News from the Division of Languages and Literature

Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose reviews David Yaffe’s Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell.

Mendelsohn weaves Homer's epic with episodes from his own life in a book of "shimmering, beautiful, dapple-skilled intelligence" about his relationship with his father.

Chinua Achebe—an icon of African literature and beloved professor at Bard—was recognized with a Google Doodle on Thursday, November 16, on what would have been his 87th birthday.

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

On Monday, November 13, celebrated fantasy writer and critic Elizabeth Hand reads from her fiction collection Saffron and Brimstone. The Washington Post writes, "Hand's work is pulsing with tension throughout, charged with its own chilling luminosity." Hand will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow.

Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason examines how the classicist Emily Wilson has given Homer’s epic a radically contemporary voice.