year.

Contact
Dr. Simona Toroțcoi
Political Science
Email: s.torotcoi[at]berlin.bard.edu

Aaron Tugendhaft

PhD in Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University

Aaron Tugendhaft is a scholar of the ancient Middle East and a dedicated humanities teacher focusing on religion, political philosophy, and the arts. He received his PhD from the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University in 2012 and also holds degrees in Art History and Social Thought from the University of Chicago. Before coming to Bard College Berlin, Aaron was a Harper Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago. He has also held postdoctoral fellowships at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. In 2013, he received the Jonas Greenfield Prize for Younger Semitists from the American Oriental Society. He is the editor, with Josh Ellenbogen, of Idol Anxiety (Stanford 2011) and the author of Baal and the Politics of Poetry (Routledge 2018). His most recent book, The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet (University of Chicago Press, 2020) explores the political power of images and the significance of their destruction.

Contact

Dr. Aaron Tugendhaft
Near Eastern Studies
Email: atugendhaft[at]gmail.com

Janina Schabig

Germany
Film Studies at Freie Universität, Berlin
Film Production at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
Art Direction at Miami AD School Europe, Hamburg

Janina studied Art Direction for Advertising at Miami AD School Europe in Hamburg and worked in the commercial industry for several years, before her passion for filmmaking took her to Canada to study Film Production at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. During that time she started to focus on the technical dimensions behind filmmaking and began camera assisting and operating, as well as building analog cameras.

In 2012 Janina moved back to Germany to start her own small production studio and soon thereafter joined Bard College Berlin as Technical Consultant for Photography & Videography. Since 2016, Janina has been building BCB’s audiovisual-media department. She has facilitated numerous student productions, led workshops in photo, video and sound design and teaches a filmmaking class at the college.

Contact
Janina Schabig
Senior Manager, Audio-Visual Media
Email: j.schabig[at]berlin.bard.edu

Ostap Sereda

Ukraine
PhD in Comparative History
Central European University

Ostap Sereda received his PhD in comparative history from the Central European University (Budapest) in 2003. From 1994 till 2015 he was a research fellow at the Ivan Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies (L’viv) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Since 2015 Sereda teaches modern history at the Ukrainian Catholic University in L’viv. Since 2012 he has also been regularly invited as a visiting professor to the Central European University in Budapest and Vienna. In March 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sereda became the program director of the transnational academic project "Invisible University for Ukraine". Sereda has been a recipient of visiting fellowships at the European University Institute in Florence (2010), Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University (2012 and 2019-2020) and Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena (2022-2023). His areas of research and publications include the history of national projects in Austrian Eastern Galicia in the second half of the nineteenth century; cultural politics and the city theater in Kyiv in 1856-1896; and intellectual and institutional history of Ukrainian studies in North America in the time of the “Cold War.” Sereda is a co-author (with Andriy Zayarnyuk) of the book The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Ukraine. The Nineteenth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 2023).

Contact:
Dr. Ostap Sereda
History
[email protected]

Tobia Silvotti

Italy
BA in Fine Arts
Central Saint Martins, London

Tobia Silvotti is an artist and co-founder of the School of Sculpture Berlin. Born in New York and with an international upbringing he went on to study Fine Arts in Central Saint Martins college of Arts and Design in London. He has participated in several group exhibitions in London and exhibited at the Intrecciarte Gallery (Pietrasanta, LU, Italy) and in Seravezza during the CibArt Festival. Other projects include a Land Art project such as the installation of a sculpture on a mountain above Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, an artistic joint project with the Japanese artist group SAMPO for the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (2019) and a collaboration with artist Raphael Beil in the creation of a monumental granite sculpture in Norway (2020-21).

He has been collaborating with the summer academy Campo dell’Altissimo (Azzano, LU, Italy) since 2012 and teaching stone carving there since 2018.

Tobia Silvotti founded the “School of Sculpture” together with Raphael Beil within the creative hub and artist community located at the former distillery Monopol in Berlin Reinickendorf, where they offer a guided tutelage for creating individual stone artworks using a variety of techniques and different stones. He wishes to share the beauty he has found in the process of working with stone and in the exploration of one’s imagination and creativity.

Contact
Tobia Silvotti
Fine Arts — Sculpture
[email protected]

Hans Stauffacher

Switzerland/Germany
MA in Philosophy
Freie Universität Berlin

Hans Stauffacher received his MA in philosophy from Freie Universität Berlin and is about to submit his PhD thesis on F.W.J. Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism. He was research associate at the Collaborative Research Centre "Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of Artistic Limits" where he worked on concepts of genius in 19th century philosophy, and is now teaching at the Institute for the Study of Religion at FU Berlin.

His research and teaching interests encompass 19th and 20th century continental philosophy, concepts of inspiration, genius, the unconscious, creativity and experimentation, self-conceptions of philosophy after the “end of metaphysics” and the possibilities and limits of non-universalist philosophy, as well as the genealogy and potential of notions of emancipation and critique. He is working on a book preliminarily titled (Im)Possibilities of Critique and Emancipation: On Theory as Liberating Practice.

Publications

(Ed. with Marie-Christin Wilm) Wahnsinn und Methode: Zur Funktion von Geniefiguren in Literatur und Philosophie. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2016 [in press].

"'Kein Genie hat ein 'um zu':' Kierkegaards Umwertung des Genies und die Ablehnung der Philosophie als l'art pour l'art". In Hans Stauffacher and Marie-Christin Wilm (eds.), Wahnsinn und Methode: Zur Funktion von Geniefiguren in Literatur und Philosophie. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2016 [in press].

"Yes we can! Über utopische Ungründe des Politischen und die kommende Demokratie". In Juliane Schiffers and Markus Rautzenberg (eds.), Ungründe. Potenziale prekärer Fundierung. Paderborn: Fink, 2016, pp. 127-141.

"'No genius has an 'in order to':' Kierkegaard's Reevaluation of Genius and the Rejection of Philosophy as l'art pour l'art". In Armen Avanessian and Sophie Wennerscheid (eds.), Kierkegaard and Political Theory: Religion, Aesthetics, Politics and the Intervention of the Single Individual. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2014, pp. 41-61.

"Punk's not dead! Über Philosophie". Sublin/mes: Philosophieren von unten, 2 (2013), pp. 59-64

"Die Appropriation von Kants Geniekonzept in Schellings System des transzendentalen Idealismus". In Fabian Geier, Andreas Spahn and Christan Spahn (eds.), Perspektiven philosophischer Forschung, vol. 2. Essen: Oldib, 2013, pp. 165-180.

"Enthusiasmus! Der Arabische Frühling als Geschichtszeichen". Sic et Non: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Kultur, 13.1 (2012)

"Schellings Unbewusstes und das Andere der Vernunft". In Elisabeth Johanna Koehn, Daniela Schmidt, Johannes-Georg Schülein, Johannes Weiß and Paula Wojcik (eds.), Andersheit um 1800: Figuren – Theorien – Darstellungsformen. München: Fink, 2011, pp. 191-204.

"Dichtungsvermögen: Schellings Poetik des transzendentalen Philosophierens". In Tobias Dangel, Cem Kömürcü and Stephan Zimmermann (eds.), Dichten und Denken: Perspektiven zur Ästhetik. Heidelberg: Winter, 2011, pp. 237-267.

"Von der 'seltenen Erscheinung' zum 'ganz allgemeinen Ausdruck': Die Systemstelle des Genies im Deutschen Idealismus". Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology, 10 (2010), pp. 195-204.

"Erfahrung des Unaussprechlichen: Einige Überlegungen zum Mystischen in der gegenwärtigen Ästhetik". In Cornelia Temesvári and Roberto Sanchiño Martínez (eds.), "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann..." Ästhetik und Mystik im 20. Jahrhundert: Philosophie – Literatur – Visuelle Medien. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010, pp.13-27.

(Ed. with Armen Avanessian, Franck Hofmann and Susanne Leeb), Form: Zwischen Ästhetik und künstlerischer Praxis. Zürich/Berlin: Diaphanes, 2009.

(With Armen Avanessian and Mario Horta), "'Kants Ästhetik, denke ich, eröffnet eine Möglichkeit noch die Experimente der zeitgenössischen Kunst zu beurteilen': Gespräch mit Rodolphe Gasché". In Armen Avanessian, Franck Hofmann, Susanne Leeb and Hans Stauffacher (eds.), Form: Zwischen Ästhetik und künstlerischer Praxis. Zürich/Berlin: Diaphanes, 2009, pp. 285-303.

"Die Überwindung der Metaphysik als Selbstüberwindung der Philosophie: Implikationen einer Gedankenfigur bei Rudolf Carnap und Martin Heidegger". Philotheos: International Journal for Philosophy and Theology, 7 (2007), pp. 381-428.

Contact
Hans Stauffacher, M.A.
Philosophy
Email: h.stauffacher[at]berlin.bard.edu

Eddy Steinhauer

USA/Haiti
MFA
Yale School of Art and Architecture

Eddy Steinhauer is a Haitian-American multidisciplinary visual artist and curator based in Berlin Germany. He received a BA and MA from Central Washington University and received an MFA from Yale School of Art and Architecture. Steinhauer uses a combination of formal and crafted approaches to make work that explores black identity and post-colonialism. Steinhauer has exhibited his work in several museums and galleries internationally, including The International Monetary Fund Gallery in Washington, DC; The Black History Museum in Richmond, VA; The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum in Miami, FL; Rathausgalerie Kunsthalle, Munich, DE; The Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora Art in Brooklyn, NY; Teckningsmuseet in Laholm, Sweden; and The Grand Rapids Art Museum in Grand Rapids, MI.

Contact:
Eddy Steinhauer
Studio Arts — Sculpture
e.steinhauer[at]berlin.bard.edu

Haley Stewart

USA/Luxembourg
MPhil in European Literature and Culture and Latin American Studies
University of Cambridge

Haley Stewart is a PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where she primarily works on Latin American art, film and literature of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. She holds two MPhil degrees in European Literature and Culture and Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge. Her transnational work engages with the theoretical concerns of ecocriticism, environmental humanities and Anthropocene studies from the local and ch’ixi experiences of a region long identified with and exploited for its natural resources and home to Amerindian cosmologies and ontologies. She is writing a dissertation which looks at forms of cosmological memory culture in Chile and Bolivia from the 1970s onwards. Haley is also a former Research Fellow at the Freie Universität’s Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities."

Contact
Haley Stewart
European Literature and Culture and Latin American Studies
h.stewart[at]berlin.bard.edu

Kathy-Ann Tan

Germany
Habilitation and PhD in North American Literatures and Cultures

Curator, Writer and Independent Scholar

Kathy-Ann is a Berlin-based independent curator, writer and founder of Mental Health Arts Space (www.mhasberlin.com), a non-profit project space that centers the mental health, knowledge, histories and narratives of BIPoC and minoritized artists and cultural workers. She is interested in alternative and sustainable forms of art dissemination, cultural production and institution-building committed to issues of social justice beyond a merely representational model of identity politics. Kathy-Ann's practice revolves around creating spaces for conversation, sharing and empowerment for BIPoC and minoritized communities in the arts and cultural scenes in Berlin and beyond. As a former full-time academic, she has extensive experience in teaching, research, publishing, facilitating workshops and public speaking.

Contact

Kathy-Ann Tan

Curator, Writer and Independent Scholar

[email protected]

Dorine van Meel

Netherlands
MFA in Fine Art
Goldsmiths College

Dorine van Meel (1984) is a Dutch artist whose practice takes the form of video installations, performances, discursive projects and long-term collaborations. In her video work, digitally produced images are combined with composed soundtracks and texts read by the artist as well as other female narrators. Moving between diaristic observations, fragments of conversations, and reflections on news items and social media feeds, her work analyses the power relations permeating everyday life while searching for possible modes of resistance and alternative political imaginaries.

Van Meel’s solo work has been shown at the 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, the South London Gallery, KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, W139 in Amsterdam, Transmediale in Berlin and Nottingham Contemporary. Her interest in collaborative practices and self-organised education is reflected in the collective projects she has initiated, such as A Farewell to progress at KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the South London Gallery, "The Southern Summer School" at BAK in Utrecht (with Nelmarie du Preez), "Decolonial Futures" at the Sandberg Instituut and Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (with Simangaliso Sibiya), and, together with Rianna Jade Parker, Gentle Dust, which took place amongst others at Jupiter Woods in London and the 10th Berlin Biennale. Since 2015, Van Meel has been teaching in the BA and MA programmes of the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam.

Contact
Dorine van Meel, MFA
Artist
Email: d.vanmeel[at]berlin.bard.edu

Louise Thatcher

Australia
MA Global History
Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Louise Thatcher holds a BA in History from the University of Sydney and an MA Global History from the Free University and Humboldt University Berlin. She recently submitted her PhD dissertation in the Global History Professorship at Potsdam University. Her work, ‘Stowaways, Deserters and False Papers: Global Bordering and Clandestine Migration to White Australia’ investigates bordering practices and practices of border evasion in the context of the racist immigration controls of early twentieth century Australia. Her teaching interests include histories of migration, labour and border control, feminist and queer histories.

Contact
Louise Thatcher
Global History
Email: l.thatcher[at]berlin.bard.edu

Jan Völker

Germany
PhD in Philosophy
Universität Potsdam

Jan Völker studied general and comparative literature, philosophy and cultural studies in Leipzig, Berlin and Paris. He earned his PhD in Philosophy in 2009 with the doctoral thesis “Ästhetik der Lebendigkeit,” on Kant’s critique of the power of judgment. His areas of interest are ontology, aesthetics, art and politics, and psychoanalysis. Jan Völker also teaches at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana. His current projects focus on the question of ideology in contemporary times, on Badiou’s concept of art, and on the restitution of German idealism after Marx and Lacan.

Contact
Dr. Jan Völker
Philosophy
Email: j.voelker[at]berlin.bard.edu

Thomas Turnbull

Great Britain
PhD in Geography and the Environment
University of Oxford

Thomas has worked at the MPIWG since 2017. Following a collaborative project with HKW Berlin, he became a research scholar in Department 1 in 2020. Throughout his time at this department, he was a member of Anthropocene Formations and its precursor working groups. In January 2024 he transferred to the Department Knowledge Systems and Collective Life. There he is part of the working group Unknowing Environmental Crisis. Before Berlin, Thomas completed his PhD at the University of Oxford School of Geography and the Environment (SOGE) in 2017. Before Oxford, he worked in energy policy in London. Thomas has taught at the University of Oxford, University College London, and St Gallen University in Switzerland, where he teaches a course ‘Energy histories, Climate Futures.’ Alongside the MPIWG Thomas continues to involve himself in a number of art and outreach projects: not least Mississippi. An Anthropocene River (2018-2019) at Berlin’s House of World Cultures (HKW); The Ledger of the Sun (2022) with Jamie Allen at Oslo’s Architecture Triennale; The Driving Factor (2023) with Eliza Bertuzzo, Daniele Tognozzi, and Neli Wagner; and Fossile Energie, Fragile Zukunft (2024) at Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven with the curator Lena Reisner. In 2025 he is contributing to a book by artist Imani Jacqueline Brown.

Contact:
Thomas Turnbull
t.turnbull[at]berlin.bard.edu

Antonia von Schöning

Germany
PhD in Media & Cultural Studies
Bauhaus University Weimar

Antonia von Schöning is a scholar of media culture and a historian of science. She completed a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies at Bauhaus University Weimar in 2015, and earned a bi-national MA degree in Media, Culture, and Communication from Bauhaus University Weimar and Université Lumières Lyon II. She has taught media theory, STS, and history of science, as well as courses on the convergence of art and technology and art theory at Bauhaus University Weimar, University of Basel and FHNW Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel. Currently, she is postdoctoral researcher and lecturer of history of science at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Antonia von Schöning’s research interests include cultural techniques of creativity, digital humanities, art theory, and media ecologies.

She is author of Die Administration der Dinge. Technik und Imagination im Paris des 19. Jahrhunderts, diaphanes: Zurich/Berlin 2018.

Contact
Dr. Antonia von Schöning

Caleb Waldorf

Caleb Waldorf is an artist currently living in Berlin. His practice operates at the intersection of publication, pedagogy and technology with a focus on developing on/offline collaborative platforms. In 2007 he co-founded and is currently the creative director of the magazine, Triple Canopy. Since 2008 he has served on the committee for The Public School, an open framework for self-organized learning initiated in Los Angeles by Telic Arts Exchange. He is the co-editor of a journal for short-form writing and media work called Version and is part of the editorial collective, Occupy Everything. His latest collaboration was with The Museum of Modern Art's C-MAP initiative on a platform called post, launched in early 2013.

Florian Ullrich

Austria
Master of Arts in Teaching German as a Foreign Language
Technische Universität Berlin

Florian Ullrich studied English Literature as a BA and Teaching German as a Foreign Language for his MA. His master thesis focused on the history and development of German courses for the first generation of Guestworkers. He enjoys learning languages and recently started urban gardening on his balcony.

Contact:
Florian Ullrich
German Language
f.ullrich[at]berlin.bard.edu

Cecelia A. Watson

Cecelia Watson received her B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John's College, her M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D from the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago.

Her research interests include the history and philosophy of science; scientific rhetoric and style; the connections between the arts and sciences; and the humanities and the history of ideas more generally.

Most recently she was an ACLS New Faculty Fellow at Yale University, where she was jointly appointed in both Philosophy and Humanities. Prior to that she held academic positions at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, the European College of Liberal Arts, and the University of Chicago. She has held fellowships from the Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the American Council of Learned Societies; and she was the recipient of the John C. Burnham Early Career Award in the history of the human sciences.

Publications:

"The Sphere," Textures of the Anthropocene: Grain Vapor Ray (Cambridge: The MIT Press), October 2014.

"Points of Contention: Rethinking the Past, Present, and Future of Punctuation," Critical Inquiry, Vol.38 No. 3 (Spring 2012).

"The Sartorial Self: William James's Philosophy of Dress," History of Psychology, Vol.7 No. 3 (August 2004).

Andreas Weber

Dipl. Biol. Dr. phil. Marine Biology and Culture Studies
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Germany

Andreas Weber is a biologist, philosopher, and nature writer. He has degrees in Marine Biology and Cultural Studies, having collaborated with theoretical biologist Francisco Varela in Paris. Andreas' work is focusing on a re-evaluation of our understanding of living organisms. He is proposing to understand organisms as subjects and hence the biosphere as a meaning-creating and poetic reality. Accordingly, Andreas holds that an economy inspired by nature should not be designed as a mechanistic optimization machine, but rather as an ecosystem which transforms mutual sharing of matter and energy. Andreas has put forth his ideas in several books and is contributing to major German magazines and journals, such as GEO, National Geographic, Die Zeit and Greenpeace Magazine. His latest books are Enlivenment. Toward a Poetics for the Anthropocene (MIT Press, 2019) and Sharing Life: The Ecopolitics of Reciprocity (Boell Foundation, 2020). He teaches at the University of the Arts, Berlin and at the Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche in Pollenzo, Italy. Andreas lives in Berlin and Italy. For more information visit biologyofwonder.org.

Contact Information
Cultural Studies
Dr. Andreas Weber
a.weber[at]berlin.bard.edu

Till Weber

Till Weber holds a Ph.D. in political science from the European University Institute in Florence (2011) and a Master's degree from the Free University of Berlin (2006). His research centers on electoral behavior, party competition, legislative politics, coalition government and public administration. Most of his work is comparative with a focus on Europe (both Western and Eastern) and the United States. Methodologically he has specialized in advanced quantitative analysis with more recent interests in mixed-method studies, experimental approaches and formal modeling. He teaches research methods, political behavior and comparative institutions.

Courses

“Understanding Politics through Statistics”
Spring term 2013, ECLA of Bard

“Electoral Politics: Models of Voters, Parties, and Governments”
Summer term 2012, Humboldt University of Berlin

“Colloquium on Political Behavior”
Fall 2007 - Summer 2010, European University Institute, Florence

“Political Competition in Europe”
Summer term 2007, Free University of Berlin

Publications

Journal Articles

2012. Party Systems and Government Stability in Central and Eastern Europe. World Politics, 64(4), pp. 699-740 (with Florian Grotz).

2011. A Bottleneck Model of E-voting: Why Technology Fails to Boost Turnout. New Media & Society, 13(8), pp. 1336-1354 (with Kristjan Vassil).

2011. Exit, Voice, and Cyclicality: A Micro-Logic of Midterm Effects in European Parliament Elections. American Journal of Political Science, 55(4), pp. 907-922.

2011. Cross-Cutting Issues and Party Strategy in the European Union. Comparative Political Studies, 44(4), pp. 383-411 (with Craig A. Parsons).

2009. When the Cat Is Away the Mice Will Play: Why Elections to the European Parliament Are About Europe After All. Politique Européenne, 28, pp. 53-71.

2007. Campaign Effects and Second-Order Cycles: A Top-Down Approach to European Parliament Elections. European Union Politics. 8(4), pp. 509-536.

Book Chapters

2013. Government Participation of New Parties in Central and Eastern Europe [Die Regierungsbeteiligung neuer Parteien in Mittel- und Osteuropa]. In Die deutsche Koalitionsdemokratie vor der Bundestagswahl 2013, ed. Frank Decker and Eckhard Jesse. Baden-Baden: Nomos, forthcoming (with Florian Grotz).

2011. Government Coalitions: Formation and Durability [Regierungskoalitionen: Bildung und Dauerhaftigkeit]. In Regierungssysteme in Mittel- und Osteuropa: Die neuen EU-Staaten im Vergleich, ed. Florian Grotz and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel. Wiesbaden: VS, pp. 194-216 (with Florian Grotz).

2010. American Electoral Practices in Comparative Perspective. In The Oxford Handbook of American Elections and Political Behavior, ed. Jan E. Leighley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 667-684 (with Mark N. Franklin).

2010. Coalition Structures and Coalition Stability in Central and Eastern Europe: An International Comparison [Koalitionsstrukturen und Koalitionsstabilität in Mittel- und Osteuropa: Ein internationaler Vergleich]. In Analyse demokratischer Regierungssysteme, ed. Klemens Schrenk and Markus Soldner. Wiesbaden: VS, pp. 525-543 (with Florian Grotz).

2009. Mode Effects and Sample Bias. In European Election Study 2004. Design, Data Description and Documentation, 2nd ed., ed. Hermann Schmitt, Matthew Loveless, Sascha Adam and Daniela Braun. Mannheim: MZES, pp. 10-13.

Maria Vang Uttenthal

Denmark
Hertie School
PhD in Trust in Democratic Societies

Uttenthal recently obtained her PhD from the Hertie School, which was a comprehensive study of trust in democratic societies. Her research works towards building closer connections between quantitative research and systematic conceptual work in the social sciences. Alongside her PhD, she has taught Statistics, Mathematics, and Research Design. She holds an MSc in European Public Policy and a BSc in Economics from University College London.

Contact:
Maria Vang Uttenthal
Statistics
[email protected]

Helge Wendt

Germany
PhD in History
University of Mannheim

Helge Wendt studied Latin American Cultural Anthropology and History at Freie Universität Berlin from 1998 to 2004. He received his PhD from the University of Mannheim in 2009 with a transnational, trans-confessional, and diachronic study on Christian colonial mission enterprises in different parts of the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He further developed this thesis in the book Die missionarische Gesellschaft published with Franz Steiner (2011), which discusses how missionaries conceived a social and territorial order in different colonial contexts from a cultural history perspective.

Since Wendt started working at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in 2011, the role and the future of historiography of Europe in the context of globalized historiographical discourse have become an important aspect of his research: in publications he continues to elaborate his ideas to reassess local and inter-local histories in a globalized world (most recently: Geschichte des mestizischen Europas, Springer 2019). One of Wendt’s MPIWG projects is "Convivencia. From Iberian to Global Dynamics (500–1750)," through which he investigates encounters between members of indigenous communities and Catholic missionaries.

Wendt’s main research project deals with mineral coal and the transformation of energy systems in history. He studies changes in knowledge, politics, economy, and society during the period between 1700 and 1900. Coal is the main agent of energy and resource transformations in the industrialization process and shaped patterns of energy provision, consumption and long-term pollution of the past 300 years—this is why Wendt explores how coal mining and the use of coal developed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Further information at https://mpiwg-berlin-mpg.academia.edu/HelgeWendt

Contact
Dr. Helge Wendt
History
h.wendt[at]berlin.bard.edu

Michael Weinman

USA
PhD in Philosophy
The New School for Social Research

Michael Weinman is Professor of Philosophy at Bard College Berlin since 2013, after originally arriving as a Guest Professor in 2010. He is the author or editor of five books, most recently, Plato and the Moving Image (Brill, 2019), co-edited with Shai Biderman of Tel Aviv University. In 2018, he published The Parthenon and Liberal Education in the SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy from SUNY Press, an investigation of the Parthenon as an education in the liberal arts co-authored with Bard College Berlin faculty member Geoff Lehman. His earlier books address the role of pleasure in Aristotle's ethical thought and the relevance of Virginia Woolf's experimentation with narrative for debates about subjectivity in continental philosophy, respectively.

Michael also has published articles and book chapters on Ancient Greek science, especially mathematics, and its reception in 20th-century German philosophy and on themes in contemporary political philosophy. His current recent interests focus on Arendt’s heterodox understanding of power and political violence for contemporary debates about populism and the challenges facing the liberal international order today and on the changing perception of the entwinement of mind and world in nature writing and narrative fiction from Goethe through Woolf.

Classes Taught at Bard College Berlin:
Core Courses:
Early Modern Science
Forms of Love
Origins of Political Economy
Plato's Republic and Its Interlocutors
Property

Foundational and Advanced Modules:
Freedom of Expression
Nationalism
Constitutions, Ancient and Modern
Truth in Action: Ethics and Practical Reason
The Calculus and the "Mathematization of Nature"
Aristotle's (so-called) Organon
Character in Aristotle's Poetics, Politics, and Rhetoric
Michel de Montaigne: Essays
The Violence in and of Political Life

General Teaching Interests:
Ancient Greek philosophy; Ethics and political philosophy; Philosophy and literature; 20th century Continental philosophy

Publications:

Books, authored or edited

Vormann, B. and M. Weinman, eds. 2020. Illiberalism: Understanding a Global Phenomenon. New York and London: Routledge.
Biderman, S. and Weinman, M, eds. 2019. Plato and the Moving Image, Leiden: Brill.
Lehman, G. and Weinman, M. 2018. The Parthenon and Liberal Education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Weinman, M. 2012. Language, Time and Identity in Woolf’s The Waves: The Subject in Empire’s Shadow. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Weinman, M. 2007. Pleasure in Aristotle’s Ethics. London: Continuum Books.

Peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters

Weinman, M. 2020. “Arendt and the Legitimate Leadership of Plural Persons: Hierarchy and the Limits of Horizontal Power Relations.” In: Maria Robaszkiewicz and Tobias Matzner, eds. Hannah Arendt: Challenges of Plurality, Dordrecht: Springer.
M. Weinman and B. Vormann. 2020. “From a Politics of No Alternative to a Politics of Fear: Illiberalism and Its Variants.” In Boris Vormann and Michael Weinman, eds. Illiberalism: Understanding a Global Phenomenon. New York and London: Routledge.
M. Weinman and B. Vormann. 2020. “The Good City in an Era of Planetary Urbanization.” In Gregor Fitzi, Jürgen Mackert und Brian S. Turner, eds. Successful Cities - Crises of Citizenship. New York and London: Routledge.
Weinman, M. 2020. “What, if any, mathematics might Thales or his contemporaries have learned from ‘the East’?” In: Hahn, Robert and Alex Herda, eds. Knowledge in Archaic Greece. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Weinman, M. 2019. “Arendt and the return of ethnonationalism.” In Demos vs. Polis: The New Populism Liberal Herald, Vol. 4.
Weinman, M. 2019. “The Myth of Er as Rationalizing Recording Device.” In Plato and the Moving Image, eds. Shai Biderman and Michael Weinman. Leiden: Brill, pp. 100-120.
Weinman, M. 2019. “Epic.” In Palgrave Handbook on Philosophy and Literature, eds. Michael Mack and Barry Stocker. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 185-202.
Reed, I. and Weinman, M. 2018. “Agency, Power, Modernity: A Manifesto for Social Theory.” European Journal for Cultural and Political Sociology (DOI: 10.1080/23254823.2018.1499434)
Weinman, M. 2018. Arendt and the Legitimate Expectation for Hospitality and Membership Today. Moral Philosophy and Politics (5:1), pp. 127-50. (DOI: 10.1515/mopp-2016-0043)
Weinman, M. 2018. “Misrepresentation, misrecognition and statue politics.” In: #Charlottesville: Before and Beyond. New York: Public Seminar Books.
Lehman, G. and Weinman, M. 2018. “Recursive knowledge procedures informing the design of the Parthenon.” In Revolutions and Continuity in Ancient Greek Mathematics, ed. Michalis Sialaros. Berlin: De Gruyter; pp. 235-70.
Weinman, M. 2017. Stanley Rosen’s Auseinandersetzung with Heidegger: On the occasion of Platonic Production (Andy German, ed., 2014). Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal (38:1).
Weinman, M. 2016. “Phronēsis after the post-metaphysical age: Aristotle and practical philosophy today.” In Thinking the Plural: Richard J. Bernstein’s Contributions to American Philosophy, eds. Marcia Morgan and Megan Craig. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield; pp. 3-20.
Weinman, M. 2016. “Living Well and the Promise of Cosmopolitan Identity: Aristotle’s ergon and Contemporary Civic Republicanism.” In Civic Republicanism: Ancient Lessons for Global Politics, eds. Geoffrey C. Kellow and Neven Leddy. Toronto: University Toronto; pp. 59-71.
Weinman, M. 2015. Doing the impossible: The trace of the other between eulogy and deconstruction: Rereading Derrida’s Work of Mourning. Philosophical Papers (44:2); 261-76. (DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2015.1056958)
Weinman, M. 2014. Metaphysics, Lam and the echo of Homer: First philosophy as a way of life. Philosophical Papers (43:1); 67-88. (DOI: 10.1080/05568641.2014.901695)
Weinman, M. 2013. “Education: The ethical-political energeia.” Bloomsbury Companion to Aristotle. London: Bloomsbury Books; pp. 263-76.
Weinman, M. 2011. Living well and sexual self-determination: Expanding human rights discourse about sex and sexuality. Law, Culture, and the Humanities 7:1; 101-20.
Weinman, M. 2009. Making ‘men see clearly’: Physical imperfection and mathematical order in Ptolemy’s Syntaxis. In: Ann Ward, ed. Matter and Form: From Natural Science to Political Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books; 57-70.
Weinman, M. 2006. State Speech vs. Hate Speech? What to Do about Words that Wound. Essays in Philosophy (7:1).
Weinman, M. 2001. Cultural Engendering and Points of Resistance: Foucault, Butler, and Sexual Subjectivities. International Studies in Philosophy (33:1; 123-143).

Book reviews

Weinman, M. 2018. Winslow, R. Organism and Environment: Inheritance and Subjectivity in the Life Sciences (Lexington, 2017). Review of Metaphysics 72(1).
Weinman, M. 2016. Cairns, D. (Lester Embree, ed.), The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl (Springer 2013), for Phenomenological Reviews.
Weinman, M. 2014. Horky, P. S., Plato and Pythagoreanism (Oxford 2013). Archai (13); 165-169.

Other publications
Contributing Editor, Publicseminar.org, 2015 - Present. Details here.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Michael Weinman
Philosophy
Phone: +49 30 43733 222
Email: m.weinman[at]berlin.bard.edu

Maria Volokhova

Ukraine / Germany
Postgraduate Studies after the Diploma of Fine Arts in Painting/Printmaking
Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle

Maria Volokhova is a Berlin-based artist born in Kyiv, Ukraine, whose innovative porcelain pushes the boundaries between art and design. She holds a diploma in Painting and Printmaking from Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle (1997–2004) and has pursued advanced studies at Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, Ohio University, and Tokyo University of the Arts, where she was a research student in ceramics from 2006 to 2009.

Rebecca Dologoy describes Volohova’s work as offering “uncanny three-dimensional portrayals of the inner and outer topographies of human and non-human animals,” noting her ability to challenge perceptions of the beautiful and the beastly.

Exhibited globally, Volokhova’s work is in prestigious collections like the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Stadtmuseum Berlin, Porzellanikon and she has received accolades including the Naspa Prize for Ceramics. Active as a lecturer since 2017, she teaches at BBK Bildungswerk Berlin, HTW Berlin, University of Saxony-Anhalt, and Justus-Liebig University Giessen.

Contact:
Maria Volokhova
Fine Arts
m.volokhova[at]berlin.bard.edu

Daniel Wetzel

Germany
Diploma in Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft
Institute for Applied Theatre Studies, JLU Gießen

Daniel Wetzel works as an artist in the fields of theater, sound, radio play, and installation. He financed his studies through extensive DJing and his first projects in his first artist collective, which have already been shown at professional venues both nationally and internationally.

Since 1999, he has worked primarily in collaboration with Helgard Haug and Stefan Kaegi, with whom he founded the label Rimini Protokoll in 2002, under which all of the three's works, regardless of the respective constellation (solo, with others, in pairs, or in threes), are collected and communicated. Rimini Protokoll maintains the production office Rimini Apparat in Kreuzberg. His work is dedicated to experimentation, research-based artistic work, working with non-artists, and exploring other spaces and places. It is about updating theater and related arts as a process of research, discovery, encounter, and rethinking.

Currently, Daniel is working on an ensemble of musical instruments made from fitness equipment (Sweat), for which eight songs are being composed by various, primarily non-male artists (Songs of Push and Pull). He is also collaborating with Helgard Haug on Futur4, a monologue performed by a woman who creates an LLM of herself on stage, training it with memories, documents, her voice, and dialogues. The goal: to make herself accessible—potentially 30 years from now—to her granddaughter, born in 2025.

For Daniel, practical seminars are more than just academic exercises—they are immersive, transformative processes. They offer a way to share familiar methods and approaches while observing how they evolve in new contexts. Just as importantly, they provide opportunities to develop new ones. This exploration is always informed by what is happening beyond the campus.

Recent stops on this personal academy on tour include:
"City, Market, Play" (fft Düsseldorf 2025) – a two-day investigation of a discount store as a performative space.
"24 Timelines Performing" (UdK Summer School 2024) – a 24-track headphone-based performance for 24 participants, exploring synchronized and layered storytelling.

Awards for his work with Rimini Protokoll in general include:

Der Faust – National German Theater Award (2007)
Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis – National Dramatist Award (2007)
European Theater Award – Category New Realities (2008)
Silver Lion – 41st Theater Biennale, Venice (2011)
Swiss Grand Prix Theater / Hans-Reinhardt-Ring (2015)

Contact:
Daniel Wetzel
Arts
d.wetzel[at]berlin.bard.edu

Christian Woehst

Germany
PhD in Politics
Dresden University

Christian Woehst is a research associate at the Mercator Forum Migration and Democracy, an interdisciplinary think-tank that encourages a European discourse about issues of migration and integration. He also teaches political theory and the history of ideas at Dresden University and New York University Berlin. Christian holds a PhD in politics from Dresden University, a MSc in political theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a MA in politics, history and German literature from the University of Munich. His research focuses on modern theories of democracy, constitutionalism and migration.

Contact
Dr. Christian Woehst
Politics
Email: c.woehst[at]berlin.bard.edu

Clare Wigfall

Great Britain
MA in Creative Writing
University of East Anglia

British author Clare Wigfall received her bachelor’s degree in English and American Literature from the University of Manchester, and holds an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, for which she was awarded the Curtis Brown Award in 2000. Her debut short story collection The Loudest Sound and Nothing (Faber & Faber) was published in 2007 to critical acclaim. The following year she won the BBC National Short Story Award and was later nominated by William Trevor for an E.M. Forster Award. She was also the 2010 recipient of the K. Blundell Trust Award for a young writer whose work contributes to the greater understanding of existing social and economic organisation. In 2017 she was awarded a literature fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude.

Clare has taught writing workshops throughout Europe, including for the Arvon Foundation and the Bard College Berlin “Language and Thinking” program, and has reviewed books for the Observer. She is currently working to complete her second story collection for Faber & Faber, after which she is under commission to write a novel set in colonial-era British Malaya, which will be loosely based on the experiences of her grandmother and great grandmother and which will explore themes of motherhood, childhood vulnerability, and the inter-generational impact of family secrets.

Contact
Clare Wigfall, MA
Fiction Writing
Email: c.wigfall[at]berlin.bard.edu

Caroline Wolf

Germany
Diploma in Architecture / Dipl.-Ing.
Technische Universität Berlin

Caroline Wolf studied architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Delft University of Technology, in The Netherlands. After graduating in 2003 she worked for numerous clients in Berlin and The Netherlands in the fields of cultural production and mediation with a focus on architecture, art and urbanism. She conceived and designed several publications on art and urbanism, including the exhibition catalogue The Making of Alex. Berlin Alexanderplatz. Urban Art Stories (2005). She is the winner of the 1st DoCoMo Architecture Competition, Japan (2005), and the Geest + Grond/Soul + Soil Competition, The Netherlands (2004). Since 2007 Caroline has worked for Sauerbruch Hutton Architects, Berlin. From 2011-13 she was Associated Curator of Kultur:Stadt/Culture:City, an international architecture exhibition at the Akademie der Künste Berlin exploring the relationship between cultural buildings and cities before and after the "Bilbao-Effect."

Contact
Caroline Wolf
Architecture
Email: [email protected]

Frank Wolff

Germany
Habilitation in Modern History and Migration Studies
Bielefeld University

PD Dr. Frank Wolff teaches modern history and migration studies at Osnabrück University. 2021 he will join Bard College Berlin as a Visiting Lecturer and Research Associate. His teaching and research interests include racism and antisemitism studies, migration research and social history. He received his PhD in History and Sociology from Bielefeld University (summa cum laude) in 2011 and holds a Habilitation in Modern and Contemporary History from Osnabrück University (2019).
In 2010/11 he held a DFG-Visiting Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. In 2016 he was a Visiting Teaching Professor at the Leo Baeck Summer University (Humboldt University Berlin) and 2016/17 the Max Kade Visiting Professor in German Studies at Notre Dame University, IN. He appears in public media as an expert on migration studies and German history. His prize-winning books include the transnational history of the Jewish Labor Bund (Böhlau 2014, in English: Brill 2021 and Haymarket Books 2022, forthcoming) and Die Mauergesellschaft, a study of migration and the border in divided Germany (Suhrkamp 2019). In 2019 he received the Mühlenhoff Award for Outstanding Teaching from Osnabrück University. Currently he is finishing a book on homosexuality in postwar Germany and has started writing on the intellectual history of “border”.

Select public engagements:
"Die 'Mauer in den Köpfen' wird gerade wieder gebaut". Interview with Frank Wolff in Cicero Magazine. (February 13, 2019)
"Das Comeback der Grenze". Article in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, (July 17, 2018)

Contact:
PD Dr. habil. Frank Wolff
Modern History and Migration Studies
E-mail: f.wolff[at]berlin.bard.edu

Photo: Osnabrück University/Uwe Lewandowski

Jeremy Woodruff

USA
PhD in Composition and Music Theory
University of Pittsburgh

Jeremy Woodruff is a composer, curator and also currently Lecturer and Artistic Director at Berlin School of Sound. He studied at BU, Brandeis, Royal Academy of Music, London and at the University of Pittsburgh. He was Professor of Composition, Music Theory and Sound Studies at the Istanbul Technical University, Center for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM) and at KM Music Conservatory in Chennai, India. He is a versatile musician with multiple wind instruments and electronics. He has collaborated with various artists not only on sound art but also in video, dance, theater and radio works, including with Bani Abidi, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Meg Stuart and others. His radio show “Berlin School of Sound” can be heard every month on Colaboradio, FRBB 88,4 FM in Berlin and 90,7 FM in Potsdam, Germany.

His sound art has been presented by Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB) Kunst im Bau, in various galleries including KW Berlin, AD Gallery Bremen, Kasa Gallery Istanbul and Art Bangaluru in Bangalore, India. His concert works have been commissioned by Ensemble Decibel (London), Hezarfen Ensemble (Istanbul), Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Deutschen Kammerorchester Berlin and others. His writings have been published by Interference: A Journal of Audio Culture, Journal of Sonic Studies, KunstMusik, Sruti Magazine, Verlag für Moderne Kunst (Nürnberg), Bloomsbury Press, Les Presses du Réel and by Errant Bodies Press. He is a founding member of the Errant Sound project room in Berlin, where he was a co-founder of the Dystopie Sound Art Festival and co-curator of the festival in Berlin 2018, Istanbul 2019, and Istanbul 2021.

Jeremy Woodruff's research makes connections between sound studies, music theory, cultural musicology, design and politics. He has written on topics as diverse as new approaches to South Indian music transcription and analysis, cognitive dissonance / tonal dissonance in the people's microphone of Occupy Wall Street, and subversive sound in the sit-down strikes of the Great Depression in the USA. Most recently his sound studies scholarship has taken a transition-design approach to soundscapes of endangered urban gardens in Berlin. His forthcoming chapter as co-editor of Haunted Soundscapes: Transcultural Perspectives on Music, Sound and Power in Turkey is on tones of voice in public demonstrations in Istanbul.

Selected Publications:

“Composing Sociality: Toward an Aesthetics of Transition Design”, Chapter 2 in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sound Art
“Remaking Pittsburgh: Permaculture Soundscapes”, Journal of Sonic Studies, Issue 7
“Tonal Discrepancies and Cognitive Dissonance in Peter Ablinger’s ‘Voices and Piano: Angela Davis'”, KunstMusik 16
A Voice in the Dark: Subversive Sounds of the Living Newspapers and the Flint Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37, Interference Journal, Issue 3
“Gamaka Box: A Powerful System of Notation”, Sruti Magazine

Contact:
Dr. Jeremy Woodruff
Composition and Music
[email protected]

Joshua Yaffa

USA
MA in Journalism and International Affairs
Columbia University

Joshua Yaffa is the inaugural Writer in Residence at Bard College Berlin for Academic Years 2023-2025. He is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, where he covers Russian, Ukraine, and security and political issues in Europe. He is also the author of "Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin's Russia," which won the Orwell Prize in 2021. Previously, Yaffa held fellowships at New America and The American Academy in Berlin, and has written for The Economist, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, and Foreign Affairs. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and holds master’s degrees in journalism and international affairs from Columbia University, where he was a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute and taught at the journalism school for several years.

Contact:
Joshua Yaffa
Writer in Residence
[email protected]

Krystian Woznicki

Krystian Woznicki is a critic and photographer. Fugitive Belonging, his most recent book, published by Diamondpaper in 2018, blends criticism and photography. He is also the author of A Field Guide to the Snowden Files (with Magdalena Taube), After the Planes (with Brian Massumi), and Wer hat Angst vor Gemeinschaft? (with Jean-Luc Nancy), also published by Diamondpaper. His first book Abschalten. Paradiesproduktion, Massentourismus und Globalisierung was published by Kadmos. He is co-founder of the Berliner Gazette.

He has held lectures and seminars at universities and cultural institutions such as Documenta X, Mediamatik, Goethe Institut Belgrade, Schauspiel Stuttgart, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Kunst Werke, Städelschule, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Media Lab Prado, Gorki Theater, Uni Leipzig, Medienturm, Public Netbase, Hokkaido University.

Contact
Krystian Woznicki
Journalism and Photography
Email: k.woznicki[at]berlin.bard.edu

Tobias Wuttke

Germany
PhD in International Studies
Roskilde University Denmark

Tobias Wuttke is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Bard College Berlin. His research looks at global production networks (GPN) and the prospects of export-led industrialization in developing and emerging economies, as well as the role of industrial policy in GPNs. He is also interested in researching potential windows of opportunity for economic development emerging out of the green transition. Further interests include the political economy of industrial policy in Europe. Tobias currently works on a research project studying geographical reconfigurations of global production networks in a post-COVID-19 global economy (funded by the German Research Fund), driven by industrial policy and geopolitics, with a focus on the semiconductor industry in Europe and Southeast Asia (2023-2025). Tobias holds a PhD in International Studies (2022) from Roskilde University, Denmark. His PhD thesis focused on economic development via global value chains (GVCs), with a case study of the automotive industry.

Most recent publications

Lema, R., Wuttke, T., & Konda, P. (2024). The electric vehicle sector in Brazil, India, and South Africa: Are there green windows of opportunity? Industrial and Corporate Change, advance online.
Butollo, F., Staritz, C., Maile, F., & Wuttke, T. (2024). The End of Globalized Production? Supply-Chain Resilience, Technological Sovereignty, and Enduring Global Interdependencies in the Post-Pandemic Era. Critical Sociology, advance online.
Wuttke, T. (2023). Global value chains and local inter-industry linkages: South Africa’s participation in the automotive GVC. The Journal of Development Studies, 59(2), 153-169. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2022.2110491
Monaco, L., and Wuttke, T. (2023), ‘The South African Auto Industry in a World of GVCs: Lead Firm Sourcing Strategies and Local Supplier Development’, International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management.
Wuttke, T., Smit, L., Parshotam, A., Ancheita, A., & Meridian, A. (2022), ‘Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence in Global Value Chains: Perspectives from the Global South’. SWP, Research Division Africa and Middle East, Working Paper 2022/Nr. 2, August 2022. https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2022WP06/

Contact:
Dr. Tobias Wuttke
International Studies
t.wuttke[at]berlin.bard.edu
www.tobiaswuttke.com

Chun Xu

China
PhD
Heidelberg University

Xu, Chun is a historian specializing in late imperial China. He focuses on the interplay between technology and political processes in the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, with an emphasis on agriculture and water control. His current book project, "Sediments of Conquest," examines the Ming Empire's presence in the remote province of Yunnan and explores how studying technology in a predominantly agrarian society can provide new perspectives on Ming China as a premodern empire.

He is currently conducting research on the epistemological and technological foundations of the Chinese empire over the longue durée.

Contact:
Chun Xu
Ethics and Politics
[email protected]

Tirdad Zolghadr

Curator and Writer

Tirdad Zolghadr is a curator and writer. Since 2017 he has been artistic director of the Sommerakademie Paul Klee. Curatorial work since 2004 includes biennial settings as well as long-term, research-driven efforts – most recently as associate curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin (2016-20). Writing includes REALTY: Beyond the Traditional Blueprints of Art & Gentrification (Hatje Cantz Berlin). Ongoing work on Zolghadr’s third novel Headbanger is made possible thanks to generous support from the Foundation for Arts Initiatives.

Contact:
Tirdad Zolghadr
[email protected]

Siegmar Zacharias

Romania/Germany
MA in Performance Art
DasArts Amsterdam

Siegmar Zacharias was born in Romania and lives in Berlin. She is a performance artist and researcher, a trained death doula, and she studies traditional plant medicine. At the intersection of art, radical pedagogy, and activism, she works collaboratively learning from grieving. The work generates performances, immersive installations, encounters, and durational projects that address generative ethical dynamics of transformation. Since 2016 she has been curating "Training for political imaginaries", 24hrs festivals where ecologies of artistic and social practice are shared. Together with Steve Heather, she developed the somacoustic listening sessions WAVES – listening towards social bodies as containers for collective grieving, in which the materiality of sound is explored on an intimate metabolic level. Together with Shelley Etkin, Kitti Zsiga, and women in a post-migrant neighbourhood in Neuköln with ancestors from Turkey, Kurdistan, Syria, Iran, Jordan, and Palestine they have developed the SocialBodyApothecary valuing the knowledges and resources stored in our bodies and lands, practicing making medicine together as a decolonial practice of resistance against structural violence. She is finishing her PhD on the Erotics of Grieves. Somacoustic listening towards visceral response-abilities.

Contact
Siegmar Zacharias, M.A.
Performance Art
Email: s.zacharias[at]berlin.bard.edu

Profiles

Aryana Arian Assl

Lucari Jordan

Miksa Gáspár

Aisha Khurram

Alison Gleeson

Ana Mihajlovska

Davit Chankseliani

Elena Lovejoy

Georgy Kalakutskii

Jasmine Ahmed

Lejla Zjakic

Lex Hill

Martha Baiye

Muhammad Faraz Sadiq

Naima Hübner

Nola Ben Eli

Owen Burk

Qais

Sanskriti Shrestha

Sofus Ellingsgård

Xiaojing (Soledad) Li

Jens Reich Honorary Chair

Nassim AbiGhanem

Fatin Abbas

Carla Åhlander

Ewa Atanassow

Deborah Amos

Heba Amin

Mònica Colominas Aparicio

Stefania Animento

Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi

Josefin Arnell

Fred Abrahams

Kimberly Marteau Emerson Chair

Christine Wallich First Vice Chair

Ann-Kathrin Blankenberg

Florian Becker

Abed Azzam

Behzad Azarhoushang

Valentina Azarova

Yossi Bartal

Isaac Abotebuno Akolgo

Kerry Bystrom

Dominik Bartmanski

Aaron Allen

Susan H. Gillespie Second Vice Chair

Bastian Becker

Caitlin Berrigan

Angela Anderson

Roland J. Augustine

Jeffrey Champlin

Bruno Besana

Joseph Bjelde

Martin Binder

Wulf Walter Böttger

Tracy Colony

Andreas Blank

Dave Braneck

Edna Bonhomme

Eva Burghardt

Sebastian Brass

Ali ATH, Artist Protection Fund Fellow

Louis Cameron

Marion Detjen

Alessio Castellacci

Jean-Rémi Carbonneau

Rasha Chatta

Maria Avxentevskaya

Ayse Cavdar

Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong

Lotta Beckers

Berit Ebert

Deville Cohen

Irwin Collier

Jacalyn Carley

Raphael Beil

Daniela Crăciun

Emerson Culurgioni

Adrien De Sutter

Jens Reich
Honorary Chair

Kimberly Marteau Emerson
Chair

Christine Wallich
First Vice Chair

Susan H. Gillespie
Second Vice Chair