The concrete, steel and glass goliath that is Berlin has many wounds. Berlin bleeds Green. In some places this verdure oozes from the parks: places explicitly set aside for the leisure of Berlin’s inhabitants; places to go to feel a connection with the Earth; or to barbecue in the warm summer sunlight. These wounds are
Yes, Sara Mardini Is Still in Prison for Saving Refugees, and So Is Seán Binder
My summer was filled with editing work for Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd’s book on prison abolition. This led to a lot of thinking about who the prison system criminalizes and what justice means in the framework of that system. When the school year began with news of the arrests of two activists, one of
On Reading the Application: Ted O’Neill
“On Reading the Application” is a recurring series that goes behind the scenes in the Admissions Office at Bard College Berlin. When applying to colleges, it’s easy to forget there are human beings on the other side of the application portal. Not all college admissions offices are alike, and Bard College Berlin’s approach to college
Comedy in Crazy Blood: Satire, Stereotypes, and the Hypocrisy of “Enlightenment Values”
Last spring, I studied abroad in Berlin and had the opportunity to see a hilarious and thought-provoking piece of original theatre: Verrücktes Blut. The morally ambiguous play was, suffice to say, one of the most intelligent and funniest plays I’ve seen in a long time. I had the chance to see it as part of
On Reading the Application: Andrés Martínez de Velasco
“On Reading the Application” is a recurring series that goes behind the scenes in the Admissions Office at Bard College Berlin. When applying to colleges, it’s easy to forget there are human beings on the other side of the application portal. Not all college admissions offices are alike, and Bard College Berlin’s approach to college
Living Berlin – An Ode to the BVG*
Plunge into the bowels of Berlin the spiderweb system of iron rails and screeching brakes that connects the far corners of this city. Like some piecemeal Frankensteinian monster brought to life Berlin has been cobbled and stitched together animated to act like a grotesque whole. Each district is like a living, pulsating organ of the
On Strategies for Containing the White Supremacist Movement: Why Unite the Right 2 Failed
I nervously checked Twitter on the day the Unite the Right rally in Washington D.C. took place, on the one year anniversary of the deadly white supremacist attacks in Charlottesville. I had watched interviews with Heather Heyer’s mother who, when asked what justice for her daughter would look like to her, said “I don’t know
Found Fragments of a “Language and Thinking” Notebook
This past May, I moved out of my first non-dorm housing in Berlin. Behind a dense pile of important documents that had been pressed tightly (carelessly?) against my bedroom wall, I rediscovered my Language and Thinking notebook, about half-filled and bound in red Bard College Berlin cardstock. I also found the course reader, stuffed with