News and Notes by Date
April 2022
04-19-2022
As museums and exhibition spaces make efforts to showcase more diverse artwork and perspectives, in her review of Baseera Khan’s I Am an Archive for Art Papers, Dina Ramadan, assistant professor of Arabic, considers the cost for the artist. Noting Khan’s usage of collage and texture, Ramadan calls the exhibition “energetic and ambitious,” with many pieces serving as “a deliberate reflection on capitalist economies of extraction and imperialist trade routes that continually ravage the Middle East and South Asia.” Larger questions arise when it comes to representation and its relation to the labor of artists of color, however. In attempting to to reeducate its audience to “the fundamentals of Islam,” the exhibition “encourag[es] an anthropological approach to the work,” Ramadan writes. “Ultimately, I Am an Archive raises urgent questions about the kind of ‘educational’ labor art institutions expect artists of color to perform in return for their inclusion.”
Read More in Art Papers
Read More in Art Papers
Photo: Baseera Khan, Privacy Control at BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn, live performance and climb, October 9, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Human Rights,Literature Program,Middle Eastern Studies | Institutes(s): Center for Experimental Humanities |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Human Rights,Literature Program,Middle Eastern Studies | Institutes(s): Center for Experimental Humanities |
04-12-2022
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded three Bard faculty members 2022 Guggenheim Fellowships. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Written Arts Program Dinaw Mengestu and Richard B. Fisher Professor of Literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock Peter Filkins have been named 2022 Guggenheim Fellows. Incoming Hannah Arendt Center Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor of Humanities Thomas Chatterton Williams, who will begin teaching at the College in spring 2023, has also been selected. Chosen through a rigorous review process from nearly 2,500 applicants, Mengestu, Filkins, and Williams were among a diverse group of 180 exceptional artists, writers, scholars, and scientists to receive a 2022 Fellowship. Mengestu was awarded a Fellowship for his work in fiction, Filkins for his work in biography, and Williams for his work in general nonfiction.
“We are proud of and grateful for Bard’s 2022 Fellows, who represent an astonishing range of achievement,” said Bard Dean of the College Deirdre d’Albertis. “Living and learning alongside colleagues who have been recognized this year–and in the past–by the Guggenheim Foundation inspires us all to celebrate the vital work of artists, writers, and scholars in our community.”
“Now that the past two years are hopefully behind all of us, it is a special joy to celebrate the Guggenheim Foundation’s new class of Fellows,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry. “This year marks the Foundation’s 97th annual Fellowship competition. Our long experience tells us what an impact these annual grants will have to change people’s lives. The work supported by the Foundation will aid in our collective effort to better understand the new world we’re in, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. It is an honor for the Foundation to help the Fellows carry out their visionary work.”
In all, 51 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 81 different academic institutions, 31 states and the District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces are represented in this year’s class of Fellows, who range in age from 33 to 75. Close to 60 Fellows have no full-time college or university affiliation. Many Fellows’ projects directly respond to issues like climate change, pandemics, Russia, feminism, identity, and racism.
Created and initially funded in 1925 by Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon Guggenheim, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has sought since its inception 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 nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 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 great range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program. For more information on the 2022 Fellows, please visit the Foundation’s website at gf.org.
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of three novels, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books: All Our Names(Knopf, 2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007). A native of Ethiopia who came with his family to the United States at the age of two, Mengestu is also a freelance journalist who has reported about life in Darfur, northern Uganda, and eastern Congo. His articles and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Jane, and Rolling Stone. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, Guardian First Book Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. He was also included in The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list in 2010. In its cover page review of All Our Names, the New York Times Book Review said “You can’t turn the pages fast enough, and when you’re done, your first impulse is to go back to the beginning and start over . . . While questions of race, ethnicity, and point of origin do crop up repeatedly in Mengestu’s fiction, they are merely his raw materials, the fuel with which he so artfully—but never didactically—kindles disruptive, disturbing stories exploring the puzzles of identity, place, and human connection.” BA, Georgetown University; MFA, Columbia University. At Bard since 2016.
Peter Filkins teaches courses in translation at Bard College, and also creative writing and literature at Bard College at Simon's Rock, where he is Richard B. Fisher Professor of Literature. Filkins has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to the International Research Center for Culture Studies in Vienna for Spring 2023. He has published five books of poetry, Water / Music (2021), The View We’re Granted (2012), Augustine’s Vision (2010), After Homer(2002), and What She Knew (1998). He is also the translator of Ingeborg Bachmann’s collected poems, Darkness Spoken(2006), as well as her novels, The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann (1999). In addition, he has translated H. G. Adler’s novels The Journey (2008), Panorama (2011), and The Wall (2014), and has published a biography, H. G. Adler: A Life in Many Worlds (2019). Co-winner of the 2013 Sheila Motton Best Book Award from the New England Poetry Club, he has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, from the Leon Levy Center for Biography, from the American Academy in Berlin, and from the Fulbright Commission of Austria. He has been awarded the Stover Prize in Poetry from Southwest Review, the New American Press Chapbook Award, as well as fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Yaddo, MacDowell, Millay, and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv – Marbach. Previously he was the recipient of an Outstanding Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association and received a Distinguished Translation Award from the Austrian government, as well as serving as Writer-in-Residence at the James Merrill House. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Poetry, Partisan Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The American Scholar, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. BA, Williams College; MFA, Columbia University. At Bard since 2007.
Thomas Chatterton Williams is the author of Losing My Cool and Self-Portrait in Black and White. He is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, a columnist at Harper’s, a 2019 New America Fellow and a visiting fellow at AEI. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Le Monde and many other places, and has been collected in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. He has received support from Yaddo, MacDowell and The American Academy in Berlin, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. His next book, Nothing Was the Same: The Pandemic Summer of George Floyd and the Shift in Western Consciousness, will be published by Knopf. He joins Bard as a Hannah Arendt Center Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor of Humanities beginning in Spring 2023.
“We are proud of and grateful for Bard’s 2022 Fellows, who represent an astonishing range of achievement,” said Bard Dean of the College Deirdre d’Albertis. “Living and learning alongside colleagues who have been recognized this year–and in the past–by the Guggenheim Foundation inspires us all to celebrate the vital work of artists, writers, and scholars in our community.”
“Now that the past two years are hopefully behind all of us, it is a special joy to celebrate the Guggenheim Foundation’s new class of Fellows,” said Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 Fellow in Poetry. “This year marks the Foundation’s 97th annual Fellowship competition. Our long experience tells us what an impact these annual grants will have to change people’s lives. The work supported by the Foundation will aid in our collective effort to better understand the new world we’re in, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. It is an honor for the Foundation to help the Fellows carry out their visionary work.”
In all, 51 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 81 different academic institutions, 31 states and the District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces are represented in this year’s class of Fellows, who range in age from 33 to 75. Close to 60 Fellows have no full-time college or university affiliation. Many Fellows’ projects directly respond to issues like climate change, pandemics, Russia, feminism, identity, and racism.
Created and initially funded in 1925 by Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon Guggenheim, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has sought since its inception 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 nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 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 great range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program. For more information on the 2022 Fellows, please visit the Foundation’s website at gf.org.
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of three novels, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books: All Our Names(Knopf, 2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007). A native of Ethiopia who came with his family to the United States at the age of two, Mengestu is also a freelance journalist who has reported about life in Darfur, northern Uganda, and eastern Congo. His articles and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Jane, and Rolling Stone. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, Guardian First Book Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. He was also included in The New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list in 2010. In its cover page review of All Our Names, the New York Times Book Review said “You can’t turn the pages fast enough, and when you’re done, your first impulse is to go back to the beginning and start over . . . While questions of race, ethnicity, and point of origin do crop up repeatedly in Mengestu’s fiction, they are merely his raw materials, the fuel with which he so artfully—but never didactically—kindles disruptive, disturbing stories exploring the puzzles of identity, place, and human connection.” BA, Georgetown University; MFA, Columbia University. At Bard since 2016.
Peter Filkins teaches courses in translation at Bard College, and also creative writing and literature at Bard College at Simon's Rock, where he is Richard B. Fisher Professor of Literature. Filkins has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to the International Research Center for Culture Studies in Vienna for Spring 2023. He has published five books of poetry, Water / Music (2021), The View We’re Granted (2012), Augustine’s Vision (2010), After Homer(2002), and What She Knew (1998). He is also the translator of Ingeborg Bachmann’s collected poems, Darkness Spoken(2006), as well as her novels, The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann (1999). In addition, he has translated H. G. Adler’s novels The Journey (2008), Panorama (2011), and The Wall (2014), and has published a biography, H. G. Adler: A Life in Many Worlds (2019). Co-winner of the 2013 Sheila Motton Best Book Award from the New England Poetry Club, he has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, from the Leon Levy Center for Biography, from the American Academy in Berlin, and from the Fulbright Commission of Austria. He has been awarded the Stover Prize in Poetry from Southwest Review, the New American Press Chapbook Award, as well as fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Yaddo, MacDowell, Millay, and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv – Marbach. Previously he was the recipient of an Outstanding Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association and received a Distinguished Translation Award from the Austrian government, as well as serving as Writer-in-Residence at the James Merrill House. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Poetry, Partisan Review, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The American Scholar, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. BA, Williams College; MFA, Columbia University. At Bard since 2007.
Thomas Chatterton Williams is the author of Losing My Cool and Self-Portrait in Black and White. He is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, a columnist at Harper’s, a 2019 New America Fellow and a visiting fellow at AEI. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Le Monde and many other places, and has been collected in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. He has received support from Yaddo, MacDowell and The American Academy in Berlin, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. His next book, Nothing Was the Same: The Pandemic Summer of George Floyd and the Shift in Western Consciousness, will be published by Knopf. He joins Bard as a Hannah Arendt Center Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor of Humanities beginning in Spring 2023.
Photo: L-R: Thomas Chatterton Williams, Peter Filkins, and Dinaw Mengestu. Photos by Christopher Anderson, Joanne Eldredge Morrissey, and Anne-Emmanuelle Robicquet
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,First-Year Seminar,Hannah Arendt Center,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard College at Simon's Rock,Bard Undergraduate Programs,Hannah Arendt Center |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,First-Year Seminar,Hannah Arendt Center,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard College at Simon's Rock,Bard Undergraduate Programs,Hannah Arendt Center |
04-05-2022
After coauthoring Flavors of Oakland at 17, it might have seemed inevitable that Bard alum Elazar Sontag would end up as the restaurant editor for a major publication. But according to Sontag, who worked for years in the food industry, that hasn’t always been the plan. “I didn’t work in restaurants because I thought it would make me a better food writer,” Sontag said in an interview with the Oaklandside. “I worked in restaurants because I truly believed that I was going to become a restaurant cook and eventually a chef.” Several experiences led Sontag to a different path, however, who noted that “kitchens are complicated places to be queer.” Now, in his new role as restaurant editor for Bon Appétit, Sontag will continue writing about queer food culture. “So much of what I love to cover as a writer and editor is about these queer restaurant spaces,” he says. “It feels like such a gift that I get to tell the stories and celebrate these spaces that when I was a teen, I didn’t even know that existed.”
Read More on the Oaklandside
Read More on the Oaklandside
Photo: Elazar Sontag. Photo by Jasmine Clarke ’18
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bardians at Work,Career Development,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bardians at Work,Career Development,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
04-05-2022
Sandra Cisneros to Read at Bard on Wednesday, April 6
The Big Read Hudson Valley kicks off this week with a reading from Sandra Cisneros, author of the 2022 Big Read book selection, The House on Mango Street, at the Fisher Center on Wednesday, April 6. Livestreaming of this event is made possible by Radio Kingston.Cisneros’s novel “is just as relevant now as it was when first published in 1984,” writes Emma Cariello for Chronogram. “It follows Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Latina girl coming of age in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. The book explores immigration, displacement, and what home means.”
“Thinking about the influx of residents that this area has seen during the pandemic, and people being displaced due to gentrification, it’s a perfect fit for this community,” says Karen Unger, Associate Vice President of the Office of Institutional Support at Bard College. Unger thinks everyone in the Hudson Valley would benefit from reading The House on Mango Street, and so does the National Endowment for the Arts. Bard has received a $19,985 grant from the NEA to support the series. Events take place April 6–30 with reading groups, performances, workshops, and special events in Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Kingston. The Big Read Hudson Valley is a collaboration between Bard College and its Master of Arts in Teaching Program and La Voz magazine.
Meta: Type(s): Event,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Community Events,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Grants,Higher Education,Office of Institutional Support (OIS) | Institutes(s): Fisher Center |
March 2022
03-15-2022
As news of the war in Ukraine proliferated Western news cycles, what information reached Russians and how? Masha Gessen, distinguished writer in residence, spoke with Ezra Klein on the Ezra Klein Show about the information vacuum experienced by Russians, Vladimir Putin’s historical conception of himself, and how the sanctions deployed by the United States and others may not, ultimately, sway Putin’s current course of action. “The way that the narrative of sanctions works is it matches the working definition of insanity,” Gessen says. “Sanctions are the thing that never works, that the United States and other Western countries try over and over again expecting a different outcome.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Gessen outlined what they see as the likeliest paths forward for the war and its global implications.
Listen Now
Listen Now
Photo: Masha Gessen.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Podcast | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Podcast | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-15-2022
Even if victory seems elusive, assisting resistance remains crucial, writes Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism, for Bloomberg. Citing a history of citizen resistance to occupying forces and “shadow armies,” the West’s decision to bolster the Ukrainian army is undoubtedly the right move, he argues, no matter the outcome of the war. “However puny in military terms, armed resistance undercuts that projection of omnipotence,” Buruma says. “It reveals the vulnerability of the aggressor, just by showing that people can fight back. That sense of vulnerability can grow over time.”
Read More in Bloomberg
Read More in Bloomberg
Photo: Ian Buruma. Photo by Pete Mauney ’93 MFA ’00
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Human Rights,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Human Rights,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-10-2022
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), in partnership with Arts Midwest, awarded Bard College a $19,985 NEA Big Read grant to support the Big Read Hudson Valley: Spanning the Hudson River with Words, a dynamic, community-wide reading program offering reading groups, performances, workshops, and events in Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Kingston. Big Read Hudson Valley, which will take place April 6–30, 2022, is a collaboration between Bard College and its Master of Arts in Teaching Program and La Voz magazine.
The Big Read Hudson Valley will kick off with a reading from Sandra Cisneros, author of the 2022 Big Read book selection, The House on Mango Street, on April 6 at the Fisher Center. Cisneros will read from her acclaimed novel followed by a conversation in English and Spanish with Mariel Fiori and Dinaw Mengestu.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros has been recognized by critics, professors, and readers alike as one of most important contributions to modern literature. This landmark story collection relates the triumphant coming-of-age of young Esperanza Cordero who finds her own voice and inner potential to overcome the impediments of poverty, gender, and her Chicana-American heritage.
Live-streaming of this event made possible by Radio Kingston.
Signed copies of The House on Mango Street will be available for sale in the lobby from Oblong Books and Music.
Sandra Cisneros’s appearance made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts and Radio Kingston.
Meta: Type(s): Event,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Community Events,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Grants,Higher Education,Office of Institutional Support (OIS) | Institutes(s): Fisher Center |
The Big Read Hudson Valley will kick off with a reading from Sandra Cisneros, author of the 2022 Big Read book selection, The House on Mango Street, on April 6 at the Fisher Center. Cisneros will read from her acclaimed novel followed by a conversation in English and Spanish with Mariel Fiori and Dinaw Mengestu.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros has been recognized by critics, professors, and readers alike as one of most important contributions to modern literature. This landmark story collection relates the triumphant coming-of-age of young Esperanza Cordero who finds her own voice and inner potential to overcome the impediments of poverty, gender, and her Chicana-American heritage.
Live-streaming of this event made possible by Radio Kingston.
Signed copies of The House on Mango Street will be available for sale in the lobby from Oblong Books and Music.
Sandra Cisneros’s appearance made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts and Radio Kingston.
Meta: Type(s): Event,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Community Events,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Grants,Higher Education,Office of Institutional Support (OIS) | Institutes(s): Fisher Center |
03-08-2022
Katy Schneider ’14, features editor for New York magazine, won the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) Next Award for journalists under 30. ASME Next Award winners are judged by their portfolio of work and are chosen each year for “their potential to make significant contributions to magazine journalism.” Schneider and the rest of this year’s winners will be honored at ASME’s annual award presentation on April 5, 2022.
Read More in New York
Read More on the Verge, as Reported by Aude White ’12
Read More in New York
Read More on the Verge, as Reported by Aude White ’12
Photo: Katy Schneider ’14.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Bardians at Work,Career Development,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Bardians at Work,Career Development,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
February 2022
02-15-2022
Bard College’s Division of Languages and Literature is pleased to announce the appointment of Hua Hsu as Professor of Literature. Hsu will begin this tenured appointment in 2022-2023 academic year.
“Welcoming a public thinker of Hua Hsu’s stature to Bard is an event truly to be celebrated by the entire community. He brings tremendous intellectual range and energy to Languages and Literature, building on Bard’s traditional commitment to practicing artists who are at the forefront of their fields,” said Deirdre d’Albertis, Bard’s Dean of the College. “As a scholar and writer, Hua Hsu promises to strengthen and expand our offerings in American Studies, Asian Studies, Written Arts, and Literature. I am grateful in particular to Professors Nathan Shockey and Peter L’Official for their inspired efforts in recruiting Professor Hsu.”
“I'm thankful to President Botstein and Dean d’Albertis for their enthusiasm and faith in me,” said Hsu. “I’m delighted to join Bard at a moment of such great ambition and possibility, and I look forward to learning the ins and outs of this singular institution.”
Hua Hsu is the author of A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific (Harvard University Press, 2016) and the forthcoming memoir Stay True (Doubleday, 2022). Hsu is a staff writer at The New Yorker, having previously contributed to Artforum, Slate, the Village Voice, and The Wire (UK). He served on the editorial board of A New Literary History of America (HUP, 2009) and his scholarly work has been published in American Quarterly, Criticism, PMLA, and Genre. He currently serves on the boards of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Critical Minded, an initiative to support cultural critics of color. Hsu previously taught at Vassar College. He was formerly a fellow at the New America Foundation and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. He is currently working on an essay collection titled Impostor Syndrome.
“Welcoming a public thinker of Hua Hsu’s stature to Bard is an event truly to be celebrated by the entire community. He brings tremendous intellectual range and energy to Languages and Literature, building on Bard’s traditional commitment to practicing artists who are at the forefront of their fields,” said Deirdre d’Albertis, Bard’s Dean of the College. “As a scholar and writer, Hua Hsu promises to strengthen and expand our offerings in American Studies, Asian Studies, Written Arts, and Literature. I am grateful in particular to Professors Nathan Shockey and Peter L’Official for their inspired efforts in recruiting Professor Hsu.”
“I'm thankful to President Botstein and Dean d’Albertis for their enthusiasm and faith in me,” said Hsu. “I’m delighted to join Bard at a moment of such great ambition and possibility, and I look forward to learning the ins and outs of this singular institution.”
Hua Hsu is the author of A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific (Harvard University Press, 2016) and the forthcoming memoir Stay True (Doubleday, 2022). Hsu is a staff writer at The New Yorker, having previously contributed to Artforum, Slate, the Village Voice, and The Wire (UK). He served on the editorial board of A New Literary History of America (HUP, 2009) and his scholarly work has been published in American Quarterly, Criticism, PMLA, and Genre. He currently serves on the boards of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Critical Minded, an initiative to support cultural critics of color. Hsu previously taught at Vassar College. He was formerly a fellow at the New America Foundation and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. He is currently working on an essay collection titled Impostor Syndrome.
Photo: Hua Hsu.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program |
January 2022
01-26-2022
Lucy Sante—writer, critic, and Bard faculty member—pens an intimate personal essay for Vanity Fair tracing her journey as a trans woman, from the carefully repressed feelings of her adolescence to finally coming out last year. “Now I am aware that I live, as we all do, in a cloud of unknowing, where certainties break down and categories become liquid,” she writes. “None of us really knows anything except provisionally. Now, as Lou Reed put it, ‘I’m set free/ to find a new illusion.’” Lucy Sante is visiting professor of writing and photography at Bard College. She has been a member of the faculty since 1999.
Photo: Lucy Sante, visiting professor of writing and photography. Photo by AnnAnn Puttithanasorn ’24
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Photography Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Photography Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-26-2022
Photojournalist, documentarian, and activist Steve Schapiro ’55, who died on January 15, 2022, leaves behind a body of work that began with his capturing of the civil rights movement and continued through the current political era. “Over a six-decade career, Mr. Schapiro trained his camera’s eye on an astonishing array of people across the American landscape as he sought to capture the emotional heart of his subjects,” writes Katharine Q. Seelye in a remembrance of Schapiro for the New York Times. His work, which has been featured in magazines and museums alike, focused on a diversity of subjects, from movie stars to migrant workers. His photographs of James Baldwin’s 1963 tour of the South illustrated later editions of The Fire Next Time. After his death was announced, tributes to Shapiro poured out online, including remembrances from Barbra Streisand and Ava DuVernay. He graduated from Bard in 1955 with a degree in literature. He was a transfer student to Bard, which he found “more suitable for free spirits like himself.”
Full Story in the New York Times
Full Story in the New York Times
Photo: Steve Schapiro ’55.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-07-2022
“With every hour spent alone, with every sentence that you draft, you win back a piece of your life,” writes Elias Canetti in The Book Against Death. Visiting Professor of Literature Peter Filkins has translated from the German a selection of Canetti’s short writings—spanning nearly 60 years—about the nature of death. “Canetti’s notes are neither morose nor gloomy,” Filkins observes. “Sardonic, mercurial, aghast, enigmatic, passionate—they are fueled by the fire of a man writing for life against death, in a century and locale suffused with the latter.”
Photo: Elias Canetti. Courtesy Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANEFO), 1945-1989
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-04-2022
Dante’s biographers have their work cut out for them, writes Joseph Luzzi, professor of comparative literature, for the New York Times. Reviewing Dante: A Life, a new biography of Dante by historian and novelist Alessandro Barbero, Luzzi comments on the competing approaches to writing about the life of the mysterious poet. “The biographer must ultimately choose: Either hew to the evidence and ferret out whatever rare nugget about Dante’s life remains uncovered, or surrender to the genius of the work he called his ‘Comedìa’ and try to broker a fragile peace between literary interpretation and life writing,” Luzzi writes. Instead, Barbero takes a dual approach, which, Luzzi argues, works both in his favor and against him.
Full Story in the New York Times
Full Story in the New York Times
Photo: Professor Joseph Luzzi. Photo by Chris Kayden
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
December 2021
12-22-2021
Novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, founding editor of Conjunctions, will host an online evening of readings to celebrate the publication of the latest issue of Conjunctions, the celebrated literary journal published by Bard College. Morrow will be joined by Conjunctions:77 contributors Charles Bernstein, Anelise Chen, Shelley Jackson, Tracie Morris, and Arthur Sze. The livestreamed event, presented by Conjunctions and Elliott Bay Book Company, takes place on Friday, January 21, at 8 p.m. ET. To register, please visit the Eventbrite page.
About the Issue
Published by Bard College in fall 2021, Conjunctions: 77: States of Play, The Games Issue gathers fiction, poetry, essays, and genre-bending work from writers who are willing, through their writing, to invoke one of the oldest, most audacious questions one mortal can put to another: “Do you want to play a game?” Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Morrow, States of Play features a collection of poems by celebrated Indian poet Ranjit Hoskote, a short story by international bestseller David Shields, poems by PEN/Malamud Award winner Nam Le, a new short story by Jerusalem Prize winner Joyce Carol Oates, new poems from National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, a new series of genre-bending work from cross-genre experimental writer Shelley Jackson, a new poem from National Book Award and Bollingen Prize winner Nathaniel Mackey, and a collaborative duet between Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris, two of the most revered voices in American poetry. The issue also includes work from Joanna Scott, John Darcy, Heather Altfeld, Kyoko Mori, James Morrow, Catherine Imbriglio, Pierre Reverdy, Robin Hemley, Anelise Chen, S. P. Tenhoff, Lowry Pressly, Cole Swensen, Rae Armantrout, Lucas Southworth, Kelsey Peterson, John Dimitroff, Alyssa Pelish, Tim Raymond, Justin Noga, Brian Evenson, and Kate Colby.
About the Participants
Charles Bernstein is the author of Topsy-Turvy and Pitch of Poetry (both University of Chicago Press). In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Bollingen Prize for Poetry. With Tracie Morris, Charles Bernstein coedited Best American Experimental Writing 2016 (Wesleyan University Press).
Anelise Chen’s first book, So Many Olympic Exertions, came out with Kaya Press in 2017. She teaches writing at Columbia University.
Shelley Jackson is the author of Riddance (Black Balloon), Half Life (HarperCollins), The Melancholy of Anatomy(Anchor), hypertexts including Patchwork Girl (Eastgate Systems), and several children’s books, including The Old Woman and the Wave (DK) and Mimi’s Dada Catifesto (Clarion Books). She is known for her cross-genre experiments, most notably SKIN, a story published in tattoos on 2,095 volunteers.
Tracie Morris’s recent books include the forthcoming titles handholding: on the other hand (Kore Press), human/nature poems (Litmus Press), Who Do With Words (expanded edition, Chax Press) and Hard Korè: Poems of Mythos and Place(Joca Seria Press).
Arthur Sze recieved the 2021 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. His newest book is The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon).
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
About the Issue
Published by Bard College in fall 2021, Conjunctions: 77: States of Play, The Games Issue gathers fiction, poetry, essays, and genre-bending work from writers who are willing, through their writing, to invoke one of the oldest, most audacious questions one mortal can put to another: “Do you want to play a game?” Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Morrow, States of Play features a collection of poems by celebrated Indian poet Ranjit Hoskote, a short story by international bestseller David Shields, poems by PEN/Malamud Award winner Nam Le, a new short story by Jerusalem Prize winner Joyce Carol Oates, new poems from National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, a new series of genre-bending work from cross-genre experimental writer Shelley Jackson, a new poem from National Book Award and Bollingen Prize winner Nathaniel Mackey, and a collaborative duet between Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris, two of the most revered voices in American poetry. The issue also includes work from Joanna Scott, John Darcy, Heather Altfeld, Kyoko Mori, James Morrow, Catherine Imbriglio, Pierre Reverdy, Robin Hemley, Anelise Chen, S. P. Tenhoff, Lowry Pressly, Cole Swensen, Rae Armantrout, Lucas Southworth, Kelsey Peterson, John Dimitroff, Alyssa Pelish, Tim Raymond, Justin Noga, Brian Evenson, and Kate Colby.
About the Participants
Charles Bernstein is the author of Topsy-Turvy and Pitch of Poetry (both University of Chicago Press). In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Bollingen Prize for Poetry. With Tracie Morris, Charles Bernstein coedited Best American Experimental Writing 2016 (Wesleyan University Press).
Anelise Chen’s first book, So Many Olympic Exertions, came out with Kaya Press in 2017. She teaches writing at Columbia University.
Shelley Jackson is the author of Riddance (Black Balloon), Half Life (HarperCollins), The Melancholy of Anatomy(Anchor), hypertexts including Patchwork Girl (Eastgate Systems), and several children’s books, including The Old Woman and the Wave (DK) and Mimi’s Dada Catifesto (Clarion Books). She is known for her cross-genre experiments, most notably SKIN, a story published in tattoos on 2,095 volunteers.
Tracie Morris’s recent books include the forthcoming titles handholding: on the other hand (Kore Press), human/nature poems (Litmus Press), Who Do With Words (expanded edition, Chax Press) and Hard Korè: Poems of Mythos and Place(Joca Seria Press).
Arthur Sze recieved the 2021 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. His newest book is The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon).
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
Photo: L-R: Anelise Chen, Shelley Jackson, Arthur Sze, Tracie Morris, Charles Bernstein.
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
Meta: Type(s): Event | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
12-20-2021
Two Bard College students have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships by the U.S. Department of State. Art history and Italian studies major Francesca Houran ’23 has been awarded $5,000 towards her studies at the University of Trento in Italy, where she will be the first to participate in a newly established tuition exchange program with Bard. “Through studying abroad, I hope to further my knowledge of the hermaphrodite within the context of the Italian Renaissance and how it influences the gender binary in contemporary Italy. I am also excited to explore the ascending, vertically-oriented architecture of museums, churches, and monuments that prompts climbing and physical ascension as a symbol of conquest and hierarchy,” says Houran. “My overarching goal is to build a foundation for a career in ethical museum curation and nuanced communication of histories surrounding gender, race, and colonialism—a goal that traveling through the Gilman Scholarship will make possible for me as a low-income college student.”
Biology major and premed student Emma Tilley ’23 has been awarded $4,500 to study via Bard’s tuition exchange at the University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands. “I am grateful for the Gilman scholarship and excited for the opportunity to travel abroad and learn more about international healthcare systems and the ways that Covid has impacted nations differently. My additional focus is to continue working on promoting inclusion in STEM on a global scale,” says Tilley.
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 establishment in 2001, over 1,350 U.S. institutions have sent more than 34,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 155 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study.
As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.”
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 U.S. 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 and premed student Emma Tilley ’23 has been awarded $4,500 to study via Bard’s tuition exchange at the University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands. “I am grateful for the Gilman scholarship and excited for the opportunity to travel abroad and learn more about international healthcare systems and the ways that Covid has impacted nations differently. My additional focus is to continue working on promoting inclusion in STEM on a global scale,” says Tilley.
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 establishment in 2001, over 1,350 U.S. institutions have sent more than 34,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 155 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study.
As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.”
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 U.S. 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: L-R: Emma Tilley ’23 and Francesca Houran ’23.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Awards,Bard Abroad,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of the Arts | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Awards,Bard Abroad,Biology Program,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Division of the Arts | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
12-19-2021
In 1968, the celebrated author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X arrived at Hamilton College to teach and work on his magnum opus, Roots. Now, on the centenary of his birth, former student Michael Patrick Hearn recalls Haley’s class for the New York Times. Hearn eventually transferred from Hamilton to Bard, graduating in 1972.
“The most important thing he taught us that year was that the one great American story that had never been fully told was the Black story,” Hearn writes. “Far from being a side issue, it was at the very core of the American experience. History, he suggested, concerns the lives of ordinary people; genealogy was not just for royalty anymore. He taught me that despite what the textbooks said, Black history did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Michael Patrick Hearn ’72 is the author of The Annotated Wizard of Oz, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, and The Annotated Christmas Carol. He is currently completing The Annotated Edgar Allan Poe.
“The most important thing he taught us that year was that the one great American story that had never been fully told was the Black story,” Hearn writes. “Far from being a side issue, it was at the very core of the American experience. History, he suggested, concerns the lives of ordinary people; genealogy was not just for royalty anymore. He taught me that despite what the textbooks said, Black history did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Michael Patrick Hearn ’72 is the author of The Annotated Wizard of Oz, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn, and The Annotated Christmas Carol. He is currently completing The Annotated Edgar Allan Poe.
Photo: Alex Haley speaks at University of Texas at Arlington's Texas Hall, 1980. University of Texas at Arlington Photograph Collection, Wikimedia Commons.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
12-07-2021
Bard Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason reviews celebrated short fiction writer and translator Lydia Davis’s most recent book for the New York Times. “Essays Two, Lydia Davis’s new collection of 19 pieces on translation and the learning of languages, all written over the past two decades, offers overwhelming proof of the benefits to a writer of a practice of translation,” writes Mason. And yet readers “with no interest in translation, little taste for essays and zero desire to become writers will nonetheless find themselves burning through its 571 pages,” he asserts. “[W]ith recognition that the mind we’re meeting on the page is awake to the world in ways that feel necessary and new.”
Photo: Wyatt Mason. Photo by Hannah Tennant-Moore.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Hannah Arendt Center |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Hannah Arendt Center |
12-07-2021
Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature Robert Kelly curates The Brooklyn Rail’s 64th Radical Poetry Reading featuring four major American poets, three of whom are Bardians. Billie Chernicoff ’78, Pierre Joris ’69, Kimberly Lyons ’81, and Jerome Rothenberg will read at this online event taking place over Zoom on Wednesday, December 8 at 1pm ET. Register for the event here.
American poet Robert Kelly was born in Brooklyn. He attended CUNY and Columbia University and since 1961 has taught at Bard College. He has authored more than 60 published volumes of fiction, poetry, and prose-poems. His 1967 debut novel The Scorpions first brought him a cult readership, and in 1980 his book Kill The Messenger won the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Writer Billie Chernicoff is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Amoretti (Lunar Chandelier Collective, 2020), as well as The Red Dress (Dr. Cicero Books, 2015), Bronze, and Waters Of (Lunar Chandelier Collective, 2018 and 2016).
Poet, translator, essayist, anthologist Pierre Joris has moved between Europe. the United States, and North Africa for 55 years, publishing over 80 books of poetry, essays, translations, and anthologies. Most recently, Fox-trails, -tales & -trots (Black Fountain Press 2020), the translations Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan (FGS 2020), and A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly and Microliths: Posthumous Prose of Paul Celan, A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly (all Contra Mundum Press 2020).
Poet Kimberly Lyons is the author of Capella (Oread Press, 2018), Approximately Near (Metambesendotorg, 2016), Soonest Mended (Belladonna Collaborative), Calcinatio (Faux Press) and a limited edition collaboration with artist Ed Epping, Mettle (Granary Books).
Internationally celebrated poet, translator, anthologist, and performer Jerome Rothenberghas published over 90 books of poetry and 12 assemblages of traditional and avant-garde poetry such as Technicians of the Sacred and Poems for the Millennium.
American poet Robert Kelly was born in Brooklyn. He attended CUNY and Columbia University and since 1961 has taught at Bard College. He has authored more than 60 published volumes of fiction, poetry, and prose-poems. His 1967 debut novel The Scorpions first brought him a cult readership, and in 1980 his book Kill The Messenger won the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Writer Billie Chernicoff is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Amoretti (Lunar Chandelier Collective, 2020), as well as The Red Dress (Dr. Cicero Books, 2015), Bronze, and Waters Of (Lunar Chandelier Collective, 2018 and 2016).
Poet, translator, essayist, anthologist Pierre Joris has moved between Europe. the United States, and North Africa for 55 years, publishing over 80 books of poetry, essays, translations, and anthologies. Most recently, Fox-trails, -tales & -trots (Black Fountain Press 2020), the translations Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan (FGS 2020), and A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly and Microliths: Posthumous Prose of Paul Celan, A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly (all Contra Mundum Press 2020).
Poet Kimberly Lyons is the author of Capella (Oread Press, 2018), Approximately Near (Metambesendotorg, 2016), Soonest Mended (Belladonna Collaborative), Calcinatio (Faux Press) and a limited edition collaboration with artist Ed Epping, Mettle (Granary Books).
Internationally celebrated poet, translator, anthologist, and performer Jerome Rothenberghas published over 90 books of poetry and 12 assemblages of traditional and avant-garde poetry such as Technicians of the Sacred and Poems for the Millennium.
Photo: Robert Kelly
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
November 2021
11-30-2021
Francine Prose, distinguished writer in residence, writes about her “encounters with the literary strange” for LitHub. Reflecting on her own experiences reading literature that defies expectations, as well as her time teaching Strange Books and the Human Condition at Bard, Prose details the feeling of encountering something truly new on the page, when “regardless of how much else we may have read, we think: This is something new. I didn’t know that a writer could do that.” Citing Bolaño, Erpenbeck, Tutuola, and more, Prose traces those qualities in writing we associate with the original and the strange.
Read More on LitHub
Read More on LitHub
Photo: Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-23-2021
As a teenager, he helped provide safe passage to artists and intellectuals out of Vichy France. He went on to teach literature at Bard College for six decades, writes Alex Vadukul for the New York Times. “Clad in his familiar tweed jacket, he taught French, German and Russian classics and was known for popular courses like 10 Plays That Shook The World. But on Bard’s leafy campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., Mr. Rosenberg also represented a remarkable living link to Holocaust history.”
Justus Rosenberg’s remarkable life has been remembered in several publications and news outlets around the world including the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem Post, National Public Radio, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Deutsche Welle, and Kirkus Reviews among others.
Justus Rosenberg’s remarkable life has been remembered in several publications and news outlets around the world including the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem Post, National Public Radio, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Deutsche Welle, and Kirkus Reviews among others.
Photo: Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement in 2015. Photo by Karl Rabe.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature |
11-12-2021
Associate Professor of Literature Alys Moody and coeditor Stephen J. Ross have been awarded the 2020 Modernist Studies Association Book Prize for an Edition, Anthology, or Essay Collection for their book Global Modernists on Modernism: An Anthology (Bloomsbury).
Awarding the prize, the Modernist Studies Association writes:
Alys Moody and Stephen J. Ross’s Global Modernists on Modernism is a groundbreaking anthology that will have an immeasurable impact. It introduces carefully selected, edited, and annotated texts from a breathtakingly broad range of primary sources that will be integral to future scholarship and teaching. This is an anthology that is aware of how important the anthology has been to modernism, or as they put it, how “this process of assemblage and collection, of triage and sorting, has been central to the history of modernism’s reception.” In this way the volume, both in its editorial choices and its expert critical essays, offers a radical shift away from the discipline’s preoccupation with defining modernism, and instead aims to present an archive from which we might begin to understand the ways in which modernism has been differently understood around the world. As such it also seeks to “go beyond merely gesturing to the existence of modernists around the world, to defend the value of ‘global modernism’ as a critical hermeneutic.” The anthology begins with the brilliant and provocative “Ten Theses on Global Modernism”, providing a thematic “Alternate Table of Contents” with categories ranging from “Political and Social Formations” to “Artistic Movements and Styles” and “Institutions and Social Conditions of the Field.” In addition to drawing on Moody and Ross’s expertise, the volume also features vital and enlightening contributions of invited scholars as section editors and translators. Global Modernists on Modernism is the result of immense scholarship and will prove a model for future editions; for modernist literary studies it will be no less than indispensable, deftly transforming considerations of the literary, historical, and geographical scope of modernism.
Awarding the prize, the Modernist Studies Association writes:
Alys Moody and Stephen J. Ross’s Global Modernists on Modernism is a groundbreaking anthology that will have an immeasurable impact. It introduces carefully selected, edited, and annotated texts from a breathtakingly broad range of primary sources that will be integral to future scholarship and teaching. This is an anthology that is aware of how important the anthology has been to modernism, or as they put it, how “this process of assemblage and collection, of triage and sorting, has been central to the history of modernism’s reception.” In this way the volume, both in its editorial choices and its expert critical essays, offers a radical shift away from the discipline’s preoccupation with defining modernism, and instead aims to present an archive from which we might begin to understand the ways in which modernism has been differently understood around the world. As such it also seeks to “go beyond merely gesturing to the existence of modernists around the world, to defend the value of ‘global modernism’ as a critical hermeneutic.” The anthology begins with the brilliant and provocative “Ten Theses on Global Modernism”, providing a thematic “Alternate Table of Contents” with categories ranging from “Political and Social Formations” to “Artistic Movements and Styles” and “Institutions and Social Conditions of the Field.” In addition to drawing on Moody and Ross’s expertise, the volume also features vital and enlightening contributions of invited scholars as section editors and translators. Global Modernists on Modernism is the result of immense scholarship and will prove a model for future editions; for modernist literary studies it will be no less than indispensable, deftly transforming considerations of the literary, historical, and geographical scope of modernism.
Photo: Alys Moody, Associate Professor of Literature at Bard College.
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 |
11-09-2021
“Etel Adnan’s life has been marked by constant movement: across oceans and continents, between languages, both literal and artistic . . . A creative polyglot, she has produced paintings, drawings, tapestries, multiple volumes of poetry and essays, and Sitt Marie-Rose (1977), one of the most important novels about the Lebanese civil war, in a career spanning over six decades. Light’s New Measure borrows its title from a poem in the 2012 collection Sea and Fog, gesturing to the dialogue between Adnan’s artwork and her poetry. Indeed, it would be impossible to think about her art practice as separate from her literary pursuits, especially since a persistent struggle with language(s) frames her experience of both the literary and visual,” writes Assistant Professor of Arabic Dina Ramadan in a review of the artist’s first major New York museum show. Ramadan describes that “Adnan’s paintings feel immediate in their energy, exploding onto the canvas in a single sitting, thick layers of paint applied directly from the tube. Much like her poetry, they are emotive and experiential, studies of the potential of color and its emotional agency, explorations of its ability to move past the limitations of meaning,” The exhibition Light’s New Measure, which spans Adnan’s prolific career, is on view at the Guggenheim Museum from October 8, 2021 through January 10, 2022.
Photo: Etel Adnan, Untitled, 2010. Oil on canvas, 7 7/8 x 9 7/8 inches. Collection of Karen E. Wagner and David L. Caplan, New York. © Etel Adnan.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Human Rights,Literature Program,Middle Eastern Studies |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Human Rights,Literature Program,Middle Eastern Studies |
11-09-2021
“Author Lucy Sante is at an interesting point in her life, looking backward and forward simultaneously,” writes Bob Krasner for the Villager. “With the release of her latest book, a collection of essays entitled Maybe the People Would Be the Times, she has gathered together pieces that form a kind of memoir—even in the fiction that weaves in and out of the examinations of music, art, tabloids, photography and her life in the East Village many years ago. Between the creation of this book and its actual publication, Sante has entered a new phase of her life [...] In her mid-60’s, Sante has recently come out as transgender, changed her name and is happily living her life with a new set of pronouns.” Lucy Sante is visiting professor of writing and photography at Bard College. She has been a member of the faculty since 1999.
Photo: Professor Lucy Sante. Photo by AnnAnn Puttithanasorn ’23
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Photography Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Photography Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-08-2021
Justus Rosenberg, Professor Emeritus of Languages & Literature and Visiting Professor of Literature, died at home in Annandale on October 30, 2021, having celebrated his 100th birthday on January 23, 2021.
Born to a Jewish family in Danzig (Gdańsk), Poland, he was sent to study in France by parents fearful of, as his father remarked, the “evil wind” of Nazism. Once the Nazis occupied Paris, Justus had to leave the Sorbonne, and, set adrift, was forced to fend for himself. The blond “Aryan-looking” young man, barely twenty years of age, was fluent in German, Yiddish, Polish, Russian and French; his love of languages saved his life, and, later, as a scholar of translation, inspired his vocation.
Justus made his way to Marseille and the Emergency Rescue Committee, led by American journalist and fervent anti-Nazi Varian Fry. Working as a courier, delivering coded messages and intercepting communications across enemy lines, Justus was soon escorting well-known émigré writers and intellectuals, among them Heinrich Mann Franz Werfel and many others, through the treacherous Pyrenees to safety in Spain.
For his heroic service (which included many near misses and serious wounds) later in the war in aid of the U.S. Army, Justus received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and in 2017, the French ambassador to the United States decorated him as a Commandeur in the Légion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest distinctions.
After a number of stateless years, Justus emigrated to the United States in 1946. After receiving a Ph.D., Justus arrived at Bard in 1962, where he taught European literature and many languages to generations of Bard students. Professor and distinguished poet Robert Kelly, in his eulogy of Justus, speaks of the “humble heroics of making sure that today’s students do not lose sight of, or lose faith in, the great humanistic structure of European civilization.” We note as well that Justus also taught courses in the literature of India, China and various countries in Africa.
In January 2020, Justus published The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir. “Justus was one of the last witnesses of the Holocaust,” writes President Leon Botstein in his eulogy of our beloved colleague. “His death, after a long and productive life is a call to honor his long service—his contributions as a teacher and writer—by resolving to remember, more than ever before, the events of history he was part of and the courage and commitments to freedom, tolerance, justice, learning, and respect for all human life he displayed.”![Professor Emeritus Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement and Reunion Weekend, 2009. Professor Emeritus Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement and Reunion Weekend, 2009.](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/18177/JustusRosenberg5x7.jpg)
With the devoted care of his wife, Karin, Justus stayed active until almost the very end—planning courses, excited as always by the prospect of awakening Bard students to the riches of great works by revered authors, and the humane values embedded in major artistic achievement.
Trim, dapper, an avid (and very competitive!) tennis player, Justus was both worldly and modest. In his memoir he asks, “So how do we explain the fact that this child of Jewish parents in Danzig survived Hitler and concentration camps, bullet wounds and land-mine blasts, and then found his way from those stateless, uncertain years in war-torn Europe to this long and purposeful life in America?” Luck, he says, most certainly had something to do with it. Yet, “Time and time again,” he tells us, “there was what I call ‘a confluence of circumstances’ that presented me with a window of opportunity, or a moment to be seized. At each juncture, a combination of factors enabled me to seize that moment or slip through that window. That’s my best explanation for how I survived.”
That he did so has been an inestimable gift to all of us at Bard. In the spirit of the Jewish tradition in which he was raised, “May his memory be a blessing.”
* * *
Born to a Jewish family in Danzig (Gdańsk), Poland, he was sent to study in France by parents fearful of, as his father remarked, the “evil wind” of Nazism. Once the Nazis occupied Paris, Justus had to leave the Sorbonne, and, set adrift, was forced to fend for himself. The blond “Aryan-looking” young man, barely twenty years of age, was fluent in German, Yiddish, Polish, Russian and French; his love of languages saved his life, and, later, as a scholar of translation, inspired his vocation.
Justus made his way to Marseille and the Emergency Rescue Committee, led by American journalist and fervent anti-Nazi Varian Fry. Working as a courier, delivering coded messages and intercepting communications across enemy lines, Justus was soon escorting well-known émigré writers and intellectuals, among them Heinrich Mann Franz Werfel and many others, through the treacherous Pyrenees to safety in Spain.
For his heroic service (which included many near misses and serious wounds) later in the war in aid of the U.S. Army, Justus received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and in 2017, the French ambassador to the United States decorated him as a Commandeur in the Légion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest distinctions.
After a number of stateless years, Justus emigrated to the United States in 1946. After receiving a Ph.D., Justus arrived at Bard in 1962, where he taught European literature and many languages to generations of Bard students. Professor and distinguished poet Robert Kelly, in his eulogy of Justus, speaks of the “humble heroics of making sure that today’s students do not lose sight of, or lose faith in, the great humanistic structure of European civilization.” We note as well that Justus also taught courses in the literature of India, China and various countries in Africa.
In January 2020, Justus published The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir. “Justus was one of the last witnesses of the Holocaust,” writes President Leon Botstein in his eulogy of our beloved colleague. “His death, after a long and productive life is a call to honor his long service—his contributions as a teacher and writer—by resolving to remember, more than ever before, the events of history he was part of and the courage and commitments to freedom, tolerance, justice, learning, and respect for all human life he displayed.”
![Professor Emeritus Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement and Reunion Weekend, 2009. Professor Emeritus Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement and Reunion Weekend, 2009.](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/18177/JustusRosenberg5x7.jpg)
Professor Emeritus Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement and Reunion Weekend, 2009.
With the devoted care of his wife, Karin, Justus stayed active until almost the very end—planning courses, excited as always by the prospect of awakening Bard students to the riches of great works by revered authors, and the humane values embedded in major artistic achievement.
Trim, dapper, an avid (and very competitive!) tennis player, Justus was both worldly and modest. In his memoir he asks, “So how do we explain the fact that this child of Jewish parents in Danzig survived Hitler and concentration camps, bullet wounds and land-mine blasts, and then found his way from those stateless, uncertain years in war-torn Europe to this long and purposeful life in America?” Luck, he says, most certainly had something to do with it. Yet, “Time and time again,” he tells us, “there was what I call ‘a confluence of circumstances’ that presented me with a window of opportunity, or a moment to be seized. At each juncture, a combination of factors enabled me to seize that moment or slip through that window. That’s my best explanation for how I survived.”
That he did so has been an inestimable gift to all of us at Bard. In the spirit of the Jewish tradition in which he was raised, “May his memory be a blessing.”
* * *
Elizabeth Frank with Vikramaditya Ha Joshi (author of Parfois le hasard fait bien les choses: The Biography of Justus Rosenberg, a senior project in the Division of Languages & Literature submitted in May 2018 and winner of the John Bard Scholars Prize)
In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Justus Rosenberg Memorial Fund at Bard College, whose objective is to create an endowed chair in comparative literature in his name at the College.
In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Justus Rosenberg Memorial Fund at Bard College, whose objective is to create an endowed chair in comparative literature in his name at the College.
Photo: Justus Rosenberg in Marseille in 1941 when he served with the Emergency Rescue Committee as a courier to deliver messages to refugees and scout out safe passage, especially the overland route through Spain. Photo courtesy Justus and Karin Rosenberg
Meta: Type(s): In Memoriam | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature |
Meta: Type(s): In Memoriam | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature |
11-05-2021
By Sophie Kautenburger ’23
Where can studying ancient languages lead? Great places: just ask three Bard Classics majors who spent the summer of 2021 pursuing their academic passions at Harvard University and the University of Chicago. Senior Em Setzer ’22 completed a paid internship at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS), a research facility, library, and cultural center based in Washington, DC that attracts scholars, students, and artists from all over the world. Setzer contributed to The Open Greek and Latin Project, an international collaboration committed to creating a free digital corpus of Greek and Latin texts. Setzer managed a team of about 20 volunteers who edited the data output of digitized Greek texts for two major online platforms: the First Thousand Years of Greek Project and the Perseus Digital Library. Setzer’s work added new material to these open source projects, which significantly contribute to the worldwide accessibility of the study of ancient Greece and Rome.
![Isabella Spagnuolo ’22. Photo by Sophie Kautenburger ’23 Isabella Spagnuolo ’22. Photo by Sophie Kautenburger ’23](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/18175/Isabella-2sm.jpg)
Bard Classics senior Isabella Spagnuolo ’22 won a fully funded internship at the University of Chicago in the Leadership Alliance’s 2021 Summer Research Early Identification Program (SR-EIP). SR-EIP is a highly selective summer research experience designed for undergraduates interested in pursuing a PhD. During the nine-week program, Spagnuolo was mentored by Michèle Lowrie (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago); took courses in academic skills and professional development; and developed an independent research project. Spagnuolo used the summer to explore echoes of dance in Horace’s Odes, a collection of Roman poetry composed in the first century BCE. Her work allowed her to combine her expertise in Classics with her own experience as an accomplished dancer; she plans to continue this research in her Senior Project at Bard.
![Texbooks for learning Greek Texbooks for learning Greek](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/18175/readinggreekset.jpeg)
Sophomore Jade Dinkins ’24 was awarded a scholarship to study at Harvard Summer School, the oldest academic summer program in the United States. In seven short weeks, she learned ancient Greek from scratch and translated adaptations of works by Euripides, Lysias, Herodotus, and Aristophanes. The experience was grueling but rewarding. “I found all of the pieces which I read to be equally as engaging as they were academically challenging,” Dinkins recounted, “which made it a true treat to translate every single one of them. Both of my professors brought so much enthusiasm to each lesson as well, and that allowed me to wake up every morning feeling eager to learn as much ancient Greek as I possibly could that day. They explained beautifully the language’s major influence on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the West, offering a well-rounded perspective on the history of the language, which is something that I really appreciate when learning something new.” Dinkins successfully completed her summer scholarship studies in time for the start of Bard’s fall semester, which sees her reading Homer in Bard’s intermediate ancient Greek class.
“These fantastic achievements are a testament to our students’ talents and hard work,” said Lauren Curtis, associate professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program. “We are so proud of them! All these different summer projects and internships, from language study to leadership training and research, show how many exciting opportunities the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds can open up.”
Where can studying ancient languages lead? Great places: just ask three Bard Classics majors who spent the summer of 2021 pursuing their academic passions at Harvard University and the University of Chicago. Senior Em Setzer ’22 completed a paid internship at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies (CHS), a research facility, library, and cultural center based in Washington, DC that attracts scholars, students, and artists from all over the world. Setzer contributed to The Open Greek and Latin Project, an international collaboration committed to creating a free digital corpus of Greek and Latin texts. Setzer managed a team of about 20 volunteers who edited the data output of digitized Greek texts for two major online platforms: the First Thousand Years of Greek Project and the Perseus Digital Library. Setzer’s work added new material to these open source projects, which significantly contribute to the worldwide accessibility of the study of ancient Greece and Rome.
![Isabella Spagnuolo ’22. Photo by Sophie Kautenburger ’23 Isabella Spagnuolo ’22. Photo by Sophie Kautenburger ’23](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/18175/Isabella-2sm.jpg)
Isabella Spagnuolo ’22.
Bard Classics senior Isabella Spagnuolo ’22 won a fully funded internship at the University of Chicago in the Leadership Alliance’s 2021 Summer Research Early Identification Program (SR-EIP). SR-EIP is a highly selective summer research experience designed for undergraduates interested in pursuing a PhD. During the nine-week program, Spagnuolo was mentored by Michèle Lowrie (Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago); took courses in academic skills and professional development; and developed an independent research project. Spagnuolo used the summer to explore echoes of dance in Horace’s Odes, a collection of Roman poetry composed in the first century BCE. Her work allowed her to combine her expertise in Classics with her own experience as an accomplished dancer; she plans to continue this research in her Senior Project at Bard.
![Texbooks for learning Greek Texbooks for learning Greek](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/18175/readinggreekset.jpeg)
Sophomore Jade Dinkins ’24 was awarded a scholarship to study at Harvard Summer School, the oldest academic summer program in the United States. In seven short weeks, she learned ancient Greek from scratch and translated adaptations of works by Euripides, Lysias, Herodotus, and Aristophanes. The experience was grueling but rewarding. “I found all of the pieces which I read to be equally as engaging as they were academically challenging,” Dinkins recounted, “which made it a true treat to translate every single one of them. Both of my professors brought so much enthusiasm to each lesson as well, and that allowed me to wake up every morning feeling eager to learn as much ancient Greek as I possibly could that day. They explained beautifully the language’s major influence on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the West, offering a well-rounded perspective on the history of the language, which is something that I really appreciate when learning something new.” Dinkins successfully completed her summer scholarship studies in time for the start of Bard’s fall semester, which sees her reading Homer in Bard’s intermediate ancient Greek class.
“These fantastic achievements are a testament to our students’ talents and hard work,” said Lauren Curtis, associate professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program. “We are so proud of them! All these different summer projects and internships, from language study to leadership training and research, show how many exciting opportunities the study of the Ancient Greek and Roman worlds can open up.”
Photo: Em Setzer ’22. Photos by Sophie Kautenburger ’23.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-02-2021
Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature and Visiting Professor of Literature Justus Rosenberg passed away, surrounded by family, on Saturday, October 30, 2021 at the age of 100.
In a letter to the Bard community, President Leon Botstein memorialized Rosenberg’s life:
Justus was one of the last witnesses of the Holocaust. As a member of the French Resistance he was also a hero in the fight against fascism. His death, after a long and productive life is a call to honor his long service—his contributions as a teacher and writer—by resolving to remember, more than ever before, the events of history he was part of and the courage and commitments to freedom, tolerance, justice, learning, and respect for all human life he displayed. All of us at Bard owe him a debt of gratitude for his many years of teaching, his friendship, and the eloquent writings he penned.
Justus Rosenberg was born to a Jewish family in Danzig (present-day Gdańsk, Poland) in 1921. He was a legendary teacher who started teaching at Bard in 1962. Although he retired formally in 1992, he accepted a post-retirement appointment to rejoin the faculty offered to him by Stuart Levine, who was then Dean of the College. In 2020, he published The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir. This book recounts his service to the French Resistance during World War II. Justus not only survived the war, unlike many in his family, but by joining the fight against Nazis he was doubly at risk as a Jew and as a member of the Resistance. For his wartime service, Justus received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and in 2017 the French ambassador to the United States personally made Rosenberg a Commandeur in the Légion d’Honneur, among France’s highest decorations, for his heroism during World War II.
Justus emigrated to the United States. After finishing his PhD, he chose a career in undergraduate teaching, first at Swarthmore, and then at Bard. He taught literature and many languages, notably French, German, Russian, Yiddish, and, from time to time, even Polish. He was a loyal friend to Peter Sourian, and until not too long ago, an avid player of tennis, particularly with the late Jean French, Professor of Art History. In recent decades, Justus was very active promoting causes dedicated to tolerance and the fight against prejudice and hate.
Students who were fortunate enough to take his classes had the rare opportunity to study with a scholar who was also a witness to history. The Nazi genocide of European Jewry has receded from memory and become a more distant object of history. Bard students, however, had the opportunity to be in the presence of an individual who could testify to what happened.The denial of the truth of the persecution and annihilation of European Jewry has, astonishingly, persisted. Justus Rosenberg survived and witnessed the unimaginable. Yet he tirelessly and eloquently demonstrated reasons for hope. Despite suffering and loss, Justus sustained an unrelenting commitment to literature, the arts, philosophy, the traditions of science, and the making of art; for him they revealed the possibilities of human renewal shared by all and transcended the differences among us. For Justus, learning and study were instruments of redemption, remembrance, and reconciliation. He possessed a magnetic capacity to inspire the love of learning.
It was a miracle that Justus fulfilled the well-known birthday greeting of the nation of his birth that calls for "100 years" of life. Justus reached that milestone, against all odds. In Poland, the country of his birth, just under 3 million Jews, nearly 90 percent of all Polish Jews, were murdered between 1939 and 1945.
A graveside funeral was held on Sunday, October 31 at the Bard College Cemetery with a reception at the President's House following the ceremony. A Shiva is taking place during the week. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Justus Rosenberg Memorial Fund at Bard College, whose objective is to create an endowed chair in comparative literature in his name at the College.
In a letter to the Bard community, President Leon Botstein memorialized Rosenberg’s life:
Justus was one of the last witnesses of the Holocaust. As a member of the French Resistance he was also a hero in the fight against fascism. His death, after a long and productive life is a call to honor his long service—his contributions as a teacher and writer—by resolving to remember, more than ever before, the events of history he was part of and the courage and commitments to freedom, tolerance, justice, learning, and respect for all human life he displayed. All of us at Bard owe him a debt of gratitude for his many years of teaching, his friendship, and the eloquent writings he penned.
Justus Rosenberg was born to a Jewish family in Danzig (present-day Gdańsk, Poland) in 1921. He was a legendary teacher who started teaching at Bard in 1962. Although he retired formally in 1992, he accepted a post-retirement appointment to rejoin the faculty offered to him by Stuart Levine, who was then Dean of the College. In 2020, he published The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground: A Memoir. This book recounts his service to the French Resistance during World War II. Justus not only survived the war, unlike many in his family, but by joining the fight against Nazis he was doubly at risk as a Jew and as a member of the Resistance. For his wartime service, Justus received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and in 2017 the French ambassador to the United States personally made Rosenberg a Commandeur in the Légion d’Honneur, among France’s highest decorations, for his heroism during World War II.
Justus emigrated to the United States. After finishing his PhD, he chose a career in undergraduate teaching, first at Swarthmore, and then at Bard. He taught literature and many languages, notably French, German, Russian, Yiddish, and, from time to time, even Polish. He was a loyal friend to Peter Sourian, and until not too long ago, an avid player of tennis, particularly with the late Jean French, Professor of Art History. In recent decades, Justus was very active promoting causes dedicated to tolerance and the fight against prejudice and hate.
Students who were fortunate enough to take his classes had the rare opportunity to study with a scholar who was also a witness to history. The Nazi genocide of European Jewry has receded from memory and become a more distant object of history. Bard students, however, had the opportunity to be in the presence of an individual who could testify to what happened.The denial of the truth of the persecution and annihilation of European Jewry has, astonishingly, persisted. Justus Rosenberg survived and witnessed the unimaginable. Yet he tirelessly and eloquently demonstrated reasons for hope. Despite suffering and loss, Justus sustained an unrelenting commitment to literature, the arts, philosophy, the traditions of science, and the making of art; for him they revealed the possibilities of human renewal shared by all and transcended the differences among us. For Justus, learning and study were instruments of redemption, remembrance, and reconciliation. He possessed a magnetic capacity to inspire the love of learning.
It was a miracle that Justus fulfilled the well-known birthday greeting of the nation of his birth that calls for "100 years" of life. Justus reached that milestone, against all odds. In Poland, the country of his birth, just under 3 million Jews, nearly 90 percent of all Polish Jews, were murdered between 1939 and 1945.
A graveside funeral was held on Sunday, October 31 at the Bard College Cemetery with a reception at the President's House following the ceremony. A Shiva is taking place during the week. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the Justus Rosenberg Memorial Fund at Bard College, whose objective is to create an endowed chair in comparative literature in his name at the College.
Photo: Professor Emeritus Justus Rosenberg at Bard College Commencement and Reunion Weekend, 2009.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,In Memoriam | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,In Memoriam | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program |
October 2021
10-26-2021
“In the rift between secularism and churchgoing, Jonathan Franzen has set his sixth and latest novel, Crossroads, the first in what promises to be three linked novels under the broad banner A Key to All Mythologies (the title alludes to Middlemarch and an uncompleted work of Christian philosophy by that book’s insufferable Rev. Casaubon),” writes Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason in the Wall Street Journal. “Like all Mr. Franzen’s novels, Crossroads burrows into the walls behind which a group of people endure the particularly excruciating form of self-flagellation we call family life. The Probsts, the Hollands, the Lamberts, the Berglunds, the Tylers: Mr. Franzen’s fictional families from his earlier novels are now joined by the Hildebrandts, very unhappy in their own way, and very conflicted in their relationships with Mainline Protestant ideas of ‘goodness.’”
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 |
10-21-2021
Author Lindsey Drager has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her novel, The Archive of Alternate Endings (Dzanc Books 2019). Drager’s residency at Bard College is for the fall 2022 semester, during which time she will continue her writing and meet informally with students. Drager will give a public reading at Bard during her residency.
“Lindsey Drager’s wonderfully innovative novel, The Archive of Alternate Endings, takes its readers on an elliptical, speculative, philosophically intrepid journey that tracks the evolution of the old folktale, Hansel and Gretel, between 1378 and 2365, even as it redefines and revises our sense of what narrative itself can achieve,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “As Halley’s Comet revisits the Earth every seventy-five years, like some cosmic metronome, we encounter the siblings Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Johannes Gutenberg and his sister, and twin space probes searching the galaxy for a sister planet to our own. As we do, we witness the many ways in which Hansel and Gretel themselves are transformed along with the human experience their tale portrays. Intimate in its understanding of the multiplicities of love, here is an elegantly succinct work of art that is flat-out epic in scope. And while one may look to Borges, Calvino, Winterson, even the Terrence Malik of Tree of Life for comparison, Drager’s vision is breathtakingly original and The Archive of Alternate Endings displays the confident technique and wild inventiveness of an already accomplished literary artist emerging into virtuosity.”
“I am so very, very grateful for the opportunity to spend a semester engaging with the literary community at Bard. It is a privilege to be listed among the extraordinary novelists and short story writers honored with this prize in the past,” said Drager. “For me, much of writing is about ongoing, long-term self-doubt, so support and recognition like this is simply invaluable. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the Bard Fiction Prize committee for seeing something in this strange book.”
Lindsey Drager is the author of three novels: The Sorrow Proper (Dzanc 2015), The Lost Daughter Collective (Dzanc 2017), and The Archive of Alternate Endings (Dzanc 2019). Her books have won a John Gardner Fiction Award and a Shirley Jackson Award; been listed as a “Best Book of the Year” in The Guardian and NPR; and twice been named a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. A Spanish language edition of her second book was published this year in Spain, and an Italian edition of The Archive of Alternate Endings is forthcoming. A 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient in Prose, she is currently the associate fiction editor of the literary journal West Branch and an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Utah.
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. Last year’s Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Akil Kumarasamy for her debut story collection, Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2018).
“Lindsey Drager’s wonderfully innovative novel, The Archive of Alternate Endings, takes its readers on an elliptical, speculative, philosophically intrepid journey that tracks the evolution of the old folktale, Hansel and Gretel, between 1378 and 2365, even as it redefines and revises our sense of what narrative itself can achieve,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “As Halley’s Comet revisits the Earth every seventy-five years, like some cosmic metronome, we encounter the siblings Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Johannes Gutenberg and his sister, and twin space probes searching the galaxy for a sister planet to our own. As we do, we witness the many ways in which Hansel and Gretel themselves are transformed along with the human experience their tale portrays. Intimate in its understanding of the multiplicities of love, here is an elegantly succinct work of art that is flat-out epic in scope. And while one may look to Borges, Calvino, Winterson, even the Terrence Malik of Tree of Life for comparison, Drager’s vision is breathtakingly original and The Archive of Alternate Endings displays the confident technique and wild inventiveness of an already accomplished literary artist emerging into virtuosity.”
“I am so very, very grateful for the opportunity to spend a semester engaging with the literary community at Bard. It is a privilege to be listed among the extraordinary novelists and short story writers honored with this prize in the past,” said Drager. “For me, much of writing is about ongoing, long-term self-doubt, so support and recognition like this is simply invaluable. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the Bard Fiction Prize committee for seeing something in this strange book.”
Lindsey Drager is the author of three novels: The Sorrow Proper (Dzanc 2015), The Lost Daughter Collective (Dzanc 2017), and The Archive of Alternate Endings (Dzanc 2019). Her books have won a John Gardner Fiction Award and a Shirley Jackson Award; been listed as a “Best Book of the Year” in The Guardian and NPR; and twice been named a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. A Spanish language edition of her second book was published this year in Spain, and an Italian edition of The Archive of Alternate Endings is forthcoming. A 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship recipient in Prose, she is currently the associate fiction editor of the literary journal West Branch and an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Utah.
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. Last year’s Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Akil Kumarasamy for her debut story collection, Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2018).
Photo: Lindsey Drager. Photo by Allan G. Borst.
Meta: Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
10-18-2021
Conjunctions:77, States of Play Features New Work from Ranjit Hoskote, David Shields, Nam Le, Joyce Carol Oates, Arthur Sze, Nathaniel Mackey, Shelley Jackson, Charles Bernstein, Tracie Morris, and Many Others
“The invitation to join in games,” proposes Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow, “be they fun word games or lethal war games, games of chance or games of dexterity, umpired games or games in which the rules morph and cheaters prevail—is one we face, however joyfully, however subtly, however violently, every day of our lives.” Conjunctions:77, States of Play—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College, which is now celebrating its Fortieth Anniversary of continuous publication—gathers fiction, poetry, essays, and genre-bending work from writers who are willing, through their writing, to invoke one of the oldest, most audacious questions one mortal can put to another: “Do you want to play a game?” Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Morrow, States of Play features a collection of poems by celebrated Indian poet Ranjit Hoskote, a short story by international bestseller David Shields, poems by PEN/Malamud Award winner Nam Le, a new short story by Jerusalem Prize winner Joyce Carol Oates, new poems from National Book Award winner Arthur Sze, a new series of genre-bending work from cross-genre experimental writer Shelley Jackson, a new poem from National Book Award and Bollingen Prize winner Nathaniel Mackey, and a collaborative duet between Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris, two of the most revered voices in American poetry.Sometimes we’re compelled to play whether we want to or not. Now and then we end up playing solitaire. But even when we are sidelined and have no clear way to participate, the games go on without us and as often as not affect us in ways difficult to predict or define. Writes Morrow, “For those looking for fun and games in States of Play, be warned that the losses pile up as fast as the wins.”
Additional contributors to States of Play include Joanna Scott, John Darcy, Heather Altfeld, Kyoko Mori, James Morrow, Catherine Imbriglio, Pierre Reverdy, Robin Hemley, Anelise Chen, S. P. Tenhoff, Lowry Pressly, Cole Swensen, Rae Armantrout, Lucas Southworth, Kelsey Peterson, John Dimitroff, Alyssa Pelish, Tim Raymond, Justin Noga, Brian Evenson, and Kate Colby.
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions publishes 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. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019, and The Best American Short Stories 2021.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,General,Journal | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
September 2021
09-20-2021
Akil Kumarasamy, Bard Fiction Prize winner and writer in residence at Bard College, will read from recent work on Monday, October 4. This event is free but registration, proof of vaccination, and indoor masking is required. To register, please email [email protected]. 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. For more information call 845-758-7087.
Kumarasamy received the Bard Fiction Prize for or her debut story collection, Half Gods, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2018). Kumarasamy’s residency at Bard College is for the fall 2021 semester, during which time she is continuing her writing and meeting informally with students.
The Bard Fiction Prize committee writes: “Akil Kumarasamy’s Half-Gods is a breathtaking debut by one of those rare writers whose compassionate understanding—in this case, a multigenerational family with a frayed, crazy-quilt history—is matched by the narrative gifts necessary to bring her tales to life. While each individual story in this inventive collection is told in vivid, lusciously worded, image-rich prose, the overarching symphonic whole has—much like Jamaica Kincaid’s first book, At the Bottom of the River—the sweep and scope of a novel. What Kumarasamy has given us with Half-Gods is ultimately a meditation, as most great stories are, on time, memory, and hope for the future.”
“I’m very excited to receive the Bard Fiction Prize and to be part of the Bard community,” said Kumarasamy. “This has been such a whirlwind of a year, and, during these very uncertain times, I’m grateful for the support and the committee’s belief in my work. Really thrilled by the opportunity.”
Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the story collection, Half Gods, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was the recipient of the Story Prize Spotlight Award and a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, among others. She has received fellowships from the University of East Anglia, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is an assistant professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA program and her debut novel, Better Humans, is forthcoming with Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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. Last year’s Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Author Clare Beams for her debut collection of short stories, We Show What We Have Learned (Lookout Books, 2016).
Kumarasamy received the Bard Fiction Prize for or her debut story collection, Half Gods, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2018). Kumarasamy’s residency at Bard College is for the fall 2021 semester, during which time she is continuing her writing and meeting informally with students.
The Bard Fiction Prize committee writes: “Akil Kumarasamy’s Half-Gods is a breathtaking debut by one of those rare writers whose compassionate understanding—in this case, a multigenerational family with a frayed, crazy-quilt history—is matched by the narrative gifts necessary to bring her tales to life. While each individual story in this inventive collection is told in vivid, lusciously worded, image-rich prose, the overarching symphonic whole has—much like Jamaica Kincaid’s first book, At the Bottom of the River—the sweep and scope of a novel. What Kumarasamy has given us with Half-Gods is ultimately a meditation, as most great stories are, on time, memory, and hope for the future.”
“I’m very excited to receive the Bard Fiction Prize and to be part of the Bard community,” said Kumarasamy. “This has been such a whirlwind of a year, and, during these very uncertain times, I’m grateful for the support and the committee’s belief in my work. Really thrilled by the opportunity.”
Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the story collection, Half Gods, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was the recipient of the Story Prize Spotlight Award and a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, among others. She has received fellowships from the University of East Anglia, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is an assistant professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA program and her debut novel, Better Humans, is forthcoming with Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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. Last year’s Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Author Clare Beams for her debut collection of short stories, We Show What We Have Learned (Lookout Books, 2016).
Photo: Akil Kumarasamy, photo by Nina Subin.
Meta: Type(s): Event,General | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
Meta: Type(s): Event,General | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
August 2021
08-29-2021
Bard alumnus, U.S. Army veteran, and Stars and Stripes reporter J.p. Lawrence ’14 recalls his hurried evacuation from Kabul. “We loaded into Chinooks, forming an aerial bridge of helicopters from the embassy to the city’s airport just a few miles away. As we flew over the capital, I imagined how left behind the city’s people must have felt, to constantly hear the beating rotors of the foreigners leaving as fast as possible.”
Photo: Stars and Stripes reporter J.p. Lawrence prepares to board a helicopter and head to the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 14, 2021. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Article | Subject(s): Anthropology Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Article | Subject(s): Anthropology Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
08-24-2021
"Philosophy and soldiery marched hand in hand among the Greeks," Romm observes, and some of his most compelling writing takes a deep look into attitudes about, and the practice of, homosexuality by the likes of Socrates and Plato, again without resort to easy generalization. Similarly, his examination of the dynamics of age disparity within the couples is consistently revelatory, rather than dismissively judgmental. James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program at Bard College.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
08-23-2021
In the Economist, Professor of Comparative Literature Joseph Luzzi calls Dante a “poet of crisis,” whose life split in two when he was expelled from Florence. Seven hundred years after Dante’s death, his masterpiece still resonates.
Photo: Image: Alamy
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
08-22-2021
Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose remembers her dear friend James Alan McPherson through his work. Last spring, Prose taught a course through the Bard Prison Initiative under challenging pandemic conditions, in which she could only interact with her class on speakerphone. One of her texts was McPherson’s short story “Gold Coast.” Prose writes, “It was the only time that I was glad to be on speakerphone, because each time my students read aloud from ‘Gold Coast,’ I began to cry.”
Photo: James Alan McPherson. Photo by Tom Langdon.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
08-17-2021
Francine Prose writes in the Guardian of the striking viral video of a tourist ferry sailing across the water from the raging fire incinerating the Greek island of Evia. “This is what climate apocalypse looks like from the deck of a tourist boat. It’s a vision we need to see, a reminder that the hard work of keeping our planet from becoming hell can’t be put off any longer. We have run out of time. We need to wake up. We need to say it till somebody listens: something has to be done.”
Photo: Photo: Nikolas Economou/Reuters
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
July 2021
07-24-2021
In ancient Greece, an elite fighting unit, known for its courage and esprit de corps, was composed of male lovers sworn to mutual loyalty. “James Romm brings to the fore a striking aspect of Thebes’ varied history: a group of warriors who originated there and who, over four decades in the fourth century B.C., fought throughout central Greece, helping to defeat formidable foes and solidifying Thebes’ decade-long dominance. Mr. Romm . . . deftly pieces the story together from the limited sources that have come down to us.” James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program at Bard.
Photo: The Theban hero Epaminondas in battle. Photo: Bridgeman Images
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
07-16-2021
The writer Francine Prose teaches literature at Bard College, and one of her classes is about totalitarianism. In her latest novel, The Vixen, she explores the moral ambiguity of 1950s America, the height of McCarthyism. Her book is loosely based on Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the suspected spies for Russia who were executed in 1953. Turns out, Francine Prose has a real-life family connection to the Rosenbergs. Prose speaks with Sacha Pfeiffer on NPR.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
07-03-2021
Michael Sadowski’s memoir, Men I’ve Never Been, recounts his shunning of his queer identity and sexuality as a boy in order to become the man society wants him to be—“bringing to light the kinds of lies we tell ourselves about our identities, and the price of maintaining them.” Sadowski is interim dean of graduate studies, director of inclusive pedagogy and curriculum, and associate professor in the Bard MAT Program. James Romm “has written a tale of the greatest military corps during the last decades of ancient Greek freedom—The Sacred Band, a unit 300 strong composed of 150 pairs of male lovers.” Romm is James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Master of Arts in Teaching |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Master of Arts in Teaching |
June 2021
06-29-2021
“The latest from the aptly named Francine Prose is The Vixen, a surprisingly funny tale involving Ethel Rosenberg and the C.I.A.,” writes Elizabeth A. Harris for the New York Times. “[Prose] teaches literature at Bard College, offering classes like Ecstasy, Obsession, and Oblivion and Totalitarianism in Literature, and at the Eastern Correctional Facility through the Bard Prison Initiative.” The Vixen is out today from Harper.
Photo: Author Francine Prose. Photo by Frances Denny for the New York Times
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-23-2021
On July 7, novelist and Bard College literature professor Bradford Morrow, founding editor of Conjunctions, will host an online evening of readings to celebrate the publication of the fortieth anniversary issue of Conjunctions, the celebrated literary journal published by Bard College. Morrow will be joined by Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue contributors Fred D’Aguiar, Samuel R. Delany, Ann Lauterbach, and Sofia Samatar. The livestreamed event, presented by Conjunctions and Elliott Bay Book Company, takes place Wednesday, July 7, at 8 p.m. For reservations, please click here.
ABOUT THE ISSUE
Published by Bard College in spring 2021, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue celebrates forty years in print, with new and previously unpublished work by Ben Okri, Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Ann Lauterbach, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, Akil Kumarasamy, John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Richard Powers, Shane McCrae, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Jessica Campbell, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carole Maso, Julia Alvarez, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sanjena Sathian, Peter Orner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Diane Williams, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and Robert Coover, with a foreword by Rick Moody.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Fred D’Aguiar’s books include the novel Children of Paradise, the poetry collection Letters to America, and the forthcoming memoir, Year of Plagues.
In 2016, Samuel R. Delany was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. His books include the Return to Neveryon series; an autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water; and the paired essays Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.
Ann Lauterbach’s tenth poetry collection, Spell, was published by Penguin. She is David and Ruth Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, and has been a contributing editor to Conjunctions since 1984.
Sofia Samatar is the author of four books, most recently Monster Portraits. Her fiction has received several honors, including the World Fantasy Award. Her memoir, The White Mosque, is forthcoming from Catapult Books.
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
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The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions showcases innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit http://www.conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
ABOUT THE ISSUE
Published by Bard College in spring 2021, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue celebrates forty years in print, with new and previously unpublished work by Ben Okri, Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Ann Lauterbach, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, Akil Kumarasamy, John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Richard Powers, Shane McCrae, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Jessica Campbell, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carole Maso, Julia Alvarez, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sanjena Sathian, Peter Orner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Diane Williams, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and Robert Coover, with a foreword by Rick Moody.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Fred D’Aguiar’s books include the novel Children of Paradise, the poetry collection Letters to America, and the forthcoming memoir, Year of Plagues.
In 2016, Samuel R. Delany was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. His books include the Return to Neveryon series; an autobiography, The Motion of Light in Water; and the paired essays Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.
Ann Lauterbach’s tenth poetry collection, Spell, was published by Penguin. She is David and Ruth Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College, and has been a contributing editor to Conjunctions since 1984.
Sofia Samatar is the author of four books, most recently Monster Portraits. Her fiction has received several honors, including the World Fantasy Award. Her memoir, The White Mosque, is forthcoming from Catapult Books.
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
#
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions showcases innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit http://www.conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
# # #
(6.22.21)
Photo: From left to right: Fred D’Aguiar, Ann Lauterbach, Sofia Samatar, Samuel R. Delany, and Bradford Morrow
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
06-17-2021
On Friday June 25, author, educator, classicist, tattooer, and Bard College alumnus Phuc Tran ’95 will give a book talk in honor of World Refugee Day. Tran’s talk is presented by Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement, the Office of the President, and Alumni/ae Affairs, along with the OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives. This special event, which takes place at 5 p.m. EDT, will be moderated by James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program. Join via Zoom link.
Phuc Tran ’95, who migrated with his family from Vietnam in 1975, has been a high school Latin teacher for more than 20 years while simultaneously establishing himself as a highly sought-after tattooer in the Northeast. Tran graduated from Bard College in 1995 with a BA in Classics and received the Callanan Classics Prize. He taught Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit in New York at the Collegiate School and was an instructor at Brooklyn College’s Summer Latin Institute. Most recently, he taught Latin, Greek, and German at the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine.
Tran’s 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s TED Radio Hour. His acclaimed memoir, SIGH, GONE: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In, received the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction. He tattoos and lives with his family in Portland, Maine.
Bard College has a deep and longstanding history as a sanctuary and refuge for vulnerable populations. Beginning in the mid-1930s and throughout the war years, Bard gave refuge to distinguished writers, artists, intellectuals, and scientists fleeing Nazi Europe. Since the 1980s, Bard has brought scholars at risk from Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East to teach and do research in Annandale-on-Hudson, and continued its strong commitment to refugees directly through initiatives such as the Bard Sanctuary Fund, which supports undocumented students and refugees by providing scholarship, living, legal, and other necessary support while they are enrolled at Bard.
Bard’s global work to support refugees and advance human rights was strengthened profoundly in 2020 when the College cofounded the Open Society University Network (OSUN) with Central European University and support from the Open Society Foundations. Providing access to students from communities that have faced barriers and exclusion, including incarcerated people, the Roma, refugees, and other displaced groups is a central part of OSUN’s work to make higher education more inclusive and accessible worldwide. Supporting that work, OSUN was elected cochair in 2020 of the Taskforce on Third Country Education Pathways, launched by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. The task force is charged with developing best practices for higher education pathways that respond to the needs of refugees, internally displaced individuals, and others displaced by crises across the globe.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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.
Phuc Tran ’95, who migrated with his family from Vietnam in 1975, has been a high school Latin teacher for more than 20 years while simultaneously establishing himself as a highly sought-after tattooer in the Northeast. Tran graduated from Bard College in 1995 with a BA in Classics and received the Callanan Classics Prize. He taught Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit in New York at the Collegiate School and was an instructor at Brooklyn College’s Summer Latin Institute. Most recently, he taught Latin, Greek, and German at the Waynflete School in Portland, Maine.
Tran’s 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s TED Radio Hour. His acclaimed memoir, SIGH, GONE: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In, received the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction. He tattoos and lives with his family in Portland, Maine.
Bard College has a deep and longstanding history as a sanctuary and refuge for vulnerable populations. Beginning in the mid-1930s and throughout the war years, Bard gave refuge to distinguished writers, artists, intellectuals, and scientists fleeing Nazi Europe. Since the 1980s, Bard has brought scholars at risk from Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East to teach and do research in Annandale-on-Hudson, and continued its strong commitment to refugees directly through initiatives such as the Bard Sanctuary Fund, which supports undocumented students and refugees by providing scholarship, living, legal, and other necessary support while they are enrolled at Bard.
Bard’s global work to support refugees and advance human rights was strengthened profoundly in 2020 when the College cofounded the Open Society University Network (OSUN) with Central European University and support from the Open Society Foundations. Providing access to students from communities that have faced barriers and exclusion, including incarcerated people, the Roma, refugees, and other displaced groups is a central part of OSUN’s work to make higher education more inclusive and accessible worldwide. Supporting that work, OSUN was elected cochair in 2020 of the Taskforce on Third Country Education Pathways, launched by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. The task force is charged with developing best practices for higher education pathways that respond to the needs of refugees, internally displaced individuals, and others displaced by crises across the globe.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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.
Photo: Phuc Tran ’95, Photo courtesy of Jeff Roberts Imaging
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Event,Faculty,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Politics and International Affairs | Institutes(s): Center for Civic Engagement,OSUN |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Event,Faculty,Guest Speaker | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Politics and International Affairs | Institutes(s): Center for Civic Engagement,OSUN |
06-16-2021
In 1981, the price of a first-class stamp rose from 15 cents to 20, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president, MTV started broadcasting, the first space shuttle, Columbia, was launched, the AIDS virus was identified, and Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female Supreme Court justice. Nineteen eighty-one was also the year that twenty-something Bradford Morrow founded and edited the first issue of a literary journal called Conjunctions. Since Conjunctions:1 brought together Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, Octavio Paz, Josephine Miles, John Hawkes, and dozens of others, the journal has published nearly two thousand writers—some avowed masters, some at the beginnings of their careers. As Morrow notes with pride, Conjunctions has featured debut and very early appearances in print by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, William T. Vollmann, Can Xue, Forrest Gander, Brian Evenson, Chinelo Okparanta, Shelley Jackson, Mary Caponegro, Jim Crace, Martine Bellen, H. G. Carrillo, Nam Le, Robert Antoni, Raven Lelani, Vanessa Chan, and many others like Ben Okri, Julia Elliott, Karen Russell, and Isabella Hammad, who are included in the latest issue, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue (spring, 2021). The recipient of numerous awards, including most recently the Whiting Literary Magazine Prize, Conjunctions continues to forge ahead some three decades after Bard College became its publisher, and four since it first saw the light of day.
In his Editor’s Note, novelist and Bard Literature Professor Morrow celebrates many moments across Conjunctions’ four decades, among them, trading ideas about starting a literary magazine with poet Kenneth Rexroth in the latter’s converted barn library, a launch party hosted by the Gotham Book Mart, an interview with Chinua Achebe in his modest home in Annandale for Conjunctions’ tenth anniversary issue, and the day he was “mesmerized by a story titled ‘Good Old Neon’ sent by a polite young guy named David Foster Wallace.”
“The way I wanted to set off into the future was by honoring the past, in particular one of my publishing heroes, James Laughlin, who had founded New Directions—home to Rexroth, Pound, Williams, Stein, et al.—and provided me with an informal education like no other,” says Morrow, winner of the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing a Literary Journal. “As I’ve written before, Conjunctions is a living notebook, one in which new voices, along with those of writers who are further along on their journeys, enrich and complicate the flow of literature. Even heralded masters were once unknown fledglings. And all are engaged in the difficult feat of gathering words, those everyday haggard incandescent things, into a poem or story or essay, part of an inspired and necessary continuum of which we’re honored to be a part.”
Longtime Conjunctions contributor Rick Moody writes, in the foreword to the Fortieth Anniversary Issue, that “it is not outrageous to say that [Conjunctions] is the best literary magazine in the United States of America” and praises Morrow for his editorial vision and unwavering leadership and support.
“At no time in these decades did I ever fail to know well the support of Bradford Morrow, nor did he ever forbear noting when I was not doing the job terribly well and could do better,” writes Moody. “And in this way did I always feel that I had a home in these pages, a situation I know is shared by many, many other writers, all of us feeling that we could rely on Conjunctions for its welcome, its standards, its consistent excellence, as a place that would take our furthest-out fancies, but also provide a consistently astounding residence, containing a worldview, an idea of literature, a confraternity of the surprising and original.”
Edited by Morrow, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue features hybrid fiction by Booker Prize–winning poet and novelist Ben Okri; a portfolio of poems by MacArthur fellow Ann Lauterbach; a short story by Pulitzer Prize recipient Richard Powers, and new writing by Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, John Ashbery, Shane McCrae, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Julia Alvarez, Jayne Anne Phillips, Peter Orner, Diane Williams, and Robert Coover. Additional contributors to include Akil Kumarasamy, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Jessica Campbell, Carole Maso, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Sanjena Sathian, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and cover artist Oliver Lee Jackson.
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2021, 2018, and 2019 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, or to arrange interviews with Conjunctions Founding Editor Bradford Morrow please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected].]
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Journal | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Conjunctions |
In his Editor’s Note, novelist and Bard Literature Professor Morrow celebrates many moments across Conjunctions’ four decades, among them, trading ideas about starting a literary magazine with poet Kenneth Rexroth in the latter’s converted barn library, a launch party hosted by the Gotham Book Mart, an interview with Chinua Achebe in his modest home in Annandale for Conjunctions’ tenth anniversary issue, and the day he was “mesmerized by a story titled ‘Good Old Neon’ sent by a polite young guy named David Foster Wallace.”
“The way I wanted to set off into the future was by honoring the past, in particular one of my publishing heroes, James Laughlin, who had founded New Directions—home to Rexroth, Pound, Williams, Stein, et al.—and provided me with an informal education like no other,” says Morrow, winner of the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing a Literary Journal. “As I’ve written before, Conjunctions is a living notebook, one in which new voices, along with those of writers who are further along on their journeys, enrich and complicate the flow of literature. Even heralded masters were once unknown fledglings. And all are engaged in the difficult feat of gathering words, those everyday haggard incandescent things, into a poem or story or essay, part of an inspired and necessary continuum of which we’re honored to be a part.”
Longtime Conjunctions contributor Rick Moody writes, in the foreword to the Fortieth Anniversary Issue, that “it is not outrageous to say that [Conjunctions] is the best literary magazine in the United States of America” and praises Morrow for his editorial vision and unwavering leadership and support.
“At no time in these decades did I ever fail to know well the support of Bradford Morrow, nor did he ever forbear noting when I was not doing the job terribly well and could do better,” writes Moody. “And in this way did I always feel that I had a home in these pages, a situation I know is shared by many, many other writers, all of us feeling that we could rely on Conjunctions for its welcome, its standards, its consistent excellence, as a place that would take our furthest-out fancies, but also provide a consistently astounding residence, containing a worldview, an idea of literature, a confraternity of the surprising and original.”
Edited by Morrow, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue features hybrid fiction by Booker Prize–winning poet and novelist Ben Okri; a portfolio of poems by MacArthur fellow Ann Lauterbach; a short story by Pulitzer Prize recipient Richard Powers, and new writing by Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, John Ashbery, Shane McCrae, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Julia Alvarez, Jayne Anne Phillips, Peter Orner, Diane Williams, and Robert Coover. Additional contributors to include Akil Kumarasamy, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Jessica Campbell, Carole Maso, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Sanjena Sathian, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and cover artist Oliver Lee Jackson.
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2021, 2018, and 2019 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, or to arrange interviews with Conjunctions Founding Editor Bradford Morrow please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected].]
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(6.16.21)Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Journal | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Conjunctions |
06-13-2021
Grace Molinaro ’24, a dual degree Bard Conservatory and Middle Eastern Studies major at Bard College, has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic during the summer of 2021. The U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. Molinaro is one of nearly 700 competitively selected American students at U.S. colleges and universities who received a CLS award in 2021.
“I feel extremely lucky to have received this scholarship because it will help me develop my ability to better express my thoughts in Arabic and communicate across borders—linguistic, national, cultural, and others,” said Molinaro. “I am hoping it will help me get to know the community in my home area better, since a lot of people speak Arabic, and I especially hope that this experience will give me the skills and tools to communicate, negotiate, and foster understanding through language.”
About the Critical Language Scholarship Program
The Critical Language Scholarship Program provides opportunities to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to ten weeks studying one of 15 critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, or Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. The CLS Program is developed in partnership with local institutions in countries where these languages are commonly spoken. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers. Since 2006, CLS has awarded scholarships to more than 8,000 American students to learn critical languages around the world. CLS scholars are among the more than 50,000 academic and professional exchange program participants supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. These exchange programs build respect and positive relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The CLS Program is a program of the U.S. Department of State and is supported in its administration by American Councils for International Education. For more information, visit clscholarship.org.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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.
“I feel extremely lucky to have received this scholarship because it will help me develop my ability to better express my thoughts in Arabic and communicate across borders—linguistic, national, cultural, and others,” said Molinaro. “I am hoping it will help me get to know the community in my home area better, since a lot of people speak Arabic, and I especially hope that this experience will give me the skills and tools to communicate, negotiate, and foster understanding through language.”
About the Critical Language Scholarship Program
The Critical Language Scholarship Program provides opportunities to U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to spend eight to ten weeks studying one of 15 critical languages: Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, or Urdu. The program includes intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. The CLS Program is developed in partnership with local institutions in countries where these languages are commonly spoken. CLS scholars are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future careers. Since 2006, CLS has awarded scholarships to more than 8,000 American students to learn critical languages around the world. CLS scholars are among the more than 50,000 academic and professional exchange program participants supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. These exchange programs build respect and positive relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The CLS Program is a program of the U.S. Department of State and is supported in its administration by American Councils for International Education. For more information, visit clscholarship.org.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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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(6/15/21)
Photo: Grace Molinaro ’24
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Grants,Middle Eastern Studies,Student | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Grants,Middle Eastern Studies,Student | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-11-2021
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), in partnership with Arts Midwest, has awarded Bard College a $19,985 NEA Big Read grant to support the Big Read Hudson Valley: Spanning the Hudson River with Words, a dynamic community-wide reading program offering reading groups, performances, workshops, and events in Red Hook, Rhinebeck, and Kingston. Focused on the Big Read selection, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Big Read Hudson Valley, which takes place next March-April, 2022, is a collaboration among Bard College and its Master of Arts in Teaching Program and La Voz magazine, with support from Bard’s Written Arts Program, the Bard Conservatory, and Conjunctions literary journal, along with partner libraries and community organizations, including Radio Kingston, the Kingston Library, the Red Hook Library, Tivoli Library, Starr Library, the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, Ramapo for Children, Oblong Books, and Rough Draft Bar & Books.
“For 15 years the NEA Big Read has supported opportunities for communities to come together around a book, creating a shared experience that encourages openness and conversations around issues central to our lives,” said Ann Eilers, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “We congratulate all of the new NEA Big Read grantees and look forward to seeing the range of meaningful activities they create for their communities.”
Big Read Hudson Valley is one of 61 grants totaling $1,070,000 supported by NEA Big Read in 2021-2022. The grants, managed by Arts Midwest, will support dynamic community reading programs designed to encourage conversation and discovery, all inspired by a book from the NEA Big Read library. The 2021-2022 NEA Big Read grantees are located in 28 states, with 43 percent of the organizations located in communities with populations under 50,000. Nearly half (44 percent) of the recipients are first-time recipients of an NEA Big Read grant. Each organization is receiving a matching grant ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.
About the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read
The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read, a partnership with Arts Midwest, broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,700 NEA Big Read programs, providing more than $23 million to organizations nationwide. In addition, Big Read activities have reached every Congressional district in the country. Over the past 15 years, grantees have leveraged more than $50 million in local funding to support their NEA Big Read programs. More than 5.7 million Americans have attended an NEA Big Read event, over 90,000 volunteers have participated at the local level, and over 40,000 community organizations have partnered to make NEA Big Read activities possible. Visit arts.gov/neabigread for more information about the NEA Big Read, including reader resources—such as book overviews, discussion questions, and interviews with the authors—as well as community stories from past NEA Big Read grantees. Organizations interested in applying for an NEA Big Read grant in the future should visit Arts Midwest’s website for more information.
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more.
Arts Midwest believes that creativity has the power to inspire and unite humanity. Based in Minneapolis, Arts Midwest grows, gathers, and invests in creative organizations and communities throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six nonprofit United States Regional Arts Organizations, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 30 years. For more information, visit artsmidwest.org.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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.
“For 15 years the NEA Big Read has supported opportunities for communities to come together around a book, creating a shared experience that encourages openness and conversations around issues central to our lives,” said Ann Eilers, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “We congratulate all of the new NEA Big Read grantees and look forward to seeing the range of meaningful activities they create for their communities.”
Big Read Hudson Valley is one of 61 grants totaling $1,070,000 supported by NEA Big Read in 2021-2022. The grants, managed by Arts Midwest, will support dynamic community reading programs designed to encourage conversation and discovery, all inspired by a book from the NEA Big Read library. The 2021-2022 NEA Big Read grantees are located in 28 states, with 43 percent of the organizations located in communities with populations under 50,000. Nearly half (44 percent) of the recipients are first-time recipients of an NEA Big Read grant. Each organization is receiving a matching grant ranging from $5,000 to $20,000.
About the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read
The National Endowment for the Arts Big Read, a partnership with Arts Midwest, broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts has funded more than 1,700 NEA Big Read programs, providing more than $23 million to organizations nationwide. In addition, Big Read activities have reached every Congressional district in the country. Over the past 15 years, grantees have leveraged more than $50 million in local funding to support their NEA Big Read programs. More than 5.7 million Americans have attended an NEA Big Read event, over 90,000 volunteers have participated at the local level, and over 40,000 community organizations have partnered to make NEA Big Read activities possible. Visit arts.gov/neabigread for more information about the NEA Big Read, including reader resources—such as book overviews, discussion questions, and interviews with the authors—as well as community stories from past NEA Big Read grantees. Organizations interested in applying for an NEA Big Read grant in the future should visit Arts Midwest’s website for more information.
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the Arts Endowment supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more.
Arts Midwest believes that creativity has the power to inspire and unite humanity. Based in Minneapolis, Arts Midwest grows, gathers, and invests in creative organizations and communities throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six nonprofit United States Regional Arts Organizations, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 30 years. For more information, visit artsmidwest.org.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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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(6/10/21)
Photo: "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros is Big Read Hudson Valley’s book for 2022. Courtesy, Vintage Books
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Community Events,Division of Languages and Literature,Education,Faculty,Grants,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Undergraduate Programs,Conjunctions,Master of Arts in Teaching |
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Community Events,Division of Languages and Literature,Education,Faculty,Grants,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Undergraduate Programs,Conjunctions,Master of Arts in Teaching |
06-05-2021
Bard alumna Molly Feibel ’15 will compete on Jeopardy! on Tuesday, June 8 at 7:00 pm EST. (Check your local listings as times may vary.) A literature major at Bard, Feibel is now a historic interpreter, working at Clermont State Historic Site and Staatsburgh State Historic Site not far from the Bard campus.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-04-2021
“It is remarkable that Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch manages to pull off what, broadly speaking, is a witch story, one that is as serious as (Arthur) Miller’s play (The Crucible) and as playful as (John) Updike’s novel (The Witches of Eastwick) but does not fall prey to the pitfalls of either,” writes Mason in the Wall Street Journal. “Not an allegory, not a satire, not a revisionist witch story, not a history lesson—a lot of nots, I realize—but instead a persuasive and very beautiful work of fiction.”
Photo: AF FOTOGRAFIE/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-02-2021
On June 4, novelist and Bard College literature professor Bradford Morrow, founding editor of Conjunctions, hosts an online evening of readings to celebrate the publication of the 40TH anniversary issue of Conjunctions, the celebrated literary journal published by Bard College. Morrow will be joined by Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue contributors Robert Coover, Akil Kumarasamy, Shane McCrae, and Karen Russell. The livestreamed event, presented by Conjunctions and Oblong Books, takes place Friday, June 4, at 7 p.m. For reservations, please click here.
Edited by Morrow and published by Bard College in spring 2021, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue celebrates forty years in print, with new and previously unpublished work by Ben Okri, Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Ann Lauterbach, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, Akil Kumarasamy, John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Richard Powers, Shane McCrae, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Jessica Campbell, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carole Maso, Julia Alvarez, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sanjena Sathian, Peter Orner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Diane Williams, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and Robert Coover, with a foreword by Rick Moody.
For more information, visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76.
ABOUT THE READERS
Robert Coover has published more than twenty books of fiction and plays, including A Child Again (McSweeney’s, 2005), Noir (Overlook, 2010), The Brunist Day of Wrath (Dzanc, 2014), and Huck Out West (Norton, 2017). He is a pioneer in the field of electronic writing, and founded the International Writers Project, a freedom-to-write program, at Brown University.
Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the story collection Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). She is the 2021 recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA Program.
Shane McCrae’s most recent poetry collections are Sometimes I Never Suffered and The Gilded Auction Block (both Farrar, Straus and Giroux). In 2021, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center will release an expanded edition of his first book, Mule. McCrae has received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award.
Karen Russell’s books include the novella Sleep Donation (Vintage, 2020), the story collection Orange World (Knopf, 2019), and the novel Swamplandia! (Knopf, 2011). She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award.
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. A Bard Center Fellow and professor of literature at Bard College, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
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The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions showcases innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit http://www.conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Edited by Morrow and published by Bard College in spring 2021, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue celebrates forty years in print, with new and previously unpublished work by Ben Okri, Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Ann Lauterbach, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, Akil Kumarasamy, John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Richard Powers, Shane McCrae, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Jessica Campbell, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carole Maso, Julia Alvarez, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sanjena Sathian, Peter Orner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Diane Williams, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and Robert Coover, with a foreword by Rick Moody.
For more information, visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76.
ABOUT THE READERS
Robert Coover has published more than twenty books of fiction and plays, including A Child Again (McSweeney’s, 2005), Noir (Overlook, 2010), The Brunist Day of Wrath (Dzanc, 2014), and Huck Out West (Norton, 2017). He is a pioneer in the field of electronic writing, and founded the International Writers Project, a freedom-to-write program, at Brown University.
Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the story collection Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). She is the 2021 recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA Program.
Shane McCrae’s most recent poetry collections are Sometimes I Never Suffered and The Gilded Auction Block (both Farrar, Straus and Giroux). In 2021, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center will release an expanded edition of his first book, Mule. McCrae has received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award.
Karen Russell’s books include the novella Sleep Donation (Vintage, 2020), the story collection Orange World (Knopf, 2019), and the novel Swamplandia! (Knopf, 2011). She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award.
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. A Bard Center Fellow and professor of literature at Bard College, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
#
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions showcases innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. 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 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit http://www.conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
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(6.2.21)Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
May 2021
05-21-2021
Author and Bard College professor Valeria Luiselli has won the 2021 Dublin Literary Award for her novel Lost Children Archive. Sponsored by Dublin City Council, the award, with prize money of €100,000, is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English. Luiselli is the first writer from Mexico and the fifth woman to claim the prestigious award in its 26-year history. Uniquely, the Dublin Award receives its nominations from public libraries in cities around the globe and recognizes both writers and translators. The winner was announced on Thursday, May 20, at a special online event, at the opening of the International Literature Festival Dublin, which runs until May 30. Lord Mayor Hazel Chu made the announcement from Dublin, with the presentation to the Luiselli taking place at the Irish Consulate in New York City. Irish Consul General Ciarán Madden, and previous winner of the Dublin Literary Award Colm Tóibín, presented Luiselli with her award on behalf of Dublin City Council.
“Lost Children Archive tells an old story, the one that Cervantes told . . . and Cormac McCarthy, the story of what happens to the human spirit on the road, how a long journey puts in jeopardy what was stable and agreed upon,” said Tóibín, who won the Dublin Literary Award in 2006 for his novel The Master. “Luiselli has written a novel in which stories spiral. She has rendered her characters with astonishing grace and insight, and through them she has drawn a picture of what they have been driving towards throughout the book, the contested place, where the old rules do not apply, for which a new form of archive is needed.”
Accepting her award, Luiselli spoke passionately about the importance of literature now more than ever. “I can say, without a hint of doubt, that without books–without sharing in the company of other writers’ human experiences –we would not have made it through these months,” she said. “If our spirits have found renewal, if we have found strength to carry on, if we have maintained a sense of enthusiasm for life, it is thanks to the worlds that books have given us. Each time, we found solace in the companions that live in our bookshelves.”
Watch Valeria Luiselli’s acceptance speech HERE.
“This year’s Dublin Literary Award winner is a very important book, with significant themes around family and the things that matter to us most as human beings,” said Lord Mayor of Dublin and Patron of the Award Hazel Chu. “I am very proud of our City for providing this opportunity for the libraries of the world to nominate the books that have resonated most with readers. The Award helps us to learn about each other and reach a greater understanding of the world, through the insight which literature provides.”
About Lost Children Archive
In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way. A breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive is timely, compassionate, subtly hilarious, and formally inventive—a powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.
About Lucas Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College, was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth, which won the 2016 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction; the essay collection Sidewalks; and Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. She is the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and an American Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Lost Children Archive, which won the 2020 Rathbones Folio Prize, is her first novel written in English. She lives in New York City.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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.
“Lost Children Archive tells an old story, the one that Cervantes told . . . and Cormac McCarthy, the story of what happens to the human spirit on the road, how a long journey puts in jeopardy what was stable and agreed upon,” said Tóibín, who won the Dublin Literary Award in 2006 for his novel The Master. “Luiselli has written a novel in which stories spiral. She has rendered her characters with astonishing grace and insight, and through them she has drawn a picture of what they have been driving towards throughout the book, the contested place, where the old rules do not apply, for which a new form of archive is needed.”
Accepting her award, Luiselli spoke passionately about the importance of literature now more than ever. “I can say, without a hint of doubt, that without books–without sharing in the company of other writers’ human experiences –we would not have made it through these months,” she said. “If our spirits have found renewal, if we have found strength to carry on, if we have maintained a sense of enthusiasm for life, it is thanks to the worlds that books have given us. Each time, we found solace in the companions that live in our bookshelves.”
Watch Valeria Luiselli’s acceptance speech HERE.
“This year’s Dublin Literary Award winner is a very important book, with significant themes around family and the things that matter to us most as human beings,” said Lord Mayor of Dublin and Patron of the Award Hazel Chu. “I am very proud of our City for providing this opportunity for the libraries of the world to nominate the books that have resonated most with readers. The Award helps us to learn about each other and reach a greater understanding of the world, through the insight which literature provides.”
About Lost Children Archive
In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way. A breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive is timely, compassionate, subtly hilarious, and formally inventive—a powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.
About Lucas Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College, was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth, which won the 2016 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction; the essay collection Sidewalks; and Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. She is the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and an American Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Lost Children Archive, which won the 2020 Rathbones Folio Prize, is her first novel written in English. She lives in New York City.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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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(5/21/21)
Photo: Valeria Luiselli, winner of the 2021 Dublin Literary Award at the New York Irish Consul General’s Residence, New York.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-20-2021
Bard College students Jourdan Perez ’23 and Tallulah Woitach ’23 have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships from the U.S. Department of State to study abroad. Perez was awarded $4,500 toward his studies at Bard College Berlin in fall 2021, and Woitach was awarded $4,000 toward her studies at the University of Sydney in Spring 2022.
“It is an unbelievable honor to be selected for such a prestigious award,” said Woitach, a written arts major. “I am so beyond excited to go to Australia to study indigenous culture, with a focus on oral tradition. All too often in western culture, the written word becomes distanced from the deeper ancient energy language is borne out of. I want to learn from those who know how to make words come alive, by connecting to something much greater than ourselves.”
“I'm very excited to explore Berlin and continue studying German language and culture,” said Perez, a sociology major with a concentration in gender and sexuality studies. “I would like to thank Trish Fleming (Bard’s Study Abroad Adviser) for informing me about the Gilman Scholarship, as well as reviewing my application one last time before I submitted.”
Perez and Woitach were among more than 1,500 U.S. undergraduate students selected to receive Gilman scholarship awards from the March 2021 application deadline. The recipients of this prestigious scholarship are American undergraduate students attending 467 U.S. colleges and represent all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. These Gilman Scholars will study or intern in 96 countries through the end of 2022.
The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, providing them with skills critical to our national security and economic prosperity. 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 establishment in 2001, over 1,300 U.S. institutions have sent over 33,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 151 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.” 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 U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). For more information, visit gilmanscholarship.org.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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.
“It is an unbelievable honor to be selected for such a prestigious award,” said Woitach, a written arts major. “I am so beyond excited to go to Australia to study indigenous culture, with a focus on oral tradition. All too often in western culture, the written word becomes distanced from the deeper ancient energy language is borne out of. I want to learn from those who know how to make words come alive, by connecting to something much greater than ourselves.”
“I'm very excited to explore Berlin and continue studying German language and culture,” said Perez, a sociology major with a concentration in gender and sexuality studies. “I would like to thank Trish Fleming (Bard’s Study Abroad Adviser) for informing me about the Gilman Scholarship, as well as reviewing my application one last time before I submitted.”
Perez and Woitach were among more than 1,500 U.S. undergraduate students selected to receive Gilman scholarship awards from the March 2021 application deadline. The recipients of this prestigious scholarship are American undergraduate students attending 467 U.S. colleges and represent all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. These Gilman Scholars will study or intern in 96 countries through the end of 2022.
The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, providing them with skills critical to our national security and economic prosperity. 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 establishment in 2001, over 1,300 U.S. institutions have sent over 33,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 151 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.” 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 U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). For more information, visit gilmanscholarship.org.
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 nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-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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(5/24/21)
Photo: Bard College students and Gilman Scholars Tallulah Woitach ’23 (L) and Jourdan Perez ’23 (R)
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Gender and Sexuality Studies,Sociology Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Gender and Sexuality Studies,Sociology Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-11-2021
The classicist Milman Parry, who died in 1935 at the age of 33, “completely revolutionized the study of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, showing that the epics had not been written, as had long been thought, but were oral—composed in the act of performance,” writes Professor Cioffi in the New York Times. “His work has had wide-ranging ramifications, ushering in an emphasis on orality that has become increasingly central to modern literary culture—from professional storytellers and TED talks to podcasts and audiobooks. In Hearing Homer’s Song, the biographer Robert Kanigel offers the first full-scale account of Parry’s short life, mysterious demise and long-lived influence.”
Photo: Assistant Professor of Classics Robert Cioffi
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |