News from the Division of Languages and Literature

Professor Gaiman visits two refugee camps in Jordan run by the UN Refugee Agency and listens to the stories of Syrians who have fled violence in their home country.

Bard alumnus Chris Claremont '72 revitalized the X-Men comic book series, creating some of its most iconic characters ... with a little help from studying political theory at Bard.

From Africa to China, Pakistan to the Philippines, to locales that are not to be found on any map, Conjunctions:62, Exile—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—examines exile as both a literal expulsion or ostracism and, as Primo Levi has it, “the prevalence of the unreal over the real.” The issue features Richard Sieburth’s first English translation of a hilarious, vitriolic work by Charles Baudelaire, written while self-exiled to Belgium; a cover photograph of an installation by Chiharu Shiota; and new writing from Laura van den Berg, Paul West, Brian Evenson, Peter Straub, H. G. Carrillo, Marjorie Welish, Maxine Chernoff, Aleš Šteger, Edie Meidav, Can Xue, and Arthur Sze.

“Are you boasting or complaining?” Francine Prose considers a recent essay by writer Lionel Shriver, in which Shriver described feeling nostalgic for the time before her commercial success.

Professor Mendelsohn writes that the skills required of an excellent critic are often impediments to writing strong fiction.

Author Mona Simpson discusses Chekhov's "Three Years," an unusual love story that plays on romantic conventions to reveal the growing affection of a couple over years of marriage.

By leaves or play of sunlight, John Cage: Artist and Naturalist at the Horticultural Society of New York is presented with the John Cage Trust at Bard College, and features the composer's poetry and scores with lithographs.

Until recently Bard alumnus Dan Cline was teaching English language classes to young people in Haisyn, Ukraine, working on community projects, and even ending up in the local press for his efforts. That changed over the winter as political unrest in the country grew into a revolution and the Peace Corps evacuated all its volunteers from the country.