It’s that time of the year again—the time of pomegranates, peanuts, and these tiny baby oranges that seem to have a thousand different names, which has so far led to quite a few heated lunch break discussions. December has started, and what would have been a better way to begin it than with a Christmas
Author: Archives
The Hoffmann Collection of Contemporary Art
As a culmination of the autumn term’s art history elective on Representation a group of ECLA students visited the Hoffmann private collection of contemporary art on December 3, 2011. The gallery, owned by Erika and Rolf Hoffmann, occupies two floors of an apartment building located at Sophienstraße near Hackescher Markt. Walking to the gallery is
Marx vs. Socrates: Considering Time on Questions of Woman and the Family
What connection can be made between Socrates and Marx, men separated by over two thousand years, but both hugely influential on the history of Western civilization? Are they both intellectuals? Certainly. Both philosophers? Possibly. Both revolutionaries? Not necessarily. The question that ECLA gathered on November 18 to discuss was their relevance for contemporary controversies over
Tobias Joho on the Peloponnesian War
This past November, the ECLA community was glad to welcome Tobias Joho from the University of Chicago for two guest lectures on Thucydides’ text, The Peloponnesian War. Currently a PhD candidate with a BA in Literae Humaniores from Oxford and an MA in Classical Languages and Literatures, one of his main research interests includes Thucydides,
Professor Theodore Ziolkowski on Education in Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship”
On November 16th, the 4th year BA/Project Year Core class was fortunate to host a guest lecture by Professor Theodore Ziolkowski. Professor Ziolkowski, Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Yale Graduate School, is a distinguished scholar in the fields of Comparative Literature and German Studies, as well as a prolific author who has published
Economic Incentives for a Better Citizen
For most students and faculty, including myself, the ECLA community lies outside of their home country. We live in a state of which we are not citizens. Nonetheless many of us retain an undiminished concern for the political conditions of the country where we were born. In such a situation, addressing the question of what
An Evening with Euclid
On November 16th, students and faculty, led by Michael Weinman, came together for a seminar on Euclid’s Elements which was a supplementary seminar to the Academy Year core course on Plato’s Republic. The discussion aimed to relate Euclid’s propositions to the concept of the divided line found in Book VI of the Republic and Socrates’ suggested educational
The Immeasurable Weight of the Void
On Friday 21 October at the Brücke Museum in Berlin, ECLA faculty member Aya Soika presented, in collaboration with the executors of his estate, her catalogue of and commentary upon the work of Max Pechstein. The results were no light production. Weighing in at 8.4 kilograms, with 1188 pages and 1340 illustrations, the labour-intensive project