News from the Division of Languages and Literature

Professor Emeritus John Ashbery passed away last month. Here, Ann Lauterbach shares her 2011 introduction of the poet upon receipt of his National Book Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

On September 27, Stephen King and Owen King spoke at Bard about their new novel, Sleeping Beauties. Heather Fazio talks about the excellent rapport of the father-son writing team.

Professor Luc Sante writes about the impact of groundbreaking poet and Bard professor emeritus John Ashbery, who passed away earlier this month.

On September 27, father-son team Stephen and Owen King discuss their new novel, Sleeping Beauties, at the Fisher Center.

The Prague Sonata is "an elegant foray into music and memory." Morrow discusses the new book with Professor Mary Caponegro at Bard on October 2.

Bard professor Daniel Mendelsohn's new memoir, An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic, recalls the semester his father decided to join his Odyssey seminar at Bard.

On Monday, September 25, American Book Award–winning poet, memoirist, journalist, and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe will read from his work at Bard College. 

Wyatt Mason on translating the works of the French writer Pierre Michon.

Writers remember acclaimed poet and Bard professor emeritus John Ashbery, including professors Anselm Berrigan and Robert Kelly, professor emerita Joan Retallack, and alumnus Andrew Durbin '12.

Tania Ketenjian '98 looks back on studying with Professor John Ashbery, who died on Sunday at the age of 90.

Adam Begley has crafted a judicious biography of portraitist Félix Tournachon (or Nadar) filled with "character and incident," emulating Nadar's own reverence for his subjects.

"Never had I felt so accepted." Tyler Williams recalls transferring to Bard High School Early College, where he cultivated the tools to express ideas about ethnicity, religion, and morality.

Critic and Professor Daniel Mendelsohn examines the evocations of class, muddled family histories, and traces of autobiography in the novels of Sybille Bedford.

Philosophy and Literature editor Garry Hagberg talks about the groundbreaking journal and the types of scholarship it regularly features. Hagberg discusses how the journal delves into questions of human motivation, ethical concerns and the power of language.

“Luc Sante’s nonfiction book is a brilliant history of low life in the city. It was much celebrated when it came out and should still be, because it’s really a classic—valuable for anybody who wants to write books, wants to write novels, wants to know about New York City . . . " writes Colin Harrison for the Village Voice.

Renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has been awarded the Mary McCarthy Prize for her novels and charismatic public presence.

Bard College alumna Charlotte Mandell ’90 has been named one of six finalists for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.

Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College Daniel Mendelsohn recounts the time he spent in his twenties living with an older French woman who made him a writer.

Last week, the New York Times previewed the performance.

Bard College student C Mandler has won an inaugural GLAAD Rising Star Grant. The GLAAD Rising Stars program empowers and invests in the next generation of LGBTQ change makers, whose advocacy is changing their local communities and the culture at large.

Bard College students have won several highly competitive awards for international travel including two Thomas J. Watson Fellowships, four Fulbright grants, and a Davis Projects for Peace prize.

"Whatever it is that I wrote yesterday or write today is going to be another inquiry into the question, 'What is a poem?'" Ann Lauterbach talks with Camille Guthrie.

Justus Rosenberg will receive the Legion of Honor medal at the French consulate in New York City on Thursday, March 30. Professor Rosenberg, Bard professor emeritus of languages and literature and visiting professor of literature, is the last surviving member of the Varian Fry group, which helped rescue hundreds of artists and intellectuals from Nazi-occupied France during World War II. He later joined the Forces Francaises de I'Interieur and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation organization. The medal recognizes his "selfless sacrifice" throughout the war and subsequent "outstanding academic career ... where you left a profound mark and remain a highly influential role model for thousands of young men and women beginning their adult lives. It comes in recognition of the high esteem in which you are held by French authorities, and serves as an example to all those who have French-American friendship at heart."

The essays in Teju Cole's new collection "are brilliantly written—sharp, intelligent—and yield a pleasurable sweetness."

Legendary editor Robert B. Silvers died on March 20 at the age of 87 after 54 years at the helm of the New York Review of Books.

Writer in Residence Porochista Khakpour writes about marking Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in a political climate that is hostile to Muslims.

Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason discusses Emmanuel Carrère’s reinvention of nonfiction writing, his unique narrative style, and the methods of his masterpieces.

Professor in the Arts Neil Gaiman and Executive Producer Bryan Fuller discuss moving from page to screen for the forthcoming Starz television series American Gods, adapted from Gaiman’s best-selling novel. The event takes place on Saturday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m., and includes an exclusive preview of the first episode of the new television series ahead of its premiere on the Starz network.

Bard Fisher Center Presents an Evening with Neil Gaiman and American Gods (Bard.edu)
Neil Gaiman to Discuss American Gods (Poughkeepsie Journal)
 

Professor Luzzi was interviewed at Harvard University about his book A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film, as part of their De Bosis Colloquium in Italian Studies.

Professor Luzzi will give a lecture entitled "From Twain to Toni Morrison: A Literary Journey through America" as part of the esteemed and longstanding Lowell Lecture Series.

Voltaire thought Shakespeare a "drunken savage," and Mencken dismissed Gatsby as a "glorified anecdote." Professor Luzzi on how even the great critics miss the mark.

"College campuses are the only homes my father and I have ever had; they are the places that bridge our hyphenated identities," writes Visiting Writer in Residence Porochista Khakpour.

Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose calls for a national strike to respond to recent executive actions, as a more disruptive and effective method than a demonstration.

Fulbright scholar Jane Wong reflects on "tangled familial relationships and the lingering influences of immigrant parents in poems replete with images of nature, insects, food and people."

Writer in Residence Francine Prose writes about how little honesty mattered in the U.S. election. "If all politicians lie, all that matters is what they lie about."

Joseph O'Neill reads his short story “Pardon Edward Snowden,” from the December 12, 2016, issue of the magazine.

Chris Claremont became an industry icon by emphasizing the importance of character development, storytelling, and melodrama in his long career at Marvel Comics.

Peter Filkins reflects on this year’s election season with three poems in The Common, a prominent literary magazine based at Amherst College.

Author Porochista Khakpour talks about supporting Bard students and amplifying her activism after the election.

John Crowley, the World Fantasy Award–winning author of Little, Big and the Ægypt series, will read from his fiction at Bard College on Monday, November 14. The New York Times Book Review writes, “John Crowley is an abundantly gifted writer, a scholar whose passion for history is matched by his ability to write a graceful sentence.”

Distinguished Writer in Residence Francine Prose discusses her new novel, Mister Monkey, on Weekend Edition.

"Conventional narratives tend to demonize attackers, but Mahajan’s novel instead investigates them to reveal very human desires and frustrations, from the mundane to the political."

Who or what is an alien? Someone or something whose profound otherness stirs in us terror, even dread, or perhaps a healthy—sometimes dangerous—curiosity? Exploring these straightforward yet complex questions, Conjunctions:67, Other Aliens—the latest issue of the innovative literary magazine published by Bard College—collects works of literary science and speculative fiction that explore the vast precincts of unfamiliarity, of keen difference, of weirdness and not belonging.

Bard writer in residence Wyatt Mason looks at the Chicago-based artist who, for more than 40 years, has made it his mission to paint black figures into the canon.

If you missed Alan Cumming in conversation with WAMC's Joe Donahue at the Fisher Center on October 16, you can listen to the whole event on the Book Show.

Author Karan Mahajan has been selected to receive the Bard Fiction Prize for his novel The Association of Small Bombs. A finalist for the 2016 National Book Award, Mahajan’s masterful narrative tells the story of two Delhi families ripped apart by a small bombing in a marketplace. Woven around the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the gripping tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland. Mahajan’s residency at Bard College is for the Fall 2017 semester, during which time he will continue his writing, meet informally with students, and give a public reading.

"Tender and artful ... a sophisticated satire, a gently spiritual celebration of life, a dark and thoroughly grim depiction of despair, a screwball comedy, a screwball tragedy."

After five years of preparation, the Sussman Rare Book Collection will open in the Stevenson Library on October 29 with such treasures as a 1556 copy of the Magna Carta.

In this essay from The Artists' and Writers' Cookbook, photographer An-My Lê remembers her grandmother making substitution pho after the family moved from Vietnam to Paris.

Libraries in the United States have been quietly waging a war in defense of free speech and privacy since the September 11 attacks, writes Francine Prose.