News from the Division of Languages and Literature

"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.

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)
 

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

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.

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."

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.”

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.

Professor Sante observes the indignation around Dylan's Nobel win, arguing that the writer deserves the award for using the power of words to change the time he inhabited.

Brian Conn's story "The Guest" appears in the third volume of Undertow's Weird Fiction series, their "biggest and most ambitious volume to date."

On Monday, October 17, celebrated avant-garde fiction writer and literary critic Can Xue will read from her recent work at Bard College. English translations of her fiction include Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories, Five Spice Street, Vertical Motion, The Last Lover (winner of the Best Translated Book Award), and the forthcoming Frontier. She will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series and cosponsored by the Bard Program in Written Arts, takes place at 4 p.m. in Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center and will be followed by a Q&A. It is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.

Legendary performer Alan Cumming will talk with WAMC’s Joe Donahue about his new collection of photographs accompanied by autobiographical essays, You Gotta Get Bigger Dreams: My Life in Stories and Pictures, in which the actor, singer, writer, and man-about-town shares wildly entertaining real-life stories of louche late-night parties, backstage anecdotes, life in LA and New York, cross-country road trips with his beloved dog, Honey, and poignant memories of his life, loves, family, fellow actors, and friends. The event takes place on Sunday, October 16 at 3 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater. 

Dinaw Mengestu, professor of written arts and director of the Written Arts Program, has been named to the board of trustees of PEN America. The organization, which works at the intersection of literature and human rights, sought to broaden its leadership and address new challenges to expression with five new appointments to its board. Professor Mengestu is an award-winning Ethiopian-American author of three novels, most recently All Our Names. He joined the Bard faculty this fall.

Beloved satirical writer David Sedaris is best experienced in person: "his tone and delivery at once dry, understated, gently caustic and bemused by the world’s absurdities."

Bard writer in residence Francine Prose reviews The Loser, David Lang’s "beautiful and startlingly original opera."

On Monday, September 26, Andrew Ervin reads from his celebrated first novel, Burning Down George Orwell’s House. Ervin will be introduced by novelist and Bard literature professor Bradford Morrow. The reading, presented as part of Morrow’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series, takes place at 2:30 p.m. in Weis Cinema, Bertelsmann Campus Center, and will be followed by a Q&A. The event is free and open to the public; no reservations are required.

Book objects from the collection of Mindell Dubansky are on view at the Stevenson Library through Sunday, October 30, with an opening reception on Monday, September 12. All over the world, for hundreds of years, people have been making, collecting and presenting book-objects that reflect their devotion and respect for books and each other. There are countless examples; they include cameras, radios, banks, toys, memorials, desk accessories, musical instruments, magic tricks, furniture and jewelry.

Norman Manea has been named the winner of the 2016 Literary Award in Romance Languages from the Guadalajara International Book Fair. He is the first Romanian author to receive the honor.

Bard writer in residence Teju Cole examines the visual narrative of the iconic images of protestors in the Black Lives Matter movement.