News and Notes by Date
June 2021
06-05-2021
Bard alumna Molly Feibel ’15 will compete on Jeopardy! on Tuesday, June 8 at 7:00 pm EST. (Check your local listings as times may vary.) A literature major at Bard, Feibel is now a historic interpreter, working at Clermont State Historic Site and Staatsburgh State Historic Site not far from the Bard campus.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-04-2021
“It is remarkable that Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch manages to pull off what, broadly speaking, is a witch story, one that is as serious as (Arthur) Miller’s play (The Crucible) and as playful as (John) Updike’s novel (The Witches of Eastwick) but does not fall prey to the pitfalls of either,” writes Mason in the Wall Street Journal. “Not an allegory, not a satire, not a revisionist witch story, not a history lesson—a lot of nots, I realize—but instead a persuasive and very beautiful work of fiction.”
Photo: AF FOTOGRAFIE/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-02-2021
On June 4, novelist and Bard College literature professor Bradford Morrow, founding editor of Conjunctions, hosts an online evening of readings to celebrate the publication of the 40TH anniversary issue of Conjunctions, the celebrated literary journal published by Bard College. Morrow will be joined by Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue contributors Robert Coover, Akil Kumarasamy, Shane McCrae, and Karen Russell. The livestreamed event, presented by Conjunctions and Oblong Books, takes place Friday, June 4, at 7 p.m. For reservations, please click here.
Edited by Morrow and published by Bard College in spring 2021, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue celebrates forty years in print, with new and previously unpublished work by Ben Okri, Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Ann Lauterbach, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, Akil Kumarasamy, John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Richard Powers, Shane McCrae, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Jessica Campbell, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carole Maso, Julia Alvarez, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sanjena Sathian, Peter Orner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Diane Williams, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and Robert Coover, with a foreword by Rick Moody.
For more information, visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76.
ABOUT THE READERS
Robert Coover has published more than twenty books of fiction and plays, including A Child Again (McSweeney’s, 2005), Noir (Overlook, 2010), The Brunist Day of Wrath (Dzanc, 2014), and Huck Out West (Norton, 2017). He is a pioneer in the field of electronic writing, and founded the International Writers Project, a freedom-to-write program, at Brown University.
Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the story collection Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). She is the 2021 recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA Program.
Shane McCrae’s most recent poetry collections are Sometimes I Never Suffered and The Gilded Auction Block (both Farrar, Straus and Giroux). In 2021, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center will release an expanded edition of his first book, Mule. McCrae has received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award.
Karen Russell’s books include the novella Sleep Donation (Vintage, 2020), the story collection Orange World (Knopf, 2019), and the novel Swamplandia! (Knopf, 2011). She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award.
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. A Bard Center Fellow and professor of literature at Bard College, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
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The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions showcases innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit http://www.conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Edited by Morrow and published by Bard College in spring 2021, Conjunctions:76, Fortieth Anniversary Issue celebrates forty years in print, with new and previously unpublished work by Ben Okri, Karen Russell, Peter Cole, Ann Lauterbach, Lydia Davis, Samuel R. Delany, Akil Kumarasamy, John Ashbery, Joyce Carol Oates, Sofia Samatar, Richard Powers, Shane McCrae, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, William H. Gass, Can Xue, Jessica Campbell, Fred D’Aguiar, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carole Maso, Julia Alvarez, Genya Turovskaya, Mark Irwin, Jayne Anne Phillips, Sanjena Sathian, Peter Orner, Rosmarie Waldrop, Colin Channer, Isabella Hammad, Lance Olsen, Diane Williams, Laird Hunt, Laynie Browne, Wendy Xu, JoAnna Novak, Megan Kakimoto, Quincy Troupe, Tomaž Šalamun, Julia Elliott, and Robert Coover, with a foreword by Rick Moody.
For more information, visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76.
ABOUT THE READERS
Robert Coover has published more than twenty books of fiction and plays, including A Child Again (McSweeney’s, 2005), Noir (Overlook, 2010), The Brunist Day of Wrath (Dzanc, 2014), and Huck Out West (Norton, 2017). He is a pioneer in the field of electronic writing, and founded the International Writers Project, a freedom-to-write program, at Brown University.
Akil Kumarasamy is the author of the story collection Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). She is the 2021 recipient of the Bard Fiction Prize and an Assistant Professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA Program.
Shane McCrae’s most recent poetry collections are Sometimes I Never Suffered and The Gilded Auction Block (both Farrar, Straus and Giroux). In 2021, the Cleveland State University Poetry Center will release an expanded edition of his first book, Mule. McCrae has received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Literary Award.
Karen Russell’s books include the novella Sleep Donation (Vintage, 2020), the story collection Orange World (Knopf, 2019), and the novel Swamplandia! (Knopf, 2011). She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award.
Bradford Morrow is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. A Bard Center Fellow and professor of literature at Bard College, he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
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The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions showcases innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for the 2018, 2019, and 2021 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Short Stories 2021, The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit http://www.conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions76. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
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(6.2.21)Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
May 2021
05-21-2021
Author and Bard College professor Valeria Luiselli has won the 2021 Dublin Literary Award for her novel Lost Children Archive. Sponsored by Dublin City Council, the award, with prize money of €100,000, is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English. Luiselli is the first writer from Mexico and the fifth woman to claim the prestigious award in its 26-year history. Uniquely, the Dublin Award receives its nominations from public libraries in cities around the globe and recognizes both writers and translators. The winner was announced on Thursday, May 20, at a special online event, at the opening of the International Literature Festival Dublin, which runs until May 30. Lord Mayor Hazel Chu made the announcement from Dublin, with the presentation to the Luiselli taking place at the Irish Consulate in New York City. Irish Consul General Ciarán Madden, and previous winner of the Dublin Literary Award Colm Tóibín, presented Luiselli with her award on behalf of Dublin City Council.
“Lost Children Archive tells an old story, the one that Cervantes told . . . and Cormac McCarthy, the story of what happens to the human spirit on the road, how a long journey puts in jeopardy what was stable and agreed upon,” said Tóibín, who won the Dublin Literary Award in 2006 for his novel The Master. “Luiselli has written a novel in which stories spiral. She has rendered her characters with astonishing grace and insight, and through them she has drawn a picture of what they have been driving towards throughout the book, the contested place, where the old rules do not apply, for which a new form of archive is needed.”
Accepting her award, Luiselli spoke passionately about the importance of literature now more than ever. “I can say, without a hint of doubt, that without books–without sharing in the company of other writers’ human experiences –we would not have made it through these months,” she said. “If our spirits have found renewal, if we have found strength to carry on, if we have maintained a sense of enthusiasm for life, it is thanks to the worlds that books have given us. Each time, we found solace in the companions that live in our bookshelves.”
Watch Valeria Luiselli’s acceptance speech HERE.
“This year’s Dublin Literary Award winner is a very important book, with significant themes around family and the things that matter to us most as human beings,” said Lord Mayor of Dublin and Patron of the Award Hazel Chu. “I am very proud of our City for providing this opportunity for the libraries of the world to nominate the books that have resonated most with readers. The Award helps us to learn about each other and reach a greater understanding of the world, through the insight which literature provides.”
About Lost Children Archive
In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way. A breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive is timely, compassionate, subtly hilarious, and formally inventive—a powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.
About Lucas Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College, was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth, which won the 2016 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction; the essay collection Sidewalks; and Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. She is the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and an American Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Lost Children Archive, which won the 2020 Rathbones Folio Prize, is her first novel written in English. She lives in New York City.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
“Lost Children Archive tells an old story, the one that Cervantes told . . . and Cormac McCarthy, the story of what happens to the human spirit on the road, how a long journey puts in jeopardy what was stable and agreed upon,” said Tóibín, who won the Dublin Literary Award in 2006 for his novel The Master. “Luiselli has written a novel in which stories spiral. She has rendered her characters with astonishing grace and insight, and through them she has drawn a picture of what they have been driving towards throughout the book, the contested place, where the old rules do not apply, for which a new form of archive is needed.”
Accepting her award, Luiselli spoke passionately about the importance of literature now more than ever. “I can say, without a hint of doubt, that without books–without sharing in the company of other writers’ human experiences –we would not have made it through these months,” she said. “If our spirits have found renewal, if we have found strength to carry on, if we have maintained a sense of enthusiasm for life, it is thanks to the worlds that books have given us. Each time, we found solace in the companions that live in our bookshelves.”
Watch Valeria Luiselli’s acceptance speech HERE.
“This year’s Dublin Literary Award winner is a very important book, with significant themes around family and the things that matter to us most as human beings,” said Lord Mayor of Dublin and Patron of the Award Hazel Chu. “I am very proud of our City for providing this opportunity for the libraries of the world to nominate the books that have resonated most with readers. The Award helps us to learn about each other and reach a greater understanding of the world, through the insight which literature provides.”
About Lost Children Archive
In Valeria Luiselli’s fiercely imaginative follow-up to the American Book Award-winning Tell Me How It Ends, an artist couple set out with their two children on a road trip from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. As the family travels west, the bonds between them begin to fray: a fracture is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. Through ephemera such as songs, maps and a Polaroid camera, the children try to make sense of both their family’s crisis and the larger one engulfing the news: the stories of thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States but getting detained—or lost in the desert along the way. A breath-taking feat of literary virtuosity, Lost Children Archive is timely, compassionate, subtly hilarious, and formally inventive—a powerful, urgent story about what it is to be human in an inhuman world.
About Lucas Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature at Bard College, was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the novels Faces in the Crowd and The Story of My Teeth, which won the 2016 LA Times Book Prize for Fiction; the essay collection Sidewalks; and Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. She is the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and an American Book Award, and has twice been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney’s, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Lost Children Archive, which won the 2020 Rathbones Folio Prize, is her first novel written in English. She lives in New York City.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
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(5/21/21)
Photo: Valeria Luiselli, winner of the 2021 Dublin Literary Award at the New York Irish Consul General’s Residence, New York.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-20-2021
Bard College students Jourdan Perez ’23 and Tallulah Woitach ’23 have been awarded highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships from the U.S. Department of State to study abroad. Perez was awarded $4,500 toward his studies at Bard College Berlin in fall 2021, and Woitach was awarded $4,000 toward her studies at the University of Sydney in Spring 2022.
“It is an unbelievable honor to be selected for such a prestigious award,” said Woitach, a written arts major. “I am so beyond excited to go to Australia to study indigenous culture, with a focus on oral tradition. All too often in western culture, the written word becomes distanced from the deeper ancient energy language is borne out of. I want to learn from those who know how to make words come alive, by connecting to something much greater than ourselves.”
“I'm very excited to explore Berlin and continue studying German language and culture,” said Perez, a sociology major with a concentration in gender and sexuality studies. “I would like to thank Trish Fleming (Bard’s Study Abroad Adviser) for informing me about the Gilman Scholarship, as well as reviewing my application one last time before I submitted.”
Perez and Woitach were among more than 1,500 U.S. undergraduate students selected to receive Gilman scholarship awards from the March 2021 application deadline. The recipients of this prestigious scholarship are American undergraduate students attending 467 U.S. colleges and represent all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. These Gilman Scholars will study or intern in 96 countries through the end of 2022.
The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, providing them with skills critical to our national security and economic prosperity. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s establishment in 2001, over 1,300 U.S. institutions have sent over 33,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 151 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.” The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). For more information, visit gilmanscholarship.org.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
“It is an unbelievable honor to be selected for such a prestigious award,” said Woitach, a written arts major. “I am so beyond excited to go to Australia to study indigenous culture, with a focus on oral tradition. All too often in western culture, the written word becomes distanced from the deeper ancient energy language is borne out of. I want to learn from those who know how to make words come alive, by connecting to something much greater than ourselves.”
“I'm very excited to explore Berlin and continue studying German language and culture,” said Perez, a sociology major with a concentration in gender and sexuality studies. “I would like to thank Trish Fleming (Bard’s Study Abroad Adviser) for informing me about the Gilman Scholarship, as well as reviewing my application one last time before I submitted.”
Perez and Woitach were among more than 1,500 U.S. undergraduate students selected to receive Gilman scholarship awards from the March 2021 application deadline. The recipients of this prestigious scholarship are American undergraduate students attending 467 U.S. colleges and represent all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. These Gilman Scholars will study or intern in 96 countries through the end of 2022.
The U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program enables students of limited financial means to study or intern abroad, providing them with skills critical to our national security and economic prosperity. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s establishment in 2001, over 1,300 U.S. institutions have sent over 33,000 Gilman Scholars of diverse backgrounds to 151 countries around the globe. The program has successfully broadened U.S. participation in study abroad, while emphasizing countries and regions where fewer Americans traditionally study. As Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, “People-to-people exchanges bring our world closer together and convey the best of America to the world, especially to its young people.” The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). For more information, visit gilmanscholarship.org.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
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(5/24/21)
Photo: Bard College students and Gilman Scholars Tallulah Woitach ’23 (L) and Jourdan Perez ’23 (R)
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Gender and Sexuality Studies,Sociology Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Bard College Berlin,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Gender and Sexuality Studies,Sociology Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-11-2021
The classicist Milman Parry, who died in 1935 at the age of 33, “completely revolutionized the study of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, showing that the epics had not been written, as had long been thought, but were oral—composed in the act of performance,” writes Professor Cioffi in the New York Times. “His work has had wide-ranging ramifications, ushering in an emphasis on orality that has become increasingly central to modern literary culture—from professional storytellers and TED talks to podcasts and audiobooks. In Hearing Homer’s Song, the biographer Robert Kanigel offers the first full-scale account of Parry’s short life, mysterious demise and long-lived influence.”
Photo: Assistant Professor of Classics Robert Cioffi
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-11-2021
Bard College announces the appointment of Ranjani Atur as the inaugural recipient of the College’s Academic Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowship in Classical Studies, effective fall 2021. The newly established fellowship brings to Bard’s liberal arts classroom the cutting-edge research of early-stage teacher-scholars whose work takes the study of Ancient Greece and Rome in important new directions. Recipients of the two-year award will share their research with the Bard College community by teaching interdisciplinary courses connected to their research and by leading events that bring scholarly conversations about the ancient Greek and Roman worlds to the public sphere.
About Ranjani Atur
Ranjani Atur earned her BA in Classical Studies from Georgetown University, 2013, and is completing her PhD in Religious Studies, with an emphasis in Ancient Mediterranean Religions, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ranjani’s research interests include Greek and Roman religion, early Christianity, and comparative religions across the ancient Mediterranean, Near East, and Asia. She is particularly interested in issues of religious materiality, spatiality, and experience. Ranjani has presented her research at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature (2019, 2020, and 2021 upcoming) and is currently supported by the American Association of University Women, American Dissertation Fellowship.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
About Ranjani Atur
Ranjani Atur earned her BA in Classical Studies from Georgetown University, 2013, and is completing her PhD in Religious Studies, with an emphasis in Ancient Mediterranean Religions, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ranjani’s research interests include Greek and Roman religion, early Christianity, and comparative religions across the ancient Mediterranean, Near East, and Asia. She is particularly interested in issues of religious materiality, spatiality, and experience. Ranjani has presented her research at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature (2019, 2020, and 2021 upcoming) and is currently supported by the American Association of University Women, American Dissertation Fellowship.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
# # #
(5/11/21)
Photo: Ranjani Atur
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-04-2021
Day’s End (2014–21), located in Hudson River Park opposite the Whitney Museum of American Art, “is Hammons’s first permanent public artwork in more than three decades, located in tantalizing proximity to one of the many major institutions that the artist has spent a career impishly frustrating, critiquing, and flirting with,” writes Professor L’Official in Artforum. “Engaging with the nearby institution while evading it, it is a space of possibility that encloses no space at all. Its form is rigid, yet time and tide and air and light flow beneath, above, and through it, and the structure continually reframes the world as we move around it. It is infinitely propositional, an architectural frame to house unhoused improvisation.”
Photo: David Hammons, “Day’s End,” 2021. Rendering.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
April 2021
04-28-2021
“A gap in vaccination rates between residents and staff means that long-term-care facilities remain particularly vulnerable to coronavirus outbreaks,” writes Gessen in the New Yorker. “As long as the virus is circulating in the community, an unvaccinated staff member can pick it up and bring it to the nursing home, where conditions may make the otherwise rare breakthrough infections more likely.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
04-20-2021
Comprising 150 male couples, Thebes’s Sacred Band was undefeated until it was wiped out in 338 B.C. The warriors’ valor, the Greeks believed, was due to the fact that no man would ever exhibit cowardice in front of his beloved. In the 19th century, their mass grave was found. Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities Daniel Mendelsohn pens this article in the New Yorker ahead of the publication of a new book by James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics James Romm, The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers Fighting to Save Greek Freedom (Simon and Schuster, June 2021). Read the Article
Bard faculty member and Princeton alum James Romm speaks with the Princeton Alumni Weekly about the new book and his work to bring the heroism of Ancient Thebes to light. Read the Interview
Bard faculty member and Princeton alum James Romm speaks with the Princeton Alumni Weekly about the new book and his work to bring the heroism of Ancient Thebes to light. Read the Interview
Photo: Image courtesy Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Directorate of the Management of the National Archive of Monuments, Department of the Historical Archive of Antiquities and Restorations
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
04-13-2021
Public conversation about the pandemic has revolved around individual choice, autonomy, safety, and personal responsibility. Schools expose the shortcomings of this framing, writes Distinguished Writer in Residence Masha Gessen. “In late March, New York’s public high schools reopened for in-person instruction. Elementary schools have been offering some in-person instruction since December, middle schools since February. The country’s largest school district has managed to provide more in-school hours than many other districts that might have seemed better equipped for the task. But, nearly three months after vaccines became available to teachers, fewer than half—around sixty-five thousand, out of approximately a hundred and forty-seven thousand Department of Education employees—have received at least a first shot of the vaccine.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
March 2021
03-27-2021
“The goal of this campaign is not to protect cis-girl athletes as much as it is to make trans athletes disappear,” writes Gessen. “This is a movement to exclude trans girls from community and opportunity. It is a movement driven by panic over the safety of women and children that reproduces earlier panics, like those over the presence of lesbians on women’s sports teams. And, just like earlier panics, this one is based on what passes for common sense but is in fact ignorance and hate.”
Photo: Photograph from Getty. Courtesy the New Yorker
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-25-2021
PEN America has announced its 2021 career achievement award winners, to be honored at the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on April 8 at 7pm ET. This year’s honorees are Bard alumnus Pierre Joris ’69, Anne Carson, Kwame Dawes, Daniel Alexander Jones, and George C. Wolfe. Joris will receive the PEN/Manheim Award for Translation, bestowed every three years to a translator whose body of work demonstrates a commitment to excellence. The committee wrote that Joris’s work “has long been and remains essential in mapping currents and countercurrents of global modernity.”
Photo: Pierre Joris ’69. Photo by Guy Jallay
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-19-2021
The Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program profiles Jahari Fraser, a Bard junior and Posse Scholar studying Global and International Studies and Spanish Studies. This semester, Jahari is studying at BGIA and interning at Project CETI, a nonprofit organization and 2020 TED Audacious Project Grant recipient that is applying advanced machine learning and non-invasive robotics to listen to and translate the communication of whales. Some of Jahari’s work will be aimed toward Project CETI’s launch in mid-April, including various research projects and contributing to CETI’s overall organizational development.
Photo: Jahari Fraser ’22.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Global and International Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Posse Foundation |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Global and International Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Posse Foundation |
03-10-2021
The Simpson Literary Project announced today that Bard College Writer in Residence Jenny Offill, author of Weather, has been named a finalist for the 2021 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Offill and the three other finalists will appear, alongside Joyce Carol Oates, in a live “Meet the Finalists” event on March 30 at 8 p.m. EST. For more information, click here. The recipient of the $50,000 prize is expected to be named in late April.
Photo: Writer in Residence Jenny Offill, Knopf/Emily Tobey
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-04-2021
“[President Biden] has begun his term by using sanctions in much the same way as previous Presidents did: because he has to, and only to the extent that he has to,” writes Gessen in the New Yorker. “Morally, the Biden Administration had to act, because the President ran on the promise of being tough on Russia. More important, he ran on the promise of knowing right from wrong and acting accordingly. But, both morally and legally, Biden is doing little more than the bare minimum.”
Photo: Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-01-2021
“Were this an isolated case, it might be understood differently than what in fact it is: part of a much wider effort of the Polish government and active elements of Polish society to silence the legitimate work of Holocaust scholarship in favor of protecting the supposed interests of the Polish state for which the narrative of Polish innocence during the Holocaust plays an important role. The present case must be seen as part of that larger effort,” write Brent and Grabowski in Tablet. Jonathan Brent is the executive director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Visiting Alger Hiss Professor of History and Literature at Bard College.
Photo: Old Town Warsaw. © Sergii Figurnyi/Fotolia
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Russian and Eurasian Studies Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Russian and Eurasian Studies Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
February 2021
02-19-2021
The Henry Luce Foundation announced today that Evan Tims ’19 has been named a 2021–22 Luce Scholar. The Luce Scholars Program is a nationally competitive fellowship program launched by the Henry Luce Foundation in 1974 to enhance the understanding of Asia among potential leaders in American society. Tims is one of 18 finalists (chosen from among 164 semifinalists from over 70 participating colleges and universities) selected for the new class of Luce Scholars. After working with Luce in the coming months to choose the organization and country in Asia where he will be placed, he plans to explore the field of climate justice, relationships between nature and culture, and the future-oriented practices of social change, as well as write stories and novels that explore the changing global environment.
“My focus is on finding ways to address the climate crisis through interdisciplinary and intersectional leadership. Despite the unique challenges of COVID-19 this year, I believe that global connectivity and understanding are more critical than ever.” said Tims. “I’m grateful to Luce for the opportunity to follow my curiosity and passion in a completely new sociocultural and geographic context. Given the necessity for international collaboration in combating the climate crisis, Luce provides a critical avenue for developing global connection and understanding.”
Evan Tims ’19 is a police misconduct investigator, climate fiction writer, and researcher. Growing up in coastal Maine, he developed an early interest in the relationship between narrative, social justice, and environmental change. At Bard, Tims received a joint BA degree in human rights and written arts, two fields that allowed him to explore formulations of rights and cultural attentiveness to injustice through a variety of lenses. While at Bard, Evan won two Critical Language Scholarships that funded Bangla studies in Kolkata, India. Tims’s Senior Project explored the intersections between climate and social justice using a combination of experimental fiction and academic research. He received the Bard Written Arts Prize and the Christopher Wise Award in environmentalism and human rights for his thesis, which he later published in shortened form in Mapping Meaning: The Journal. His passion for human rights led him to become an investigator for the Civilian Complaint Review Board of New York City (CCRB), the largest police oversight agency in the United States. Tims ultimately hopes to spend his career addressing the social harm engendered by the climate crisis through the perspective of human rights.
About the Luce Scholars Program
The Luce Scholars Program provides stipends, language training, and individualized professional placement in Asia for 15-18 Luce Scholars each year, and welcomes applications from college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals in a variety of fields who have had limited exposure to Asia. The program, open to both U.S. citizens and permanent residents, is unique among American-Asian exchanges in that it is intended for young leaders who have had limited experience of Asia and who might not otherwise have an opportunity in the normal course of their careers to come to know Asia. For more information, visit hluce.org/programs/luce-scholars. Bard students interested in applying to the Luce Scholars Program should contact the Dean of Studies Office at [email protected].
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
“My focus is on finding ways to address the climate crisis through interdisciplinary and intersectional leadership. Despite the unique challenges of COVID-19 this year, I believe that global connectivity and understanding are more critical than ever.” said Tims. “I’m grateful to Luce for the opportunity to follow my curiosity and passion in a completely new sociocultural and geographic context. Given the necessity for international collaboration in combating the climate crisis, Luce provides a critical avenue for developing global connection and understanding.”
Evan Tims ’19 is a police misconduct investigator, climate fiction writer, and researcher. Growing up in coastal Maine, he developed an early interest in the relationship between narrative, social justice, and environmental change. At Bard, Tims received a joint BA degree in human rights and written arts, two fields that allowed him to explore formulations of rights and cultural attentiveness to injustice through a variety of lenses. While at Bard, Evan won two Critical Language Scholarships that funded Bangla studies in Kolkata, India. Tims’s Senior Project explored the intersections between climate and social justice using a combination of experimental fiction and academic research. He received the Bard Written Arts Prize and the Christopher Wise Award in environmentalism and human rights for his thesis, which he later published in shortened form in Mapping Meaning: The Journal. His passion for human rights led him to become an investigator for the Civilian Complaint Review Board of New York City (CCRB), the largest police oversight agency in the United States. Tims ultimately hopes to spend his career addressing the social harm engendered by the climate crisis through the perspective of human rights.
About the Luce Scholars Program
The Luce Scholars Program provides stipends, language training, and individualized professional placement in Asia for 15-18 Luce Scholars each year, and welcomes applications from college seniors, graduate students, and young professionals in a variety of fields who have had limited exposure to Asia. The program, open to both U.S. citizens and permanent residents, is unique among American-Asian exchanges in that it is intended for young leaders who have had limited experience of Asia and who might not otherwise have an opportunity in the normal course of their careers to come to know Asia. For more information, visit hluce.org/programs/luce-scholars. Bard students interested in applying to the Luce Scholars Program should contact the Dean of Studies Office at [email protected].
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 161-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
# # #
(2/19/21)
Photo: Evan Tims ’19
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Environmental/Sustainability,Human Rights,International Student Activities,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Environmental/Sustainability,Human Rights,International Student Activities,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
02-14-2021
The impeachment trial affirmed Hannah Arendt’s insight that two paradoxical qualities characterize the audiences of totalitarians: gullibility and cynicism. “Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial was an artifact of his Presidency,” writes Distinguished Writer in Residence Masha Gessen. “It was a battle of meaning against noise, against nothing-means-anything-and-everything-is-the-same nihilism—and nihilism won.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
02-08-2021
On February 26, novelist and Bard College literature professor Bradford Morrow, founding editor of Conjunctions, the celebrated literary journal published by Bard College, hosts an evening of readings and performances with some of the contributors to Conjunctions:75, Dispatches from Solitude. This issue gathers fiction, poetry, essays, and genre-bending work from writers far and wide who respond to the deficits of quarantine, self-isolation, and distancing. Morrow will be joined by contributors Sandra Cisneros and Henry Cisneros, Brandon Hobson, Nathaniel Mackey, and Barbara Tran. The livestreamed event, presented by Conjunctions and Elliott Bay Book Company, takes place Friday, February 26, at 8 p.m. For reservations, please click here.
Edited by Morrow, Dispatches from Solitude features two previously unpublished poem-songs by Sandra Cisneros; fiction by the late H. G. Carrillo; and new writing by Brandon Hobson, Nathaniel Mackey, Barbara Tran, Forrest Gander, Helena María Viramontes, Bennett Sims, Anne Waldman, Colin Channer, Rikki Ducornet, Kyoko Mori, John Yau, Charles Bernstein, Marc Anthony Richardson, Michael Ives, Rick Moody, and many others. In his Editor’s Note, Morrow describes how plans for an entirely different fall issue, States of Play, were dashed as the coronavirus pandemic took over.
“As hundreds, then thousands, began to die—among them dear friends of mine, such as Conjunctions donor Jay Hanus and longtime contributor H. G. Carrillo—New York and other cities were forced into lockdown,” writes Morrow. “COVID-19 became the daily and nightly shadow that fell across our lives. Amid this harrowing outbreak, another, more urgent theme for the fall Conjunctions became imperative, one where we might gather writing from those who were compelled to change their daily routines, even reevaluate what their work and lives meant to them. Contributions didn’t necessarily have to be about the pandemic, as such, but shaped by its constraints, by the terrors and courage it has provoked.”
Additional contributors to Dispatches from Solitude include Jane Pek, Meredith Stricker, David Ryan, Gillian Conoley, Yxta Maya Murray, Vanessa Chan, Cyan James, Clare Beams, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Alyssa Pelish, Erin L. McCoy, Alan Rossi, John Darcy, Rae Armantrout, Sylvia Legris, and Susan Daitch.
Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, and visual artist whose work explores the lives of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Her numerous awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, the National Medal of Arts, a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, and the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. She will be joined by her brother Henry Cisneros, who has set her poetry from Dispatches to music.
Brandon Hobson is the author of the novel The Removed (Ecco, Feb 2021); Where the Dead Sit Talking (Soho Press), a 2019 National Book Award finalist; and other books. An assistant professor of English at New Mexico State University, he also teaches in the low-res MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
Nathaniel Mackey is the author of poetry collections Late Arcade, Nod House and Blue Fasa (all New Directions), and Lay Ghost (Black Ocean). He edits the literary magazine Hambone.
Bradford Morrow (editor) is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
Barbara Tran is a poet, with writing published or forthcoming in Bennington Review, The Cincinnati Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The New Yorker. In spring 2021, her first poem film will tour with a Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network exhibition.
#
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for both the 2018 and 2019 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions75. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
(2.8.21)
Edited by Morrow, Dispatches from Solitude features two previously unpublished poem-songs by Sandra Cisneros; fiction by the late H. G. Carrillo; and new writing by Brandon Hobson, Nathaniel Mackey, Barbara Tran, Forrest Gander, Helena María Viramontes, Bennett Sims, Anne Waldman, Colin Channer, Rikki Ducornet, Kyoko Mori, John Yau, Charles Bernstein, Marc Anthony Richardson, Michael Ives, Rick Moody, and many others. In his Editor’s Note, Morrow describes how plans for an entirely different fall issue, States of Play, were dashed as the coronavirus pandemic took over.
“As hundreds, then thousands, began to die—among them dear friends of mine, such as Conjunctions donor Jay Hanus and longtime contributor H. G. Carrillo—New York and other cities were forced into lockdown,” writes Morrow. “COVID-19 became the daily and nightly shadow that fell across our lives. Amid this harrowing outbreak, another, more urgent theme for the fall Conjunctions became imperative, one where we might gather writing from those who were compelled to change their daily routines, even reevaluate what their work and lives meant to them. Contributions didn’t necessarily have to be about the pandemic, as such, but shaped by its constraints, by the terrors and courage it has provoked.”
Additional contributors to Dispatches from Solitude include Jane Pek, Meredith Stricker, David Ryan, Gillian Conoley, Yxta Maya Murray, Vanessa Chan, Cyan James, Clare Beams, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Alyssa Pelish, Erin L. McCoy, Alan Rossi, John Darcy, Rae Armantrout, Sylvia Legris, and Susan Daitch.
Sandra Cisneros is a poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist, and visual artist whose work explores the lives of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. Her numerous awards include a MacArthur Fellowship, the National Medal of Arts, a Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship, and the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. She will be joined by her brother Henry Cisneros, who has set her poetry from Dispatches to music.
Brandon Hobson is the author of the novel The Removed (Ecco, Feb 2021); Where the Dead Sit Talking (Soho Press), a 2019 National Book Award finalist; and other books. An assistant professor of English at New Mexico State University, he also teaches in the low-res MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
Nathaniel Mackey is the author of poetry collections Late Arcade, Nod House and Blue Fasa (all New Directions), and Lay Ghost (Black Ocean). He edits the literary magazine Hambone.
Bradford Morrow (editor) is the author of ten books of fiction and the founding editor of Conjunctions. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction, an Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in editing a literary journal.
Barbara Tran is a poet, with writing published or forthcoming in Bennington Review, The Cincinnati Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and The New Yorker. In spring 2021, her first poem film will tour with a Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network exhibition.
#
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for both the 2018 and 2019 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions75. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
(2.8.21)
Photo: (L. to R.) Barbara Tran, Nathaniel Mackey, Sandra Cisneros with Henry Cisneros, Brandon Hobson
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
Meta: Type(s): Event,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Faculty,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
02-08-2021
Dina Ramadan, assistant professor of Arabic, reviews Yara El-Sherbini's Forms of Regulation and Control at the Cue Art Foundation in New York for Art-agenda. “The first US solo exhibition for British-born, Santa Barbara–based El-Sherbini, curated by Naeem Mohaiemen, is an elegant rejoinder to the din of recent months,” Ramadan writes. “Deftly weaponizing humor through a series of discreet interventions, it challenges the so-called ‘unconscious’ bias that permeates even the most seemingly benign forms of knowledge and their production.”
Photo: Yara El-Sherbini, 'Other Forms of Regulation and Control,' 2020. Image courtesy of the artist and CUE Art Foundation, New York.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Middle Eastern Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Middle Eastern Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
02-07-2021
We know the Roman conquest of Masada only through the account of the enigmatic Jewish historian Josephus, whose shifting allegiances make his motives hard to discern. James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics, writes for the New York Review of Books, reviewing A History of the Jewish War, AD 66–74 by Steve Mason (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth by Jodi Magness (Princeton University Press, 2019).
Photo: A bas-relief depicting the sack of Jerusalem on the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, constructed in 82 CE. Lamnas/Alamy
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Literature Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Literature Program |
02-03-2021
“In this world of tasers, special-forces troops, manufactured criminal prosecutions, and teams of assassins, Navalny’s incantation of ‘Do not be afraid!’ does not mean ‘There is nothing to fear,’” writes Gessen. “A young man in Moscow, asked by a TV Rain journalist why he hadn’t been scared to join the protests, answered, ‘I was scared. I am still scared. But what’s happening in the country now—it’s bigger than the fear. What else is there to do?’”
Photo: The opposition leader’s incantation of “Do not be afraid!” does not mean “There is nothing to fear.” Photo by Peter Kovalev / TASS / Getty
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
02-03-2021
Rogers, a visiting associate professor of writing at Bard College, “assembles an exquisite array of diverse voices united by a shared love of birding” (Publishers Weekly). Each essay explores birding “as an art of wanderlust and extreme patience while highlighting varied species, in habitats from the shoreline of the Sargasso Sea in Bermuda (where Jenn Dean describes how the cahow, a species thought extinct since the 17th century, was rediscovered in the 20th) to the North Dakota prairie (where Richard Bohannon considers the Baird’s sparrow and the Sprague’s pipit, both small, unremarkable-looking species known in the birding world as LBJs, or ‘little brown jobs’).”
Photo: “When Birds Are Near: Dispatches from Contemporary Writers,” cover detail. Cornell University Press, 2020
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): American and Indigenous Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): American and Indigenous Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
January 2021
01-27-2021
Bard faculty members Omar Encarnación and Masha Gessen spoke as part of PEN America’s Town Hall on “Reckoning and Reconciliation in Biden’s America," held as the centerpiece of the organization’s virtual annual general meeting on January 26, 2021. Encarnación and Gessen joined PEN America President Ayad Akhtar, historian Jill Lepore, and columnists Charles Blow and Peggy Noonan for this timely and wide-ranging discussion moderated by PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel. Omar G. Encarnación is professor of political studies at Bard. Masha Gessen is distinguished writer in residence at the College.
Photo: Masha Gessen, photo by Tanya Sazansky. Omar Encarnación.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Political Studies Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies,Political Studies Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-27-2021
“The trauma imposed by these land seizures is still felt, even as nearly nine million people depend daily on the water system,” the series introduction states. “New York’s reservoirs exemplify the social compact that undergirds ambitious public infrastructures, while the stories of their making emphasize divisions between city and country, wealth and poverty, the potentials and risks inherent in large-scale environmental intervention.”
Photo: Downsville Covered Bridge. Photo by Tim Davis (2020)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Photography Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Photography Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-26-2021
“Navalny’s superpower has been his ability to show people what they had always known about the Putin regime but had the option of pretending away,” writes Distinguished Writer in Residence Masha Gessen. “He has shown the depth of the regime’s corruption. He has shown that Putin’s secret police carries out murders. With his return to Russia, he has shown the regime’s utter lack of imagination and inability to plan ahead. He has also shown that, contrary to the Kremlin’s assertions and to conventional wisdom among Western Russia-watchers, there is an alternative to Putin.”
Photo: Photograph by Alexander Nemenov / AFP / Getty
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Politics and International Affairs,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-26-2021
“I think (Celan’s work) is the work that came out of the mid-20th century that most directly addresses the disaster . . . of Western culture,” Joris says. “I think of the incredible clear-sightedness this man had in relation to the political situation of his time. He had the same clear-sightedness in terms of writing after events such as Khurbn [the Holocaust] . . . and knew that language needed to be transformed, that you could not use the old German, because the Nazi years had contaminated it.”
Photo: Pierre Joris ’69. Photo by Guy Jallay
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-12-2021
“Our ability to fear something and, at the same time, assume it will never occur is one aspect of human nature that seems particularly ill-suited to our continued wellbeing and survival,” writes Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose in the Guardian. “During the assault on the Capitol, as I listened to the panic and horror in the voices of the journalists who, until now, had reported on Donald Trump with something closer to detached disapproval, I wondered: is this what it takes to finally make them understand who this man is—and what he wants for our country? What did they think he meant when he tweeted about the gathering planned for 6 January: ‘Be there. It will be wild.’” Francine Prose is distinguished writer in residence at Bard College.
Photo: Shattered reinforced glass and debris litter the East steps in the US Capitol. Photo by Shawn Thew/EPA, courtesy the Guardian
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-12-2021
“We do not fear those whom we see as being like us; we fear the other. Black Lives Matter protesters are other to the Capitol Police. So are survivors of sexual assault or women who protest for the right to choose,” writes Distinguished Writer in Residence Masha Gessen. “But an armed mob storming the Capitol, and their Instigator-in-Chief, are, apparently, familiar enough to be dismissed as clowns. The invaders may be full of contempt for a system that they think doesn’t represent them, but on Wednesday they managed to prove that it does.”
Photo: Distinguished Writer in Residence Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-12-2021
“I wanted to look at what it was like to live in a pre-apocalyptic moment,” says Offill, visiting writer in residence, about writing Weather. “You have real existential threats that will impact you, your kids, your neighbours, but you also have everyday life—you’re not just running around picking up tin cans and dodging cannibals like in most apocalyptic novels. You still have to take your kids to school, you still have to avoid that neighbour you can’t stand, there are still money worries.”
Photo: Writer in Residence Jenny Offill. Photo by Christopher Lane, courtesy the Guardian
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
01-05-2021
“In Weather, a librarian named Lizzie is weighed down by the torrent of information she keeps encountering about our doomed planet,” writes Hillary Kelly. “Slipping into what Offill calls ‘a kind of twilight knowing,’ she confronts the fact that flooded New York streets and barren apple trees aren’t a possibility but a certainty. Weather isn’t a comfort or a little packet of wishes for a healthy planet—it’s a meticulously constructed (often hilarious, sometimes disconsolate) lament for our old modes of thinking.”
Jenny Offill's Weather received end-of-year accolades from several publications. For further reading:
The Washington Post, “50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020”
The Observer, “Books That Made 2020 Bearable: A Reading List for an Unusual Year”
The Guardian, “Best Fiction of 2020”
Jenny Offill's Weather received end-of-year accolades from several publications. For further reading:
The Washington Post, “50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2020”
The Observer, “Books That Made 2020 Bearable: A Reading List for an Unusual Year”
The Guardian, “Best Fiction of 2020”
Photo: Writer in Residence Jenny Offill, Knopf/Emily Tobey
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Book Reviews,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program |
December 2020
12-18-2020
“A person doesn’t just live for themselves but has responsibility for the decisions the state makes. And the person has to be aware of this,” says Tsikhanouskaya when asked how she defines democracy. “Democracy has to be inside every person. Imagine how difficult it is to make the transition from a state of obedience to thinking, I’m responsible for my country. This requires a lot of personal growth. It may take an entire generation.” Masha Gessen, distinguished writer in residence at Bard, interviews Tsikhanouskaya for the New Yorker.
Photo: Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, by Daniel Hofer / Laif / Redux
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
12-17-2020
Bard College announces the appointment of esteemed writer Dinaw Mengestu as John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor in the Humanities, effective spring 2021. Mengestu, a recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Foundation Award, is director of the Written Arts Program at Bard. He is the author of three novels: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (2008), How to Read the Air (2010), and All Our Names (2014). For more information about Bard’s Written Arts Program, please visit writtenarts.bard.edu.
“A writer of extraordinary accomplishment and humanity, Dinaw Mengestu has brought signal openness, growth, and energy to the Written Arts Program at Bard since his arrival in 2016,” said Bard’s Dean of the College, Deirdre D’Albertis.
Dinaw Mengestu, a recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Foundation Award, was born in Ethiopia and raised in Illinois. His fiction and journalism have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and New York Times. Mengestu was chosen for the 5 under 35 Award by the National Book Foundation and was named on the New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list in 2010. He is also the recipient of a Lannan Fiction Fellowship, The Guardian First Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other awards. He is the author of three novels: The Beautiful Things, That Heaven Bears (2008), How to Read the Air (2010), and All Our Names (2014). His work has been translated into more than fifteen languages. Mengestu has a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. He has been at Bard since 2016.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
“A writer of extraordinary accomplishment and humanity, Dinaw Mengestu has brought signal openness, growth, and energy to the Written Arts Program at Bard since his arrival in 2016,” said Bard’s Dean of the College, Deirdre D’Albertis.
Dinaw Mengestu, a recipient of the 2012 MacArthur Foundation Award, was born in Ethiopia and raised in Illinois. His fiction and journalism have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and New York Times. Mengestu was chosen for the 5 under 35 Award by the National Book Foundation and was named on the New Yorker’s “20 under 40” list in 2010. He is also the recipient of a Lannan Fiction Fellowship, The Guardian First Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other awards. He is the author of three novels: The Beautiful Things, That Heaven Bears (2008), How to Read the Air (2010), and All Our Names (2014). His work has been translated into more than fifteen languages. Mengestu has a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. He has been at Bard since 2016.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
# # #
12/17/20
Photo: Dinaw Mengestu, photo by Michael Lionstar
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program |
12-05-2020
“It’s not that Russians believe that the virus is a hoax; it’s that they lack common ground with one another. . . . There is no public sphere,” Gessen writes in the New Yorker. “If my English-language social-media feed doesn’t make me feel as if I’m going crazy in the same way that the Russian one does, it’s because I’m virtually situated in a little corner of this country that still has a shared, fact-based reality—and, within it, the flickering possibility of coöperation and mutual responsibility.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
12-01-2020
Conjunctions:75, Dispatches from Solitude Features New Work from Sandra Cisneros, H. G. Carrillo,
Forrest Gander, Helena María Viramontes, Bennett Sims, Colin Channer, Rikki Ducornet, Kyoko Mori,
John Yau, Charles Bernstein, Marc Anthony Richardson, Clare Beams, Brandon Hobson, Michael Ives, Nathaniel Mackey, and Rick Moody
While plagues have historically fostered every kind of loss—of freedom, of livelihood, of hope, of life itself—the isolation of grim eras such as the one we are now experiencing can also provoke introspection, fresh curiosity, and, with luck and mettle, singular creativity. Conjunctions:75, Dispatches from Solitude—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—gathers fiction, poetry, essays, and genre-bending work from writers far and wide who—despite the deficits of quarantine, self-isolation, and distancing—are closely bonded by a shared embrace of the written word and its ineffable powers of expression. Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, Dispatches from Solitude features two previously unpublished songs by Sandra Cisneros, recipient of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature; a new short story by 2020 Bard Fiction Prize winner Clare Beams; recent fiction by the late H. G. Carrillo; and new writing by Forrest Gander, Helena María Viramontes, Bennett Sims, Colin Channer, Rikki Ducornet, Kyoko Mori, John Yau, Charles Bernstein, Marc Anthony Richardson, Brandon Hobson, Michael Ives, Nathaniel Mackey, and Rick Moody.
In his Editor’s Note, Morrow describes how plans for an entirely different fall issue, States of Play, were dashed as the coronavirus pandemic took over. “As hundreds, then thousands, began to die—among them dear friends of mine, such as Conjunctions donor Jay Hanus and longtime contributor H. G. Carrillo—New York and other cities were forced into lockdown,” writes Morrow. “COVID-19 became the daily and nightly shadow that fell across our lives. Amid this harrowing outbreak, another, more urgent theme for the fall Conjunctions became imperative, one where we might gather writing from those who were compelled to change their daily routines, even reevaluate what their work and lives meant to them. Contributions didn’t necessarily have to be about the pandemic, as such, but shaped by its constraints, by the terrors and courage it has provoked.”
Additional contributors to Dispatches from Solitude include Jane Pek, Meredith Stricker, Barbara Tran, David Ryan, Gillian Conoley, Yxta Maya Murray, Anne Waldman, Vanessa Chan, Cyan James, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Alyssa Pelish, Erin L. McCoy, Alan Rossi, John Darcy, Rae Armantrout, Sylvia Legris, and Susan Daitch.
Forrest Gander, Helena María Viramontes, Bennett Sims, Colin Channer, Rikki Ducornet, Kyoko Mori,
John Yau, Charles Bernstein, Marc Anthony Richardson, Clare Beams, Brandon Hobson, Michael Ives, Nathaniel Mackey, and Rick Moody
While plagues have historically fostered every kind of loss—of freedom, of livelihood, of hope, of life itself—the isolation of grim eras such as the one we are now experiencing can also provoke introspection, fresh curiosity, and, with luck and mettle, singular creativity. Conjunctions:75, Dispatches from Solitude—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—gathers fiction, poetry, essays, and genre-bending work from writers far and wide who—despite the deficits of quarantine, self-isolation, and distancing—are closely bonded by a shared embrace of the written word and its ineffable powers of expression. Edited by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow, Dispatches from Solitude features two previously unpublished songs by Sandra Cisneros, recipient of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature; a new short story by 2020 Bard Fiction Prize winner Clare Beams; recent fiction by the late H. G. Carrillo; and new writing by Forrest Gander, Helena María Viramontes, Bennett Sims, Colin Channer, Rikki Ducornet, Kyoko Mori, John Yau, Charles Bernstein, Marc Anthony Richardson, Brandon Hobson, Michael Ives, Nathaniel Mackey, and Rick Moody.
In his Editor’s Note, Morrow describes how plans for an entirely different fall issue, States of Play, were dashed as the coronavirus pandemic took over. “As hundreds, then thousands, began to die—among them dear friends of mine, such as Conjunctions donor Jay Hanus and longtime contributor H. G. Carrillo—New York and other cities were forced into lockdown,” writes Morrow. “COVID-19 became the daily and nightly shadow that fell across our lives. Amid this harrowing outbreak, another, more urgent theme for the fall Conjunctions became imperative, one where we might gather writing from those who were compelled to change their daily routines, even reevaluate what their work and lives meant to them. Contributions didn’t necessarily have to be about the pandemic, as such, but shaped by its constraints, by the terrors and courage it has provoked.”
Additional contributors to Dispatches from Solitude include Jane Pek, Meredith Stricker, Barbara Tran, David Ryan, Gillian Conoley, Yxta Maya Murray, Anne Waldman, Vanessa Chan, Cyan James, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Alyssa Pelish, Erin L. McCoy, Alan Rossi, John Darcy, Rae Armantrout, Sylvia Legris, and Susan Daitch.
The Washington Post says, “Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.”
Edited by Bradford Morrow and published twice yearly by Bard College, Conjunctions publishes innovative fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction by emerging voices and contemporary masters. For nearly four decades, Conjunctions has challenged accepted forms and styles, with equal emphasis on groundbreaking experimentation and rigorous execution. In 2020, Conjunctions received the prestigious Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. The judges noted, “Every issue of Conjunctions is a feat of curatorial invention, continuing the Modernist project of dense, economical writing, formal innovation, and an openness to history and the world.” Named a “Top Literary Magazine 2019” by Reedsy, the journal was a finalist for both the 2018 and 2019 ASME Award for Fiction and the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award for General Excellence. In addition, contributions to recent issues have been selected for The Best American Essays (2018, 2019), The Pushcart Prize XLIV: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best Small Fictions 2019, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019.
For more information on the latest issue, please visit conjunctions.com/print/archive/conjunctions75. To order a copy, go to annandaleonline.org/conjunctions, call the Conjunctions office at 845-758-7054, e-mail [email protected], or write to Conjunctions, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000. Visit the Conjunctions website at conjunctions.com.
[Note to editors: To obtain review copies, please call Mark Primoff at 845-758-7412 or e-mail [email protected]]
# # #
(12.1.20)Meta: Type(s): Faculty,General,Journal,Staff | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
12-01-2020
Author Akil Kumarasamy has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her debut story collection, Half Gods, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2018). Kumarasamy’s one-semester residency at Bard College is scheduled for the 2021–22 academic year, during which time she will continue her writing and meet informally with students. Kumarasamy will give a public reading at Bard during her residency.
“Akil Kumarasamy’s Half-Gods is a breathtaking debut by one of those rare writers whose compassionate understanding—in this case, a multigenerational family with a frayed, crazy-quilt history—is matched by the narrative gifts necessary to bring her tales to life,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “While each individual story in this inventive collection is told in vivid, lusciously worded, image-rich prose, the overarching symphonic whole has—much like Jamaica Kincaid’s first book, At the Bottom of the River—the sweep and scope of a novel. What Kumarasamy has given us with Half-Gods is ultimately a meditation, as most great stories are, on time, memory, and hope for the future.”
“I’m very excited to receive the Bard Fiction Prize and to be part of the Bard community,” said Kumarasamy. “This has been such a whirlwind of a year, and, during these very uncertain times, I’m grateful for the support and the committee’s belief in my work. Really thrilled by the opportunity.”
Akil Kumarasamy is a writer from New Jersey and the author of the story collection, Half Gods, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was the recipient of the Story Prize Spotlight Award and a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, among others. She has received fellowships from the University of East Anglia, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is an assistant professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA program and her debut novel, Better Humans, is forthcoming with Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The creation of the Bard Fiction Prize, presented each October since 2001, continues Bard’s longstanding position as a center for creative, groundbreaking literary work by both faculty and students. From Saul Bellow, William Gaddis, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison to John Ashbery, Philip Roth, William Weaver, and Chinua Achebe, Bard’s literature faculty, past and present, represents some of the most important writers of our time. The prize is intended to encourage and support young writers of fiction, and provide them with an opportunity to work in a fertile intellectual environment. Last year’s Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Author Clare Beams for her debut collection of short stories, We Show What We Have Learned (Lookout Books, 2016).
About the Bard Fiction Prize
The Bard Fiction Prize is awarded to a promising emerging writer who is an American citizen aged 39 years or younger at the time of application. In addition to a $30,000 cash award, the winner receives an appointment as writer in residence at Bard College for one semester, without the expectation that he or she teach traditional courses. The recipient gives at least one public lecture and meets informally with students. To apply, candidates should write a cover letter explaining the project they plan to work on while at Bard and submit a CV, along with three copies of the published book they feel best represents their work. No manuscripts will be accepted. Applications for the 2022 prize must be received by June 15, 2021. For information about the Bard Fiction Prize, call 845-758-7087, send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit bard.edu/bfp. Applicants may also request information by writing to: Bard Fiction Prize, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
“Akil Kumarasamy’s Half-Gods is a breathtaking debut by one of those rare writers whose compassionate understanding—in this case, a multigenerational family with a frayed, crazy-quilt history—is matched by the narrative gifts necessary to bring her tales to life,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “While each individual story in this inventive collection is told in vivid, lusciously worded, image-rich prose, the overarching symphonic whole has—much like Jamaica Kincaid’s first book, At the Bottom of the River—the sweep and scope of a novel. What Kumarasamy has given us with Half-Gods is ultimately a meditation, as most great stories are, on time, memory, and hope for the future.”
“I’m very excited to receive the Bard Fiction Prize and to be part of the Bard community,” said Kumarasamy. “This has been such a whirlwind of a year, and, during these very uncertain times, I’m grateful for the support and the committee’s belief in my work. Really thrilled by the opportunity.”
Akil Kumarasamy is a writer from New Jersey and the author of the story collection, Half Gods, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was the recipient of the Story Prize Spotlight Award and a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. Her work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, among others. She has received fellowships from the University of East Anglia, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She is an assistant professor at the Rutgers-Newark MFA program and her debut novel, Better Humans, is forthcoming with Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The creation of the Bard Fiction Prize, presented each October since 2001, continues Bard’s longstanding position as a center for creative, groundbreaking literary work by both faculty and students. From Saul Bellow, William Gaddis, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison to John Ashbery, Philip Roth, William Weaver, and Chinua Achebe, Bard’s literature faculty, past and present, represents some of the most important writers of our time. The prize is intended to encourage and support young writers of fiction, and provide them with an opportunity to work in a fertile intellectual environment. Last year’s Bard Fiction Prize was awarded to Author Clare Beams for her debut collection of short stories, We Show What We Have Learned (Lookout Books, 2016).
About the Bard Fiction Prize
The Bard Fiction Prize is awarded to a promising emerging writer who is an American citizen aged 39 years or younger at the time of application. In addition to a $30,000 cash award, the winner receives an appointment as writer in residence at Bard College for one semester, without the expectation that he or she teach traditional courses. The recipient gives at least one public lecture and meets informally with students. To apply, candidates should write a cover letter explaining the project they plan to work on while at Bard and submit a CV, along with three copies of the published book they feel best represents their work. No manuscripts will be accepted. Applications for the 2022 prize must be received by June 15, 2021. For information about the Bard Fiction Prize, call 845-758-7087, send an e-mail to [email protected], or visit bard.edu/bfp. Applicants may also request information by writing to: Bard Fiction Prize, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000.
About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in nearly 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 11 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 160-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.
# # #
12/1/20
Photo: Akil Kumarasamy, photo by Nina Subin
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Conjunctions |
November 2020
11-27-2020
“In an expansive and revealing new biography, Sometimes You Have to Lie, Leslie Brody assembles the clues to the personal history that shaped Fitzhugh’s conscience and creative convictions,” writes Liesl Schillinger in the New York Times. “Brody, a biographer and playwright who adapted Harriet the Spy for the stage in 1988, has pored through correspondence, memoirs and court documents, and conducted dozens of interviews to reveal the trail that Fitzhugh left unmarked.”
Read More
New York Times
Boston Globe
Wall Street Journal
Read More
New York Times
Boston Globe
Wall Street Journal
Photo: Painting class at Bard College, ca. 1949. Fred Segal ’49 paints an impression of Louise Fitzhugh ’51.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Bardians at Work,Division of Languages and Literature | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-21-2020
“We don’t know how to give and receive,” Seneca writes in the opening statement of De Beneficiis, newly edited and translated by Professor James Romm as How to Give: An Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving (Princeton University Press, 2020). Seneca counsels givers to be anonymous and forget they’ve given, and urges recipients to be grateful and remember. How to Give is the latest entry in a series from Princeton University Press called Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers. James Romm is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and director of the Classical Studies Program at Bard.
Photo: Bronze statue of Seneca in Cordoba, Spain (jgaunion/Getty Images)
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Classical Studies Program,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of Social Studies | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-21-2020
“The Women’s Strike organizers are thinking well beyond abortion restrictions. They have called together a Consultative Council of experts,” writes Gessen. “[Organizers have] conducted a survey of protesters, identified thirteen topics of greatest concern to them, and created working groups of experts for every one, including abortion rights, education, work and the pandemic, health care, climate change, and the separation of church and state; there is also a group called No Pasarán, which focuses on the ‘defascization of Poland.’”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-17-2020
“When we first heard the news, I couldn’t imagine getting through one day in the house, stuck and anxious without the energy to entertain. Like all of you—all of us—and yet, some of you will come out still married,” writes Sherman, who teaches in the MFA Program at Columbia University. “People say that when the virus ends there will be many divorces. Not yet, as the courts are still closed. All the couples are waiting for the doors to open, and then the numbers will go up. I can’t get my wedding ring off of my finger.”
Photo: Bard alumna Rachel Sherman ’97. RJ Lewis Photography
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Article | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Article | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-17-2020
“I want people always to be thinking that every story that you enjoy, you need to stop and think, why am I enjoying this? What’s happening? What is the writer doing? What is the writer forcing me to look at?” Mendelsohn tells Donahue. “In this book I really want people to think about it, not least by pointing to the fact that amazing coincidences and sort of too-good-to-be-true narratives happen in history, in real life, as well as in stories.”
Photo: Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities Daniel Mendelsohn.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-07-2020
“When I imagine life without Donald Trump, what I’m picturing is something like the final scene of the disaster film: the zombies have been beaten back, the Martians have returned to their planet, the dinosaurs are extinct once again, the floods have receded, the wildfires safely extinguished. The sun is shining, the sky is clear, the birds—those birds that are left—are sweetly singing. The last living humans find one another, and we know what they are thinking even if they don’t speak. They are thinking: it’s over. We’ve survived. Our country has been restored to us. We can breathe again.”
Photo: “It will be a relief not to know that we are being lied to, every day, about matters of life and death.” Photo by Gary Hershorn, courtesy the Guardian
Meta: Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-07-2020
For all the apparent flailing and incompetence of his administration, Trump’s authoritarian aspirations have largely succeeded, says Gessen. “In four years, Trump has created a ‘vertical of vassalage’ that runs from him to Barr to the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and to the courts. Its extension is Fox News, which has served as the fourth branch of Trump’s government. (Fox News has been notably noncompliant with Trump’s election narrative, starting with its early call of Arizona for Joe Biden, which incited the President’s rage.) Trump is trying to use his vertical of vassalage to thwart the electoral system. If he succeeds, his autocratic breakthrough will be complete. If he fails, Trump will leave—reluctantly, petulantly, perhaps after a litigious delay—but much of the vertical that he has put in place will remain.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
October 2020
10-29-2020
“Four days of hearings contained not a single substantive exchange. . . . Barrett surely doesn’t think that her future position on the Supreme Court is a bullshit job; Senate Republicans don’t think that packing the courts with conservatives is bullshit work, either,” writes Gessen. “But, like the people who are rushing her onto the bench, Barrett does seem to believe that the nomination and confirmation process are bullshit—she shares the Trump Republican Party’s contempt for the norms and processes of the government in which she has risen so far, so fast.”
Photo: Masha Gessen. Photo by Lena Di
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
10-13-2020
“Mr. Mendelsohn’s eighth full-length work is itself a book that springs from other books, including his own. It is a brief but bountiful mashup of criticism, literary biography, craft essay and personal history. As always, the author’s voice blends authority with considerable warmth and charm, luring readers into his complex intellectual enthusiasms. Mr. Mendelsohn has honed a prose style that is nuanced yet clear, without a hint of pedantry, and one is always glad to learn what he has to teach. Grandeur and intimacy are the poles between which all ambitious writers suspend their work. There is a sense in both the “Odyssey” and in “Mimesis” that their authors are capable of reaching through time to speak companionably to every reader. Mr. Mendelsohn’s books are distinguished by this kind of approachability as well. ... Three Rings, a short but profoundly moving work, clings with tenacity to a belief in the regenerative power of literature.”
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
10-06-2020
“Those who succeeded in screening out Trump’s cacophonous noise and listening to Joe Biden may have noticed a moment that was, to me, a high point of the debate. … It was the moment when Joe Biden (yes, looking directly into the camera) said, “When I hear 200,000 deaths, I think of the empty chairs at dining room tables all across the country, which just months ago were filled by loved ones. It didn’t have to be this bad.” It’s the sort of statement that many of us have been waiting to hear, some genuine acknowledgment of the human costs, the pain of all the death. … How have we learned to settle for being led by a man who would never say this, who has no conception of (or pity for) human grief, loss or love? Or perhaps Trump honestly believes that the mourners at the table will be consoled by the great job that Donald Trump is doing on healthcare.”
Photo: Joe Biden at the Amtrak Johnstown train station on the day after the debate. Photo by Andrew Harnik/AP
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Politics and International Affairs | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program,Politics and International Affairs | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
10-06-2020
“Urban Legends is a parabolic dish microphone pointed at history, collecting the waves that outsiders have bounced off the South Bronx,” writes Sasha Frere-Jones. “The triumph of the book is the first half, where L’Official corrals visual depictions of the South Bronx and builds a lattice of history and shadows. … L’Official examines the work of visual artist Gordon Matta-Clark and photographer Ray Mortenson alongside a huge stash of tax photos taken in the 1980s, and the book blooms. Having synthesized this cohort, L’Official offers us an understanding of ‘the elasticity of both the archive and fine art to represent subjects with occasionally remarkable intricacy.’”
Photo: The Bronx, New York. Courtesy Bookforum
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Literature Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
10-06-2020
“Whether paying tribute to the young Patti Smith or imagining the subsequent lives of the original owners of 45s in his collection or recalling the long-gone businesses and denizens of the Lower East Side, he puts the reader right there, seeing what he saw, thinking what he thought,” writes Dmitry Samarov in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. “This new collection, which follows the equally essential Kill All Your Darlings, is a must for anyone curious about art and culture made in this country during the last era when what’s new was gleaned firsthand, in the flesh, rather than passively received by screen.” Read an excerpt from Sante’s new collection in the Paris Review.
Photo: Luc Sante. Image courtesy GQ
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
10-06-2020
“We’d like to believe that suffering instructs and ennobles; that our grief, fear and pain increases our sympathy for the grief, fear and pain of others,” writes Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose. “But again, Donald Trump seems to be ineducable, impervious to shame, guilt or any sense of personal responsibility, unaffected by anything except vanity, selfishness and reckless self-regard. Certainly, the experience of having his blood oxygen level drop so low that supplemental oxygen was required must have been alarming, and yet the president continues to believe that bluster is the best medicine.”
Photo: Photo: The White House/Reuters
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of Languages and Literature,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |