News

Bard alumnus and parent Pierre Joris '69 has won the Modern Language Association's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for a Translation of a Scholarly Study of Literature. Joris, professor emeritus of the University at Albany, State University of New York, receives the award for his translation of Paul Celan’s The Meridian: Final Version–Drafts–Materials.

A political studies and philosophy major, Bard College alumnus Saim Saeed ’13 won a Davis Projects for Peace Award for his project, “Living Together—Navigating Common Grounds: A MENA-EU Initiative” in Istanbul, Turkey. In May 2012, during his junior year at Bard, the New York Times published his op-ed essay "Shouting in the Mirror." After graduating from Bard College, Saeed went to work as a writer for the American Interest. In this interview, he talks about the importance of his study abroad experience at Bard.


http://vimeo.com/75626944

Journalist Matt Taibbi ’92 has emerged as one of the shrewdest, most tenacious reporters of our nation’s financial system and politics. In this interview with William Stavru '87, he discusses financial regulation, the multiparty system, and the state of journalism today.
http://www.bard.edu/news/news.php?id=86

Bard College presents a reading by Eleanor Catton on Thursday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Bard Chapel. Catton recently became, at 28, the youngest person to ever receive the Man Booker Prize for her novel The Luminaries, which is also the longest book to receive the prize. Catton will read from The Luminaries at this event. Admission is free and open to the public and no reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2488

Conjunctions:61, A Menagerie—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—gathers writings from many of today’s leading contemporary writers about the vast world of our fellow beasts who occupy the earth, oceans, and sky. A collection of fiction, essays, poems, memoirs, and dialogues, A Menagerie is coedited by Conjunctions editor, novelist, and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, and novelist and 2012 Bard Fiction Prize winner Benjamin Hale. The issue features a previously unpublished conversation about animals between Bradford Morrow and Beat icon William S. Burroughs from 1987.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2486

Bard College announces the appointment of Neil Gaiman as Professor in the Arts. Gaiman, who joins the College in the spring semester of 2014 as a member of the Theater and Performance faculty, will teach courses across the Division of the Arts and the Division of Languages and Literature. His first course will be an advanced writing workshop exploring the history of the fantastic, approaches to fantasy fiction, and the meaning of fantasy today, taught through the Written Arts Program and the Experimental Humanities concentration.


Professor in the Arts Neil Gaiman discusses how he began to teach writing at Bard in the spring of 2013.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2487

On Thursday, November 14, Tavia Nyong’o—associate professor of performance studies at New York University and Errol Hill Award winner for best book in African American theatre and performance studies—will speak at Bard College. Nyong’o’s talk, “Epistemology of the Lifeboat: Life of Pi and Queer Fabulation,” is being presented by Bard’s Environmental and Urban Studies Program, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, and the Language and Literature Division, with funding from a Bard College, Mellon-supported course development award. The talk takes place at 4:30 p.m. in the Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation Room 103 and is free and open to the public.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2484

Author Bennett Sims has been selected to receive the annual Bard Fiction Prize for 2014. The prize, established in 2001 by Bard College to encourage and support promising young fiction writers, consists of a $30,000 cash award and appointment as writer in residence at the College for one semester. Sims is receiving the prize for his debut novel, A Questionable Shape. In this penetrating novel set in Baton Rouge, Sims writes about a son looking for his undead father and transcends traditional zombie narrative to deliver a wise and philosophical rumination on the nature of memory and loss.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2483

Bill Emmott, former Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, will present and discuss his new documentary film Girlfriend in a Coma on Thursday, October 17, at 6 pm in the Jim Ottaway Jr. Film Theater, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center at Bard College. Called “beautiful and cruel” by Le Monde, Girlfriend in a Coma—cowritten by Emmott with Annalisa Piras, the film’s director—deals with the current political and economic crisis in Italy.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2479

Bard College has received a grant of $14,000 to host The Big Read in Germantown, Kingston, Red Hook, Rhinecliff, and Tivoli. The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) managed by Arts Midwest, is designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment. The local Big Read will focus on Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and activities will take place from March 15 to May 2, 2014.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2476

Bard alumnus, writer, and director David Cote '92 will direct two plays in New York City this month: Otherland, which he wrote, and Something Something Über Alles, written by late Bard faculty member Assurbanipal Babilla.

The Bard Fiction Prize is awarded annually to a promising, emerging writer who is an American citizen aged 39 years or younger. Winners receive a monetary award and an appointment as writer in residence at Bard for one semester. Applications for the 2014 prize are due by July 15, 2013.
http://www.bard.edu/bfp/

Since graduating from the Bard Prison Initiative, the writing career of Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 has blossomed. He has been accepted to the Public Theater's prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group, a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Of his Bard education behind bars, Oliveras says, “It opened up my worldview. It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.”
http://www.bard.edu/news/news.php?id=72

Conjunctions:60, In Absentia—the latest issue of Bard's innovative literary magazine—gathers a collection of today’s leading contemporary writers to explore the presence of absence, the losses that gain on us, the black holes in our everyday lives. Edited by Conjunctions editor, novelist, and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, the issue includes work by Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Coover, Frederic Tuten, and many others. Visit their website to read excerpts.
http://www.conjunctions.com/justout.htm

Bard professor and world-renowned author Norman Manea was well received at the prestigious Salon du Livre in Paris. Manea was an honorary guest at the event in March, which was dedicated to Romanian literature. The French press praised Manea's participation and his new book, The Fifth Impossibility: Essays on Exile and Language. During the Salon du Livre Manea gave interviews, participated in a public debate, and spoke to a large audience about Romanian history and literature. Click here to download PDF.

Conjunctions:60, In Absentia—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—gathers a collection of today’s leading contemporary writers to explore the presence of absence, the losses that gain on us, the black holes in our everyday lives.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2430

A production of The Bakkhai (The Bacchae) by Bard College students takes place at the Fisher Center through April 14. Sunday's events also include a panel discussion, "Euripides' The Bakkhai: Play and Performance" with Daniel Mendelsohn (Bard College), Helene Foley (Barnard), Rachel Kitzinger (Vassar), and Emily Wilson (University of Pennsylvania). The panel is free and open to the public.

On Monday, April 8, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Bard Fiction Prize winner, and New York Times bestselling author Karen Russell will read from her work. Russell’s highly acclaimed 2011 novel Swamplandia was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2011, and a recipient of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2416

President Botstein reflects on Professor Achebe's life, work, and legacy on CNN. "Achebe's contribution was not merely literary . . . He was committed to his people and his community. He did not shy away from political controversy, and he did so in a manner that was unforgettable."
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/22/opinion/opinion-botstein-achebe/index.html

The Bard community was deeply saddened to learn of the death of groundbreaking Nigerian writer and Bard professor emeritus Chinua Achebe. The author and educator was best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous books, including novels, collections of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. He was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard from 1990 to 2009. (Photo by Don Hammerman)

On Monday, April 1, Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction writer and recipient of a 2012 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, will read from his work at Bard College. The New York Times called Díaz “one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices.”
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2409

Acclaimed Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret will give a reading at Bard College on Monday, April 15. Keret will read selections from his recent work Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, as well as from The Girl on the Fridge, which contains his earliest stories.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2407

Vassar College professor Amitava Kumar interviews Bard College distinguished writer in residence, historian, and photographer Teju Cole. This issue also contains a series of Cole's paired photographs from different global locations, with Kumar's exploration of their relationships to each other and other great works of art.
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/pitch-forward/

This new series, curated by Bard faculty members Roger Berkowitz and Walter Russell Mead, will engage an ongoing discussion with the nation’s leading bloggers in politics, history, art, and culture. Bard professor Francine Prose, who blogs for the New York Review of Books, will speak on March 5. All events take place at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.
http://www.bard.edu/hannaharendtcenter/events/

Bard presents its annual Eugene Meyer Lecture in British History and Literature, with acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín. Tóibín will speak about his work with Fintan O’Toole, a leading Irish editor, writer, and critic on Thursday, March 7, at 5:30 p.m.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2400

On February 20 Robert Coover, Samuel R. Delany, Ben Marcus, Rick Moody, and Francine Prose will read letters by Gaddis and discuss what he has meant to them as writers and readers, introduced by Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2389

Daniel Mendelsohn, award-winning author, critic, and Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College since 2006, has been named a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism for his most recent book, Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2384

This April, Bard College is launching a yearlong 10th anniversary celebration of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts with a month of music, theater, and dance. Highlights include an all-Wagner concert performed by the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO); a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 performed by members of the ASO and the Bard Conservatory Orchestra; a production of Euripides’ The Bacchae; comic works by Jack Ferver and QWAN Company; Sō Percussion’s Student Concert; the 2013 Bard Faculty Dance Concert; and an evening with author Neil Gaiman and singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2379

Gilles Peress, Bard College visiting professor of human rights and photography and internationally renowned photojournalist, is exhibiting work in Art or Evidence: The Power of Photojournalism, on view from January 3 through March 10 at the Mandeville Gallery, Union College in Schenectady, New York.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2378

Devotees of American Public Media’s Marketplace will be pleased to know that the show’s Africa correspondent is Bard’s very own Gretchen Wilson ’97. During the last eight years, Wilson has established herself as a political reporter who tackles serious labor, economic, and social justice issues.
http://www.bard.edu/news/news.php?id=53

What does it mean to be human? How can we consider freedom and constraint in the year 2013? Bard's Center for Civic Engagement invites students from the Bard network of institutions to examine these questions in a written essay or multimedia piece for its annual contest. The deadline for submission is March 1, 2013.
http://www.bard.edu/civicengagement/essaycontest/