Landscapes of Home: A Colonia History of America’s Borderlands
Bobby Cervantes, Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
Wednesday, February 4, 2026 5–6:30 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102
Along the Texas-Mexico borderlands, thousands of informal rural housing settlements, called colonias, have been home to generations of working-poor Mexican Americans throughout the 20th century. Often situated on unincorporated land abutting city boundaries, colonias expose the nature of the urban-rural divide at the heart of the modern U.S. Southwest. Today, more than one million Americans live in border colonias, often without access to basic services like running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity. Yet, they have enjoyed a qualified degree of freedom in their colonias for more than eight decades, in many cases becoming homeowners and building generational wealth. This talk explores the origins of America’s colonias on the northern banks of the Rio Grande and examines how their residents have transformed the modern American borderlands through creative politics and calculated risks.
Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Historical Studies Program.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Out of the Past and into the Present: On Reading and Writing Hebrew Literature, Then and Now
Discussants: Ruby Namdar, Novelist (LABA). Professor Haim Weiss, Ben Gurion University. Facilitated by Professor Shai Secunda, Bard College
Monday, February 9, 2026 5 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102 In this conversation between a professor of classical Hebrew literature and a contemporary Hebrew novelist, we will discuss a remarkable Talmudic tale about a rabbi, hiding in a cave to avoid Roman persecution, who then reemerges after twelve years to a world that appears unchanged. We will explore some of the literary and philosophical features of this story as we consider the relationship between the study of classical Hebrew literature and the writing of modern Hebrew literature today.Sponsored by: Jewish Studies, Interdisciplinary Study of Religions, and Hebrew Studies.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Playful Planning: A non-technical introduction to Linear Programming
Data Analytics Workshop with Till Porrmann
Monday, February 9, 2026 5 pm
RKC 111 How do you turn a vague idea into a solid plan - and how can a computer help refine it?
In this interactive workshop, you will explore the world of computer-based planning. Without any programming or math, we'll build a simple model for organizing a music festival on campus. Compete in a custom-made card game to see who comes up with the best Bard Festival and collects the most Party Points. No prior knowledge required. Join for an entertaining hour while learning about trade-offs, strategic planning, and modeling.Sponsored by: Data Analytics and Economics Programs.
An Evening with Rabbi Abby Stein: Author of Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman
Wednesday, February 11, 2026 5 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102 Join us as we welcome Abby Stein, who will give a talk on Gender and Judaism and share her own powerful story. Stein was born and raised in a family of distinguished rabbinic lineage (she’s a tenth-generation descendent of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism), and studied to become a rabbi before leaving that world in 2012. Since coming out, she has been working to raise support and awareness for trans rights and for those leaving ultra-Orthodoxy. Stein is a Jewish educator, author, speaker, and activist, whose forthcoming book Sources of Pride is an anthology and exploration of Jewish texts on identity, gender, sexuality, and inclusivity.Sponsored by: JSO, Jewish Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
What is Incoherence? Towards a Non-Absolutist View
Tez Clark, PhD Student, Department of Philosophy, New York University
Friday, February 13, 2026 12–1:30 pm
Hegeman 204 We often seem to care that our attitudes match the way things are. At the same time, we also seem to care about our attitudes cohering or fitting together. Many philosophers accept that "failing by one’s own lights" in this way is incoherent and in some sense irrational. But what does it mean for attitudes to be incoherent in this way, and what unifies the various examples of incoherence? In this talk, Clark argues that existing theories of incoherence rest on the mistaken assumption that certain attitudes are incoherent no matter what, regardless of who has them or of contextual features, then sketches an alternative way of thinking about incoherence, in terms of intelligibility.Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Philosophy Program.
Political Not Technical: Computing Technology and the Genealogical Method
Brian Jordan Jefferson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Monday, February 16, 2026 5 pm
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema On October 4, 2022 the White House unveiled its Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. Nine months later, the UN Security Council held its first meeting on AI governance; days after, the White House announced plans to deregulate AI on one hand, and regulate the ideological content in AI models on the other. A growing number of engineers and social scientists have joined forces in response to these developments in fields like AI Ethics, AI and Society, and Computing and Society. Too often however, their efforts share a critical limitation: they view technology exclusively in technical terms and seek technical solutions for its problems. Jefferson shows how technical understandings are necessary but insufficient for addressing the political challenges posed by today’s technologies. This talk outlines how a genealogical method helps illuminate these political dimensions.Sponsored by: Data Analytics & Politics Programs.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Engineering the Concept of Pain for Clinical Practice
Tiina Rosenqvist Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College
Friday, February 20, 2026 12–1:30 pm
Hegeman 204 Conceptual engineering is often understood as the practice of assessing and improving our representational tools with specific aims in mind. In this paper, I contribute to the engineering of the concept of pain with a particular focus on clinical utility. My engineering efforts center on the International Association for the Study of Pain’s (IASP) “official” definition of pain, first introduced in 1979 and revised in 2020. I discuss the general process of conceptual engineering and the original IASP definition of pain and identify three desiderata for a definition suitable for clinical practice: it should be accurate, cognitively tractable, and promote justice in patient care. Evaluating the revised IASP definition against these desiderata, I argue that it is vague and fails to fully address persistent misconceptions about pain, and that additional revisions are therefore needed. I then propose an alternative definition designed to better meet the demands of effective and just clinical practice.Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Philosophy Program.
Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion; Director, Institute of Advanced Theology
Monday, February 23, 2026 12:30–1:30 pm
Bard Hall Berenice (born circa 28) was the most notorious Jewish woman in the Roman Empire of her time. Multiple marriages, rumors of incestuous relations with her brother (Agrippa II of the Herodian dynasty), and her scandalous liaison with Titus, the Roman general and emperor‑to‑be, guaranteed Berenice’s celebrity. This reputation does not, however, paint a complete portrait of Berenice, nor does it capture her significance. Her political acumen was as effective as it would become legendary. The great‑granddaughter of Herod the Great and the daughter of King Agrippa I, she promoted the family’s unusual version of Judaism as well as its outsized ambitions. Berenice was a pivotal figure in Agrippa II’s advance in imperial preferment; played a crucial role during the Jewish‑Roman war; and, as consort to Titus, supported his father, Vespasian, in his accession to the role of emperor.
Join us every other Monday starting Feb. 23rd.
Monday, February 23rd
Monday, March 9th
Monday, March 23rd
Monday, April 6th
Monday, April 20th
Monday, May 4th
For more information, call 845-758-7667, or e-mail [email protected].
The Psychopolitics of the Carceral State: Lessons from the Los Angeles Jail System
Jeremy Levenson, Psychiatry Resident, Yale School of Medicine
Wednesday, February 25, 2026 5 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102 This talk examines the place of psychiatry in the ever shape-shifting U.S. carceral state. It presents an ethnographic account of the Los Angeles Jail system’s mental health facility, the largest in the United States. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research inside LA’s jails, I explore how and why jail mental health care appears to only sustain and further individual and collective suffering. Bringing together a conjunctural analysis of the LA jail mental health care crisis and the pre-figurative possibilities of psychiatric utopianism demonstrated by the organizing inside and outside the jail, I describe jail mental health care as a terrain of psycho-politics. On this terrain, particular relationships harden and become the glue holding the jail together and enabling its reproduction, while struggles are simultaneously waged at its points of contradiction. This multi-leveled approach demonstrates how the jail is an institutional and ideological regime wherein a particular form of psychiatry is brought in to manage its recursive crises. It also offers a lens through which to understand efforts to interrupt carceral social reproduction.Sponsored by: ANTH, DOC, HRP, POLI, SOC, the Disability & Accessibility Studies Initiative, Disability Access Services.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Finitude as Interpretive Dependence in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety
Amy Levine Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
Friday, February 27, 2026 12–1:30 pm
Hegeman 204 In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard offers a reading of the biblical story of the Fall that aims to explain the possibility of original sin without presupposing “knowledge of good and evil.” I suggest that Kierkegaard takes up this theological problem to address another: on a Kantian picture of agency, how can an agent determine herself to act under a principle for the first time? His solution identifies an overlooked dimension of our finitude: our dependence on language and shared cultural practice for the intelligibility of anything we might do. Anxiety is the self-awareness of this dependence. It has an affective dimension because it also involves dependence on other people. In childhood, while we do not know the meaning of what we might do, adults do; in adulthood, the significance of our actions remains vulnerable to others’ interpretation. This reading of anxiety as self-awareness of interpretive dependence illuminates the connection between anxiety and authenticity for Kierkegaard and later for Heidegger. Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Philosophy Program.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Landscapes of Home: A Colonia History of America’s Borderlands
Bobby Cervantes, Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
Wednesday, February 4, 2026 5–6:30 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102
Along the Texas-Mexico borderlands, thousands of informal rural housing settlements, called colonias, have been home to generations of working-poor Mexican Americans throughout the 20th century. Often situated on unincorporated land abutting city boundaries, colonias expose the nature of the urban-rural divide at the heart of the modern U.S. Southwest. Today, more than one million Americans live in border colonias, often without access to basic services like running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity. Yet, they have enjoyed a qualified degree of freedom in their colonias for more than eight decades, in many cases becoming homeowners and building generational wealth. This talk explores the origins of America’s colonias on the northern banks of the Rio Grande and examines how their residents have transformed the modern American borderlands through creative politics and calculated risks.
Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Historical Studies Program.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Out of the Past and into the Present: On Reading and Writing Hebrew Literature, Then and Now
Discussants: Ruby Namdar, Novelist (LABA). Professor Haim Weiss, Ben Gurion University. Facilitated by Professor Shai Secunda, Bard College
Monday, February 9, 2026 5 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102 In this conversation between a professor of classical Hebrew literature and a contemporary Hebrew novelist, we will discuss a remarkable Talmudic tale about a rabbi, hiding in a cave to avoid Roman persecution, who then reemerges after twelve years to a world that appears unchanged. We will explore some of the literary and philosophical features of this story as we consider the relationship between the study of classical Hebrew literature and the writing of modern Hebrew literature today.Sponsored by: Jewish Studies, Interdisciplinary Study of Religions, and Hebrew Studies.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Playful Planning: A non-technical introduction to Linear Programming
Data Analytics Workshop with Till Porrmann
Monday, February 9, 2026 5 pm
RKC 111 How do you turn a vague idea into a solid plan - and how can a computer help refine it?
In this interactive workshop, you will explore the world of computer-based planning. Without any programming or math, we'll build a simple model for organizing a music festival on campus. Compete in a custom-made card game to see who comes up with the best Bard Festival and collects the most Party Points. No prior knowledge required. Join for an entertaining hour while learning about trade-offs, strategic planning, and modeling.Sponsored by: Data Analytics and Economics Programs.
An Evening with Rabbi Abby Stein: Author of Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman
Wednesday, February 11, 2026 5 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102 Join us as we welcome Abby Stein, who will give a talk on Gender and Judaism and share her own powerful story. Stein was born and raised in a family of distinguished rabbinic lineage (she’s a tenth-generation descendent of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism), and studied to become a rabbi before leaving that world in 2012. Since coming out, she has been working to raise support and awareness for trans rights and for those leaving ultra-Orthodoxy. Stein is a Jewish educator, author, speaker, and activist, whose forthcoming book Sources of Pride is an anthology and exploration of Jewish texts on identity, gender, sexuality, and inclusivity.Sponsored by: JSO, Jewish Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
What is Incoherence? Towards a Non-Absolutist View
Tez Clark, PhD Student, Department of Philosophy, New York University
Friday, February 13, 2026 12–1:30 pm
Hegeman 204 We often seem to care that our attitudes match the way things are. At the same time, we also seem to care about our attitudes cohering or fitting together. Many philosophers accept that "failing by one’s own lights" in this way is incoherent and in some sense irrational. But what does it mean for attitudes to be incoherent in this way, and what unifies the various examples of incoherence? In this talk, Clark argues that existing theories of incoherence rest on the mistaken assumption that certain attitudes are incoherent no matter what, regardless of who has them or of contextual features, then sketches an alternative way of thinking about incoherence, in terms of intelligibility.Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Philosophy Program.
Political Not Technical: Computing Technology and the Genealogical Method
Brian Jordan Jefferson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Monday, February 16, 2026 5 pm
Bertelsmann Campus Center, Weis Cinema On October 4, 2022 the White House unveiled its Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. Nine months later, the UN Security Council held its first meeting on AI governance; days after, the White House announced plans to deregulate AI on one hand, and regulate the ideological content in AI models on the other. A growing number of engineers and social scientists have joined forces in response to these developments in fields like AI Ethics, AI and Society, and Computing and Society. Too often however, their efforts share a critical limitation: they view technology exclusively in technical terms and seek technical solutions for its problems. Jefferson shows how technical understandings are necessary but insufficient for addressing the political challenges posed by today’s technologies. This talk outlines how a genealogical method helps illuminate these political dimensions.Sponsored by: Data Analytics & Politics Programs.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Engineering the Concept of Pain for Clinical Practice
Tiina Rosenqvist Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College
Friday, February 20, 2026 12–1:30 pm
Hegeman 204 Conceptual engineering is often understood as the practice of assessing and improving our representational tools with specific aims in mind. In this paper, I contribute to the engineering of the concept of pain with a particular focus on clinical utility. My engineering efforts center on the International Association for the Study of Pain’s (IASP) “official” definition of pain, first introduced in 1979 and revised in 2020. I discuss the general process of conceptual engineering and the original IASP definition of pain and identify three desiderata for a definition suitable for clinical practice: it should be accurate, cognitively tractable, and promote justice in patient care. Evaluating the revised IASP definition against these desiderata, I argue that it is vague and fails to fully address persistent misconceptions about pain, and that additional revisions are therefore needed. I then propose an alternative definition designed to better meet the demands of effective and just clinical practice.Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Philosophy Program.
Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion; Director, Institute of Advanced Theology
Monday, February 23, 2026 12:30–1:30 pm
Bard Hall Berenice (born circa 28) was the most notorious Jewish woman in the Roman Empire of her time. Multiple marriages, rumors of incestuous relations with her brother (Agrippa II of the Herodian dynasty), and her scandalous liaison with Titus, the Roman general and emperor‑to‑be, guaranteed Berenice’s celebrity. This reputation does not, however, paint a complete portrait of Berenice, nor does it capture her significance. Her political acumen was as effective as it would become legendary. The great‑granddaughter of Herod the Great and the daughter of King Agrippa I, she promoted the family’s unusual version of Judaism as well as its outsized ambitions. Berenice was a pivotal figure in Agrippa II’s advance in imperial preferment; played a crucial role during the Jewish‑Roman war; and, as consort to Titus, supported his father, Vespasian, in his accession to the role of emperor.
Join us every other Monday starting Feb. 23rd.
Monday, February 23rd
Monday, March 9th
Monday, March 23rd
Monday, April 6th
Monday, April 20th
Monday, May 4th
For more information, call 845-758-7667, or e-mail [email protected].
The Psychopolitics of the Carceral State: Lessons from the Los Angeles Jail System
Jeremy Levenson, Psychiatry Resident, Yale School of Medicine
Wednesday, February 25, 2026 5 pm
Olin Humanities, Room 102 This talk examines the place of psychiatry in the ever shape-shifting U.S. carceral state. It presents an ethnographic account of the Los Angeles Jail system’s mental health facility, the largest in the United States. Drawing on three years of ethnographic research inside LA’s jails, I explore how and why jail mental health care appears to only sustain and further individual and collective suffering. Bringing together a conjunctural analysis of the LA jail mental health care crisis and the pre-figurative possibilities of psychiatric utopianism demonstrated by the organizing inside and outside the jail, I describe jail mental health care as a terrain of psycho-politics. On this terrain, particular relationships harden and become the glue holding the jail together and enabling its reproduction, while struggles are simultaneously waged at its points of contradiction. This multi-leveled approach demonstrates how the jail is an institutional and ideological regime wherein a particular form of psychiatry is brought in to manage its recursive crises. It also offers a lens through which to understand efforts to interrupt carceral social reproduction.Sponsored by: ANTH, DOC, HRP, POLI, SOC, the Disability & Accessibility Studies Initiative, Disability Access Services.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Finitude as Interpretive Dependence in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety
Amy Levine Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows
Friday, February 27, 2026 12–1:30 pm
Hegeman 204 In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard offers a reading of the biblical story of the Fall that aims to explain the possibility of original sin without presupposing “knowledge of good and evil.” I suggest that Kierkegaard takes up this theological problem to address another: on a Kantian picture of agency, how can an agent determine herself to act under a principle for the first time? His solution identifies an overlooked dimension of our finitude: our dependence on language and shared cultural practice for the intelligibility of anything we might do. Anxiety is the self-awareness of this dependence. It has an affective dimension because it also involves dependence on other people. In childhood, while we do not know the meaning of what we might do, adults do; in adulthood, the significance of our actions remains vulnerable to others’ interpretation. This reading of anxiety as self-awareness of interpretive dependence illuminates the connection between anxiety and authenticity for Kierkegaard and later for Heidegger. Sponsored by: Dean of the College; Philosophy Program.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Save this event: