We’re approaching that time of year again: Commencement. Like the empty space after a chapter before the next one begins, or that small pause between an inhalation and exhalation where you’re not quite holding your breath but just letting the fresh air sit there, comfortably and in anticipation, it looms six short weeks down the road from thesis submission day.
TagElena Gagovska
A Press Conference with Sara Mardini and Seán Binder: The Volunteers Tell Their Stories
On Monday, the 10th of December, Bard College Berlin welcomed Sara Mardini back to its campus. It felt fitting that Sara came back to her new home in Berlin on Human Rights Day. During lunch in the cafeteria, Managing Director Florian Becker quoted articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights regarding the right to
Passing Florida’s Amendment 4: A Prison Abolitionist Horizon?
On November 6th, Florida overwhelmingly voted in favor of Amendment 4, with 64.5% giving back the right to vote to 1.4 million Floridians with nonviolent felony charges – a constitutional right that had been revoked at the moment of a criminal charge or imprisonment. It was the biggest restoration of the right to vote to
Uniting behind a cause? On trying to turn frustration into political action at the ‘Rescue the Rescuers’ demonstration
BCB is a community full of people who are highly engaged with politics. Many of us take classes on theoretical or practical aspects of the public sphere, many of us want to pursue politics-related careers, one civic engagement initiative comes after the other, and our cafeteria gives place to countless post-Socratic dialogues on the ideal
Rescue the Rescuers: from #Unteilbar to the upcoming #FreeHumanitarians Demos
240 000 people, myself included, took part in the #Unteilbar demonstration against racism and the far right in Berlin on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of people participated, calling for an open and free society in historic numbers. #Unteilbar translates to “indivisible”. Indeed, Berlin proved that so many of its residents refuse to be divided by
I, too, was a teenage girl who went to parties, but thankfully I did not have a Brett Kavanaugh of my own
Ever since the allegations against US Supreme Court Judge nominee Brett Kavanaugh started coming out, I could not stop following the story. Through this bizarre news binge, I even learned about Anita Hill’s accusations of sexual harassment in 1991 of now appointed Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas. It’s not like it was odd for me
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 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