News from the Division of Languages and Literature

Professor Luzzi recommends readers attempt Dante’s Divine Comedy this summer.

Rising senior Julie Jarema has won one of five $2,500 stipends from We Need Diverse Books to intern at Simon and Schuster in New York City this summer.

When Professor Luzzi's pregnant wife Katherine was in a fatal car accident, he became a widower and a father in the same day. He turned to Dante for refuge in his grief.

The musical adaptation of Fun Home, the best-selling graphic memoir by Simon's Rock alumna Alison Bechdel, who received her A.A. degree in 1979, has won the Tony Award for best new musical.

Associate Professor of Italian Joseph Luzzi used Dante's epic poem "The Divine Comedy" to get him through the grief of his wife's sudden death, as described in his new memoir.

Bard Fiction Prize winner Laura van den Berg talks about writers who have influenced her, age bias in publishing, and her debut novel, Find Me.

Professor Farah discusses his new novel, Hiding in Plain Sight, the heartbreaking loss of his sister in a terrorist attack, and misconceptions about his native Somalia.

Joseph Luzzi writes about the day he became both a father and widower, and the challenges of raising his daughter while being leveled by loss. 

The Denver Post interviews Neil Gaiman, who works at a "lonely" craft. 

Arthur Holland Michel reviews the book Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars by Chris Woods. 

Translating the Holocaust: H.G. Adler As Writer and Scholar,” is happening on Monday, May 4, 2015 at 4 p.m. in Bard Hall, Bard College Campus. The event offers a unique opportunity to examine the scholarly and artistic endeavors of a thinker who is just becoming known in English. Adler was among the earliest scholars to write extensively on the Shoah and was a pioneer of Holocaust Studies. Jeremy Adler, the author’s son and professor of German at Kings College London, will present the keynote address. Bill T. Jones, award winning choreographer and dancer, will give remarks. The editor and translators of some of Adler’s work will speak. Also featured is a live performance of Viktor Ullmann's song settings of Adler’s poetry. The event is sponsored by The Hannah Arendt Center, The Bard Translation Initiative, Jewish Studies, German Studies, and Human Rights Project. 

Erica Kaufman and Michael Nicoloff will give a reading at La Commune Cafe and Bookstore in Oakland on May 2 for the Hybrid Moments series. 

Teju Cole discusses the current work of Lee Friedlander who at the age of 80, still roams the city streets making photographs that are distinct in their “scrupulous inclusiveness.” 

The Jewish Museum will present "H.G. Adler: A Survivor's Dual Reverie," an author talk featuring Daniel Mendelsohn, Peter Filkins, Ruth Franklin, and H.G. Adler's son Jeremy Adler, on Thursday, May 7 at 7pm, as part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

On Saturday, April 18, at 2 p.m., the Mid-Hudson Heritage Center at 317 Main Street will celebrate Bard College’s innovative literary journal Conjunctions with a special reading. Greg Hrbek (Destroy All Monsters), Michael Ives (The External Combustion Machine), Paul La Farge (Luminous Airplanes), and Christina Mengert (As We Are Sung) will read from their work published in Conjunctions’ biannual print journal and in the weekly online magazine. Conjunctions is an internationally distributed journal of fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction published by Bard College and edited by Bard Center Fellow and Professor of Literature Bradford Morrow. This event is free and open to the public. No tickets are required, but seating is first come, first served. For more information, contact us at [email protected].

 Celia Bland who is the international coordinator for the Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard College has won the first prize at the Raynes Poetry Competition

Celebrated author Rabih Alameddine will read from his work, An Unnecessary Woman, a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award. Alameddine is also the author of the story collection The Perv, and the novels Koolaids; I, the Divine; and The Hakawati. Alameddine divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut and was a 2002 Guggenheim Fellow. The reading, presented by the Written Arts and Middle Eastern Studies Programs and by the Difference and Media Project, takes place at 1 p.m. in Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. It is free and open to the public; no tickets or reservations required. 

On Monday, April 20, Jay Cantor, winner of a 1989 MacArthur Fellowship, will read from his new book, Forgiving the Angel: Four Stories for Franz Kafka, at Bard College. In its review of the book, the New York Times writes, "Forgiving the Angel links disparate time, places and characters in an ingeniously unified and admirably purposeful fiction. [In its] formal circularity, ethical ambiguity and scrupulous undecidability, Cantor’s fiction is a worthy homage to Kafka. It is also an original work that pulls our mind through the kind of biographical and historical contraption that Kafka would probably never have put together, would probably not, as a Jew in Czechoslovakia, have survived to put together."

Cole considers approaches to conflict photography and asks, "What, then, are we to do with a thrilling photograph that is at the same time an image of pain?"

Hannah Arendt Center senior fellow Wyatt Mason examines Rush’s National Book Award–winning novel in the third installment of this online book club.

Join author Neil Gaiman on Friday, April 3, for a dialogue with legendary musician and composer Laurie Anderson in this third edition of an ongoing series of public conversations at the Fisher Center hosted by Professor Gaiman. The discussion will center on the topics of “Story Structure” and “Fiction vs. Autobiography.” Presented by Live Arts Bard, the program takes place on April 3 at 7:30 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.

Bard College and Simon's Rock faculty member Peter Filkins has received a 2015–2016 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of his research and writing of The Life and Times of H.G. Adler (1910 -1988): Poet, Novelist, and Holocaust Survivor.

This year, Bard College is celebrating its 25th anniversary as publisher of the renowned literary magazine Conjunctions. Edited by Bradford Morrow—novelist, Bard Center Fellow, and professor of literature—Conjunctions is widely respected as the preeminent source for the best in innovative, provocative, rigorously realized fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. Events to celebrate the anniversary include a special reading on Thursday, March 26, featuring Conjunctions contributors and Bard faculty members Mary Caponegro ’78, Ann Lauterbach, Neil Gaiman, Benjamin Hale, Robert Kelly, Francine Prose, and Morrow. The anniversary will also be marked by a special exhibition at Stevenson Library, as well as a celebratory reading and fund-raiser in the Spiegeltent on July 23.

"Gaiman’s attention to craft, passion for language and profound respect for the mythological roots of what is now called 'speculative fiction' come through" in this new collection.

Critic, classicist, and Bard professor Daniel Mendelsohn considers the strange cultural history of Sappho and the enduring allure of her poetry.

Laura van den Berg's "pleasingly strange" novel, Find Me, follows an immune young woman during a lethal epidemic who embarks on a quest to find her long-lost mother.

"It's a gathering place, a conjoining of voices," says Bradford Morrow, defining "conjunctions"—the name of the literary journal he founded with Kenneth Rexroth.

Professor Manea talks about his newly translated first novel, Captives, his complicated relationship with Romania, and why America is "the world’s best hotel."

Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Mass., sponsors the annual Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, a series of events celebrating Women’s History Month in March. Held on campus and at venues throughout Berkshire County, this year's festival features more than 50 events including readings, lectures, workshops, performances, and film screenings. Read More

World Literature Today has named Professor Joseph Luzzi's My Two Italies in its Nota Bene section—books to "note well."

"Teju Cole is the author of two works of fiction that radically expand our understanding of diaspora and dislocation in the twenty-first century," writes Jonathon Sturgeon.

On Monday, March 2, Lily Tuck, the National Book Award–winning author of The News from Paraguay, Siam, I Married You for Happiness, and other books of fiction and biography, will read from her work at Bard College. “Tuck is a genius with moments … Her ability to capture beauty will remind readers of Marguerite Yourcenar and Marguerite Duras” (Los Angeles Book Review). Tuck will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center. It is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.

Laura van den Berg's debut novel Find Me is earning deserved comparisons to acclaimed writers Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro.

A retired cop, a most-wanted list, and a young Andy Warhol all have roles to play in this short story by Luc Sante.

Author Laura van den Berg, writer in residence at Bard College, reads from her recent work on Monday, February 23. The free program begins at 7 p.m. in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium in Bard’s Reem-Kayden Center. Van den Berg received the 2015 Bard Fiction Prize for her book The Isle of Youth. In this collection of stories, van den Berg explores the lives of women mired in secrecy and deception. The characters are at once vulnerable and dangerous, bighearted and ruthless—grappling with the choices they have made and searching for the clues to unlock their inner worlds.

"At what point," wonders Prose, "did we start expecting films to tell the truth about the past? And won’t we be in trouble if we do?"

Professor Maria Sachiko Cecire directs Performing Dido, a short film about two gender-bending productions of the classic story staged in the hall of Christ Church, Oxford in 2013.

The Italian Studies Program at Bard College presents Francesco Ciabattoni to give a talk on "Dante's Musical Design in the Commedia." The lecture examines the premise that Dante's journey through the Christian netherworld is not without its own soundtrack. From the cacophonous, failed attempts at presenting sacred music in Hell, the pilgrim goes on to listen to Purgatory's expiatory performances of Gregorian chants; and from the music of pure innocence in the Garden of Eden, Dante ascends to the complex and bedazzling beauty of polyphony in Paradise. Ciabattoni will explain the musicological and theological underpinnings of Dante's chosen musical settings. The event takes place on Thursday, March 5, at 5 p.m. in Weis Cinema of the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College.

Joseph O'Neill and Mona Simpson are among 19 nominees for the world's richest short story prize, the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film about a cinema superhero struggling for a comeback on Broadway boasts "extraordinary originality."

Bard Fiction Prize winner Laura van den Berg on teaching, the benefits of a quiet space, and how working on a short story is different from a novel.

The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has announced its 2014 Artists' Fellowships Awardees, and a Bard MFA alumna and faculty members are among them. Music/Sound faculty Jace Clayton, Writing alumna Charity Coleman MFA '13, and Writing faculty Matvei Yankelevich have all been named as winners. For the past 29 years, NYFA has awarded unrestricted fellowships of $7,000 to artists living and working in the state of New York. Awarded in 15 different disciplines over a three-year period, Artists' Fellowships support artists from diverse cultural backgrounds at all stages of their professional careers.

Derek Furr, English faculty member and MAT Program director, considers how readers identify with the works of poets Derek Walcott and Elizabeth Bishop.

Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose discusses the recent revelation that e-book retailers are able to track people's reading habits.

In Norman Manea's novel Captives, originally written in Romanian in 1970, characters are haunted by the past.

Last year Bard professor and acclaimed author Neil Gaiman did an experiment: take a hiatus from his immensely popular Twitter account and allow himself to get bored.

Conjunctions, the celebrated literary magazine published by Bard College, has won a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a $50,000 multiyear ($10,000/year) grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to support its print and electronic publication of award-winning fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction from many of the world’s leading contemporary writers and most innovative emerging authors.

Bard alumnus Ian Dreiblatt visits temple cults, urban landscapes, and cultures both modern and ancient through Robert Kelly's A Voice Full of Cities.

Rikki Ducornet's The Deep Zoo is a collection of 15 short essays whose "capacity for insights and range of thought ... is sprawling."

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College presents a full spring season of performing arts events, including jazz and orchestral concerts, and innovative dance and theater productions, from January 31 through May 16. Highlights include the Billie Holiday Centenary Tribute, Joseph Haydn’s The Creation, American Symphony Orchestra concerts, Cynthia Hopkins’ A Living Documentary, Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Laurie Anderson, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance.