Bard College Berlin

Bard College Berlin's bi-annual Open Studios & Performance Factory is always an amazing celebration of the performing and visual arts! 🎭📸 Held in the Factory Arts Building on campus, this semester's exhibition featured creative pieces from courses such as Dance Lab: Body Space Image, Directing and Acting Postdramatic Texts, Beginning and Advanced Photography, Porcelain-Making, and Queer-Feminist Moving Image Practices. 🎥

📷Photo: Sofiia Halushka & Kuba Laichter

As part of this year's Commencement ceremony, Bard College Berlin granted for the first time an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters to Vincent McGee, Director of the Andrew Gagarin Trust, in recognition of his lifelong work in human rights.

McGee played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Andrew Gagarin Center for Civil Society and Human Rights at Smolny College. When Bard College was declared an “undesirable institution” in Russia, McGee’s support ensured continuity, allowing Smolny Beyond Borders to flourish and provide critical educational opportunities across borders.

In his acceptance address, McGee noted the importance of defending against attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech around the world, including in the United States and Germany. He reflected on his experience as a young man who was prosecuted and imprisoned for 11 months by the Nixon administration for conscientiously objecting to the Vietnam War, and told the Class of 2026, “Bard has given you the opportunity and skills to think, to analyze situations in your fields and across art, music, science, and literature. You have a basis of thinking which is, to some extent, unique… You have this gift, and now you and your peers are our hope and our future.”

📷Photo: Sofiia Halushka & Yelyzaveta Shelest

Is democracy in danger in the United States? Daniel Ziblatt, author and Eaton Professor of Government at Harvard University, joined BCB Writer-in-Residence Joshua Yaffa at this May for a discussion on the erosion of democracy in the US and the prospects for its restoration. 🇺🇸⚖️

Ziblatt is the co-author of 'How Democracies Die' (2018) and 'Tyranny of the Minority' (2023). He wrote last year for Foreign Affairs, “In 2025, the United States ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany, or even Argentina are democracies.”

Despite this diagnosis, Ziblatt also offered some grounds for optimism when answering audience questions, noting policy measures that can be taken and offering inspiration from past political movements such as recent elections in Hungary.

This event was part of the “Writing Democracy” series, organized by the European Democracy Institute at Bard College Berlin and the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. A recording of the discussion can be found on the BCB Youtube channel.

📷Photo: Kuba Laichter

BCB ResLife hosted the second annual Great Cultural Mashup to celebrate the end of the semester. 🥳 With food, music, games, and performances, we had a great time surrounded by the many cultures and talents of the BCB community. 🌍🎵🎉

📷Photo: Silvia Mamporia

For each graduating class, Bard College Berlin grants senior thesis awards to a selected student from each degree program whose BA thesis or Creative Component reflects exemplary independent research or creative work. 🏅📝

This year, senior thesis awards were awarded to Yelizaveta Mamon for her thesis “The Soviet Memorial in Treptow Park — an (Un)regulated Space?,” to Nadina Skrudiņa for her thesis “Unpacking the Structure and Components of the Gender Wage Gap in Latvia,” and to Sanskriti Shrestha for her Creative Component short film "Unermüdlich: The Antelope and the Waiting Body."

Students are nominated for the thesis prize by their academic advisors and chosen by a committee that includes members of the faculty, university leadership, and the Board of Governors. 🎉

📷Photo: Sofiia Halushka

Bard College Berlin's Creative Component Exhibition & Open Studios this past semester showcased the breadth and talent of our practicing arts students! 🎨 At Monopol Berlin, ten graduating students showcased the Creative Component projects that concluded their BA degrees, and students from nine practicing arts courses presented their end-of-semester projects from glass making to sound installation, drawing & collage, beginning & advanced painting, and more. 🎥🖌️



📷Photo: Kuba Laichter

BCB faculty and students, as well as invited scholars and practitioners from literature and the arts convened last month at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI) Berlin to discuss the contemporary genre of autofiction. 📖 Inspired by conversations across courses taught by the three faculty members—Clio Nicastro's "Theories of the Body," Laura Scuriatti's "Forms of Life Writing" and James Harker's "Autofiction" seminars—the workshop hosted scholars and writers from different career stages to facilitate dialogue between a variety of discourses, such as feminist and postcolonial theory, while also investigating the self at the intersection of the private and public spheres.

📷Photo: Claudia Peppel, courtesy of

On April 20, students, faculty, and guests joined Bard College Berlin Writer-in-Residence Joshua Yaffa at the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Berlin for a conversation with his colleague, New Yorker staff writer and National Book Award-winning author Evan Osnos, as part of the series “Writing Democracy.” The conversation centered on the recent book by Osnos, 'The Haves and Have-Yachts,' which has now appeared in German translation, and which deals with the mentality and significance of America’s new superrich.

Students in the course Civic Engagement and Democracy: Berlin Lab, in partnership with Berliner Tafel, ran a community flea market to bring people together, build local connections, and generate shared resources. A portion of all proceeds was redistributed to improve food access and support local food initiatives. 🥦

📷Photo: Yelyzaveta Shelest

We extend another heartfelt congratulations to the Bard College Berlin Class of 2026! 🎓🎉