News from the Division of Languages and Literature

Binet’s new novel is a police procedural featuring the most influential figures of postmodern critical theory.

First, writes Fiori, we have to recognize the latent marginalization of minority populations in the mainstream media.

Assistant Professor of Literature Peter L’Official on how Arthur Jafa manipulates time to illuminate black experience in the video collage Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death.

The New Academy Prize in Literature—which is open to public voting—provides an alternative to this year’s canceled Nobel Prize in Literature, and Neil Gaiman is among the nominees.

Grayson Morley is a Bard College written arts graduate from the Class of 2013. Grayson is currently pursuing his MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.  

"I'm working on an absurdist novel about UPS efficiency tracking, part of which will comprise my thesis when I graduate," he explains. "I teach both creative writing and English courses as part of my funding package."

After graduating from Bard, Grayson had a six-month fellowship focusing on farm worker labor rights in western New York. He then returned to Bard to work with the Office of Alumni/ae Affairs for two years. "If your plan is to go to grad school, take some time off first," he says. "No, seriously. I received this advice from mentors, and while I was loathe to take it ('How many cover letters do I have to write?'), the years I spent working provided experiences that enriched my current course of education."

"My Bard education proved to me the value of inquisitiveness and unwavering idealism," Grayson observes. "Mentors like Mary Caponegro and Matthew Mutter not only shaped my time in Annandale, but have remained treasured resources, and friends, into my life beyond Bard. My involvement with the Bard Prison Initiative remains a formative experience in my trajectory as an educator and person. I am deeply proud of my association with it, and with Bard as a whole."

What did he like best about Bard? "You never met a boring person. There were no carbon copies: everyone was so sincerely into their own, particular thing. My friends jokingly called it the Island of Misfit Toys, but since graduating, I've come to greatly miss that eclectic community."

"Things will be messy at first," Grayson says of life after graduation. "Possibly disheartening. But embrace what comes—then work like hell to find your ideal."

With 68.5 million people forced from their homes in 2017, Professor in the Arts Neil Gaiman explains why every one of them needs our help.

“My class at Bard College is like a book group that I don't have to be democratic about. It's great to be able to talk to people about books that you love.”