INTELLECTUALS AND CULTURE IN THE TIME OF MONSTERS

Recent events in Syria will be addressed, including Israel's role in the region and the potential contributions the EU can make to Syria's democratic development. The conversation will be led by BCB’s alum Hesham Moadami and BCB senior student Ahmad Mustafa.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is the most acclaimed Syrian political writer and dissident of our time. In his youth, he spent 16 years, from 1980 to 1996, in the prisons of the Syrian dictatorship under Hafez al-Assad. After Bashar al-Assad took over, he became a journalist and author.

From 2011, he accompanied, analyzed, and explained the sources of the “Arab Spring” in Arabic as well as Western media, and became a central figure in the democratic, human rights-oriented resistance in Syria. Yassin al-Haj Saleh fled to Turkey in 2013 and came to Germany in 2017.

Since then, he has written several books: about Syria and the failure of the revolution, about jail and torture, violence and genocide, absence and disappearance, and the politics of culture. He now also writes about the Israeli question and the dynamics of Palestinian and Arab (mis)representation in Germany.

Hesham Moadami, who graduated from BCB in 2021, is currently the Civic Engagement and OSUN Coordination Officer at BCB. He worked as an open-source investigator for the NGO Mnemonic and on the “WhoWasInCommand” Project with Columbia Law School's Security Force Monitor. As a law student in Damascus, he participated in the Revolution as a citizen journalist. After fleeing to Jordan, he worked for the Shaam Relief Foundation supporting other refugees.

Ahmad Mustafa is a senior student in the Humanities, the Arts, and Social Thought program at Bard College Berlin. He is writing his thesis on the activities of the Syrian diaspora in Germany in relation to the German passport procurement requirements and the Syrian embassy’s power over Syrian citizens in Germany before and after December 8. In his hometown Raqqa, he was part of the underground journalist group against ISIS, “Raqqa is being slaughtered silently” (2014/2015).

Bard College Berlin is a state-recognized, non-profit university in Germany that combines the strengths of American liberal arts education with the rigorous research profile of a German university. Its unique approach to education emphasizes interdisciplinary study, small-group seminars, and individual academic advising. On its residential campus in the Niederschönhausen neighborhood of Pankow, over 350 students from 70 countries engage in intellectual dialogue across disciplines, supported by a world-class faculty committed to teaching. Accredited at both the state and federal levels in Germany and in the US through its affiliation with Bard College Annandale, Bard College Berlin offers three BA degree programs in the humanities and social sciences.

Since 2015, Bard College Berlin’s Program for International Education and Social Change (PIESC) has provided 90 four-year scholarships to students from regions of crisis or conflict, including 37 from Syria or Palestine. The program aims to empower a new generation of leaders—politicians, journalists, teachers, and artists—equipped to drive impactful change locally and globally. These scholarship recipients currently comprise 16% of Bard College Berlin’s student body and represent Bard College Berlin’s commitment to fostering intercultural and interdisciplinary critical thinking that serves the public good in Germany and beyond.