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Early this year, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stood in front of a banner that read Espana en Libertad, announcing a series of 100 events coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the death of dictator Francisco Franco. Writing for Time, Omar G. Encarnación, Charles Flint Kellogg Professor of Politics in the Division of Social Studies, wrote about the transformation of Spain since Franco’s death. One of Sánchez’s chief campaign promises was to undo the “Pact of Forgetting,” which “upheld the controversial idea of desmemoria, or disremembering, which called for avoiding any situation that could revive the memory of the Civil War, and the Franco dictatorship,” Encarnación writes.

Among other measures, Sánchez’s government exhumed and relocated Franco’s remains “in the interest of national reconciliation,” reformed teaching surrounding Franco’s legacy, and expanded reparation for Franco’s victims. Spain is not immune to the worldwide rise of far-right movements, Encarnación writes, as evidenced by the rise of Vox, a far-right party that “vehemently rejects Sánchez’s historical memory agenda.” However, the recent, collective memory of dictatorship, he argues, may help to inoculate Spain against these trends: “Sánchez’s robust embrace of historical memory could not have come at a more opportune time for Spain. Aside from giving Franco’s victims some measure of accountability and reminding the younger generations of the historic sacrifices that made democracy possible, it is a powerful wake-up call about the risks posed by the far-right.”

Bard's Politics Program gives students a well-rounded understanding of political theory, American politics, comparative politics, and international relations, studying the choices we can make as individuals and the fates of communities, nations, and states.

Daniel Wortel-London, visiting assistant professor of history at Bard College, was quoted in an article by Al Jazeera that explored what Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election means for the rest of the Democratic party. Wortel-London told Al Jazeera that Mamdani’s win signified that “affordability is the defining issue of our time,” noting that focusing on issues of economic security had typically been key for Democrats in the past. “Mamdani has figured out how to combine those priorities with the moral urgency of social justice that animates many progressives,” he said. “If Democrats want to bridge their internal divisions and rebuild a broad coalition, they’ll need to take a page from Mamdani’s playbook.”

The Historical Studies Program at Bard College encourages students to examine history through the prism of other relevant disciplines such as anthropology, economics, and philosophy and different forms of expression. The program also introduces students to a variety of methodological perspectives used in historical research and to philosophical assumptions about men, women, and society that underlie these perspectives.

Suzanne Kite, distinguished artist in residence, assistant professor of American and Indigenous Studies, and director of the Wihanble S’a Center for Indigenous AI at Bard College, has been named codirector of Abundant Intelligences, an Indigenous-led research program that conceptualizes, designs, develops, and deploys Artificial Intelligence based on Indigenous knowledge systems. In this position, which will last for a term of four years, Kite will help lead the program operations, with a particular focus on how to increase support for the creators and scholars of the organization as they pursue their individual research projects.

“I am elated to continue to support students, staff, and colleagues at Bard and internationally in pursuit of ethical ways of making new things together,” said Dr. Suzanne Kite.

Abundant Intelligences is supported by a Transformation grant in the amount of $23 million from the New Frontiers in Research Fund and a $2.5 million SSHRC Partnership Grant, both bestowed by the Canadian government. The program’s Indigenous-led, Indigenous-majority research team collaborates with world-class experts in AI research and development. The program unites 8 universities and 12 Indigenous community-based organizations from North America, the Pacific Islands, and New Zealand to develop novel approaches to conceptualizing, designing, implementing and deploying AI to support the flourishing of Indigenous communities. The program also aims to integrate and adapt existing methods for creating AI into Indigenous Knowledge systems, as well as find ways to use the knowledge generated to help guide the development of AI generally towards a more humane future. To learn more, please visit abundant-intelligences.net.

“Dr. Kite is one of our key co-investigators,” says Jason Lewis, professor of computation arts at Concordia University and codirector at Abundant Intelligences. “The lab she founded at Bard, Wihanble S’a Center, is one of the six main research nodes for the entire project. She is one of the co-founders of the field of Indigenous AI, having co-authored the seminal text in the field (“Making Kin with the Machines”). We look forward to working with her further to help solve the challenge of designing and developing Indigenous-centered AI systems that make for better computational technologies for everyone.”

Introduced by Bard College President Leon Botstein, Event Features Conversation with Bard College Vice President Jonathan Becker, Alum Seamus Heady ’22, and Constitutional Rights Attorney Yael Bromberg

On November 18 at 5 pm, Upstate Films at the Starr Theater in Rhinebeck is hosting a special multi-media presentation of a book and four short documentaries focusing on the fight for voting rights on US college campuses. The event will feature a reading and conversation with book editors, Jonathan Becker and Yael Bromberg, and with documentary producer Seamus Heady. It will be introduced by Bard College President Leon Botstein. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets can be secured here.
 
The book, Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campuses, coedited by Becker and Bromberg, uses the history of the 26th Amendment and the ongoing fight to promote and defend youth voting rights as a prism through which to teach the history of the struggle for the fundamental right to vote in the United States. 
 
The book and the documentaries focus on case studies of four institutions – Tuskegee University, Prairie View A&M University, North Carolina A&T State University, and Bard College. These cases, which emerged from a joint course that united faculty and students from all four institutions, offer unique insights into the role of college communities in the fight for suffrage, and their contributions to the evolution of the right to vote.
 
Bard College President Leon Botstein says: “This remarkable and inspiring book and the accompanying documentaries tell us about the struggle for voting rights at Bard and at three Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Readers will learn how college communities can and must promote core democratic freedoms, rights and practices. The authors’ achievement testifies to the indispensable link between higher education and democracy.”
 
The book is coedited and includes chapters by Jonathan Becker, professor of political studies, vice president for academic affairs and director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, and Yael Bromberg, Esq., a constitutional rights litigator, leading legal scholar of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and election law professor at American University Washington College of Law.
 
Jonathan Becker says: “The book and film, A Poll to Call Our Own, have particular resonance in Dutchess County, where the fight for Bard and Vassar students to vote locally and have polling places on college campuses campus took place over nearly a quarter century. The lessons of the book are particularly important today, as we see the shadow of authoritarianism creeping across the country.”
 
Yael Bromberg says: “It is fitting that we are launching this book release in Dutchess County. What started as successful litigations to secure an on-campus polling site at Bard College, then motivated a state mandate to secure the mechanism on campuses across the state. These efforts evolved from litigation and advocacy into an ongoing national academic partnership and resulting book, which examines evolution of the right to vote from the perspective of college communities. We look forward to sharing these lessons in the midst of this moment of constitutional crisis.” 
 
The films were directed by Seamus Heady ’22 and Mariia Pankova MA ’24 in Human Rights and the Arts. Heady says: “As a lifelong resident of Dutchess County, I was shocked and disheartened to learn of the barriers local students have faced in casting their ballots. The multi-campus collaboration allowed us not only to situate Bard's story in a national context, but to draw on the rich activist history of all four campuses. When you start making these connections across geography and history, the authoritarian playbook is really laid bare, and we get to see what strategies have prevailed in resisting that.”
 
For free tickets, go here. Books will be for sale courtesy of Oblong Books.
 
Further information on the event can be found here. More information on the book can be found at: https://cce.bard.edu/get-involved/election/youth-voting-rights-book/