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
Author: Michael Nyakundi
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
BCB Goes Green
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about climate change, is the proleptic picture of a frightening future. A future full of doom. The Berlin sky feels infected: still, stagnant, and stale, like an overhead sewer. The air smells of gasoline, tar, and dirty dust. When it rains, the rain is
Dogs and Cats of Bard Berlin
Walking down Pankow parks at dawn, you’ll see cats, dogs and squirrels playing and running and walking. Some of the dogs and cats you’ll see, also walk, run and play around the green grass next to W15 and K24 and T25; the student residence halls. They belong to some members of the BCB community. They
Even the Clean Ones are Unclean
It’s that time of summer: when everyone’s everywhere doing everything when days are longer, happinesses stronger when the green grass looks like it’s been told I-love-you. Six past six o’clock. Evening. The sun is effulgent, the wind mildly turbulent. At a field, around a neighborhood, in Berlin, on a sunny summer Sunday, three friends meet
BCB Blockchain Boom
Commencement approaches, and seniors are preparing to graduate. Meanwhile, senior thesis presentations have been ongoing. And, I heard—I overhead—through college grapevine that some seniors, in fact quite a number of them, talk about blockchain technology, crypto or some aspect of Web 3.0, in sections of their theses. It’s fun, it’s thrilling, it’s exciting, the new
When Solidarity Mitigates Racism’s Scars
During a niveous day of winter break, my friend from BCB, experienced racism at a bar in Berlin. Let’s pseudonymously call my friend Sam. Sam told me that they were out with a friend touring the city when they decided to stop by a bar for a beer. So stop they did, in a bar
An Interview with BCB’s Managing Director, Florian Becker
As I open the door to his office, Florian greets me with a frisson of excitement. His office, brightly lit, clean, cool, copacetic, is large but not too grand. There are three pieces of art on the wall and then a kaleidoscope of books — Bacon, Burke, Bertolt Brecht, Nabokov, Nietsche, Müller, Max, Kant etc.