News from the Division of Languages and Literature

Author and professor Daniel Mendelsohn reveals the power of a recurring nightmare and the graves of his ancestors as part of a New York Review of Books series about dreams.

in the Bardian

Only 10 playwrights—out of nearly 600—have been accepted into the Public Theater’s prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group (EWG), a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 is one of them. “Being accepted into the program was one of the most satisfying experiences, in terms of being acknowledged for my writing,” says Oliveras, who takes nothing for granted, having come to playwriting via an unconventional route: while incarcerated, as a student in the Bard Prison Initiative.

With EWG, Oliveras has attended writing retreats; participated in “speed-dating sessions” with agents, directors, and actors; and met established playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks (Venus; Topdog/Underdog) and David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). “It’s the environment you want to be in,” says Oliveras. “It’s school for me. I tackle it like I tackled Bard College, soaking up as much knowledge and education as I can.”

Oliveras grew up in the Bronx. Conditions in his neighborhood were harsh. He made it to 11th grade before he dropped out of school. At 17, Oliveras ended up in prison. “My life drastically turned at that point. I did not really know anything about my future, other than the fact that I was going to do a lot of time,” he says.

Awaiting sentencing in the city’s detention center, Oliveras’s head raced. He realized that his only option was to make the most of his time—17 years. Once in prison, he immediately enrolled in a GED class and threw himself into the schoolwork. “I felt like I could redeem myself a little bit, instead of only bringing tears to my mother’s and family’s eyes,” he says. “When I obtained my GED, it felt monumental. I knew then that I wanted to pursue education as far as possible.”

Oliveras began applying to college-in-prison programs. Unfortunately, the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act repealed federal Pell Grant funding for incarcerated students. Within months, New York State’s thriving network of postsecondary correctional higher education programs collapsed. So Oliveras began a journey of voracious independent study through books in prison libraries. “I was reading philosophy, history; I read a lot about my culture. I read Puerto Rican writers: Miguel Piñero and Julia de Burgos. My mind started expanding. I read about Pedro Albizu Campos, Che Guevara, the Black Panthers, and other influential people who had been through struggles like me.” He built friendships with older prisoners who were motivated to make the most of their time—starting and running community and educational programs on the inside.

When he was moved to Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, Oliveras enrolled in a theology program for college credit run by Mercy College. After he completed the program, he had no further opportunities for higher education until being transferred to Woodbourne Correctional Facility. “At Woodbourne, I saw a flyer for the Bard College program [the Bard Prison Initiative]. I immediately signed up. I wrote an entrance essay. Close to 200 guys applied. I thought, ‘Thank God I went through the theology program, because it taught me how to structure an essay.’ My essay got me an interview with Max Kenner ’01 [BPI executive director] and Daniel Karpowitz [BPI director of policy and academics, and lecturer in law and the humanities]. Only 11 of us were chosen. I felt so honored,” says Oliveras. “Bard came in at a time when other programs were leaving. I’m eternally grateful to Bard.”

Oliveras appreciates the quality of his Bard education, especially the focus on exploring ideas through writing. “It opened up my worldview,” he says. “It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.” He was awarded an associate’s degree in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in 2008.

During this period, Oliveras found himself taking writing very seriously. He cofounded Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Woodbourne, a program that uses theater as a transformative tool, and applied what he was learning at Bard to his drama projects. “I kept reading plays and seeing what others had done,” he remembers. “I mimicked what they wrote, then I eventually started telling my own unique story.” He was the lead writer for Starting Over, a group-written play that was performed at Woodbourne and Sing Sing, and is being turned into a film as well as slated for production in New York City. Through RTA, Oliveras met Arin Arbus, associate artistic director of Theater for a New Audience in New York City. She read his work and encouraged him to submit it to theaters on the outside. Arbus showed a writing sample—“Dear Friend,” which is a letter to a man being incarcerated for the first time—to Mark Plesent, producing artistic director of the Working Theater in New York City; based on that, Plesent commissioned Oliveras’s full-length play, Song to a Child Like Me. The play’s first public reading, attended by his sister and other family members, was held at the Working Theater while Oliveras was still on the inside.

In September 2010, Oliveras was released. Balancing a full-time job as a housing advocate for Common Ground (a nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness in New York City), he still writes every day. “In prison, I led a monastic life fully immersed in writing and studies. Out here, I need to work, pay bills, cook,” he says. “I had to relearn all this. It takes time. But I separate at least two hours a day to write. Never neglect your writing, or the work suffers.”

EWG provides playwrights with a stipend, master classes with established playwrights, a biweekly writers’ group led by members of the Public’s Literary Department, opportunities to attend rehearsals and productions at the Public, tickets to shows at other theaters, artistic and professional support, and at least one public reading of their work. Oliveras marvels at meeting with playwrights he once read in A-block. He’s aiming for a full production of one of his plays, and hopes to be able to write full time. “It takes a lot of courage sometimes, using what I’ve learned,” he says emphatically. “There were moments that were really tough. The change wasn’t overnight. It took a lot of things. I had to grow up to be a man in prison."

Read the spring 2013 issue of the Bardian:

Since graduating from the Bard Prison Initiative, the writing career of Manuel Borras Oliveras ’08 has blossomed. He has been accepted to the Public Theater's prestigious 2013 Emerging Writers Group, a selective program created to nurture the work of new playwrights. Of his Bard education behind bars, Oliveras says, “It opened up my worldview. It introduced me to writers like John Dewey, Plato, Shakespeare. I met professors who had written books, and I could sit down and talk to them. At those moments I felt totally free.”

Conjunctions:60, In Absentia—the latest issue of Bard's innovative literary magazine—gathers a collection of today’s leading contemporary writers to explore the presence of absence, the losses that gain on us, the black holes in our everyday lives. Edited by Conjunctions editor, novelist, and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, the issue includes work by Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Coover, Frederic Tuten, and many others. Visit their website to read excerpts.

History professor Richard Aldous, author of Reagan and Thatcher, reviews Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher. Former Daily Telegraph editor Moore is "an inspired choice," writes Aldous.

Italian professor Joseph Luzzi conveys the challenges of translating Dante's masterpiece as he reviews a new translation by Clive James.

Bard professor and world-renowned author Norman Manea was well received at the prestigious Salon du Livre in Paris. Manea was an honorary guest at the event in March, which was dedicated to Romanian literature. The French press praised Manea's participation and his new book, The Fifth Impossibility: Essays on Exile and Language. During the Salon du Livre Manea gave interviews, participated in a public debate, and spoke to a large audience about Romanian history and literature. Click here to download PDF.

Conjunctions:60, In Absentia—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—gathers a collection of today’s leading contemporary writers to explore the presence of absence, the losses that gain on us, the black holes in our everyday lives.

Bard professor and award-winning author Francine Prose has been traveling for speaking engagements. Most recently, she spoke and taught as part of the Chautauqua Poets and Writers series in Oregon.

Bard alumnus Nsikan Akpan '06 made the jump from biomedical research to science journalism, and gives advice to his fellow science writers on how to do the same.

A production of The Bakkhai (The Bacchae) by Bard College students takes place at the Fisher Center through April 14. Sunday's events also include a panel discussion, "Euripides' The Bakkhai: Play and Performance" with Daniel Mendelsohn (Bard College), Helene Foley (Barnard), Rachel Kitzinger (Vassar), and Emily Wilson (University of Pennsylvania). The panel is free and open to the public.

Cultural commentator Seth Rogovoy gives the Fisher Center's "Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer" a rave review.

Writer Rusty Morrison interviews Bard literature professor and Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow. The article also includes the full text of Morrow's short story "The Hoarder" from his book The Uninnocent.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet C. P. Cavafy. Here, Cavafy translator and Bard professor Daniel Mendelsohn reads “Aboard the Ship” (1919) and “Birth of a Poem” (1922).

This weekend's Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman show at the Fisher Center will feature music, readings, surprises ... and possible magic.

Bard literature professor and author Mona Simpson will join members of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on April 15 in the final performance of their "Westside Connections" series, in which celebrated musicians and authors together explore the relationship between music and story.

On Monday, April 8, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Bard Fiction Prize winner, and New York Times bestselling author Karen Russell will read from her work. Russell’s highly acclaimed 2011 novel Swamplandia was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2011, and a recipient of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.

President Botstein reflects on Professor Achebe's life, work, and legacy on CNN. "Achebe's contribution was not merely literary . . . He was committed to his people and his community. He did not shy away from political controversy, and he did so in a manner that was unforgettable."

"He was a titan of African literature," says alumna Priya George '97 of the late Professor Emeritus Chinua Achebe. "He was a titan, but you never really felt that. He had zero ego. He was the friendliest man, he just had a gentle way about him."

The Bard community was deeply saddened to learn of the death of groundbreaking Nigerian writer and Bard professor emeritus Chinua Achebe. The author and educator was best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous books, including novels, collections of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. He was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard from 1990 to 2009. (Photo by Don Hammerman)

Bard College writer in residence Edie Meidav, author of Lola, California, will host the panel "The Female Rebel: Women Writers on the Antiheroine in Fiction." The event will take place on March 27 at Bard College at Simon's Rock as part of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers.

Conjunctions held a launch event in January for its newest volume, featuring Bard professor and journal editor Bradford Morrow, alumnus Jedediah Berry '99, Charles Bernstein, and Valerie Martin.

On Monday, April 1, Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction writer and recipient of a 2012 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, will read from his work at Bard College. The New York Times called Díaz “one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices.”

Acclaimed Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret will give a reading at Bard College on Monday, April 15. Keret will read selections from his recent work Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, as well as from The Girl on the Fridge, which contains his earliest stories.

Vassar College professor Amitava Kumar interviews Bard College distinguished writer in residence, historian, and photographer Teju Cole. This issue also contains a series of Cole's paired photographs from different global locations, with Kumar's exploration of their relationships to each other and other great works of art.

Hesitating Beauty, a new book of photography by Joshua Lutz '97, MFA '05 (ICP), is a meditation on his mother's mental illness. His work will be on display at New York’s ClampArt Gallery from April 11th to May 18th.

Julia Bloch has been selected as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, which recognize LGBT writing. Bloch, a poet and faculty member in the Bard Master of Arts in Teaching program, was nominated for her book Letters to Kelly Clarkson.

This new series, curated by Bard faculty members Roger Berkowitz and Walter Russell Mead, will engage an ongoing discussion with the nation’s leading bloggers in politics, history, art, and culture. Bard professor Francine Prose, who blogs for the New York Review of Books, will speak on March 5. All events take place at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.

Ian Buruma is the Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. Professor Buruma is an award-winning journalist and writer.

He was educated in Holland and Japan, where he studied Chinese literature and Japanese cinema. In the 1980s, he worked as a journalist, and spent much of his early writing career traveling and reporting from all over Asia. Buruma now writes about a broad range of political and cultural subjects for major publications, most frequently for the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, the New York Times, Corriere della Sera, and NRC Handelsblad. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including The China Lover (2008) and Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents (2010). He is the 2008 recipient of Holland's prestigious Erasmus Prize, as well as the 2008 winner of Stanford University's Shorenstein Journalism Award. Professor Buruma has been at Bard since 2003.

Washington Post writer Michael Lindgren calls Professor Mendelsohn, "elegant and capacious ... a versatile critic."

Teju Cole, distinguished writer in residence at Bard College, was born in the United States in 1975 to Nigerian parents; he was raised in Nigeria and currently lives in Brooklyn. Cole is an author, art historian, and street photographer.

Teju Cole is the author of Open City (Random House, 2011), which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the New York City Book Award, and was shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of a novella, Every Day Is for the Thief (2007). His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Qarrtsiluni, Chimurenga, New Yorker, Transition, Tin House, and A Public Space, among other publications. He is currently at work on Water Has No Enemy, a nonfiction narrative of Lagos, and on Small Fates. He received his B.A. in studio art and art history from Kalamazoo College in Michigan; his M.A. in African art history from the University of London; and his M.Phil. in 16th-century northern European visual culture from Columbia University, where he is working on his Ph.D. He has taught art history and literature at Hofstra University, New York University, and Columbia University. He has received a Rudolf Wittkower Fellowship and Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities (awarded by the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation), and has been interviewed for the documentary film, Wole Soyinka: Child of the Forest.

Bard presents its annual Eugene Meyer Lecture in British History and Literature, with acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín. Tóibín will speak about his work with Fintan O’Toole, a leading Irish editor, writer, and critic on Thursday, March 7, at 5:30 p.m.

Bard College at Simon's Rock faculty member and poet Peter Filkins examines the relationship of Sylvia Plath's poetry to her life and death.

On February 20 Robert Coover, Samuel R. Delany, Ben Marcus, Rick Moody, and Francine Prose will read letters by Gaddis and discuss what he has meant to them as writers and readers, introduced by Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow.

John Ashbery discusses poetry, surrealism, and the New York School.

Daniel Mendelsohn, award-winning author, critic, and Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College since 2006, has been named a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism for his most recent book, Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture.

This April, Bard College is launching a yearlong 10th anniversary celebration of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts with a month of music, theater, and dance. Highlights include an all-Wagner concert performed by the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO); a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 performed by members of the ASO and the Bard Conservatory Orchestra; a production of Euripides’ The Bacchae; comic works by Jack Ferver and QWAN Company; Sō Percussion’s Student Concert; the 2013 Bard Faculty Dance Concert; and an evening with author Neil Gaiman and singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer.

Gilles Peress, Bard College visiting professor of human rights and photography and internationally renowned photojournalist, is exhibiting work in Art or Evidence: The Power of Photojournalism, on view from January 3 through March 10 at the Mandeville Gallery, Union College in Schenectady, New York.

Devotees of American Public Media’s Marketplace will be pleased to know that the show’s Africa correspondent is Bard’s very own Gretchen Wilson ’97. During the last eight years, Wilson has established herself as a political reporter who tackles serious labor, economic, and social justice issues.

What does it mean to be human? How can we consider freedom and constraint in the year 2013? Bard's Center for Civic Engagement invites students from the Bard network of institutions to examine these questions in a written essay or multimedia piece for its annual contest. The deadline for submission is March 1, 2013.