News

Assistant Professor of Classics Robert Cioffi reviews Josephine Quinn’s In Search of the Phoenicians.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n01/robert-l-cioffi/a-palm-tree-a-colour-and-a-mythical-bird

Farah’s new novel offers no easy answers in the clash between religious extremism and secularism as it plays out in a Somali family living in Norway.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/books/review/north-of-dawn-nuruddin-farah.html

Bard College announces the appointment of award-winning Mexican author Valeria Luiselli as writer in residence in the Division of Languages and Literature. 
http://www.bard.edu/news/features/?id=241

Conjunctions:71, A Cabinet of Curiosity features new work from Laura van den Berg, Ann Beattie, Brandon Hobson, Jeffrey Ford, Joyce Carol Oates, Joanna Scott, Can Xue, and more.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=3094

“Creative Process in Dialogue: Art and the Public Today” will be held at BHSEC Manhattan on October 31, followed by a lunch hour talk at Bard at Brooklyn Public Library on November 1.
http://www.bard.edu/news/features/?id=212

Bard College has received two grants from the NEH in support of faculty-led humanities projects, part of the endowment’s third and last round of funding for fiscal year 2018.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=3060

This new volume “offers an English reader a personal tour through the private quarters of Tchaikovsky to his most informal and intimate zone.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/02/tchaikovsky-letters-saved-from-censors-reveal-secret-loves-homosexuality

Conjunctions:70, Sanctuary: The Preservation Issue features new work from Diane Ackerman, Mary Jo Bang, Julia Elliott, Nam Le, Peter Orner, Donald Revell, and others.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=3010

Seniors Elena LeFevre, Nicola Koepnick, Adelina Colaku, Page Benoit, and Madeleine Breshears, and Bethany Zulick ’16 are among the Fulbright winners for 2018–19.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2998

Professor Baldasso, director of Bard’s Italian Studies Program, was awarded the fellowship for his work on literary dissent during the transition from Fascism to democracy in Italy.
https://archinect.com/news/bustler/6454/erin-besler-and-marcel-sanchez-prieto-announced-as-2018-2019-rome-prize-fellows

“If Powers were an American writer of the nineteenth century . . . he’d probably be the Herman Melville of Moby-Dick. His picture is that big” (Margaret Atwood, New York Review of Books). 
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2993

On Monday, April 2, novelist and short story writer Laura van den Berg, winner of the 2015 Bard Fiction Prize, will read from her work at Bard College.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2984

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music will present the Harmony and Power conference and concert series on March 30–31 on the Bard College campus.
http://www.bard.edu/news/events/event/?eid=133513&date=1522501200

On Thursday, March 29, prominent Russian novelist, essayist, short story writer, and public intellectual Tatyana Tolstaya will speak at Bard College about her new book, Aetherial Worlds, a collection of 18 stories.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2979

On Monday, March 5, Daniel Mendelsohn will give a book reading and signing followed by a wine reception for his new book, An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2972

The National Book Award finalist and 2017 Bard Fiction Prize-winning novelist Karan Mahajan will read from his work on February 26.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2971

Bard College has launched a tuition-free, degree-granting microcollege in the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. This innovative new program is designed to help nontraditional students who have been deterred, discouraged, or excluded from higher education to achieve associate degrees in the liberal arts, at no cost and in their home community.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/16/bard-college-and-brooklyn-public-library-open-free-satellite-university#.WobUBy8nVFQ.twitter

Author Carmen Maria Machado, Bard Fiction Prize winner and writer in residence at Bard College, will read from her work on February 19.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2964

Conjunctions:69, Being Bodies—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—is an exploration of the complex circumstances of flesh-and-blood existence. A memoir of distance running counterpoints a meditation on resurrection. The story of an injury is juxtaposed with an uncommonly candid confession of a young man who struggles with gender identity and sexual orientation. In every contribution come fresh insights into what it means to inhabit our bodies for a brief moment in time. Edited by Conjunctions editor, novelist, and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, Being Bodies features new work from Mary Caponegro, Edward Carey, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Nomi Eve, Michael Ives, Carole Maso, Rick Moody, Kyoko Mori, Dina Nayeri, Stephen O’Connor, Peter Orner, Jorge Ángel Pérez, Rosamond Purcell, Sallie Tisdale, Anne Waldman, and others.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2952

On Monday, November 13, celebrated fantasy writer and critic Elizabeth Hand reads from her fiction collection Saffron and Brimstone. The Washington Post writes, "Hand's work is pulsing with tension throughout, charged with its own chilling luminosity." Hand will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2949

On Monday, October 30, celebrated author Diane Ackerman will read from The Zookeeper’s Wife at Bard College. This little-known true story of World War II enjoyed months as the New York Times No. 1 nonfiction bestseller, was the basis for a 2017 feature film of the same title, and received the Orion Book Award, which honored it as “a groundbreaking work of nonfiction, in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust.” Ackerman will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading (ICFR) series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. at Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center and will be followed by a Q&A. It is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2943

Author Carmen Maria Machado has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties. In the collection, long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Machado shapes startling, genre-bending narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. Machado’s residency at Bard College is for the fall 2018 semester, during which time she will continue her writing, meet informally with students, and give a public reading.
http://www.bard.edu/bfp/

What happens when Professor Daniel Mendelsohn's 81-year-old father enrolls in his Odyssey seminar at Bard? The author discusses his new memoir on Friday, October 20.
http://fishercenter.bard.edu/calendar/event.php?eid=133159

On Monday, September 25, American Book Award–winning poet, memoirist, journalist, and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe will read from his work at Bard College. 
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2934

Bard College alumna Charlotte Mandell ’90 has been named one of six finalists for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2910

Bard College student C Mandler has won an inaugural GLAAD Rising Star Grant. The GLAAD Rising Stars program empowers and invests in the next generation of LGBTQ change makers, whose advocacy is changing their local communities and the culture at large.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2893

Bard College students have won several highly competitive awards for international travel including two Thomas J. Watson Fellowships, four Fulbright grants, and a Davis Projects for Peace prize.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2892

Justus Rosenberg will receive the Legion of Honor medal at the French consulate in New York City on Thursday, March 30. Professor Rosenberg, Bard professor emeritus of languages and literature and visiting professor of literature, is the last surviving member of the Varian Fry group, which helped rescue hundreds of artists and intellectuals from Nazi-occupied France during World War II. He later joined the Forces Francaises de I'Interieur and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation organization. The medal recognizes his "selfless sacrifice" throughout the war and subsequent "outstanding academic career ... where you left a profound mark and remain a highly influential role model for thousands of young men and women beginning their adult lives. It comes in recognition of the high esteem in which you are held by French authorities, and serves as an example to all those who have French-American friendship at heart."
http://jewishworldnews.org/dr-justus-rosenberg-awarded-commandeur-in-the-french-legion-of-honor-for-erc-efforts/

Professor in the Arts Neil Gaiman and Executive Producer Bryan Fuller discuss moving from page to screen for the forthcoming Starz television series American Gods, adapted from Gaiman’s best-selling novel. The event takes place on Saturday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m., and includes an exclusive preview of the first episode of the new television series ahead of its premiere on the Starz network.

Bard Fisher Center Presents an Evening with Neil Gaiman and American Gods (Bard.edu)
Neil Gaiman to Discuss American Gods (Poughkeepsie Journal)
 

John Crowley, the World Fantasy Award–winning author of Little, Big and the Ægypt series, will read from his fiction at Bard College on Monday, November 14. The New York Times Book Review writes, “John Crowley is an abundantly gifted writer, a scholar whose passion for history is matched by his ability to write a graceful sentence.”
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2853

Who or what is an alien? Someone or something whose profound otherness stirs in us terror, even dread, or perhaps a healthy—sometimes dangerous—curiosity? Exploring these straightforward yet complex questions, Conjunctions:67, Other Aliens—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—collects works of literary science and speculative fiction that explore the vast precincts of unfamiliarity, of keen difference, of weirdness and not belonging.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2851

Author Karan Mahajan has been selected to receive the Bard Fiction Prize for his novel The Association of Small Bombs. A finalist for the 2016 National Book Award, Mahajan’s masterful narrative tells the story of two Delhi families ripped apart by a small bombing in a marketplace. Woven around the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the gripping tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland. Mahajan’s residency at Bard College is for the Fall 2017 semester, during which time he will continue his writing, meet informally with students, and give a public reading.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2848

After five years of preparation, the Sussman Rare Book Collection will open in the Stevenson Library on October 29 with such treasures as a 1556 copy of the Magna Carta.
http://hudsonvalleyone.com/2016/10/13/woodstock-attorney-donates-extraordinary-book-collection-to-bard/

On Monday, October 17, celebrated avant-garde fiction writer and literary critic Can Xue will read from her recent work at Bard College. English translations of her fiction include Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories, Five Spice Street, Vertical Motion, The Last Lover (winner of the Best Translated Book Award), and the forthcoming Frontier. She will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series and cosponsored by the Bard Program in Written Arts, takes place at 4 p.m. in Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center and will be followed by a Q&A. It is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2844

Legendary performer Alan Cumming will talk with WAMC’s Joe Donahue about his new collection of photographs accompanied by autobiographical essays, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures, in which the actor, singer, writer, and man-about-town shares wildly entertaining real-life stories of louche late-night parties, backstage anecdotes, life in LA and New York, cross-country road trips with his beloved dog, Honey, and poignant memories of his life, loves, family, fellow actors, and friends. The event takes place on Sunday, October 16 at 3 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater. 
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2842

Dinaw Mengestu, professor of written arts and director of the Written Arts Program, has been named to the board of trustees of PEN America. The organization, which works at the intersection of literature and human rights, sought to broaden its leadership and address new challenges to expression with five new appointments to its board. Professor Mengestu is an award-winning Ethiopian-American author of three novels, most recently All Our Names. He joined the Bard faculty this fall.
https://pen.org/press-release/2016-new-trustees

On Monday, September 26, Andrew Ervin reads from his celebrated first novel, Burning Down George Orwell’s House. Ervin will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema, Bertelsmann Campus Center, and will be followed by a Q&A. The event is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2835

Book objects from the collection of Mindell Dubansky are on view at the Stevenson Library through Sunday, October 30, with an opening reception on Monday, September 12. All over the world, for hundreds of years, people have been making, collecting and presenting book-objects that reflect their devotion and respect for books and each other. There are countless examples; they include cameras, radios, banks, toys, memorials, desk accessories, musical instruments, magic tricks, furniture and jewelry.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2831

Unlike blood kinship, friendships are forged with people we choose, and continue to choose. People who become, in essence, a free-will kind of family which, like our blood family, can be a strong source of happiness and, sometimes, of grand miseries. Friendships are as mercurial as they are essential. Conjunctions:66, Affinity—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—investigates the phenomenon of friendship in its many forms, collecting innovative, provocative fiction, poetry, and essays by writers of every ilk. Edited by Conjunctions editor, novelist, and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, Affinity includes a never-before-published poem by Robert Duncan in his original handwriting, as well as new work from Rick Moody and Darcey Steinke, Robert Coover, Paul Lisicky, John Ashbery, and Joyce Carol Oates, among other leading contemporary writers. The issue is dedicated to poet and longtime Conjunctions contributor C. D. Wright.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2802

Professor Rosenberg is the last surviving member of the Varian Fry group, which helped rescue hundreds of artists and intellectuals from the Nazis in World War II.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/nyregion/justus-rosenberg-the-professor-has-a-past.html

On Thursday, April 21, Bard College will host a celebratory reading in honor of the work of Ann Lauterbach, David and Ruth Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature, member of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts faculty, and the renowned author of Under the Sign; Or to Begin Again (National Book Award nominee); Hum; If in Time: Selected Poems 1975–2000; The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience; and other books. Poet John Ashbery, Charles P. Stevenson Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature, writes, “Ann Lauterbach’s poetry goes straight to the elastic, infinite core of time.” Celebrating Lauterbach’s work will be poets Jibade-Khalil Huffman ’03, Simone White, Michael Ives, Camille Guthrie, and Anselm Berrigan, who will briefly discuss their artistic relationship to Lauterbach’s influential oeuvre. The evening will culminate with Lauterbach reading her own work.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2780

Bard College and Simon's Rock faculty member, poet, and translator of German literature Peter Filkins has recently had two of his works reviewed. His translation of H.G. Adler's novel The Wall was reviewed in the London Review of Books, and his edition of a collection of Adler's essays, Orthodoxie des Herzens, was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement.

"Death camps in civilization" in the Times Literary Supplement | PDF

"The crematorium is a zoo" in the London Review of Books | PDF

On Monday, April 18, award-winning author Eli Gottlieb will read from Best Boy, his new novel about autism, memory, and redemption. The New Yorker finds Best Boy “arresting ... The book’s empathy is bracing.” Celebrated writer Cynthia Ozick says, “I’ve fallen in love with Best Boy, touched by its delicacy and fearless truths.” A short documentary film featuring Gottlieb’s brother, the model for the protagonist of Best Boy, will be screened at the start of the reading. Gottlieb will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema, Bertelsmann Campus Center, and will be followed by a Q&A. The event is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2795

On Thursday, April 14, celebrated poet and art critic Roberto Tejada will read from his work at Bard College. The reading is presented by the John Ashbery Poetry Series. Poet Alan Gilbert says, “Tejada’s work is with dismantling borders and upsetting classifications. The result is a layered poetry that finds its form in dense stanzas composed of lines that frequently veer toward a kind of fractured prose.” Introduced by Ann Lauterbach, David and Ruth Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard, this event takes place at 6:00 p.m. in the Bard Chapel of the Holy Innocents. It is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2794

Cole Heinowitz talks about translating the poetry of Mario Santiago Papasquiaro in the new collection of his work, Beauty Is Our Spiritual Guernica.
https://paulbmurufas.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/beauty-is-our-spirtual-guernica-by-mario-santiago-papasquiaro/

Bard College announces the appointment of esteemed writer Dinaw Mengestu as professor of written arts and director of the Written Arts Program. Mengestu, who joins the faculty in fall 2016, will teach fiction workshops, among other courses, through the Division of Languages and Literature. In his role as director, Mengestu will provide leadership in the Written Arts Program, whose core faculty comprises distinguished writers of poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction—including Mary Caponegro, Teju Cole, Robert Kelly, Porochista Khakpour, Ann Lauterbach, Joseph O’Neill, Luc Sante, and Mona Simpson, among many others.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2782

On Monday, April 4, Rick Moody—the celebrated author of Garden State, The Ice Storm, The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven, Purple America, The Black Veil: A Memoir with Digressions, and other books—reads from his new novel, Hotels of North America. The Wall Street Journal writes, “Rick Moody is one of the most prodigiously talented writers in America.” Moody will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema, Bertelsmann Campus Center, and will be followed by a Q&A. The event is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2776

On Thursday, March 31, celebrated poet Michael Ives, visiting assistant professor of the humanities at Bard, will read from his work. The reading is presented by the John Ashbery Poetry Series. A jazz musician, an innovator in the field of text in performance, and recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize and Lillian Fairchild Award, Ives is also the founding member and composer of the sound/text performance trio F’loom and the author of Wavetable (Dr. Cicero Books) and The External Combustion Engine (Futurepoem). 
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2775

Derek Furr, Master of Arts in Teaching Program director and associate professor of literature, discusses Semitones, a collection of poetry and short fiction.
http://southernlitreview.com/authors/allen-mendenhall-interviews-derek-furr-author-of-semitones.htm

On Thursday, February 25, award-winning author Luc Sante, visiting professor of writing and photography at Bard College, will read from his most recent book, The Other Paris. Presented by Bard’s Written Arts Program, the reading takes place at 7:00 p.m. in Bard Hall, and is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations are required. Books will be available for sale and signing from Oblong Books & Music. 
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2760