“So you begin to wonder if [the city’s] true passion is the enjoyment of new and different things, and not, instead, the joy of expelling, discarding, cleansing itself of a recurrent impurity… Street cleaners are welcomed like angels, and their task of removing the residue of yesterday’s existence is surrounded by a respectful silence, like
Pankow Conversations: Let’s Burst the ‘Bubble’
Campus is a “liberal bubble”, right? During many discussions on the current political climate, the word ‘bubble’ pops up, as if by magic. It attempts to explain why some recent political developments—Brexit, Trump’s election, AfD’s success, etc.—appear to have come out of the blue. Often, this observation is appropriate. “Birds of a feather flock together”:
Love for “Plato Goes Live”
The contest “Eine Uni – ein Buch” invited German universities to pick a book, any book. The goal: to inspire a semester of events, ideas, and extensive, diverse participation… all with this single text. BCB students entered with Plato’s Republic. And we won. We were among ten universities who received the scholarship. Yay, us! The
#3 The Awful German Language (a podcast by Claire August)
The BCB Summer Language German Intensive Program came to a close earlier this month. From the 10th June to the 10th July, a handful of students from various universities immersed themselves in the German language and took part in cultural events across Berlin. This podcast includes snippets of conversations with some of the participants on
The Liberal Education Conference in Freiburg
Hello all you BCBers, In case someone has been wondering about my absence from BCB in the past semester, let me reassure you of my return in Fall 2017: I am currently not in Berlin but studying abroad at AUC in Amsterdam. The first question one might ask is probably: Why would I study abroad
An Interview with a Clown
Veronika Rišnovská leads a civic engagement project at BCB descriptively entitled “Clowning!”. She holds weekly workshops where she trains students to interact with kids from difficult social backgrounds through improvisation and play. Once trained, the clowns, complete with red noses, visit refugee camps, hospitals, and special needs classrooms. I recently interviewed Veronika and asked her
The Value of Liberal Arts: Know a Little About a Lot
“So what’s the plan after this?” Whoever you are and wherever you are: If you’re a breathing, barely surviving student, you’ve been asked this question before. I don’t know about you, but every time I start to think about what I want to do post graduation, my heart begins to palpitate at an unusually fast
Demonizing Populism or Demeaning Democracy?
Should populists be demonized? Today especially, after Donald Trump’s latest victory in securing a seat as President of the United States of America, this topic is incredibly relevant. But one might ask: How did he win? Trump’s campaign was largely centered around garnering anti-systemic attention from voters that cited exasperation at their treatment by the