News and Notes by Date
July 2024
07-23-2024
Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College, was interviewed for the New York Times Book Review about his new novel, Someone Like Us. “Dinaw Mengestu thinks deeply about how stories are told, especially migrant tales,” writes Anderson Tepper. “With Someone Like Us, out this month from Knopf, Mengestu approaches this essential material from a variety of angles.” Mengestu spoke about the hidden lives of his characters, his goals when directing the writing program at Bard, and the ideas that inform the way he writes about immigrant experiences in his fiction.
Photo: Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Center for Ethics and Writing,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Center for Ethics and Writing,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
07-23-2024
“This is the first time the complete text of The Book Against Death has appeared in English, compliments of a superlative translation by Peter Filkins,” writes Sam Sacks for the Wall Street Journal. The Book Against Death, translated by Visiting Professor of Literature Peter Filkins from German, is a collection of notes, fragments, and aphorisms that Elias Canetti wrote across half a century. It was the preparation for what Canetti called a “life work,” a book in which he would put “everything” and which he never finished—the manuscript accumulating his musings until his own death at age 89. A Jewish writer who cast himself as “Death’s Enemy,” Canetti lived through the Holocaust and wrote: “No other feeling approaches the intensity and unshakable nature of this one. I accept no death. Thus all who have died remain genuinely alive to me, not because they have claims upon me, not because I fear them, not because I feel that something of them is still alive, but rather because they never should have died. All of the deaths that have occurred thus far are a multi-thousand-pronged form of judicial murder that I cannot deem legal.” This is the philosophical position Canetti maintains throughout his text.
Further Reading:
“Elias Canetti’s war against death” in the New Statesman
Further Reading:
“Elias Canetti’s war against death” in the New Statesman
Photo: Bard Visiting Professor of Literature Peter Filkins and his translation of Elias Canetti's The Book Against Death.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program |
June 2024
06-25-2024
1974, a new memoir by Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose, was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times. The memoir reflects on the shift of America’s identity during that historical year and the events that defined it, such as the Vietnam war, drugs, women’s liberation, and the Patty Hearst kidnapping. It also examines Prose’s own relationship with Anthony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. “Throughout 1974, Prose skillfully interweaves the political and the personal elements of this watershed time. Many lesser writers have tried this and failed,” writes Meredith Maran for the Los Angeles Times. “Of the many books I’ve read (and written) on the topic—I lived in parallel to Prose’s 1960s–1970s life—none has matched Prose’s use of the personal to deepen the political and vice versa.” Maran continues, “In this, her first memoir, Prose succeeds where many before her have failed, enlivening—without demonizing or idealizing—the valiant, creative, idealistic movement that almost brought capitalism down.”
Photo: Francine Prose. Photo by Christine Jean Chambers
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program |
06-17-2024
Peter Filkins, visiting professor of literature at Bard College and the Richard B. Fisher Professor of Literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, has received three awards in support of his individual professional projects. A 2024 Translator Fellowship, given by the Austrian Society for Literature, awarded Filkins with €1,500 in support of his travel and stay in Vienna, Austria, where he translated letters and manuscripts for his upcoming book, A Biography of Ingeborg Bachmann (1923-1973), while working directly within her archive. He will conduct further research and translation from March 26 to June 23, 2024 in the same archive with an additional €4,500 travel grant from Austria’s Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service, and Sport. Finally, a Jentel Artist Residency 2024 will enable Filkins to work on a book-length poem about Claude Monet’s Water Lilies during a three-week residency from August 15 to September 7, 2024.
Photo: Visiting Professor of Literature Peter Filkins. Photo by G. Senza
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program |
06-11-2024
The Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship at Bard College, now in its third year, welcomes its cohort of five writers, Kay Bell, Theresa Lin, Vivian Rivas, Gwendolyn Shaw, and Dessie Zagorcheva.
The Hurston Fellows are in residence for three weeks from June 2–22. During their residency, fellows are residing on Bard College at Simon’s Rock campus with housing and meals provided. Founded and directed by Visiting Associate Professor of Literature and American Studies Donna Ford Grover, the Hurston Fellowship enables writers from all disciplines who have not had the opportunity to develop their scholarship, and supports writers who are currently employed as adjuncts or visiting professors with terminal degrees.
“The Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship at Bard College seeks women who have labored as adjuncts and have not yet published a major work,” said Grover. “Like the program's namesake, the participants are independent scholars and writers without institutional support for their work. The Hurston Fellowship provides these women with the time and space to complete their projects.”
The Hurston Fellowship recognizes the particular challenges that BIPOC women encounter in the academy. Few BIPOC women are tenured or tenure track and most occupy precarious positions at their academic institutions. It is not the aim of the fellowship to increase the number of BIPOC women to the pool of tenure and tenure-track applicants. The program exists to assist these underrepresented voices into the publication of their works. During their residency, each Hurston Fellow spends their time working, writing, and researching independently on dedicated projects.
While in residence as a Hurston Fellow, Kay Bell will work on her poetic memoir, Where the Sun Splits Open, a story of self-discovery and healing after a devastating breakup. In poetry and prose, the book delves into the topic of generational trauma and how it shapes experiences and relationships.
Theresa Lin will spend her time during the Hurston Fellowship working on her first novel, which follows the story of a woman named Shau and the significant sacrifices she makes so that she may live on her own terms in 1950s Taiwan. An excerpt of the novel was awarded the De Alba Prize at Columbia University, where Theresa received an MFA.
As a Hurston Fellow, Vivian Rivas will be editing and writing her documentary, “Ashley,” which follows Vianney, a 42-year-old woman living in Guatemala City. Because of gang violence in her neighborhood, Vianney enrolled her daughter Ashley in Hogar Seguro, or “Safe Home,” a government-run group home which had promised that each girl would be protected, educated, and sheltered. On March 8, 2017, Ashley and the other girls were tragically killed when a fire broke out, which subsequently revealed the horrific living conditions and sexual abuse the girls experienced at Hogar Seguro, where they were sold to powerful men. In examining the circumstances of Ashley’s death, Rivas uncovers political corruption and highlights the voice of Vianney, who continues to fight for justice for her daughter and all the girls who perished in the fire.
Gwendolyn Shaw’s project while in residence, Amassing and Assembling: Maya Deren and Joseph Cornell, will compare the practices of these two artists. Cornell experimented with film and found objects through a practice of collecting that was akin to fieldwork. Deren experimented with film form and its exhibition, seeding American avant-garde cinema, and developing her interest in film and dance into a multimedia project. To explore the personal and enigmatic works of both artists, Gwendolyn turns to the concept of autoethnography, a reflexive ethnographic practice that simultaneously describes and analyzes personal experience and cultural meaning.
Dessie Zagorcheva will be working on her book, Kremlin’s Corrosive Capital: How Russia’s Sharp Power Undermines Democracy in Bulgaria and Hungary. She uses insights from the growing literature on “sharp power” and strategic corruption in order to explain how leading authoritarian powers like Russia are undermining democracy and the rule of law within the EU and NATO. In this project, Dessi distinguishes between “sharp power” (as defined by Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, 2017) and other types of power in order to show how the Kremlin seeks to pierce and penetrate the political and informational environment of the target states with a goal of destabilizing, dividing and subverting democratic states.
The Hurston Fellows are in residence for three weeks from June 2–22. During their residency, fellows are residing on Bard College at Simon’s Rock campus with housing and meals provided. Founded and directed by Visiting Associate Professor of Literature and American Studies Donna Ford Grover, the Hurston Fellowship enables writers from all disciplines who have not had the opportunity to develop their scholarship, and supports writers who are currently employed as adjuncts or visiting professors with terminal degrees.
“The Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellowship at Bard College seeks women who have labored as adjuncts and have not yet published a major work,” said Grover. “Like the program's namesake, the participants are independent scholars and writers without institutional support for their work. The Hurston Fellowship provides these women with the time and space to complete their projects.”
The Hurston Fellowship recognizes the particular challenges that BIPOC women encounter in the academy. Few BIPOC women are tenured or tenure track and most occupy precarious positions at their academic institutions. It is not the aim of the fellowship to increase the number of BIPOC women to the pool of tenure and tenure-track applicants. The program exists to assist these underrepresented voices into the publication of their works. During their residency, each Hurston Fellow spends their time working, writing, and researching independently on dedicated projects.
While in residence as a Hurston Fellow, Kay Bell will work on her poetic memoir, Where the Sun Splits Open, a story of self-discovery and healing after a devastating breakup. In poetry and prose, the book delves into the topic of generational trauma and how it shapes experiences and relationships.
Theresa Lin will spend her time during the Hurston Fellowship working on her first novel, which follows the story of a woman named Shau and the significant sacrifices she makes so that she may live on her own terms in 1950s Taiwan. An excerpt of the novel was awarded the De Alba Prize at Columbia University, where Theresa received an MFA.
As a Hurston Fellow, Vivian Rivas will be editing and writing her documentary, “Ashley,” which follows Vianney, a 42-year-old woman living in Guatemala City. Because of gang violence in her neighborhood, Vianney enrolled her daughter Ashley in Hogar Seguro, or “Safe Home,” a government-run group home which had promised that each girl would be protected, educated, and sheltered. On March 8, 2017, Ashley and the other girls were tragically killed when a fire broke out, which subsequently revealed the horrific living conditions and sexual abuse the girls experienced at Hogar Seguro, where they were sold to powerful men. In examining the circumstances of Ashley’s death, Rivas uncovers political corruption and highlights the voice of Vianney, who continues to fight for justice for her daughter and all the girls who perished in the fire.
Gwendolyn Shaw’s project while in residence, Amassing and Assembling: Maya Deren and Joseph Cornell, will compare the practices of these two artists. Cornell experimented with film and found objects through a practice of collecting that was akin to fieldwork. Deren experimented with film form and its exhibition, seeding American avant-garde cinema, and developing her interest in film and dance into a multimedia project. To explore the personal and enigmatic works of both artists, Gwendolyn turns to the concept of autoethnography, a reflexive ethnographic practice that simultaneously describes and analyzes personal experience and cultural meaning.
Dessie Zagorcheva will be working on her book, Kremlin’s Corrosive Capital: How Russia’s Sharp Power Undermines Democracy in Bulgaria and Hungary. She uses insights from the growing literature on “sharp power” and strategic corruption in order to explain how leading authoritarian powers like Russia are undermining democracy and the rule of law within the EU and NATO. In this project, Dessi distinguishes between “sharp power” (as defined by Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, 2017) and other types of power in order to show how the Kremlin seeks to pierce and penetrate the political and informational environment of the target states with a goal of destabilizing, dividing and subverting democratic states.
Photo: Clockwise from top left: 2024 Zora Neale Hurston Writing Fellows at Bard College Kay Bell, Theresa Lin, Vivian Rivas, Gwendolyn Shaw, and Dessie Zagorcheva.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Fellows | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Fellows | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature |
06-04-2024
Bard College is pleased to announce that Writer in Residence Mona Simpson and Visiting Professor of the Humanities Adam Shatz have each been awarded the 2024–25 Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin, Germany. Chosen by an independent selection committee, the 2024–25 class of Berlin Prize fellows includes 24 US-based scholars, writers, composers, and artists who represent the highest standards of excellence in their fields, from the humanities and social sciences to journalism, public policy, fiction, the visual arts, and music composition. The annually awarded Berlin Prize provides recipients the time and resources to advance important scholarly and artistic projects, free from the constraints of other professional obligations. Fellows work throughout the semester with Berlin peers and institutions in the Academy’s well-established network, forging meaningful connections that lead to lasting transatlantic relationships. During their stays, fellows engage German audiences through lectures, readings, and performances, which form the core of the Academy’s public program.
During the fall 2024 Berlin Prize fellowship, Bard Writer in Residence Mona Simpson will be working on a novel, tentatively titled “The Great Man, So-Called,” a novel centered on two women in the life of the iconic American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt: his wife, Eleanor, from whom he was deeply estranged, and Francis Perkins, his secretary of labor, and the first woman to ever hold that post. The only American president to serve more than two terms, and a man whose disability was carefully kept from the American public, Roosevelt relied on these women as he devoted his energies during his first two terms on lifting the American economy out of a debilitating depression and during his third and fourth to the growing involvement with the war. Simpson became fascinated with these two women while studying letters written by domestic workers (who were not covered by the New Deal’s protections) for her novel My Hollywood, about Los Angeles nannies. Simpson’s most recent novel, Commitment (2023) was chosen as a best book of the year by the New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times.
During the spring 2025 Berlin Prize fellowship, Bard Visiting Professor of the Humanities Adam Shatz will work on his book project “Worlds They Have Not Told You Of: Adventures in Creative Music,” a sweeping chronicle of the post-war Black music avant-garde that combines history, criticism, and biographical portraiture to trace the musical routes of sonic exploration and creative self-determination from bebop to free jazz to the present day. Additionally, Shatz has received two other fellowships in support of his work. He has been awarded a 2023–24 Visiting Fellowship at the American Library of Paris, in Paris, France, for June 2024. He also won a 2024 Visiting Fellowship at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, also known as the Institute of Human Sciences, in Vienna, Austria, where he will be in residence from September through October 2024. His latest book, The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Franz Fanon, was recently included in the New York Times’s The Best Books of the Year (So Far) and reviewed in The New York Review.
During the fall 2024 Berlin Prize fellowship, Bard Writer in Residence Mona Simpson will be working on a novel, tentatively titled “The Great Man, So-Called,” a novel centered on two women in the life of the iconic American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt: his wife, Eleanor, from whom he was deeply estranged, and Francis Perkins, his secretary of labor, and the first woman to ever hold that post. The only American president to serve more than two terms, and a man whose disability was carefully kept from the American public, Roosevelt relied on these women as he devoted his energies during his first two terms on lifting the American economy out of a debilitating depression and during his third and fourth to the growing involvement with the war. Simpson became fascinated with these two women while studying letters written by domestic workers (who were not covered by the New Deal’s protections) for her novel My Hollywood, about Los Angeles nannies. Simpson’s most recent novel, Commitment (2023) was chosen as a best book of the year by the New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times.
During the spring 2025 Berlin Prize fellowship, Bard Visiting Professor of the Humanities Adam Shatz will work on his book project “Worlds They Have Not Told You Of: Adventures in Creative Music,” a sweeping chronicle of the post-war Black music avant-garde that combines history, criticism, and biographical portraiture to trace the musical routes of sonic exploration and creative self-determination from bebop to free jazz to the present day. Additionally, Shatz has received two other fellowships in support of his work. He has been awarded a 2023–24 Visiting Fellowship at the American Library of Paris, in Paris, France, for June 2024. He also won a 2024 Visiting Fellowship at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, also known as the Institute of Human Sciences, in Vienna, Austria, where he will be in residence from September through October 2024. His latest book, The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Franz Fanon, was recently included in the New York Times’s The Best Books of the Year (So Far) and reviewed in The New York Review.
Photo: L-R: Bard Writer in Residence Mona Simpson (photo by Alex Hoerner) and Bard Visiting Professor of the Humanities Adam Shatz (photo by Sarah Shatz).
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Faculty,Human Rights,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Faculty,Human Rights,Written Arts Program |
06-03-2024
Joseph O'Neill, distinguished visiting professor of written arts at Bard College, was profiled in the New York Times Book Review. His new novel Godwin, a tale of family and migration, is an international adventure story in which O’Neill investigates the legacy of colonialism in the context of family love, global capitalism, and the dreaming individual. The Times writes that his “sharp and slippery new novel” also showcases the tendency of his fiction to incorporate his real-world interests in unexpected ways; in Godwin, that turns out to be soccer. “I have spent years of my life playing or watching or dreaming about ball games,” O’Neill told the Times. “I’m also an intuitive, somewhat dreamy writer. So sports seep into, and sometimes saturate, my fiction. Many writers are like that—we have arbitrary, pre-creative obsessions that emerge as our subject matter, whether we like it or not. I’m stuck with sports.”
Photo: Joseph O'Neill, distinguished visiting professor of written arts at Bard College.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
May 2024
05-22-2024
“At some point in recent history, the merits of reading literary fiction became inextricably entwined with the genre’s potential to instill empathy,” writes Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program, for the New York Times. In a review of The Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, which tells the story of 72 migrants in a fictional village in Italy, Mengestu argues that the form of the novel—which utilizes third-person narration alongside monologues, historical interludes, and dialogues—may be more important to the conveyance of its themes than the story itself. “Characters aren’t revealed so much as they are refracted through different narrative lenses,” Mengestu writes. “It’s only fitting that a novel so concerned with how we read, interpret, and respond resists easy attachment (or aversion) to its characters.”
Photo: Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
05-21-2024
Karen Sullivan, Irma Brandeis Professor of Romance Literature and Culture, was interviewed about her recent book, Eleanor of Aquitaine, As It Was Said: Truth and Tales about the Medieval Queen, for the New Books in History podcast. In conversation with Jane Byars, Sullivan discusses the epistemological questions that arise when examining historical figures like Eleanor, exploring what it means to parse truth when relying on historical accounts. “People have somehow tried to separate the historical kind of Eleanor from the mythical or literary Eleanor,” said Sullivan. “But my argument is that you can’t do that, because even as she was going through her very long life, she was constantly having to deal with the mythical Eleanor, and having to kind of respond to that situation, you know, so they really become indistinguishable.”
Photo: Karen Sullivan, Irma Brandeis Professor of Romance Literature and Culture.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program |
05-20-2024
Bard College student Madilyn Herring ’26 has been awarded both a highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship by the US Department of State and a Freeman Award for Study in Asia (Freeman-ASIA) to study abroad. Herring ’26, a studio arts and written arts double major from Lebanon, New Hampshire, has been awarded a $3,500 Gilman scholarship and a $5,000 Freeman-ASIA scholarship to study at Kyoto Seika University, Japan, for spring 2025. Kyoto Seika University is a longtime tuition exchange partner institution with Bard.
“I'm extremely grateful to be a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship and the Freeman-ASIA Scholarship. They make it possible for me to pursue my goals and dreams in a way that perfectly combines all of my interests in art, writing, and Asian studies. Being able to study abroad seemed like a dream out of reach but being able to have the financial support to do so means so much to me,” says Herring.
This year’s cohort of Gilman scholars will study or intern in more than 90 countries and represents more than 500 US colleges and universities. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 41,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded approximately 2,100 Gilman scholarships in the spring 2024 application cycle.
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org
The Freeman-ASIA program is designed to support US-based undergraduates with demonstrated financial need who are planning to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia. The program’s goal is to increase the number of US citizens and permanent residents with first-hand exposure to and understanding of Asia and its peoples and cultures. Award recipients are required to share their experiences with their home campuses or communities to encourage study abroad by others and fulfill the program’s goal of increasing understanding of Asia in the United States. From its inception in 2001, Freeman-ASIA has made study abroad in East and Southeast Asia possible for over 5,000 US undergraduates from more than 600 institutions. To learn more, visit: iie.org/programs/freeman-asia/
“I'm extremely grateful to be a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship and the Freeman-ASIA Scholarship. They make it possible for me to pursue my goals and dreams in a way that perfectly combines all of my interests in art, writing, and Asian studies. Being able to study abroad seemed like a dream out of reach but being able to have the financial support to do so means so much to me,” says Herring.
This year’s cohort of Gilman scholars will study or intern in more than 90 countries and represents more than 500 US colleges and universities. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 41,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded approximately 2,100 Gilman scholarships in the spring 2024 application cycle.
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org
The Freeman-ASIA program is designed to support US-based undergraduates with demonstrated financial need who are planning to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia. The program’s goal is to increase the number of US citizens and permanent residents with first-hand exposure to and understanding of Asia and its peoples and cultures. Award recipients are required to share their experiences with their home campuses or communities to encourage study abroad by others and fulfill the program’s goal of increasing understanding of Asia in the United States. From its inception in 2001, Freeman-ASIA has made study abroad in East and Southeast Asia possible for over 5,000 US undergraduates from more than 600 institutions. To learn more, visit: iie.org/programs/freeman-asia/
Photo: Bard College student Madilyn Herring ’26 wins both Gilman International Scholarship and Freeman-ASIA Award for study abroad. Photo by Dana Read Firefly Photography
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Bard Abroad,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Bard Abroad,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-07-2024
Two Bard College graduates have won 2024–25 Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects and English teaching assistantships. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.
Sara Varde de Nieves ’22, who was a joint major in film and electronic arts and in human rights at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Chile for the 2024–25 academic year. Their project, “Regresando al Hogar/Returning Home,” aims to preserve the legacy of Villa San Luis, a large-scale public housing complex built in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile from 1971 to 1972. Through a multi-format documentary comprising interviews with former residents and project planners, archival documents, and footage of the current buildings, Varde de Nieves seeks to capture the collective memory of Villa San Luis’s original residents and planners. In executing this project, Varde de Nieves aims to expand the label of “heritage conservation” to include buildings and infrastructure that are not considered culturally significant as classic historical monuments and to make connections among narrative, memory, ephemera, and the historical archive. “I’m very excited to conduct in-person research on Villa San Luis, an innovative project that strove for class integration and high-quality construction. During my time abroad, I hope to foster long-lasting relationships and get acquainted with Chile's fascinating topography,” says Varde de Nieves.
While at Bard, Varde de Nieves worked as an English language tutor in Red Hook as well as at La Voz, the Hudson Valley Spanish language magazine. Their Senior Project, “Re-igniting the Clit Club,” a documentary about a queer party in the Meatpacking district during the 1990s, won multiple awards at Bard.
Jonathan Asiedu ’24, a written arts major, has been selected for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Fulbright to Spain. His teaching placement will be in the Canary Islands. While in Spain, Asiedu plans to hold weekly poetry workshops in local cultural centers, communities, and schools. He hopes to invite the community to bring in their work or poems that speak to them, to share poets and writers and the ways they speak to us. “Studying poetry, learning pedagogical practices to inform my future as an educator, and mentorship opportunities throughout my college career have shaped both my perception of education and the work that needs to be done to improve students’ experiences within the educational system,” he says.
At Bard, Asiedu serves as a lead peer counselor through Residence Life, an Equity and Inclusion Mentor with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, admission tour guide, and works as a campus photographer. Moreover, this past year, he gained TESOL certification and has served as an English language tutor, as well as a writing tutor at the Eastern Correctional Facility through the Bard Prison Initiative. Asiedu, who is from the South Bronx, decided early on that he wanted to speak Spanish and has taken the Spanish Language Intensive at Bard, which includes four weeks of study in Oaxaca, Mexico. After the completion of his Fulbright ETA, he plans to pursue a master degree in education with a specialization in literature from Bard’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Three Bard students have also been named alternates for Fulbright Awards. Bard Conservatory student Nita Vemuri ’24, who is majoring in piano performance and economics, is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Hungary. Film and electronic arts graduate Elizabeth Sullivan ’23 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany. Mathematics major Skye Rothstein ’24 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany.
Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Sara Varde de Nieves ’22, who was a joint major in film and electronic arts and in human rights at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Chile for the 2024–25 academic year. Their project, “Regresando al Hogar/Returning Home,” aims to preserve the legacy of Villa San Luis, a large-scale public housing complex built in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile from 1971 to 1972. Through a multi-format documentary comprising interviews with former residents and project planners, archival documents, and footage of the current buildings, Varde de Nieves seeks to capture the collective memory of Villa San Luis’s original residents and planners. In executing this project, Varde de Nieves aims to expand the label of “heritage conservation” to include buildings and infrastructure that are not considered culturally significant as classic historical monuments and to make connections among narrative, memory, ephemera, and the historical archive. “I’m very excited to conduct in-person research on Villa San Luis, an innovative project that strove for class integration and high-quality construction. During my time abroad, I hope to foster long-lasting relationships and get acquainted with Chile's fascinating topography,” says Varde de Nieves.
While at Bard, Varde de Nieves worked as an English language tutor in Red Hook as well as at La Voz, the Hudson Valley Spanish language magazine. Their Senior Project, “Re-igniting the Clit Club,” a documentary about a queer party in the Meatpacking district during the 1990s, won multiple awards at Bard.
Jonathan Asiedu ’24, a written arts major, has been selected for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Fulbright to Spain. His teaching placement will be in the Canary Islands. While in Spain, Asiedu plans to hold weekly poetry workshops in local cultural centers, communities, and schools. He hopes to invite the community to bring in their work or poems that speak to them, to share poets and writers and the ways they speak to us. “Studying poetry, learning pedagogical practices to inform my future as an educator, and mentorship opportunities throughout my college career have shaped both my perception of education and the work that needs to be done to improve students’ experiences within the educational system,” he says.
At Bard, Asiedu serves as a lead peer counselor through Residence Life, an Equity and Inclusion Mentor with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, admission tour guide, and works as a campus photographer. Moreover, this past year, he gained TESOL certification and has served as an English language tutor, as well as a writing tutor at the Eastern Correctional Facility through the Bard Prison Initiative. Asiedu, who is from the South Bronx, decided early on that he wanted to speak Spanish and has taken the Spanish Language Intensive at Bard, which includes four weeks of study in Oaxaca, Mexico. After the completion of his Fulbright ETA, he plans to pursue a master degree in education with a specialization in literature from Bard’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Three Bard students have also been named alternates for Fulbright Awards. Bard Conservatory student Nita Vemuri ’24, who is majoring in piano performance and economics, is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Hungary. Film and electronic arts graduate Elizabeth Sullivan ’23 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany. Mathematics major Skye Rothstein ’24 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany.
Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Photo: L-R: Fulbright winners Sara Varde de Nieves ’22 and Jonathan Asiedu ’24 (photo by Chris Kayden).
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Student | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Human Rights,Office of Equity and Inclusion Programs (OEI),Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Student | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Human Rights,Office of Equity and Inclusion Programs (OEI),Written Arts Program |
05-01-2024
In an essay for the New York Times, Ayana Mathis asks what can fiction tell us about the apocalypse? Mathis turns to three books, including Visiting Writer in Residence Jenny Offill’s novel Weather, that “suggest new ways of seeing: a shift to deeper present-time awareness, even wonder, as the times grow ever more dire.” In Offill’s book about a disaster-obsessed protagonist, Mathis finds meaningful insights on facing a near-future doomsday, or what theologian Cahtherine Keller calls “apocalyptic mindfulness.” “In Weather, Lizzie’s frazzled report from the event horizon of impending disaster, the time that remains means that moments are more precious, less bound by previous rules of engagement and more open to radically new ones,” writes Mathis. “‘There’s the idea in the different traditions. Of the veil,’ Lizzie says. ‘What if we were to tear through it?’ The image recalls Keller’s apokalypsis — a revelatory ‘dis-closure.’”
Photo: Visiting Writer in Residence Jenny Offill. Photo by Emily Tobey
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
April 2024
04-17-2024
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship to Adam Shatz, visiting professor of the humanities at Bard College. Chosen through a rigorous review process from 3,000 applicants, Shatz was among 188 scholars, photographers, novelists, historians, and data scientists to receive a 2024 Fellowship. Bard MFA faculty and alumna Lotus Kang MFA ’15, and alumnae Katherine Hubbard MFA ’10 and Ahndraya Parlato ’02 were also named Guggenheim Fellows for 2024.
“Humanity faces some profound existential challenges,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry. “The Guggenheim Fellowship is a life-changing recognition. It’s a celebrated investment into the lives and careers of distinguished artists, scholars, scientists, writers and other cultural visionaries who are meeting these challenges head-on and generating new possibilities and pathways across the broader culture as they do so.”
In all, 52 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 84 academic institutions, 38 US states and the District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces are represented in the 2024 class, who range in age from 28 to 89. More than 40 Fellows (roughly 1 out of 4) do not hold a full-time affiliation with a college or university. Many Fellows’ projects directly respond to timely issues such as democracy and politics, identity, disability activism, machine learning, incarceration, climate change and community.
Created and initially funded in 1925, by US Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has sought to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.” Since its establishment, the Foundation has granted over $400 million in Fellowships to more than 19,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors. The broad range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program. For more information on the 2024 Fellows, please visit the Foundation’s website at gf.org.
Adam Shatz, who will be working on a book about jazz throughout his Fellowship, is the US editor of the London Review of Books and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and The Nation, among other publications. He is the author of The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024) and Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination (Verso, 2023). He is also host of the podcast Myself with Others, produced by the pianist Richard Sears. His political reporting and commentary have covered subjects such as Trump and the white supremacists in Charlottesville, mass incarceration, Israel’s Putinization, the deep state, and Egypt after Mubarak. Published profiles and portraits include Franz Fanon and Michel Houellebecq (London Review of Books), Nina Simone (New York Review of Books), saxophonist Kamasi Washington (New York Times Magazine); French cartoonist Riad Sattouf (New Yorker); and jazz great Charles Mingus (The Nation). Shatz previously taught at New York University and was a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars.
Lotus Laurie Kang MFA ’15 works with sculpture, photography and site-responsive installation, exploring the body as an ongoing process. Combining theory, poetics and biography, her work takes a regurgitative approach rather than a prescriptive or reiterative one. Kang considers the multiplicitous, constructed nature of identity and the body and its knots to larger social structures through sculpture, architectural interventions and material innovations, and an expansive approach to photography where materials are often left in unfixed and continually sensitive states. Notable group exhibitions include Hessel Museum of Art, The New Museum, SculptureCenter, Cue Art Foundation, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver; The Power Plant, Art Gallery of Ontario, Franz Kaka, Cooper Cole, Toronto; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; Misk Art Institute, Riyadh; Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana; and Camera Austria, Graz. Recent solo exhibitions of her work include Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Mercer Union, Gallery TPW, Franz Kaka, Toronto; Oakville Galleries, Oakville, and Helena Anrather, Interstate Projects, New York. Artists residencies include Rupert, Vilnius; Tag Team, Bergen; The Banff Centre, Alberta; Triangle Arts Association and Interstate Projects, Brooklyn; and Horizon Art Foundation, Los Angeles.
Katherine Hubbard MFA ’10 uses photography, writing and performance to plumb photography’s continuing significance. Considering analog photography as a mimesis of the body, Hubbard asks how its procedures might be called upon to investigate social politics, history, and narrative. In her photographs, the physical positioning of one’s body has an essential relationship to how one processes images, exploring this encounter as a time based experience. Hubbard’s writing practice forms the core of her performances, culling the malleability of vision to frame a politics of looking, bridging the imaginary with the familiar. She is currently Associate Professor and MFA Director at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art.
Ahndraya Parlato ’02 is an artist based in Rochester, New York. She has published three books, including Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead, (Mack Books, 2021), A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, (Kehrer Verlag, 2016), East of the Sun, West of the Moon, (a collaboration with Gregory Halpern, Études Books, 2014). Additionally, she has contributed texts to Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Shoot (Aperture, 2021), and The Photographer's Playbook (Aperture, 2014). Parlato has exhibited work at Spazio Labo, Bologna, Italy; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; The Aperture Foundation, New York, New York; and The Swiss Institute, Milan, Italy. She has been awarded residencies at Light Work and The Visual Studies Workshop and was a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts Joy of Photography Grant recipient.
“Humanity faces some profound existential challenges,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry. “The Guggenheim Fellowship is a life-changing recognition. It’s a celebrated investment into the lives and careers of distinguished artists, scholars, scientists, writers and other cultural visionaries who are meeting these challenges head-on and generating new possibilities and pathways across the broader culture as they do so.”
In all, 52 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 84 academic institutions, 38 US states and the District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces are represented in the 2024 class, who range in age from 28 to 89. More than 40 Fellows (roughly 1 out of 4) do not hold a full-time affiliation with a college or university. Many Fellows’ projects directly respond to timely issues such as democracy and politics, identity, disability activism, machine learning, incarceration, climate change and community.
Created and initially funded in 1925, by US Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has sought to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.” Since its establishment, the Foundation has granted over $400 million in Fellowships to more than 19,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honors. The broad range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program. For more information on the 2024 Fellows, please visit the Foundation’s website at gf.org.
Adam Shatz, who will be working on a book about jazz throughout his Fellowship, is the US editor of the London Review of Books and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, and The Nation, among other publications. He is the author of The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024) and Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination (Verso, 2023). He is also host of the podcast Myself with Others, produced by the pianist Richard Sears. His political reporting and commentary have covered subjects such as Trump and the white supremacists in Charlottesville, mass incarceration, Israel’s Putinization, the deep state, and Egypt after Mubarak. Published profiles and portraits include Franz Fanon and Michel Houellebecq (London Review of Books), Nina Simone (New York Review of Books), saxophonist Kamasi Washington (New York Times Magazine); French cartoonist Riad Sattouf (New Yorker); and jazz great Charles Mingus (The Nation). Shatz previously taught at New York University and was a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars.
Lotus Laurie Kang MFA ’15 works with sculpture, photography and site-responsive installation, exploring the body as an ongoing process. Combining theory, poetics and biography, her work takes a regurgitative approach rather than a prescriptive or reiterative one. Kang considers the multiplicitous, constructed nature of identity and the body and its knots to larger social structures through sculpture, architectural interventions and material innovations, and an expansive approach to photography where materials are often left in unfixed and continually sensitive states. Notable group exhibitions include Hessel Museum of Art, The New Museum, SculptureCenter, Cue Art Foundation, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Catriona Jeffries, Vancouver; The Power Plant, Art Gallery of Ontario, Franz Kaka, Cooper Cole, Toronto; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; Misk Art Institute, Riyadh; Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana; and Camera Austria, Graz. Recent solo exhibitions of her work include Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Mercer Union, Gallery TPW, Franz Kaka, Toronto; Oakville Galleries, Oakville, and Helena Anrather, Interstate Projects, New York. Artists residencies include Rupert, Vilnius; Tag Team, Bergen; The Banff Centre, Alberta; Triangle Arts Association and Interstate Projects, Brooklyn; and Horizon Art Foundation, Los Angeles.
Katherine Hubbard MFA ’10 uses photography, writing and performance to plumb photography’s continuing significance. Considering analog photography as a mimesis of the body, Hubbard asks how its procedures might be called upon to investigate social politics, history, and narrative. In her photographs, the physical positioning of one’s body has an essential relationship to how one processes images, exploring this encounter as a time based experience. Hubbard’s writing practice forms the core of her performances, culling the malleability of vision to frame a politics of looking, bridging the imaginary with the familiar. She is currently Associate Professor and MFA Director at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art.
Ahndraya Parlato ’02 is an artist based in Rochester, New York. She has published three books, including Who Is Changed and Who Is Dead, (Mack Books, 2021), A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, (Kehrer Verlag, 2016), East of the Sun, West of the Moon, (a collaboration with Gregory Halpern, Études Books, 2014). Additionally, she has contributed texts to Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Shoot (Aperture, 2021), and The Photographer's Playbook (Aperture, 2014). Parlato has exhibited work at Spazio Labo, Bologna, Italy; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; The Aperture Foundation, New York, New York; and The Swiss Institute, Milan, Italy. She has been awarded residencies at Light Work and The Visual Studies Workshop and was a 2020 New York Foundation for the Arts Joy of Photography Grant recipient.
Photo: Adam Shatz, visiting professor of the humanities at Bard College.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty,Fellows,Staff | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Faculty,Giving | Institutes(s): MFA |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty,Fellows,Staff | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Faculty,Giving | Institutes(s): MFA |
04-16-2024
This spring, Susan Fox Rogers, visiting associate professor of writing, is leading Monday morning birding walks from 7 to 9 am down Cruger Island Road on Bard College’s campus. The walks, which will continue through May 27, draw an intergenerational audience and are part of a greater environmental education initiative at the Red Hook Public Library, where Rogers is the inaugural Ascienzo Naturalist in Residence. Typically, participants will spot at least four of the Hudson Valley’s most common birds: robins, chickadees, tufted titmouses, and white-breasted nuthatches. On occasion, birders will spy more unusual specimens. “On these morning walks, we have seen eagles and listened to winter wrens, spied a rare rusty blackbird with its blazing white eyes, and delighted in the wood ducks crying as they take flight,” Rogers says. Biology major William Mennerick ’25, who took up birding during the pandemic, enjoys the walks. “I love birds,” he said. “I savor the weekly evolution of the landscape over spring. It’s amazing when vegetation starts to come in and then we wait for the spring chorus of songbirds, all at once.”
Photo: Visiting Associate Professor of Writing Susan Fox Rogers (third from left) is leading Monday morning birding walks. Photo by Emily Sachar
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): American and Indigenous Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability,First-Year Seminar,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): American and Indigenous Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability,First-Year Seminar,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
04-02-2024
Novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Hand will read from new work at Bard College on Monday, April 22, at 4 pm in Weis Cinema, located in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. Hand is the author of more than 20 genre-spanning, award-winning novels and collections of short fiction. Her most recent novel, A Haunting on the Hill, is an homage to Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House and was commissioned by Jackson’s family. “Hand has a gift for the sensuous, evocative detail, and her descriptions are often simultaneously seductive and spooky,” writes The New Yorker. The reading, which is being presented as part of Bradford Morrow’s course on innovative contemporary fiction, is free and open to the public.
A longtime critic and reviewer, Hand’s writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Review, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among other outlets. Her noir novels featuring post-punk photographer and provocateur Cass Neary have been translated into myriad languages and are being developed for a TV series. Hand has been an instructor at writing workshops across the US and abroad, including Oxford and Pakistan, and is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. She divides her time between the Maine coast and North London, and is at work on Unspeakable Things, which is loosely inspired by Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.
A longtime critic and reviewer, Hand’s writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Review, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among other outlets. Her noir novels featuring post-punk photographer and provocateur Cass Neary have been translated into myriad languages and are being developed for a TV series. Hand has been an instructor at writing workshops across the US and abroad, including Oxford and Pakistan, and is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. She divides her time between the Maine coast and North London, and is at work on Unspeakable Things, which is loosely inspired by Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.
Photo: Elizabeth Hand. Photo by Judith Clute
Meta: Type(s): Event,General | Subject(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Conjunctions,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Event,General | Subject(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Conjunctions,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
March 2024
03-19-2024
Bard College senior Nine Reed-Mera ’24 has been awarded a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which provides for a year of travel and exploration outside the United States. Continuing its tradition of expanding the vision and developing the potential of remarkable young leaders, the Watson Foundation selected Nine Reed-Mera as one of 35 students in the 56th Class of Watson Fellows to receive this award for 2024-25. The Watson Fellowship offers college graduates of unusual promise a year of independent, purposeful exploration and travel—in international settings new to them—to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community. Each Watson Fellow receives a grant of $40,000 for 12 months of travel and independent study. Over the past several years, 26 Bard seniors have received Watson Fellowships.
Nine Reed-Mera ’24 will explore extremophiles, which are organisms that survive the nearly un-survivable—volcanic magma, the depths of polar ice, and the vastness of outer space. She will engage with indigenous communities, scientists, and researchers to explore how extremophiles can illuminate our understanding of life’s tenacity and serve as a blueprint for resilience in our changing world. A biology and written arts double major, Reed-Mera writes: “Nearly four billion years ago, in the heat of the newly formed planet of boiling seawater and a toxic atmosphere devoid of oxygen, our first forms grew wildly. These extremophiles were able to exist without light near the molten core of the earth, breathe iron, and turn lethal gasses into molecules that would shape geological formations. Microbiology is, in a way, a form of scientific time-travel. Through it, we can see the beginnings of human evolution. Biologically, we are connected to every other living thing on planet Earth. Extremophiles, our first ancestors, creators of the oxygen in our atmosphere, give us perspective on our parameters and potential. This Watson project will empower me to illuminate the hidden connections between the micro and macroscopic world. My journey is a celebration of resilience, storytelling, and a call to safeguard the delicate balance between nature and culture.” Nine will spend her Watson year in the United Kingdom, Chile, New Zealand, and Australia.
A Watson Year provides fellows with an opportunity to test their aspirations and abilities through a personal project cultivated on an international scale. Watson Fellows have gone on to become leaders in their fields including CEOs of major corporations, college presidents, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar Award winners, Pulitzer Prize awardees, artists, diplomats, doctors, entrepreneurs, faculty, journalists, lawyers, politicians, researchers and inspiring influencers around the world. Following the year, they join a community of peers who provide a lifetime of support and inspiration. More than 3000 Watson Fellows have been named since the inaugural class in 1969. For more information about the Watson Fellowship, visit: https://watson.foundation.
Nine Reed-Mera ’24 will explore extremophiles, which are organisms that survive the nearly un-survivable—volcanic magma, the depths of polar ice, and the vastness of outer space. She will engage with indigenous communities, scientists, and researchers to explore how extremophiles can illuminate our understanding of life’s tenacity and serve as a blueprint for resilience in our changing world. A biology and written arts double major, Reed-Mera writes: “Nearly four billion years ago, in the heat of the newly formed planet of boiling seawater and a toxic atmosphere devoid of oxygen, our first forms grew wildly. These extremophiles were able to exist without light near the molten core of the earth, breathe iron, and turn lethal gasses into molecules that would shape geological formations. Microbiology is, in a way, a form of scientific time-travel. Through it, we can see the beginnings of human evolution. Biologically, we are connected to every other living thing on planet Earth. Extremophiles, our first ancestors, creators of the oxygen in our atmosphere, give us perspective on our parameters and potential. This Watson project will empower me to illuminate the hidden connections between the micro and macroscopic world. My journey is a celebration of resilience, storytelling, and a call to safeguard the delicate balance between nature and culture.” Nine will spend her Watson year in the United Kingdom, Chile, New Zealand, and Australia.
A Watson Year provides fellows with an opportunity to test their aspirations and abilities through a personal project cultivated on an international scale. Watson Fellows have gone on to become leaders in their fields including CEOs of major corporations, college presidents, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar Award winners, Pulitzer Prize awardees, artists, diplomats, doctors, entrepreneurs, faculty, journalists, lawyers, politicians, researchers and inspiring influencers around the world. Following the year, they join a community of peers who provide a lifetime of support and inspiration. More than 3000 Watson Fellows have been named since the inaugural class in 1969. For more information about the Watson Fellowship, visit: https://watson.foundation.
Photo: Nine Reed-Mera ’24. Photo by Garrick Neuner
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Written Arts Program |
03-19-2024
This April, Zambian writer and Professor of English at Harvard Namwali Serpell will deliver the Quinney-Morrison Lecture at Bard College. Sponsored by Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck, a Mellon Foundation Humanities for All Times project, the Quinney-Morrison Lecture Series celebrates the work of both Electa “Wuhwehweeheemeew” Quinney, a citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican nation and the first woman to teach in a public school in the territory which would become Wisconsin; and the American novelist, essayist, and editor, Toni Morrison, who was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Bard College from 1979-1981. Serpell will present the lecture “Unnoticed and as Beautiful: The Native American Figure in Toni Morrison’s Literature” on Thursday, April 11 at 3:00 pm ET in Olin Auditorium at Bard College. The lecture will be followed by a reception catered by Samosa Shack Kingston beginning at 4:30 pm ET. A recording of the lecture will be available upon request.
On the lecture, Serpell writes: “Scholars have been concerned either to criticize or to praise Morrison’s sparing inclusion of Native Americans in her novels. Are they beneath her notice? Or have they gone unnoticed by us? Following Morrison’s own methods in arguing that the ‘real or fabricated’ ‘Africanist presence’ in white American literature is crucial to writers’ ‘sense of Americanness,’ we might pursue how the ‘Native American presence’ works in her literature not only in historical and political terms, but also in aesthetic and cultural terms. This talk considers how, across her oeuvre and career, the Native American figure—meaning literary character; racial type; literary trope; and silhouette or profile—shapes her ‘sense of blackness.’” Serpell is the author of Seven Modes of Uncertainty (Harvard, 2014), The Old Drift: A Novel (Hogarth, 2019), Stranger Faces (Transit, 2020), and The Furrows: An Elegy (Hogarth, 2022).
The Quinney-Morrison Lecture Series invites luminaries from the fields of Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Studies, and Black Studies to give one lecture each fall and spring semester, hosted by Bard within the American and Indigenous Studies Program, as part of Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck’s public programming initiatives. The goal of the Quinney-Morrison Lecture Series is to provide opportunities for academics and other regional partners to learn what work needs to be done in the creation of land acknowledgement projects. They also create space for reflection in individuals’ relationships with spaces, lands, and borders to dissuade action without reflection. In 2023, Professor Glenda Carpio presented “Migrant Aesthetics” as the inaugural Morrison lecture for Rethinking Place. Learn more here.
About Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck
Bard’s “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” project affirms Bard’s tangible commitments to the principles and ideals of the College’s 2020 land acknowledgment and is supported by the Mellon Foundation’s 2022 Humanities for All Times. The Mellon grant offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard. Rethinking Place emphasizes broad community-based knowledge, collaboration, and collectives of inquiry and also attends to the importance of considering the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, upon whose homelands Bard sits. For more information, please visit rethinkingplace.bard.edu.
Bard College’s Land Acknowledgement, developed in dialogue with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.
In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgement requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.
To learn more about the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, please visit www.mohican.com.
Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck encourages all members of the Bard community and visitors to Bard’s Campus to please consider financially supporting the ongoing and essential work of the Mohican Cultural Affairs Department. Donations may be made here.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 163-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
On the lecture, Serpell writes: “Scholars have been concerned either to criticize or to praise Morrison’s sparing inclusion of Native Americans in her novels. Are they beneath her notice? Or have they gone unnoticed by us? Following Morrison’s own methods in arguing that the ‘real or fabricated’ ‘Africanist presence’ in white American literature is crucial to writers’ ‘sense of Americanness,’ we might pursue how the ‘Native American presence’ works in her literature not only in historical and political terms, but also in aesthetic and cultural terms. This talk considers how, across her oeuvre and career, the Native American figure—meaning literary character; racial type; literary trope; and silhouette or profile—shapes her ‘sense of blackness.’” Serpell is the author of Seven Modes of Uncertainty (Harvard, 2014), The Old Drift: A Novel (Hogarth, 2019), Stranger Faces (Transit, 2020), and The Furrows: An Elegy (Hogarth, 2022).
The Quinney-Morrison Lecture Series invites luminaries from the fields of Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Studies, and Black Studies to give one lecture each fall and spring semester, hosted by Bard within the American and Indigenous Studies Program, as part of Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck’s public programming initiatives. The goal of the Quinney-Morrison Lecture Series is to provide opportunities for academics and other regional partners to learn what work needs to be done in the creation of land acknowledgement projects. They also create space for reflection in individuals’ relationships with spaces, lands, and borders to dissuade action without reflection. In 2023, Professor Glenda Carpio presented “Migrant Aesthetics” as the inaugural Morrison lecture for Rethinking Place. Learn more here.
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About Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck
Bard’s “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” project affirms Bard’s tangible commitments to the principles and ideals of the College’s 2020 land acknowledgment and is supported by the Mellon Foundation’s 2022 Humanities for All Times. The Mellon grant offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard. Rethinking Place emphasizes broad community-based knowledge, collaboration, and collectives of inquiry and also attends to the importance of considering the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, upon whose homelands Bard sits. For more information, please visit rethinkingplace.bard.edu.
Bard College’s Land Acknowledgement, developed in dialogue with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians.
In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgement requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.
To learn more about the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, please visit www.mohican.com.
Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck encourages all members of the Bard community and visitors to Bard’s Campus to please consider financially supporting the ongoing and essential work of the Mohican Cultural Affairs Department. Donations may be made here.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 163-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
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Photo: Namwali Serpell. Photo by Jordan Kines
Meta: Type(s): Event,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): American and Indigenous Studies Program,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Event,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): American and Indigenous Studies Program,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
February 2024
02-29-2024
Under the guidance of Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese Huiwen Li, five Bard College students, Timothy Weigand ’25, Lydia Lu ’26, Margo Ganton ’25, Jiyu Kwon ’26, and Yimeng Zhao ’26, were selected as finalists to exhibit their works of Chinese calligraphy in the National Chinese Expo of Student Works. This annual event, organized by the American Academy of International Culture and Education (AAICE), aims to promote cultural understanding between the peoples of China and the United States and to help students become cultural ambassadors. The theme of this year’s expo was “The Joy of Chinese Language and Culture Learning.” The Bard College team was honored with a trophy, and professor Huiwen Li received a certificate of appreciation for their participation in the final exhibition.
Photo: Chinese calligraphy by Margo Ganton ’25.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program |
02-20-2024
Bard College’s Institute for Writing and Thinking (IWT) will host its annual April Conference and welcomes educators of all disciplines on Friday, April 26 from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. This year’s IWT conference will focus on “Climate Change in the Classroom: Embracing New Paradigms.” The conference will be hybrid, and participants can join online or in person at Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, campus. Participants can learn more about the conference and register here.
The rate and severity of extreme climate events can bring on a feeling of numbness and resignation rather than catalyzing responsive resilience in the classroom. How can we refocus the conversation from crisis to education and adaptation? The 2024 IWT April Conference will conduct a deep dive into layered and often contradictory pedagogies about the natural world. This day of shared writing and reflection invites participants to join together in small, interactive workshop groups in order to explore a range of written, audio, visual, and hybrid texts—on topics from manifest destiny to global climate strikes—that are creating a new ecology of education.
The day will feature a plenary conversation by two Bard colleagues on the topic of climate change in the classroom from the perspectives of the humanities and STEM, respectively. Visiting Writer in Residence Jenny Offill is the author of three novels, Last Things, Dept. of Speculation, and most recently, Weather, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Eli Dueker is associate professor of biology and environmental and urban studies at Bard, codirector of the Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities, and head of the Community Sciences Lab.
Tuition fees are from $450 to $575, with Early Bird (before March 26) and Group discounts. Scholarships are available by application here. The IWT conference is Continuing Teacher and Leader Education 5.5 credit hours. Register here.
The rate and severity of extreme climate events can bring on a feeling of numbness and resignation rather than catalyzing responsive resilience in the classroom. How can we refocus the conversation from crisis to education and adaptation? The 2024 IWT April Conference will conduct a deep dive into layered and often contradictory pedagogies about the natural world. This day of shared writing and reflection invites participants to join together in small, interactive workshop groups in order to explore a range of written, audio, visual, and hybrid texts—on topics from manifest destiny to global climate strikes—that are creating a new ecology of education.
The day will feature a plenary conversation by two Bard colleagues on the topic of climate change in the classroom from the perspectives of the humanities and STEM, respectively. Visiting Writer in Residence Jenny Offill is the author of three novels, Last Things, Dept. of Speculation, and most recently, Weather, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Eli Dueker is associate professor of biology and environmental and urban studies at Bard, codirector of the Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities, and head of the Community Sciences Lab.
Tuition fees are from $450 to $575, with Early Bird (before March 26) and Group discounts. Scholarships are available by application here. The IWT conference is Continuing Teacher and Leader Education 5.5 credit hours. Register here.
Photo: L-R: Bard faculty members Jenny Offill, visiting writer in residence, and Eli Dueker, associate professor of biology and environmental and urban studies, will hold a plenary discussion at the IWT April Conference “Climate Change in the Classroom: Embracing New Paradigms.”
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Biology Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability,Master of Arts in Teaching (Bard MAT),Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Institute for Writing and Thinking |
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Biology Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability,Master of Arts in Teaching (Bard MAT),Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Institute for Writing and Thinking |
02-20-2024
“The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672,” writes Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism, in an opinion piece for the New York Times. Buruma writes that, during Spinoza’s lifetime, his arguments for reason and intellectual liberty “were considered so inflammatory that his authorship had to be disguised.” Now, in the United States in 2024, “in a time of book-banning, intellectual intolerance, religious bigotry, and populist demagoguery, his radical advocacy of freedom still seems fresh and urgent,” Buruma argues.
Photo: Portrait of Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677).
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Human Rights,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Human Rights,Written Arts Program |
02-13-2024
Bard College is proud to be included on the list of U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2023–24 Fulbright students and scholars. Each year, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the lists annually.
Seven graduates from Bard received Fulbright awards for academic year 2023–24. Getzamany “Many” Correa ’21, a Global and International Studies major, and Elias Ephron ’23, a joint major in Political Studies and Spanish Studies, will live in Spain as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Biology major Macy Jenks ’23 will be an ETA in Taiwan. Eleanor Tappen ’23, a Spanish Studies major, will be an ETA in Mexico. Juliana Maitenaz ’22, who graduated with a BA in Global and International Studies and a BM in Classical Percussion Performance, was selected for an independent study–research Fulbright scholarship to Brazil. Bard Conservatory alumna Avery Morris ’18, who graduated with a BA in Mathematics and a BM in Violin Performance, won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Poland. Evan Tims ’19, who was a joint major in Written Arts and Human Rights with a focus on anthropology at Bard, received a Fulbright-Nehru independent study–research scholarship to India. Additionally, Adela Foo ’18 won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Turkey through Yale University, where she is a PhD candidate in art history.
“As an institution, Bard College is proud and honored to be included in the list of Top Producing Fulbright Institutions for 2023-2024,” said Molly J. Freitas, Ph.D., associate dean of studies and Fulbright advisor at Bard. “We believe that Fulbright's mission to promote and facilitate cross-cultural exchange and understanding through teaching and research is in perfect alignment with Bard's own institutional identity and goals. We wish to extend our congratulations to our newest Fulbright awardees and reiterate our gratitude to the faculty, staff, and community members who have supported these students during the Fulbright application process and throughout their time as Bard students.”
“Fulbright’s Top Producing Institutions represent the diversity of America’s higher education community. Dedicated administrators support students and scholars at these institutions to fulfill their potential and rise to address tomorrow’s global challenges. We congratulate them, and all the Fulbrighters who are making an impact the world over,” said Lee Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Seven graduates from Bard received Fulbright awards for academic year 2023–24. Getzamany “Many” Correa ’21, a Global and International Studies major, and Elias Ephron ’23, a joint major in Political Studies and Spanish Studies, will live in Spain as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Biology major Macy Jenks ’23 will be an ETA in Taiwan. Eleanor Tappen ’23, a Spanish Studies major, will be an ETA in Mexico. Juliana Maitenaz ’22, who graduated with a BA in Global and International Studies and a BM in Classical Percussion Performance, was selected for an independent study–research Fulbright scholarship to Brazil. Bard Conservatory alumna Avery Morris ’18, who graduated with a BA in Mathematics and a BM in Violin Performance, won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Poland. Evan Tims ’19, who was a joint major in Written Arts and Human Rights with a focus on anthropology at Bard, received a Fulbright-Nehru independent study–research scholarship to India. Additionally, Adela Foo ’18 won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Turkey through Yale University, where she is a PhD candidate in art history.
“As an institution, Bard College is proud and honored to be included in the list of Top Producing Fulbright Institutions for 2023-2024,” said Molly J. Freitas, Ph.D., associate dean of studies and Fulbright advisor at Bard. “We believe that Fulbright's mission to promote and facilitate cross-cultural exchange and understanding through teaching and research is in perfect alignment with Bard's own institutional identity and goals. We wish to extend our congratulations to our newest Fulbright awardees and reiterate our gratitude to the faculty, staff, and community members who have supported these students during the Fulbright application process and throughout their time as Bard students.”
“Fulbright’s Top Producing Institutions represent the diversity of America’s higher education community. Dedicated administrators support students and scholars at these institutions to fulfill their potential and rise to address tomorrow’s global challenges. We congratulate them, and all the Fulbrighters who are making an impact the world over,” said Lee Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Photo: Clockwise, from top left: Juliana Maitenaz ’22, Avery Morris ’18, Evan Tims ’19, Getzamany Correa ’21, Macy Jenks ’23, Eleanor Tappen ’23, Elias Ephron ’23.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Anthropology Program,Bard Conservatory,Biology Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Global and International Studies,Human Rights,Mathematics Program,Political Studies Program,Spanish Studies,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Anthropology Program,Bard Conservatory,Biology Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Global and International Studies,Human Rights,Mathematics Program,Political Studies Program,Spanish Studies,Written Arts Program |
02-13-2024
Novelist and short story writer Brian Evenson will read from new work at Bard College on Monday, March 25 at 5 pm in Weis Cinema, located in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. Brian Evenson is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell (2021) and the Weird West microcollection Black Bark (2023). The reading, which is being presented as part of Professor of Literature and Bard Center Fellow Bradford Morrow’s course on innovative contemporary fiction, is free and open to the public.
Evenson’s collection Song for the Unraveling of the World (2019) won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction. Previous books have won the American Library Association’s RUSA Prize Award and the International Horror Guild Award, and have been finalists for the Edgar Award. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and a Guggenheim Award. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. A new book Good Night, Sleep Tight, will be published by Coffee House Press in September of 2024. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at CalArts.
Evenson’s collection Song for the Unraveling of the World (2019) won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction. Previous books have won the American Library Association’s RUSA Prize Award and the International Horror Guild Award, and have been finalists for the Edgar Award. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and a Guggenheim Award. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. A new book Good Night, Sleep Tight, will be published by Coffee House Press in September of 2024. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at CalArts.
Photo: Novelist and short story writer Brian Evenson.
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
02-02-2024
Five Bard Chinese language students have been accepted to the National Collegiate Chinese Honor Society in 2024. Aliya Lindroth ’26, Clemente Esponilla ’26, Noa Doucette ’24, Sushila Sahay ’25, and Timothy Weigand ’25 were recommended for entry by Huiwen Li, visiting assistant professor of Chinese at Bard College and a member of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA (CLTA-USA). The National Collegiate Chinese Honor Society was founded to recognize the outstanding academic achievement of college students in learning Chinese as a second language, and aims to encourage continuous learning in the language, literature, and culture. It is sponsored by CLTA-USA, an organization founded in 1962 and dedicated to the study of Chinese language, culture, and pedagogy, which supports the establishment and maintenance of quality Chinese programs, K-16 articulation, teacher education and professional development, and is committed to providing leadership, scholarship, and service to its members and beyond.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program |
January 2024
01-23-2024
“Author Valeria Luiselli’s next manuscript will remain a secret—sealed, unpublished, and unread—until the year 2114,” writes Ella Creamer for the Guardian. As part of the Future Library, a project created by artist Katie Peterson, Valeria Luiselli, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature, will contribute a manuscript that will not be published until 100 years have passed since the inception of the Library. Luiselli told the Guardian that the invitation to contribute to Future Library was moving to her, and how the challenged her “to rearticulate [her] relationship to writing.” “This is a piece that no one I know will read – maybe my baby daughter, because she’s two, and she would be 93 – so it could be,” Luiselli said. “But other than her, I don’t know anyone that would read it. So there’s a freedom in that.”
Photo: Valeria Luiselli. Photo by Alfredo Pelcastre
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
December 2023
12-15-2023
Six Bard College students have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the US Department of State. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. This cohort of Gilman scholars will study or intern in more than 90 countries and represents more than 500 US colleges and universities.
Biology major Yadriel Lagunes ’25, from Clifton, New Jersey, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador via tuition exchange for spring 2024. At Bard, he serves as a Residential Life Peer Counselor and a supervisor on the Bard EMT Squad. “This scholarship has made studying abroad a possibility for me,” says Lagunes. “I want to center global public health in my future career as a healthcare worker and researcher. Through travel, I hope foster cultural sensitivity and communication skills that are desperately needed in my field. I am so grateful for Gilman scholarship for this opportunity.”
French and Anthropology double major Lyra Cauley ’25, from Blue Hill, Maine, has been awarded a $4,000 Gilman scholarship to study at the Center for University Programs Abroad (CUPA) in Paris, France via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “I would like to thank the Gilman scholarship for giving me financial security and freedom abroad. This scholarship allows me to fully embrace the experience of learning and living abroad with financial worry or strain,” says Cauley.
Biology major Angel Ramirez ’25, from Bronx, New York, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at University College Roosevelt in Middelburg, The Netherlands via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “I’m very grateful to be a recipient of the Gilman scholarship,” says Ramirez. “It’s a huge opportunity to be able to pursue my goals within biology for my future in STEM. I’m excited to learn a new language abroad in the Netherlands and experience new cultures without a financial barrier. I proudly come from a family of Mexican immigrants; therefore, I feel empowered that people like me are able to partake in a change as great as this one.”
Spanish and Written Arts joint major Lisbet Jackson ’25, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been awarded a $4,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “I am incredibly grateful to the Gilman Scholarship for supporting my semester in Ecuador and ensuring I can commit to developing my Spanish, studying literature, and immersing myself in Ecuadorian culture. Thanks to the Gilman Scholarship I will also be more prepared to pursue a career in multilingual and global education,” says Jackson.
Sociology major Jennifer Woo ’25, from Brooklyn, New York, has been awarded a $3,500 Gilman scholarship to study at Bard College Berlin in Germany for spring 2024. “To be awarded this scholarship means to fully explore and pursue my dream of studying abroad with the freedom of having the financial support I hoped for,” says Woo. “My dad is an artist who has always pushed me to travel and search for culture, the arts, and new experiences, so being able to fulfill this dream while having the resources of education means the world to me.”
German Studies major David Taylor-Demeter ’25, from Budapest, Hungary, has been awarded a $5,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “To combine my studies of German language and literature with a day-to-day experience of Berlin is an invaluable opportunity,” says Taylor-Demeter.
Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 41,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded more than 3,600 Gilman scholarships during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org.
Biology major Yadriel Lagunes ’25, from Clifton, New Jersey, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador via tuition exchange for spring 2024. At Bard, he serves as a Residential Life Peer Counselor and a supervisor on the Bard EMT Squad. “This scholarship has made studying abroad a possibility for me,” says Lagunes. “I want to center global public health in my future career as a healthcare worker and researcher. Through travel, I hope foster cultural sensitivity and communication skills that are desperately needed in my field. I am so grateful for Gilman scholarship for this opportunity.”
French and Anthropology double major Lyra Cauley ’25, from Blue Hill, Maine, has been awarded a $4,000 Gilman scholarship to study at the Center for University Programs Abroad (CUPA) in Paris, France via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “I would like to thank the Gilman scholarship for giving me financial security and freedom abroad. This scholarship allows me to fully embrace the experience of learning and living abroad with financial worry or strain,” says Cauley.
Biology major Angel Ramirez ’25, from Bronx, New York, has been awarded a $3,000 Gilman scholarship to study at University College Roosevelt in Middelburg, The Netherlands via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “I’m very grateful to be a recipient of the Gilman scholarship,” says Ramirez. “It’s a huge opportunity to be able to pursue my goals within biology for my future in STEM. I’m excited to learn a new language abroad in the Netherlands and experience new cultures without a financial barrier. I proudly come from a family of Mexican immigrants; therefore, I feel empowered that people like me are able to partake in a change as great as this one.”
Spanish and Written Arts joint major Lisbet Jackson ’25, from Colorado Springs, Colorado, has been awarded a $4,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “I am incredibly grateful to the Gilman Scholarship for supporting my semester in Ecuador and ensuring I can commit to developing my Spanish, studying literature, and immersing myself in Ecuadorian culture. Thanks to the Gilman Scholarship I will also be more prepared to pursue a career in multilingual and global education,” says Jackson.
Sociology major Jennifer Woo ’25, from Brooklyn, New York, has been awarded a $3,500 Gilman scholarship to study at Bard College Berlin in Germany for spring 2024. “To be awarded this scholarship means to fully explore and pursue my dream of studying abroad with the freedom of having the financial support I hoped for,” says Woo. “My dad is an artist who has always pushed me to travel and search for culture, the arts, and new experiences, so being able to fulfill this dream while having the resources of education means the world to me.”
German Studies major David Taylor-Demeter ’25, from Budapest, Hungary, has been awarded a $5,000 Gilman scholarship to study at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany via tuition exchange for spring 2024. “To combine my studies of German language and literature with a day-to-day experience of Berlin is an invaluable opportunity,” says Taylor-Demeter.
Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 41,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded more than 3,600 Gilman scholarships during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org.
Photo: Clockwise from top left: Bard College Gilman Scholarship recipients David Taylor-Demeter, Angel Ramirez, Jennifer Woo, Lisbet Jackson, Yadriel Lagunes, and Lyra Cauley, all from the Class of 2025.
Meta: Subject(s): Anthropology Program,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,French Studies,German Studies,Sociology Program,Spanish Studies,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Subject(s): Anthropology Program,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,French Studies,German Studies,Sociology Program,Spanish Studies,Written Arts Program |
12-14-2023
Program Provides Support for International Artists Under Threat Due to Their Work
Bard College and PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) are delighted to announce the inaugural cohort of fellows for the Center for Ethics and Writing Program, comprising five international artists who have been persecuted for their work. The fellows encompass a range of backgrounds and artistic disciplines.The Fellows for the Center for Ethics and Writing Program are poet and artist Amaury Pacheco del Monte; writer, human rights activist, and physicist Asli Erdogan; Tamil poet, filmmaker, and actor Leena Manimekalai; Ugandan human rights advocate, poet, and medical anthropologist Stella Nyanzi; and Iranian poet, lyricist, and women’s rights activist Mahtab Yaghma.
This fellowship is a non-residency program providing direct support for one year to writers and artists whose free expression is threatened due to their socially engaged art. The Center hopes to further empower the fellows by inviting them to speak on their creative practice in virtual courses, networking extensively on their behalf, and promoting their work on the Center’s website and online journal.
“The Center for Ethics and Writing’s partnership with Pen America’s ARC is the next step in the Center’s efforts to highlight the critical and urgent role artists and writers play in shaping our political and cultural discourse. Our first cohort of fellows embody the Center’s commitment to supporting creative practices that despite the risks, engage boldly with some of the most pressing and divisive social issues facing us,” said John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities Dinaw Mengestu, director of Bard College’s Written Arts program and the Center for Ethics and Writing.
“ARC is honored to collaborate with Bard College to identify a talented pool of writers and artists who demonstrate an unwavering commitment to their freedom of expression. We are thrilled to amplify these writers and artists who will lend their expertise and experience to the Center for Ethics and Writing,” said ARC Director Julie Trébault. “By centering creatives who have fled their own country for the sake of their free expression, Bard recognizes the vital role creatives play in advancing the international exchange of thoughts and ideas and the necessity to create such an empowering program.”
The Fellowship for the Center of Ethics and Writing Program is made possible by generous support from the Booth Ferris Foundation.
Photo: Clockwise from top left: Fellows for the Center for Ethics and Writing Program at Bard College Aslı Erdoğan, Dr. Stella Nyanzi, Mahtab Yaghma, Amaury Pacheco del Monte, and Leena Manimekalai.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Academic Freedom,Center for Ethics and Writing,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Academic Freedom,Center for Ethics and Writing,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
12-12-2023
Forbes magazine reports that the number of students enrolled in Korean language classes at US colleges and universities grew from 8,449 students in 2009 to 20,000 in 2021. The motivating force behind this shift is The Hallyu, or Korean Wave, in which global popularity of South Korean pop culture and entertainment has surged, as evidenced in the appeal of K-Pop music, Korean TV shows like Squid Game, and films like Parasite in America. Soonyoung Lee, visiting assistant professor of Korean literature, language, and culture at Bard College, has noticed the demographic in her Korean film and language classes changing away from a majority of Asian and Asian American students. “The enthusiasm for Korean pop culture has transcended ethnic boundaries, drawing in a diverse cohort of students. They are not just seeking to learn a language; they are immersing themselves in a cultural phenomenon that resonates with them on multiple levels,” said Lee.
Photo: Soonyoung Lee, visiting assistant professor in Korean Studies.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Asian Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
12-12-2023
The one-night-only, six-hour-long opera Stranger Love by composer and Bard alumnus Dylan Mattingly ’14 and librettist Thomas Bartscherer, Bard’s Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities, has been selected as one of the best classical music performances of 2023 by the New York Times. The performance was conducted by Mattingly’s fellow Bard alumnus David Bloom ’13. “For all its abstraction and timelessness — what is more ageless than the opera’s themes of love and beauty? — this work is absolutely of its time, slowing down emotion in a world that moves uncontrollably fast,” writes Joshua Barone. “The premiere run, at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in May, was just a single evening, but Stranger Love deserves a life far beyond that.”
See the Best Classical Music Performances of 2023 from the New York Times
Read the New York Times Review of Stranger Love
See the Best Classical Music Performances of 2023 from the New York Times
Read the New York Times Review of Stranger Love
Photo: L-R: Dylan Mattingly ’14 and Thomas Bartscherer. Photo by Michael George
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,First-Year Seminar,German Studies,Literature Program,Music Program,Philosophy Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,First-Year Seminar,German Studies,Literature Program,Music Program,Philosophy Program |
12-05-2023
Bard College is pleased to announce that Marina van Zuylen, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard, has been named the first Clemente Chair in the Humanities. This new Chair is funded by a generous gift from two of Clemente’s long-time supporters, John and Marlene Childs.
“Bard has been Clemente’s key strategic partner for decades, providing college credits for Clemente students around the country,” said James S. Shorris, Board President of The Clemente Course. “Historically, this critical partnership has been overseen by Clemente’s National Academic Director, Professor Marina van Zuylen, in a pro bono role,” said Shorris. “We are thrilled that Prof. van Zuylen has been named the first holder of this esteemed chair, and are deeply grateful to the Childs family for their tremendous support for Clemente, and to Bard College for their enduring support and partnership.”
"My Clemente students often tell me that literature and philosophy have become their lifeline. One student, after reading Virginia Woolf, wrote in her final paper that sitting around our Clemente seminar table in the Kingston public library was her version of having a room of her own, where she finally had the mental freedom to think and imagine different worlds and new possibilities,” said van Zuylen. “Witnessing how our students gain confidence through the sheer joy of sharing their opinions, being listened to, and then processing what they have discovered, continues to be an unparalleled experience."
"I can think of no better inaugural Clemente chair that Marina van Zuylen, said Jonathan Becker, Bard’s vice president for academic affairs. “Marina is a dedicated teacher, a brilliant writer and researcher, and has demonstrated time and again her commitment to the Clemente mission of bringing rigorous liberal arts and sciences education to adults facing adverse circumstances."
About Marina van Zuylen
Marina van Zuylen is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard College. She was educated in France before receiving a BA in Russian literature and a PhD in comparative literature at Harvard University. She is the author of Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle, Monomania: Living Life as Art, The Plenitude of Distraction, and Éloge des vertus minuscules. She has published in praise of some of the most beleaguered maladies of modernity—boredom, fatigue, idleness, mediocrity—and written about snobbery, dissociative disorders, and obsessive compulsive aesthetics. She has published extensively on the work of the philosopher Jacques Rancière and has written about art and aesthetics for MoMA and other art-related venues. She has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and the university of Paris VII. She is the national academic director of the Clemente Course in the Humanities (clemente.bard.edu), a free college course for underserved adults, and accepted on its behalf a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2014. AB, MA, PhD, Harvard University. At Bard since 1997.
About The Clemente Course in The Humanities
The Clemente Course in the Humanities provides a transformative educational experience for adults facing economic hardship in adverse circumstances. These free college humanities courses empower students to further their education and careers, to become effective advocates for themselves and their families, and engage actively in the cultural and civic lives of their communities.
The Clemente Course in the Humanities is founded on the conviction that studying the humanities enables individuals who face barriers to economic and social opportunities to develop critical, reflective and creative skills that empower them to improve their own lives and those of their families and communities.
Clemente’s seasoned professors provide a rigorous education in literature, philosophy, history, art history, and critical thinking and writing. Students do not need to have a high school diploma or GED to be admitted to study. Rooted in Clemente’s commitment to access, tuition is always free, as is the cost of books, childcare, and transportation.
Courses are accredited by higher educational institutions, primarily Clemente’s longstanding partner, Bard College. For many Clemente alumni, these college credits mark the first step toward receiving a college degree. For all students, whether they choose to pursue additional formal education or not, Clemente aims to increase civic literacy, participation, and advocacy.
Clemente has expanded substantially since its first courses more than twenty-five years ago, conceived by its visionary founder Earl Shorris. Clemente now encompasses over twenty-five courses around the country, has been honored with a National Humanities Medal, and received prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other leading bodies. The Clemente National Board (CCH) is an indispensable resource for each Clemente course nationwide, providing assistance with student recruitment, curriculum development, staff and faculty hiring, course accreditation, grant-writing, and faculty training development.
“Bard has been Clemente’s key strategic partner for decades, providing college credits for Clemente students around the country,” said James S. Shorris, Board President of The Clemente Course. “Historically, this critical partnership has been overseen by Clemente’s National Academic Director, Professor Marina van Zuylen, in a pro bono role,” said Shorris. “We are thrilled that Prof. van Zuylen has been named the first holder of this esteemed chair, and are deeply grateful to the Childs family for their tremendous support for Clemente, and to Bard College for their enduring support and partnership.”
"My Clemente students often tell me that literature and philosophy have become their lifeline. One student, after reading Virginia Woolf, wrote in her final paper that sitting around our Clemente seminar table in the Kingston public library was her version of having a room of her own, where she finally had the mental freedom to think and imagine different worlds and new possibilities,” said van Zuylen. “Witnessing how our students gain confidence through the sheer joy of sharing their opinions, being listened to, and then processing what they have discovered, continues to be an unparalleled experience."
"I can think of no better inaugural Clemente chair that Marina van Zuylen, said Jonathan Becker, Bard’s vice president for academic affairs. “Marina is a dedicated teacher, a brilliant writer and researcher, and has demonstrated time and again her commitment to the Clemente mission of bringing rigorous liberal arts and sciences education to adults facing adverse circumstances."
About Marina van Zuylen
Marina van Zuylen is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Bard College. She was educated in France before receiving a BA in Russian literature and a PhD in comparative literature at Harvard University. She is the author of Difficulty as an Aesthetic Principle, Monomania: Living Life as Art, The Plenitude of Distraction, and Éloge des vertus minuscules. She has published in praise of some of the most beleaguered maladies of modernity—boredom, fatigue, idleness, mediocrity—and written about snobbery, dissociative disorders, and obsessive compulsive aesthetics. She has published extensively on the work of the philosopher Jacques Rancière and has written about art and aesthetics for MoMA and other art-related venues. She has taught at Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and the university of Paris VII. She is the national academic director of the Clemente Course in the Humanities (clemente.bard.edu), a free college course for underserved adults, and accepted on its behalf a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2014. AB, MA, PhD, Harvard University. At Bard since 1997.
About The Clemente Course in The Humanities
The Clemente Course in the Humanities provides a transformative educational experience for adults facing economic hardship in adverse circumstances. These free college humanities courses empower students to further their education and careers, to become effective advocates for themselves and their families, and engage actively in the cultural and civic lives of their communities.
The Clemente Course in the Humanities is founded on the conviction that studying the humanities enables individuals who face barriers to economic and social opportunities to develop critical, reflective and creative skills that empower them to improve their own lives and those of their families and communities.
Clemente’s seasoned professors provide a rigorous education in literature, philosophy, history, art history, and critical thinking and writing. Students do not need to have a high school diploma or GED to be admitted to study. Rooted in Clemente’s commitment to access, tuition is always free, as is the cost of books, childcare, and transportation.
Courses are accredited by higher educational institutions, primarily Clemente’s longstanding partner, Bard College. For many Clemente alumni, these college credits mark the first step toward receiving a college degree. For all students, whether they choose to pursue additional formal education or not, Clemente aims to increase civic literacy, participation, and advocacy.
Clemente has expanded substantially since its first courses more than twenty-five years ago, conceived by its visionary founder Earl Shorris. Clemente now encompasses over twenty-five courses around the country, has been honored with a National Humanities Medal, and received prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other leading bodies. The Clemente National Board (CCH) is an indispensable resource for each Clemente course nationwide, providing assistance with student recruitment, curriculum development, staff and faculty hiring, course accreditation, grant-writing, and faculty training development.
Photo: Professor Marina van Zuylen.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Higher Education | Institutes(s): Clemente Course |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Higher Education | Institutes(s): Clemente Course |
12-05-2023
Dina A. Ramadan, continuing associate professor of Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies at Bard College, has received a 2023 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant in the category of Short-Form Writing. One of 27 grantees, professor Ramadan will write a series of articles on the relation of contemporary art to migration from the Middle East and North Africa. The articles will approach art criticism as a decolonial strategy that counters neutralizing practices of inclusion and representation. The Arts Writers Grant program supports writing about contemporary art and aims to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging with the visual arts.
In its 2023 cycle the Arts Writers Grant has awarded a total of $935,000 to 27 writers. Ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 in three categories—Articles, Books, and Short-Form Writing—these grants support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences, from short reviews for magazines and newspapers to in-depth scholarly studies.
“The grants uplift the diverse perspectives of writers whose fine-tuned attention to the content and context of contemporary art-making helps to keep artists at the center of cultural conversations and debates—where they belong,” said Joel Wachs, President, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Further reading:
Ali Cherri Interviewed by Dina A. Ramadan in BOMB Magazine
What Is the Cost of Inclusion? Dina Ramadan Reviews Baseera Khan’s I Am an Archive for Art Papers
In its 2023 cycle the Arts Writers Grant has awarded a total of $935,000 to 27 writers. Ranging from $15,000 to $50,000 in three categories—Articles, Books, and Short-Form Writing—these grants support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences, from short reviews for magazines and newspapers to in-depth scholarly studies.
“The grants uplift the diverse perspectives of writers whose fine-tuned attention to the content and context of contemporary art-making helps to keep artists at the center of cultural conversations and debates—where they belong,” said Joel Wachs, President, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Further reading:
Ali Cherri Interviewed by Dina A. Ramadan in BOMB Magazine
What Is the Cost of Inclusion? Dina Ramadan Reviews Baseera Khan’s I Am an Archive for Art Papers
Photo: Dina A. Ramadan, continuing associate professor of Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies at Bard College. Photo by Mariam Mekiwi
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Human Rights,Literature Program,Middle Eastern Studies |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Human Rights,Literature Program,Middle Eastern Studies |
12-04-2023
Conjunctions:81, Numina Features New Work by Julia Alvarez, Aimee Bender, Arthur Sze, Shane McCrae, Kyoko Mori, Han Ong, James Morrow, Amparo Dávila, and Many Others
Conjunctions:81, Numina, the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College, which has been in print for more than 40 continuous years, has just been released. This issue of Conjunctions explores enchantment. “In a world rife with disenchantment, gathering works that explore enchantment might seem contrarian to some, but to us it felt natural, even imperative,” writes Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow. “Words like numinous and enchanted are—wonderfully—open to a variety of interpretations. And so the writers in this issue had an even greater than usual role in defining its direction, its atmosphere, its very meaning.” The issue collects 30 essays, stories, and poems that converge on enchantment—“Think of this issue as a literary murmuration,” Morrow continues. “A kind of word ballet whose constantly shifting images spark the imaginations of all who encounter it.”
Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Morrow, Conjunctions:81, Numina features new work by Julia Alvarez, Aimee Bender, Arthur Sze, Shane McCrae, Kyoko Mori, Han Ong, James Morrow, Amparo Dávila, and many others. Through fiction and poetry, drawings, and beguiling writings in a multitude of genres, Numina brings together a wide community of writers who invite readers to view their world anew, transfigured just a little. Or maybe a lot.
Additional contributors to Numina include Alyssa Pelish, Meredith Stricker, Bronka Nowicka, Mark Irwin, Melissa Pritchard, Laird Hunt, Jessica Reed, Nathaniel Mackey, Martha Ronk, Cristina Campo, Andrew Ervin, Brian Conn, Heather Altfeld, Eliot Weinberger, Laynie Browne, Edie Meidav, Nancy Kuhl and Karla Kelsey, Nina Shope, Michael Ives, Madeline Kearin, Ben Tufnell, and Brian Evenson.
The Washington Post hails Conjunctions as “a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions features innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. Morrow won PEN America’s 2007 Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing and the 2022 Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) Lord Nose Award, given in recognition of a lifetime of superlative work in literary publishing. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine” of 2019, 2020, and 2021 by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and a recipient of the 2023 CLMP Capacity Building Grant. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Essays (2018, 2019, 2022), The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses (2022, 2023), Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019, and The Best American Short Stories (2021, 2022).
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
November 2023
11-28-2023
In her essay “Forget Your Darlings,” published in the European Review of Books, Associate Professor of Literature and Director of the Literature Program Marisa Libbon explores the ways in which “three recent books about the lives of medieval women—one fictional, the others real—experiment with biographical form, and in doing so, challenge their readers to remember differently.” In her analysis of Charlotte Cooper-Davis’s Christine de Pizan: Life, Work, Legacy, Janina Ramirez’s Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It, and Marion Turner’s The Wife of Bath: A Biography, Libbon reveals how the complexity and agency of women’s lives and work during the Middle Ages have been scarcely memorialized or documented—and in some cases, textually erased—since that era. “It’s only in the historical narrative, our memory of the past, that women are absent,” Libbon writes. “Today, and historically, these absences leave room for false narratives to take root about what were and are ‘natural’ and ‘traditional’ roles for women.”
Photo: Associate Professor of Literature and Director of the Literature Program Marisa Libbon.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Medieval Studies Program | Institutes(s): Center for Experimental Humanities |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Medieval Studies Program | Institutes(s): Center for Experimental Humanities |
11-28-2023
For Sarah Elia ’06, Bard College alumna and an English as a New Language teacher at Saugerties Central School District, using news resources has been an invaluable part of teaching her students about language and culture. For the New York Times, Elia writes about four methods that she has used in her classroom for bringing a global perspective to language studies. Using reporting from the Times, she has had her students give public presentations that draw on varied viewpoints, engage in bilingual discussions of articles, use Venn diagrams to compare cultures, and include news images to illustrate culture-themed art projects. “Presenting their work to audiences throughout the school has boosted my students’ confidence and given them a greater presence in the school community,” Elia writes for the Times. “It also has given listeners the chance to learn from and engage with their international peers in contexts that are connected to the curriculum.”
Photo: Sarah Elia ’06.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Article | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Article | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature |
October 2023
10-18-2023
Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance, a new book by Joseph Luzzi, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College, was reviewed in The Christian Century. The book explores not only how the Italian Renaissance came to life, but also how Sandro Botticelli’s art helped bring it about and why we need the Renaissance and all that it stands for today. “The secret at stake here is a set of drawings made by Sandro Botticelli for a Medici patron in late 15th-century Florence—a commission meant to illustrate all 100 cantos of Dante’s intensely Christian early 14th-century Commedia,” writes Peter S. Hawkins for The Christian Century. “What a Renaissance artist made of a quintessentially medieval text brings Luzzi to ponder all that was entailed in the seismic cultural rebirth that took place in Florence 500 years ago and has been reinterpreted again and again across the reaches of the Western world.”
Photo: Joseph Luzzi and his new book, Botticelli’s Secret: The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Books by Bardians,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Books by Bardians,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
September 2023
09-26-2023
Author Zain Khalid has received the Bard Fiction Prize for his first novel, Brother Alive (Grove Press, 2022). Khalid’s residency at Bard College is for the fall 2024 semester, during which time he will continue his writing and meet informally with students. Khalid will give a public reading at Bard during his residency.
The Bard Fiction Prize committee writes: “Zain Khalid’s novel Brother Alive is itself alive, made of language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree, with at least three valances of narrative draped one on top of another. First is a deeply personal novel about three adopted brothers of mysterious origins growing up in a Staten Island mosque under the care of its eccentric Imam, inhabiting an ordinary world precisely observed and rendered extraordinary with kaleidoscopic language, training its lens on a ride on the back of a motorcycle or a pickup basketball game and turning and turning, changing the patterns of image and sensation, radiating universes of detail. Another is a wild, satirical work of science fiction involving a sinister experimental gas central to the three brothers’ mysteries, which brings them from Staten Island to the Middle East as the book’s politics globalize into ruminations on Islam’s clashes and compacts with the West. And the third is the narrator Youssef’s invisible other “brother” who gives the text its title, the symbiotic shadow-consciousness that lives in his mind and feeds on literature, frequently pointing the reader directly to the author’s influences, as Brother Alive is a novel that knows all literature is about literature, and isn’t afraid to embrace it.”
“I’m honored and grateful to be the recipient of the 2024 Bard Fiction Prize. I’ve long admired the prize’s previous winners, luminaries, really, and am stunned to be joining their ranks,” said Khalid. “To work on my novel alongside Bard’s brilliant literary community is a truly awesome endowment.”
Zain Khalid is an American writer and novelist, originally from New York. His debut novel, Brother Alive, won the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the CLMP Firecracker Award in Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for best first book in any genre, and was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.
The creation of the Bard Fiction Prize, presented each October since 2001, continues Bard’s long-standing position as a center for creative, groundbreaking literary work by both faculty and students. From Saul Bellow, William Gaddis, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison to John Ashbery, Philip Roth, William Weaver, and Chinua Achebe, Bard’s literature faculty, past and present, represents some of the most important writers of our time. The prize is intended to encourage and support young writers of fiction, and provide them with an opportunity to work in a fertile intellectual environment. The 2023 Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Violet Kupersmith for her novel, Build Your House Around My Body (Random House 2021).
The Bard Fiction Prize committee writes: “Zain Khalid’s novel Brother Alive is itself alive, made of language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree, with at least three valances of narrative draped one on top of another. First is a deeply personal novel about three adopted brothers of mysterious origins growing up in a Staten Island mosque under the care of its eccentric Imam, inhabiting an ordinary world precisely observed and rendered extraordinary with kaleidoscopic language, training its lens on a ride on the back of a motorcycle or a pickup basketball game and turning and turning, changing the patterns of image and sensation, radiating universes of detail. Another is a wild, satirical work of science fiction involving a sinister experimental gas central to the three brothers’ mysteries, which brings them from Staten Island to the Middle East as the book’s politics globalize into ruminations on Islam’s clashes and compacts with the West. And the third is the narrator Youssef’s invisible other “brother” who gives the text its title, the symbiotic shadow-consciousness that lives in his mind and feeds on literature, frequently pointing the reader directly to the author’s influences, as Brother Alive is a novel that knows all literature is about literature, and isn’t afraid to embrace it.”
“I’m honored and grateful to be the recipient of the 2024 Bard Fiction Prize. I’ve long admired the prize’s previous winners, luminaries, really, and am stunned to be joining their ranks,” said Khalid. “To work on my novel alongside Bard’s brilliant literary community is a truly awesome endowment.”
Zain Khalid is an American writer and novelist, originally from New York. His debut novel, Brother Alive, won the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the CLMP Firecracker Award in Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for best first book in any genre, and was shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction.
The creation of the Bard Fiction Prize, presented each October since 2001, continues Bard’s long-standing position as a center for creative, groundbreaking literary work by both faculty and students. From Saul Bellow, William Gaddis, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison to John Ashbery, Philip Roth, William Weaver, and Chinua Achebe, Bard’s literature faculty, past and present, represents some of the most important writers of our time. The prize is intended to encourage and support young writers of fiction, and provide them with an opportunity to work in a fertile intellectual environment. The 2023 Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Violet Kupersmith for her novel, Build Your House Around My Body (Random House 2021).
Photo: 2024 Bard Fiction Prize winner Zain Khalid. Photo by Roxana Kadyrova
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
09-26-2023
Bard College’s Clemente Course, a college-level introduction to the humanities taught by Marina Van Zuylen, Clemente Chair in the Humanities at Bard College and national academic director of Clemente, was featured in the Times Union. “Some students who take the Clemente Course continue their higher education—many have received full scholarships to enroll at Bard College—while others have started businesses, nonprofit organizations or have run for office,” writes Maria M. Silva for Times Union. The program, which will run from October 5 until January 26 via Zoom and in person in Kingston, offers free, accredited humanities courses to economically and educationally disadvantaged adults who will learn about US history, writing, literature, philosophy, and art history through class discussions, readings, and written assignments. Students who complete the course earn six college credits from Bard that can be transferred to any institution of higher education. “These professors teach right under these banners that read ‘education is a human right’ and that dictates the way they approached us,” Michael Atkin, one of Clemente’s most recent graduates, told Silva. “I went in with very high hopes and in fact, I couldn’t have even imagined how great it would be.”
Photo: Marina Van Zuylen, top left, Bard's Clemente Course director, with the most recent graduates of the Clemente Course at their graduation ceremony in August. Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Academics,Bard Network,Division of Languages and Literature,Education,Faculty,Higher Education |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Academics,Bard Network,Division of Languages and Literature,Education,Faculty,Higher Education |
09-09-2023
On Friday, September 22, Bard College is hosting After Chinua Achebe: African Writing and the Future, an event honoring the memory of the late Chinua Achebe (1930-2013), former Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature.
A symposium in the afternoon in the Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center will examine the current flowering of writing by African authors, in Africa and in the diaspora. The symposium will be followed by the dedication of a room in the Stevenson Library at Bard in memory of Achebe.
The event will begin at 2:00 pm on Friday, September 22, with a dance performance by Souleymane Badolo celebrating the life of Achebe, followed by an opening address by President Leon Botstein. There will be two panel discussions, Writing Beyond Africa: The African imagination in the diaspora at 2:30 pm, and Activism and the Word: Writing, speech and song in African political culture at 4 pm. Confirmed panelists include the novelists Nuruddin Farah, Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu and Fatin Abbas, and the musician and activist DJ Switch.
The event is sponsored by President's Office, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Stevenson Library, Africana Studies, and the Offices of the Dean and Alumni/ae Affairs. Members of the Achebe family will be in attendance, and the event is free and open to the public.
Bard College thanks Penguin Press and Penguin Classics for their support by providing copies of The African Trilogy.
Chinua Achebe was a groundbreaking Nigerian writer best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous other books, including works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. From 1990 to 2009 he was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
A symposium in the afternoon in the Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center will examine the current flowering of writing by African authors, in Africa and in the diaspora. The symposium will be followed by the dedication of a room in the Stevenson Library at Bard in memory of Achebe.
The event will begin at 2:00 pm on Friday, September 22, with a dance performance by Souleymane Badolo celebrating the life of Achebe, followed by an opening address by President Leon Botstein. There will be two panel discussions, Writing Beyond Africa: The African imagination in the diaspora at 2:30 pm, and Activism and the Word: Writing, speech and song in African political culture at 4 pm. Confirmed panelists include the novelists Nuruddin Farah, Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu and Fatin Abbas, and the musician and activist DJ Switch.
The event is sponsored by President's Office, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Stevenson Library, Africana Studies, and the Offices of the Dean and Alumni/ae Affairs. Members of the Achebe family will be in attendance, and the event is free and open to the public.
Bard College thanks Penguin Press and Penguin Classics for their support by providing copies of The African Trilogy.
Chinua Achebe was a groundbreaking Nigerian writer best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous other books, including works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. From 1990 to 2009 he was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
Photo: Chinua Achebe. Photo: ©2007 Frank Fournier
Meta: Type(s): Conference,Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Bard Libraries,Center for Ethics and Writing,Community Events,Conference,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Fall Events |
Meta: Type(s): Conference,Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Bard Libraries,Center for Ethics and Writing,Community Events,Conference,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Fall Events |
09-05-2023
“The idea of writing remains quite poignant to students, but we often think of it as this very private, creative act,” said Dinaw Mengestu, director of the Center for Ethics and Writing, director of the Written Arts Program, and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities, on WAMC’s The Best of Our Knowledge. “In doing so, we fail to make the argument for writing as more than just a personal, creative act, but as something that can be responsive to the world around us.” By engaging students with challenging texts and tasking them with considering the role language plays in shaping the world, Mengestu says the Center is already attracting students who might not have taken a writing course previously. “It becomes less about an elite, privileged discourse, and more about something that students from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds find that they can actually engage with,” Mengestu said.
Photo: Dinaw Mengestu. Photo by Karl Rabe
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Center for Ethics and Writing,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Center for Ethics and Writing,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
August 2023
08-29-2023
Violet Kupersmith, Bard Fiction Prize winner and writer in residence at Bard College, will read from recent work on Monday, September 18. The reading begins at 6:30 pm and will be held in the Reem-Kayden Center’s László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium at Bard College. This event is free and open to the public. For more information call 845-758-7087.
Kupersmith has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her first novel, Build Your House Around My Body (Random House 2021). Kupersmith is in residence at Bard College for the fall 2023 semester, during which time she will continue her writing and meet informally with students.
“Violet Kupersmith’s Build Your House Around My Body never ceases to surprise, as it intertwines disparate time periods, locations, and cultures, not to mention realities, and its sentences are worlds in themselves,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “She approaches her subject matter in fresh ways, and the novel’s otherworldly elements are expertly interwoven with the mundane, through an imagination truly rich and strange. This novel is sensual, it is visceral, it is outrageously comic. By turns, Kupersmith makes you squeamish with distaste, shivery with terror, giddy with laughter, awestruck by beauty, and warmed by unexpected tenderness. She always makes you marvel at her inventiveness, enticing you to solve the novel’s central mysteries, as she elicits the widest range of sensations possible. She is a writer of astonishing perspicacity and fluidity of language, and succumbing to her magic is a risk no reader should hesitate to take.”
“What a staggering honor to be in the company of all the literary luminaries who were previous winners of the award or have called Bard home at some point in their careers,” said Kupersmith. “I am just grateful beyond words to the prize committee for this recognition and for such an extraordinary gift. And I cannot wait to plant myself in this fertile intellectual environment next fall and grow something strange and new.”
Violet Kupersmith was born in central Pennsylvania in 1989 and later moved with her family to the Philadelphia suburbs. Her father is a white American and her mother is from Da Nang, Vietnam. Her mother’s family fled the country by boat following the fall of Saigon in 1975, and were resettled in Port Arthur, Texas. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 2011, Violet spent a year teaching English in Tra Vinh, Vietnam, on a Fulbright Fellowship. Between 2013 and 2015, she lived in Da Lat and Saigon, Vietnam. She was the 2015–2016 David T. K. Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and is the recipient of a 2022 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her short story collection The Frangipani Hotel was published by Spiegel & Grau in 2014. violetkupersmith.com
Kupersmith has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her first novel, Build Your House Around My Body (Random House 2021). Kupersmith is in residence at Bard College for the fall 2023 semester, during which time she will continue her writing and meet informally with students.
“Violet Kupersmith’s Build Your House Around My Body never ceases to surprise, as it intertwines disparate time periods, locations, and cultures, not to mention realities, and its sentences are worlds in themselves,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “She approaches her subject matter in fresh ways, and the novel’s otherworldly elements are expertly interwoven with the mundane, through an imagination truly rich and strange. This novel is sensual, it is visceral, it is outrageously comic. By turns, Kupersmith makes you squeamish with distaste, shivery with terror, giddy with laughter, awestruck by beauty, and warmed by unexpected tenderness. She always makes you marvel at her inventiveness, enticing you to solve the novel’s central mysteries, as she elicits the widest range of sensations possible. She is a writer of astonishing perspicacity and fluidity of language, and succumbing to her magic is a risk no reader should hesitate to take.”
“What a staggering honor to be in the company of all the literary luminaries who were previous winners of the award or have called Bard home at some point in their careers,” said Kupersmith. “I am just grateful beyond words to the prize committee for this recognition and for such an extraordinary gift. And I cannot wait to plant myself in this fertile intellectual environment next fall and grow something strange and new.”
Violet Kupersmith was born in central Pennsylvania in 1989 and later moved with her family to the Philadelphia suburbs. Her father is a white American and her mother is from Da Nang, Vietnam. Her mother’s family fled the country by boat following the fall of Saigon in 1975, and were resettled in Port Arthur, Texas. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 2011, Violet spent a year teaching English in Tra Vinh, Vietnam, on a Fulbright Fellowship. Between 2013 and 2015, she lived in Da Lat and Saigon, Vietnam. She was the 2015–2016 David T. K. Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and is the recipient of a 2022 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her short story collection The Frangipani Hotel was published by Spiegel & Grau in 2014. violetkupersmith.com
Photo: Violet Kupersmith. Photo by Adriana de Cervantes
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Event,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Event,Written Arts Program |
08-22-2023
Bard College is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a two-year, $300,000 grant by the Booth Ferris Foundation to support the establishment of the Center for Ethics and Writing. The center, directed by Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and director of the Written Arts Program, reimagines the study of literature and writing as both an academic and social practice, one that asks students to translate the skills they develop in the classroom as critical readers and writers to some of the most pressing and divisive social issues of the moment. Center-supported courses and events prioritize the complexity of public discourse and the important role language plays in shaping it. The center aims to address the deterioration of civic dialogue, which has been under increasing threat in recent years from a growing intolerance of opposing viewpoints and widening gaps in experiences along racial, ethnic, and economic lines.
"The Booth Ferris Foundation’s incredibly generous support allows us to play a critical role in developing and modeling a creative and critical practice that engages with some of the most pressing issues of the moment,” said Mengestu. “With this grant, the center is able to extend Bard’s history of innovative teaching into classrooms across New York while also supporting artists whose freedom of expression is under threat."
The Center for Ethics and Writing engages in many activities, including developing an interdisciplinary approach to teaching ethics and writing that empowers students to develop narratives that reflect the experiences and concerns of their communities; partnering with local and national nonprofit organizations, including PEN America, to provide students opportunities to produce publishable narratives on social justice topics; promoting the values of free expression through a fellows program that brings in international, at-risk writers and artists; offering multi-day micro-workshops with artists and activists on topics related to current course offerings; providing training for community college faculty; and developing digital platforms including an online journal and podcast series.
In its first year, the center will provide an impressive array of programs. It has offered courses such as Writing While Black, Writing as Resistance, and Risk and the Art of Poetry and has hosted four micro-workshops by writer and activist Yasmin El-Rifae; Dana Bishop-Root, the director of education and public programs at the Carnegie Museum of Art; Fahima Ife, poet and associate professor of ethnic and critical race studies at UC Santa Cruz; and Emily Raboteau, writer, critic, and Professor at CUNY. In partnership with PEN America’s Artist at Risk Connection, an inaugural cohort of international fellows will begin this fall. Participating fellows’ freedom of expression is under threat due to their creative practices. Their work will be published alongside writing produced through center-supported courses in the center’s online journal, to be launched later this fall. The center is also partnering with Bard Microcolleges in Harlem and Brooklyn, and the Bard Prison Initiative, to develop courses that empower students to express their cultural and gendered experiences.
The Booth Ferris Foundation was established in 1957 under the wills of Willis H. Booth and his wife, Chancie Ferris Booth. The Foundation funds a variety of nonprofit organizations in the areas of arts and culture, K-12 and higher education, and parks and outdoor spaces.
"The Booth Ferris Foundation’s incredibly generous support allows us to play a critical role in developing and modeling a creative and critical practice that engages with some of the most pressing issues of the moment,” said Mengestu. “With this grant, the center is able to extend Bard’s history of innovative teaching into classrooms across New York while also supporting artists whose freedom of expression is under threat."
The Center for Ethics and Writing engages in many activities, including developing an interdisciplinary approach to teaching ethics and writing that empowers students to develop narratives that reflect the experiences and concerns of their communities; partnering with local and national nonprofit organizations, including PEN America, to provide students opportunities to produce publishable narratives on social justice topics; promoting the values of free expression through a fellows program that brings in international, at-risk writers and artists; offering multi-day micro-workshops with artists and activists on topics related to current course offerings; providing training for community college faculty; and developing digital platforms including an online journal and podcast series.
In its first year, the center will provide an impressive array of programs. It has offered courses such as Writing While Black, Writing as Resistance, and Risk and the Art of Poetry and has hosted four micro-workshops by writer and activist Yasmin El-Rifae; Dana Bishop-Root, the director of education and public programs at the Carnegie Museum of Art; Fahima Ife, poet and associate professor of ethnic and critical race studies at UC Santa Cruz; and Emily Raboteau, writer, critic, and Professor at CUNY. In partnership with PEN America’s Artist at Risk Connection, an inaugural cohort of international fellows will begin this fall. Participating fellows’ freedom of expression is under threat due to their creative practices. Their work will be published alongside writing produced through center-supported courses in the center’s online journal, to be launched later this fall. The center is also partnering with Bard Microcolleges in Harlem and Brooklyn, and the Bard Prison Initiative, to develop courses that empower students to express their cultural and gendered experiences.
The Booth Ferris Foundation was established in 1957 under the wills of Willis H. Booth and his wife, Chancie Ferris Booth. The Foundation funds a variety of nonprofit organizations in the areas of arts and culture, K-12 and higher education, and parks and outdoor spaces.
Photo: Dinaw Mengestu, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities, director of the Written Arts Program, and director of the Center for Ethics and Writing.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Giving,Grants,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Giving,Grants,Written Arts Program |
08-18-2023
James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College, has been awarded $50,000 by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund his project Plato and the Tyrant: The Experiment that Wrecked a City and Shaped a Philosophic Masterpiece. The book will use Plato’s little-known letters to illuminate his interventions in the politics of the Greek city of Syracuse and his relationship to the ruler Dionysius the Younger. The grant will support his work over a 10-month term beginning in September. Romm was previously a recipient for the NEH Public Scholar grant in 2018 for work on The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers in the Last Days of Greek Freedom, a book about the last decades of ancient Greek freedom leading up to Alexander the Great’s destruction of Thebes.
“The Public Scholar program helps situate the humanities just where they ought to be—in the large world of public discourse, rather than behind university walls,” Prof. Romm said. “I’m honored to be recognized for making the ancient Greeks a part of that discourse. Never have the lessons they taught about tyranny, rule of law, and the meaning of citizenship been more relevant to our lives than they are at this moment.”
Plato is regarded as one of the world’s most influential thinkers, yet his life and personality remain opaque, partially because he did not include himself in his dialogues but used the mask of Socrates to develop his ideas. Plato and the Tyrant will bring his first-person voice to the forefront through quotes from the Platonic letters, documents sometimes regarded as forgeries but, as the book will argue, almost certainly genuine writings of Plato. The five Syracusan letters, addressed by Plato to Dionysius or to other political leaders of Syacuse, help tell the story of Plato’s interventions in that city. In addition, large segments of the Republic, especially the doctrine of the philosopher-king, can best be understood as reflections of Plato’s encounters with Dionysius, the foremost autocrat in the Greek world of his day.
Plato and the Tyrant follows not only the final two decades of Plato's life (367-347 BC) but the rise and fall, during that period, of a ruler who was at times Plato's student and at other times his nemesis, Dionysius the Younger, who at age 30 came to power in Syracuse in 367 as the sheltered heir of his father, also named Dionysius. The uncle of the younger Dionysius, Dion—a zealous adherent, and possibly lover, of Plato— wished to reshape his nephew’s character through philosophic instruction in the hope of setting Syracuse's regime on a healthier path. At Dion's urging, Plato journeyed to Syracuse just after the Younger's accession, a visit that set in motion a series of disasters for Dion, Dionysius, Plato, and the entire city. Plato and the Tyrant will ultimately examine the question of Plato's relationship to autocracy, a question that resonates strongly with current concerns in global and domestic politics.
“The Public Scholar program helps situate the humanities just where they ought to be—in the large world of public discourse, rather than behind university walls,” Prof. Romm said. “I’m honored to be recognized for making the ancient Greeks a part of that discourse. Never have the lessons they taught about tyranny, rule of law, and the meaning of citizenship been more relevant to our lives than they are at this moment.”
Plato is regarded as one of the world’s most influential thinkers, yet his life and personality remain opaque, partially because he did not include himself in his dialogues but used the mask of Socrates to develop his ideas. Plato and the Tyrant will bring his first-person voice to the forefront through quotes from the Platonic letters, documents sometimes regarded as forgeries but, as the book will argue, almost certainly genuine writings of Plato. The five Syracusan letters, addressed by Plato to Dionysius or to other political leaders of Syacuse, help tell the story of Plato’s interventions in that city. In addition, large segments of the Republic, especially the doctrine of the philosopher-king, can best be understood as reflections of Plato’s encounters with Dionysius, the foremost autocrat in the Greek world of his day.
Plato and the Tyrant follows not only the final two decades of Plato's life (367-347 BC) but the rise and fall, during that period, of a ruler who was at times Plato's student and at other times his nemesis, Dionysius the Younger, who at age 30 came to power in Syracuse in 367 as the sheltered heir of his father, also named Dionysius. The uncle of the younger Dionysius, Dion—a zealous adherent, and possibly lover, of Plato— wished to reshape his nephew’s character through philosophic instruction in the hope of setting Syracuse's regime on a healthier path. At Dion's urging, Plato journeyed to Syracuse just after the Younger's accession, a visit that set in motion a series of disasters for Dion, Dionysius, Plato, and the entire city. Plato and the Tyrant will ultimately examine the question of Plato's relationship to autocracy, a question that resonates strongly with current concerns in global and domestic politics.
Photo: James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Faculty,Grants |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Faculty,Grants |
08-15-2023
Distinguished Visiting Writer Masha Gessen was awarded the 2023 Prize for Political Thought by the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking, calling them “one of the most courageous chroniclers of our time.” The award, founded in 1994 and awarded by an international jury, comes with a cash prize of €10,000. “Gessen reports on power games and totalitarian tendencies as well as civil disobedience and the love of freedom,” the committee said in a statement. “With books as well as essays in the New Yorker and a strong public presence, Gessen opens up new perspectives that help to understand a world in accelerated change.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
08-01-2023
In his new memoir Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, poet Shane McCrae explores the rupture that resulted from being taken at age 3 from his Black father by his white grandparents, writes Wyatt Mason, Bard College writer in residence, for the New York Times. “The weird thing about growing up kidnapped,” McCrae told Mason, “is if it happens early enough, there’s a way in which you kind of don’t know.” The narrative McCrae unfolds as he tries to piece together the truth of his past winds across American landscapes, the inner world of his childhood experiences, the emotional and physical abuse he suffered, and finding his father again as a teenager. McCrae’s book “is both an unambiguous story of abduction and a convoluted story of complicity,” writes Mason. He adds, “The memoir accumulates a hugeness of feeling that puts a lie to the idea that difficulty in a piece of writing is necessarily cold or aloof or incompatible with the kind of intense emotion that McCrae’s narrative uncommonly yields.”
Photo: Wyatt Mason.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
June 2023
06-21-2023
Lucky Red (Dial Press, 2023), the new novel by Bard alumna Claudia Cravens ’08, is among a cohort of new fiction that is reexamining the Western, writes the New York Times. For Cravens, the trope of the “mysterious stranger” was irresistible while drafting the novel. “I love that archetype,” Cravens said to the Times, “but I thought, ‘what if the stranger Bridget falls in love with is a woman instead of a man?’” Other contemporaries of Cravens are bringing more racial diversity to the genre, including those exploring old archetypes with an Indigenous perspective. For Cravens, “playing with the genre and the mythic space” brought new life to her love of the Western, but perhaps another genre is on the horizon. Recently, she’s been “reading a lot about forests and monsters and mysteries.” “I’m looking forward to seeing where that takes me,” Cravens said.
Photo: Claudia Cravens ’08 and her new novel, Lucky Red. Photo by Carleen Coulter
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
06-13-2023
While drafting Commitment, Writer in Residence Mona Simpson asked herself what it might be like to imagine a mental health system that would’ve made life “gentler” for her own mother. Commitment follows Diane, a single mother, and her children, tracing the ways that mental illness affects not only Diane, but the entire family structure—something Simpson says rings true to her experience. “It just travels through the family,” Simpson says. “We do share the burdens and the exhilarations of the people we’re closest to.” For Simpson, writing the novel was an exercise in imagining what life might be like for someone like her mother if the system were slightly different, or if luck had been more on her side. “I guess this book started out being set right at the point where the mental health hospitals were beginning to empty out,” she says. “So it was a little bit of a ‘what if.’”
Photo: Mona Simpson.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program |
06-06-2023
The Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard College will hold its 2023 July weeklong workshops from Sunday, July 9, through Friday, July 14. The workshops are designed to help teachers deepen their understanding of writing-based teaching, its theory and practices, and its application in the classroom. Register by Friday, June 9, to take advantage of early bird discounted rates.
Each workshop focuses on a particular form of writing—the essay, academic paper, creative nonfiction—or on writing-based teaching in a particular subject area, such as history, science and math, or grammar.
The workshops offer a retreat in which participants learn new writing practices, read diverse texts, and collaborate with teachers from around the world on Bard’s campus. The luxury of time helps participants explore how to adopt these new practices by adapting writing prompts, accommodating collaborative learning in larger classes, and incorporating new readings. Attendees will also explore how different forms—such as poetry—might inspire students from diverse backgrounds.
To learn about all of the workshops offered this summer and register, visit: https://iwt.bard.edu/july/
Standard Rate: $3,000
Group Rate: $2,700
Commuter Rate: $2,700
Early-Bird Rate: $2,500
Early-Bird Group Rate: $2,250
Early-Bird Commuter Rate: $2,200
The deadline for registering for Early-Bird discounted rates is June 9, 2023.
Each workshop focuses on a particular form of writing—the essay, academic paper, creative nonfiction—or on writing-based teaching in a particular subject area, such as history, science and math, or grammar.
The workshops offer a retreat in which participants learn new writing practices, read diverse texts, and collaborate with teachers from around the world on Bard’s campus. The luxury of time helps participants explore how to adopt these new practices by adapting writing prompts, accommodating collaborative learning in larger classes, and incorporating new readings. Attendees will also explore how different forms—such as poetry—might inspire students from diverse backgrounds.
To learn about all of the workshops offered this summer and register, visit: https://iwt.bard.edu/july/
Standard Rate: $3,000
Group Rate: $2,700
Commuter Rate: $2,700
Early-Bird Rate: $2,500
Early-Bird Group Rate: $2,250
Early-Bird Commuter Rate: $2,200
The deadline for registering for Early-Bird discounted rates is June 9, 2023.
Photo: The schedule gives participants time to explore the scenic Mid-Hudson Valley and take advantage of walking paths and Bard’s recreational facilities. Photo by China Jorrin ’86
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,Event,Faculty | Institutes(s): Institute for Writing and Thinking |
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,Event,Faculty | Institutes(s): Institute for Writing and Thinking |
06-05-2023
Daaimah Mubashshir, playwright-in-residence at Bard College, has been awarded three residencies to support the development of their professional works.
Mubashshir has received a Bau Institute Art Residency Award, hosted by the Camargo Foundation at its Cassis campus in France, a MacDowell Fellowship in MacDowell’s Artist Residency Program for fall 2023 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and a Catwalk Art Residency for fall 2023 at the Catwalk Institute, Catskill.
The BAU residency will enable Daaimah to continue their work on the libretto and book of Emily Black, a bluesy-rock musical about a Black domestic worker in NYC. Emily Black also received a Fisher Center LAB Commission and Residency in the spring of 2022. The MacDowell residency will support their work on a new play about their great grandmother, Begonia Williams Tate, who defied all odds in Mobile, Alabama, in the late 19th century. The Catwalk Art Residency will support the beginning of a new work of creative nonfiction.
Mubashshir has received a Bau Institute Art Residency Award, hosted by the Camargo Foundation at its Cassis campus in France, a MacDowell Fellowship in MacDowell’s Artist Residency Program for fall 2023 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and a Catwalk Art Residency for fall 2023 at the Catwalk Institute, Catskill.
The BAU residency will enable Daaimah to continue their work on the libretto and book of Emily Black, a bluesy-rock musical about a Black domestic worker in NYC. Emily Black also received a Fisher Center LAB Commission and Residency in the spring of 2022. The MacDowell residency will support their work on a new play about their great grandmother, Begonia Williams Tate, who defied all odds in Mobile, Alabama, in the late 19th century. The Catwalk Art Residency will support the beginning of a new work of creative nonfiction.
Photo: Daaimah Mubashshir. Photo by Maya Sharpe
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
06-01-2023
Bard College is pleased to announce the appointment of Alma Guillermoprieto as distinguished visiting professor in the Division of Languages and Literature for the fall 2023 semester.
Alma Guillermoprieto, a Mexican reporter and writer, began her English-language career in journalism in 1978, and broke the story of the 1981 El Mozote massacre by the army in El Salvador. She has written extensively about Latin America, including for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and National Geographic Magazine, and her writings have been widely disseminated within the Spanish-speaking world. She has published eight books in both English and Spanish, including The Heart That Bleeds, and Looking for History.
Guillermoprieto is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a George Polk Award, and an International Womens’ Media Foundation lifetime achievement award, among many others. In 2018 she was the recipient of Spain’s Princess Asturias Award in the Humanities.
Guillermoprieto began teaching at the age of 20, when, on the recommendation of Merce Cunningham, she traveled to Cuba to teach Cunningham and Graham dance techniques, which she recounts in her memoir Dancing with Cuba: a Memoir of the Revolution. In 1995, at the request of Gabriel García Márquez, she taught the inaugural journalism workshop at the Foundation for New Journalism, in Cartagena, Colombia, and taught the first workshop of the year there through 2010. She has been a visiting professor in both Latin American history and journalism, at Chicago University, Harvard, USC-Berkeley, and Princeton.
Alma Guillermoprieto, a Mexican reporter and writer, began her English-language career in journalism in 1978, and broke the story of the 1981 El Mozote massacre by the army in El Salvador. She has written extensively about Latin America, including for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and National Geographic Magazine, and her writings have been widely disseminated within the Spanish-speaking world. She has published eight books in both English and Spanish, including The Heart That Bleeds, and Looking for History.
Guillermoprieto is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a George Polk Award, and an International Womens’ Media Foundation lifetime achievement award, among many others. In 2018 she was the recipient of Spain’s Princess Asturias Award in the Humanities.
Guillermoprieto began teaching at the age of 20, when, on the recommendation of Merce Cunningham, she traveled to Cuba to teach Cunningham and Graham dance techniques, which she recounts in her memoir Dancing with Cuba: a Memoir of the Revolution. In 1995, at the request of Gabriel García Márquez, she taught the inaugural journalism workshop at the Foundation for New Journalism, in Cartagena, Colombia, and taught the first workshop of the year there through 2010. She has been a visiting professor in both Latin American history and journalism, at Chicago University, Harvard, USC-Berkeley, and Princeton.
Photo: Alma Guillermoprieto at a press conference after winning a Princess of Asturias Award in 2018.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty |
May 2023
05-31-2023
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, a new memoir by Bard alumna and poet Jane Wong ’07, documents her childhood growing up as a second-generation working class American, falling asleep on bags of rice in her immigrant parents’ Atlantic City Chinese restaurant, which her father eventually loses to his gambling addiction. “The poet Wong’s book is reminiscent of an abstract watercolor, free-flowing, nonlinear, without clear borders,” writes Qian Julie Wang for the New York Times. Ultimately a love song, Wong’s memoir “explore[s] the many forms of hunger that come with being Asian in America.” Wong’s memoir was also reviewed in the Boston Globe, and she was interviewed about her book for the Los Angeles Review of Books and Lit Hub.
Interviews:
LA Review of Books: “Tenderness and Ferocity Go Hand in Hand: A Conversation with Jane Wong”
Lit Hub: “Jane Wong: How Non-Linearity Mirrors the Experience of Migration”
Interviews:
LA Review of Books: “Tenderness and Ferocity Go Hand in Hand: A Conversation with Jane Wong”
Lit Hub: “Jane Wong: How Non-Linearity Mirrors the Experience of Migration”
Photo: Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City and Jane Wong ’07. Photo by Helene Christensen
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
05-30-2023
Seven Bard College graduates have won 2023–24 Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects, graduate study, and English teaching assistantships. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.
Juliana Maitenaz ’22, who graduated with a BA in Global and International Studies and a BM in Classical Percussion Performance, has been selected for an independent study–research Fulbright scholarship to Brazil for the 2023–24 academic year. Her project, “Rhythm and Statecraft,” seeks to identify Brazilian percussion and rhythms as a method of cultural communication. Maitenaz aims to conduct her research in São Paulo and will focus on how percussional elements in the Brazilian traditions of Carnival and Samba School performances are instrumental to the country’s statecraft and national identity. The goal of her research is to examine international communication and collaboration through cultural and musical diplomacy. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to learn more about the role Brazilian percussion plays as an inspiring means of cultural communication,” Maitenaz said.
Evan Tims ’19, who was a joint major in Written Arts and Human Rights with a focus on anthropology at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright-Nehru independent study–research scholarship to India for the 2023–24 academic year. His project, “From the River to Tomorrow: Perceptions of Kolkata’s Water Future,” studies the perceptions of Kolkata’s water future among urban planners, infrastructure experts, and communities—such as those who work in river transport, fishing, and who live in housing along the banks—most vulnerable to water changes along the Hooghly River. He will analyze the dominant narratives of the city and river’s future and reference scientific and planning literature in understanding the points of confluence and divergence between scientific and colloquial understandings of the river, particularly as different stakeholder communities approach an uncertain water future. “In light of urban development and climate change, Kolkata’s water is facing significant change over the coming decades,” said Tims. “It is crucial to understand the complex, layered relationships between stakeholder communities as they seek to negotiate an increasingly uncertain water future.” While in India, Tims also plans to teach a climate fiction writing workshop. In 2021-2022, he was Bard’s first recipient of the yearlong Henry J. Luce Scholarship, which enabled him to conduct ethnographic research on Himalayan water futures and lead a climate writing workshop in Nepal and, later, in Bangladesh. Earlier this academic year, Tims won the prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship to China. As an undergraduate at Bard, Tims also won two Critical Language Scholarships to study Bangla in Kolkata during the summers of 2018 and 2019.
Elias Ephron ’23, a joint major in Political Studies and Spanish Studies, has been selected as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) to Spain for the 2023–24 academic year. While in Spain, Ephron hopes to engage with his host community through food, sharing recipes, hosting dinner parties, and cooking together; take part in Spain’s unique and visually stunning cultural events, like flamenco performances, and Semana Santa processions; visit the hometown of the great poet and playwright Federico García Lorca; and, as a queer individual, meet other queer people. “Having learned Spanish, French, and German to fluency or near-fluency, I understand that language learning requires many approaches. Some are more commonly thought of as ‘fun’ or ‘nascent’ modes of learning, while others more clearly resemble work. I hope to marry this divide, showing students that language learning is both labor and recreation; they may have to work hard, but it can be a great deal of fun, too,” said Ephron. In addition to his work as a writing tutor in the Bard Learning Commons, Ephron has received multiple awards, including the PEN America Fellowship and the Bard Center for the Study of Hate Internship Scholarship.
Eleanor Tappen ’23, a Spanish Studies major, has been selected as a Fulbright ETA to Mexico for the 2023–24 academic year. Tappen has studied abroad in Granada, Spain, received her TESOL certification (which involved 40 hours of training), volunteered in a local elementary school in the fall of 2022, and works as an ESL tutor at the Learning Commons. For Tappen, a Fulbright teaching assistantship in Mexico is an intersection of her academic interest in Mexican literature and her passion for accessible and equitable language learning. During her Fulbright year, Tappen intends to volunteer at a local community garden, a setting she found ideal for cross-cultural exchange and friendship during her time at the Bard Farm. She also hopes to learn about pre-Colombian farming practices, whose revival is currently being led by indigenous movements in Mexico seeking to confront issues presented by unsustainable industrial agricultural practices. “I’m thrilled by the opportunity to live in the country whose literature and culture have served as such positive and significant points in both my academic and personal life. During my time as an ETA in Mexico, I hope to inspire in my students the same love of language-learning I found at Bard.”
Biology major Macy Jenks ’23 has been selected as an ETA to Taiwan for the 2023–24 academic year. Jenks is an advanced Mandarin language speaker having attended a Chinese immersion elementary school and continuing her Mandarin language studies through high school and college, including three weeks spent in China living with host family in 2015. She has tutored students in English at Bard’s Annandale campus, as well as through the Bard Prison Initiative at both Woodbourne Correctional Facility and Eastern New York Correctional Facility. She also has worked with the Bard Center for Civic Engagement to develop curricula and provide STEM programming to local middle and high school students. “As a Fulbright ETA, I hope to equip students with the tools necessary to hone their English language and cultural skills while encouraging them to develop their own voices,” says Jenks. While in Taiwain, she plans to volunteer with the Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps, which offers medical care to rural communities, or with the Taipei Medical University in a more urban setting to further engage with the community and learn more about Taiwan’s healthcare systems and settings. With her love of hiking, Jenks also hopes to explore various cultural sites including the cave temples of Lion’s Head Mountain and Fo Guang Shan monastery and enjoy the natural beauty of Taiwan.
Bard Conservatory alumna Avery Morris ’18, who graduated with a BA in Mathematics and a BM in Violin Performance, has been selected for a prestigious Fulbright Study Research Award for 2023–24. Her project, “Gideon Klein’s Lost Works and the Legacy of Czech Musical Modernism,” aims to bring to light the early works of Czech composer and Holocaust victim Gideon Klein (1919–1945), which were lost until they were discovered in a suitcase in the attic of a house in Prague in the 1990s. She will live in Prague for the upcoming academic year and continue her research on Klein, which has been a focus of her studies at Stony Brook University, where she is pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Violin Performance.
Getzamany "Many" Correa ’21, a Global and International Studies major, has been selected as an ETA to Spain for the 2023–24 academic year. Correa was an international student in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary. As an international student in high school, she started an initiative called English Conversation Buddies with the State Department-sponsored American Corner in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has received her TESOL certification (which involved 40 hours of training) and worked as an ESL tutor at the Learning Commons. In Spain, Correa hopes to create a book club that introduces students to diverse authors writing in English, study Spanish literature, and host dinners with the locals she meets. She also plans to volunteer with EducationUSA and support students applying to colleges and universities in the U.S. “A year-long ETA in Spain will allow me to experience a culture and language central to my academic and personal interests, leverage my background in education while furthering my teaching experience, and make meaningful connections through cross-cultural engagement,” says Correa.
The Fulbright US Student Program expands perspectives through academic and professional advancement and cross-cultural dialogue. Fulbright creates connections in a complex and changing world. In partnership with more than 140 countries worldwide, the Fulbright US Student Program offers unparalleled opportunities in all academic disciplines to passionate and accomplished graduating college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals from all backgrounds. Program participants pursue graduate study, conduct research, or teach English abroad. us.fulbrightonline.org.
Photo: Clockwise, from top left: Juliana Maitenaz ’22, Avery Morris ’18, Evan Tims ’19, Getzamany Correa ’21, Macy Jenks ’23, Eleanor Tappen ’23, Elias Ephron ’23.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Student | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Anthropology Program,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Global and International Studies,Human Rights,Mathematics Program,Political Studies Program,Spanish Studies,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Student | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Anthropology Program,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Global and International Studies,Human Rights,Mathematics Program,Political Studies Program,Spanish Studies,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |