This piece was submitted as part of Michael’s BA thesis on the history and inhumanity of solitary confinement. The piece touches on the complexity of solitary confinement, its effects on the human mind, and its mundane nature. Ultimately, the reader is forced to ponder on the ramifications of solitary confinement especially its application in supermax
We Change with the Seasons
I have always liked autumn, and I’ve always liked the colors that come with it, but it is only this year that I think my perspective has shifted enough to truly appreciate them. Coming from the American south, when I first arrived in Berlin two years ago there were plenty of differences that I expected,
An Interview with Dr. Ahmad Ghani Khosrawi about his Life and Works
Dr. Saheb, thank you for your time and for accepting to talk to me. How about we start with a brief introduction of you by yourself. Can you please tell us who Dr. Ahmad Ghani Khosrawi is? Sure. I was born in 1973 in the province of Herat, Afghanistan. I completed my high school education
Remembering Home on Eid: A Narration of Eid Celebration in Afghanistan
It’s a rainy Monday in Berlin. I enter Café Solo Berliner with my heavy wet backpack swung on my back. I’m quite lucky that the backpack is waterproof, protecting my PC and a book – State Building in Afghanistan – I borrowed recently from a public library in Berlin. An empty American Walnut armchair next
An Interview with Raphael Beil and Tobia Silvotti, Founders of the School of Sculpture
A little gray cat skitters around the woods surrounding the School of Sculpture Berlin. It has a short tail that twitches as it surveys the thicket behind the kitchen tent. I fill a glass with water and lay it at my feet for the cat, it drinks and I listen to the sound of machinery.
Master of Critique
“It is told of Sigismund, King of Rome, that when someone pointed out a grammatical mistake he had made in a speech, he answered, ‘I am King of Rome, and above all grammar.’ And he went down in history as Sigismund super-grammaticam. A marvelous symbol! Every man who knows how to say what he has
Goodbye (Mentally I am in the Former BCB Library Bathtub)
I’m writing my farewell post to readers of Die Bärliner not from Berlin, but from a country road in upstate New York. Already situated in a new environment, I’ve spent the last few weeks wondering how to wish the blog farewell. I’d almost psyched myself out of the whole thing until I curiously drove past
Ventures and Adventures: BCB Students’ Study Abroad Experiences
Each year, BCB students, most of them rising third years, choose to study abroad. Be it to quench the thirst for adventure, learn a new language, take classes that one wouldn’t otherwise study at BCB, or to find some answers from questions developed after a cursory look at Ancestry.com, studying abroad is something every BCB
Goblin Market: A Student Led Performance
Welcome to the world of Goblin Men, where fruits are sold for locks of hair, and lives are lost for having their share! Goblin Market, a staged play, performed on campus in the Factory on March 24th and 25th, was a student led project that brought nineteenth century English writer Christina Rossetti’s poem, “Goblin Market,”