Bard College Viewbook

Page 28

Hannah Arendt Center conference “Human Being in an Inhuman Age” in Olin Hall

More to Explore: Beyond the Classroom Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists

Visiting writers, artists, and scholars take

part in readings, discussions, and performances at the Achebe Center, which honors the legacy of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature, who taught at Bard from 1990 to 2009. The Achebe Center's director, Binyavanga Wainaina, is a Kenyan writer and journalist who received the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing. Archaeology Field School Students spend a summer month learning excavating techniques and laboratory analysis. Projects have included a dig at a prehistoric campsite on the shores of the Hudson River and another at a site in nearby Hyde Park that was once home to a large community of freed slaves. The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities

Intellectuals and scholars meet at

Bard to consider current issues with the same kind of insight and independence of mind that political philosopher Hannah Arendt—who came to Bard in the 1940s and left her private papers to the College—brought to bear on such themes as anti-Semitism, totalitarianism, and consumerism. The Arendt Center houses a digitized archive and library. Bard students serve as research assistants, participate in lectures and workshops, contribute to the Archive website, and assist at conferences. The Center sponsors lectures, lunchtime discussions, roundtables, and conferences. Recent conferences, such as “Lying in Politics” and “Human Being in an Inhuman Age,” included artificial intelligence guru and futurist Ray Kurzweil and MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, who examines human relationships with computers, among the speakers.

26 More to Explore: Beyond the Classroom


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