In Memory of Chinua Achebe, Bard College to Host Celebration of Contemporary African Writing on September 22
On Friday, September 22, Bard College is hosting After Chinua Achebe: African Writing and the Future, an event honoring the memory of the late Chinua Achebe (1930–2013), former Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature. A symposium in the afternoon in Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center will examine the current flowering of writing by African authors, in Africa and in the diaspora.
In Memory of Chinua Achebe, Bard College to Host Celebration of Contemporary African Writing on September 22
A symposium in the afternoon in the Weis Cinema at the Bertelsmann Campus Center will examine the current flowering of writing by African authors, in Africa and in the diaspora. The symposium will be followed by the dedication of a room in the Stevenson Library at Bard in memory of Achebe.
The event will begin at 2:00 pm on Friday, September 22, with a dance performance by Souleymane Badolo celebrating the life of Achebe, followed by an opening address by President Leon Botstein. There will be two panel discussions, Writing Beyond Africa: The African imagination in the diaspora at 2:30 pm, and Activism and the Word: Writing, speech and song in African political culture at 4 pm. Confirmed panelists include the novelists Nuruddin Farah, Teju Cole, Dinaw Mengestu and Fatin Abbas, and the musician and activist DJ Switch.
The event is sponsored by President's Office, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Stevenson Library, Africana Studies, and the Offices of the Dean and Alumni/ae Affairs. Members of the Achebe family will be in attendance, and the event is free and open to the public.
Bard College thanks Penguin Press and Penguin Classics for their support by providing copies of The African Trilogy.
Chinua Achebe was a groundbreaking Nigerian writer best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous other books, including works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. From 1990 to 2009 he was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.
Post Date: 09-09-2023
Dinaw Mengestu Spoke with WAMC’s The Best of Our Knowledge about the Center for Ethics and Writing
“The idea of writing remains quite poignant to students, but we often think of it as this very private, creative act,” said Dinaw Mengestu, director of the Center for Ethics and Writing, director of the Written Arts Program, and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of the Humanities, on WAMC’s The Best of Our Knowledge. “In doing so, we fail to make the argument for writing as more than just a personal, creative act, but as something that can be responsive to the world around us.”Dinaw Mengestu Spoke with WAMC’s The Best of Our Knowledge about the Center for Ethics and Writing
Post Date: 09-05-2023
Bard Fiction Prize Winner Violet Kupersmith to Give Reading on September 18
Violet Kupersmith, Bard Fiction Prize winner and writer in residence at Bard College, will read from recent work on Monday, September 18. The reading begins at 6:30 pm and will be held in the Reem-Kayden Center’s László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium at Bard College. This event is free and open to the public.Bard Fiction Prize Winner Violet Kupersmith to Give Reading on September 18
Kupersmith has received the Bard Fiction Prize for her first novel, Build Your House Around My Body (Random House 2021). Kupersmith is in residence at Bard College for the fall 2023 semester, during which time she will continue her writing and meet informally with students.
“Violet Kupersmith’s Build Your House Around My Body never ceases to surprise, as it intertwines disparate time periods, locations, and cultures, not to mention realities, and its sentences are worlds in themselves,” writes the Bard Fiction Prize committee. “She approaches her subject matter in fresh ways, and the novel’s otherworldly elements are expertly interwoven with the mundane, through an imagination truly rich and strange. This novel is sensual, it is visceral, it is outrageously comic. By turns, Kupersmith makes you squeamish with distaste, shivery with terror, giddy with laughter, awestruck by beauty, and warmed by unexpected tenderness. She always makes you marvel at her inventiveness, enticing you to solve the novel’s central mysteries, as she elicits the widest range of sensations possible. She is a writer of astonishing perspicacity and fluidity of language, and succumbing to her magic is a risk no reader should hesitate to take.”
“What a staggering honor to be in the company of all the literary luminaries who were previous winners of the award or have called Bard home at some point in their careers,” said Kupersmith. “I am just grateful beyond words to the prize committee for this recognition and for such an extraordinary gift. And I cannot wait to plant myself in this fertile intellectual environment next fall and grow something strange and new.”
Violet Kupersmith was born in central Pennsylvania in 1989 and later moved with her family to the Philadelphia suburbs. Her father is a white American and her mother is from Da Nang, Vietnam. Her mother’s family fled the country by boat following the fall of Saigon in 1975, and were resettled in Port Arthur, Texas. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 2011, Violet spent a year teaching English in Tra Vinh, Vietnam, on a Fulbright Fellowship. Between 2013 and 2015, she lived in Da Lat and Saigon, Vietnam. She was the 2015–2016 David T. K. Wong Fellow at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and is the recipient of a 2022 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her short story collection The Frangipani Hotel was published by Spiegel & Grau in 2014. violetkupersmith.com
Post Date: 08-29-2023
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Bard College Awarded $300,000 by the Booth Ferris Foundation to Support the Center for Ethics and Writing
Bard College Awarded $300,000 by the Booth Ferris Foundation to Support the Center for Ethics and Writing
"The Booth Ferris Foundation’s incredibly generous support allows us to play a critical role in developing and modeling a creative and critical practice that engages with some of the most pressing issues of the moment,” said Mengestu. “With this grant, the center is able to extend Bard’s history of innovative teaching into classrooms across New York while also supporting artists whose freedom of expression is under threat."
The Center for Ethics and Writing engages in many activities, including developing an interdisciplinary approach to teaching ethics and writing that empowers students to develop narratives that reflect the experiences and concerns of their communities; partnering with local and national nonprofit organizations, including PEN America, to provide students opportunities to produce publishable narratives on social justice topics; promoting the values of free expression through a fellows program that brings in international, at-risk writers and artists; offering multi-day micro-workshops with artists and activists on topics related to current course offerings; providing training for community college faculty; and developing digital platforms including an online journal and podcast series.
In its first year, the center will provide an impressive array of programs. It has offered courses such as Writing While Black, Writing as Resistance, and Risk and the Art of Poetry and has hosted four micro-workshops by writer and activist Yasmin El-Rifae; Dana Bishop-Root, the director of education and public programs at the Carnegie Museum of Art; Fahima Ife, poet and associate professor of ethnic and critical race studies at UC Santa Cruz; and Emily Raboteau, writer, critic, and Professor at CUNY. In partnership with PEN America’s Artist at Risk Connection, an inaugural cohort of international fellows will begin this fall. Participating fellows’ freedom of expression is under threat due to their creative practices. Their work will be published alongside writing produced through center-supported courses in the center’s online journal, to be launched later this fall. The center is also partnering with Bard Microcolleges in Harlem and Brooklyn, and the Bard Prison Initiative, to develop courses that empower students to express their cultural and gendered experiences.
The Booth Ferris Foundation was established in 1957 under the wills of Willis H. Booth and his wife, Chancie Ferris Booth. The Foundation funds a variety of nonprofit organizations in the areas of arts and culture, K-12 and higher education, and parks and outdoor spaces.
Post Date: 08-22-2023
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Bard Professor James Romm Receives $50,000 NEH Public Scholar Grant in Support of His Project Plato and the Tyrant
Bard Professor James Romm Receives $50,000 NEH Public Scholar Grant in Support of His Project Plato and the Tyrant
“The Public Scholar program helps situate the humanities just where they ought to be—in the large world of public discourse, rather than behind university walls,” Prof. Romm said. “I’m honored to be recognized for making the ancient Greeks a part of that discourse. Never have the lessons they taught about tyranny, rule of law, and the meaning of citizenship been more relevant to our lives than they are at this moment.”
Plato is regarded as one of the world’s most influential thinkers, yet his life and personality remain opaque, partially because he did not include himself in his dialogues but used the mask of Socrates to develop his ideas. Plato and the Tyrant will bring his first-person voice to the forefront through quotes from the Platonic letters, documents sometimes regarded as forgeries but, as the book will argue, almost certainly genuine writings of Plato. The five Syracusan letters, addressed by Plato to Dionysius or to other political leaders of Syacuse, help tell the story of Plato’s interventions in that city. In addition, large segments of the Republic, especially the doctrine of the philosopher-king, can best be understood as reflections of Plato’s encounters with Dionysius, the foremost autocrat in the Greek world of his day.
Plato and the Tyrant follows not only the final two decades of Plato's life (367-347 BC) but the rise and fall, during that period, of a ruler who was at times Plato's student and at other times his nemesis, Dionysius the Younger, who at age 30 came to power in Syracuse in 367 as the sheltered heir of his father, also named Dionysius. The uncle of the younger Dionysius, Dion—a zealous adherent, and possibly lover, of Plato— wished to reshape his nephew’s character through philosophic instruction in the hope of setting Syracuse's regime on a healthier path. At Dion's urging, Plato journeyed to Syracuse just after the Younger's accession, a visit that set in motion a series of disasters for Dion, Dionysius, Plato, and the entire city. Plato and the Tyrant will ultimately examine the question of Plato's relationship to autocracy, a question that resonates strongly with current concerns in global and domestic politics.
Post Date: 08-18-2023
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Masha Gessen Wins Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking
Masha Gessen Wins Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking
Post Date: 08-15-2023
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Wyatt Mason Writes about Poet Shane McCrae’s Memoir for the New York Times Magazine
Wyatt Mason Writes about Poet Shane McCrae’s Memoir for the New York Times Magazine
Post Date: 08-01-2023
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Claudia Cravens ’08 Interviewed by the New York Times about Her New Novel Lucky Red, among New Fiction “Reframing the West”
Claudia Cravens ’08 Interviewed by the New York Times about Her New Novel Lucky Red, among New Fiction “Reframing the West”
Post Date: 06-21-2023
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Mona Simpson Spoke about Her New Novel, Commitment, on LitHub’s First Draft Podcast
Mona Simpson Spoke about Her New Novel, Commitment, on LitHub’s First Draft Podcast
Post Date: 06-13-2023
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Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard Hosts 2023 July Weeklong Workshops
Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard Hosts 2023 July Weeklong Workshops
Each workshop focuses on a particular form of writing—the essay, academic paper, creative nonfiction—or on writing-based teaching in a particular subject area, such as history, science and math, or grammar.
The workshops offer a retreat in which participants learn new writing practices, read diverse texts, and collaborate with teachers from around the world on Bard’s campus. The luxury of time helps participants explore how to adopt these new practices by adapting writing prompts, accommodating collaborative learning in larger classes, and incorporating new readings. Attendees will also explore how different forms—such as poetry—might inspire students from diverse backgrounds.
To learn about all of the workshops offered this summer and register, visit: https://iwt.bard.edu/july/
Standard Rate: $3,000
Group Rate: $2,700
Commuter Rate: $2,700
Early-Bird Rate: $2,500
Early-Bird Group Rate: $2,250
Early-Bird Commuter Rate: $2,200
The deadline for registering for Early-Bird discounted rates is June 9, 2023.
Post Date: 06-06-2023
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Bard Playwright-in-Residence Daaimah Mubashshir Awarded Three Residencies
Bard Playwright-in-Residence Daaimah Mubashshir Awarded Three Residencies
Mubashshir has received a Bau Institute Art Residency Award, hosted by the Camargo Foundation at its Cassis campus in France, a MacDowell Fellowship in MacDowell’s Artist Residency Program for fall 2023 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and a Catwalk Art Residency for fall 2023 at the Catwalk Institute, Catskill.
The BAU residency will enable Daaimah to continue their work on the libretto and book of Emily Black, a bluesy-rock musical about a Black domestic worker in NYC. Emily Black also received a Fisher Center LAB Commission and Residency in the spring of 2022. The MacDowell residency will support their work on a new play about their great grandmother, Begonia Williams Tate, who defied all odds in Mobile, Alabama, in the late 19th century. The Catwalk Art Residency will support the beginning of a new work of creative nonfiction.
Post Date: 06-05-2023
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Alma Guillermoprieto Joins Bard Faculty in the Division of Languages and Literature
Alma Guillermoprieto Joins Bard Faculty in the Division of Languages and Literature
Alma Guillermoprieto, a Mexican reporter and writer, began her English-language career in journalism in 1978, and broke the story of the 1981 El Mozote massacre by the army in El Salvador. She has written extensively about Latin America, including for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, and National Geographic Magazine, and her writings have been widely disseminated within the Spanish-speaking world. She has published eight books in both English and Spanish, including The Heart That Bleeds, and Looking for History.
Guillermoprieto is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a George Polk Award, and an International Womens’ Media Foundation lifetime achievement award, among many others. In 2018 she was the recipient of Spain’s Princess Asturias Award in the Humanities.
Guillermoprieto began teaching at the age of 20, when, on the recommendation of Merce Cunningham, she traveled to Cuba to teach Cunningham and Graham dance techniques, which she recounts in her memoir Dancing with Cuba: a Memoir of the Revolution. In 1995, at the request of Gabriel García Márquez, she taught the inaugural journalism workshop at the Foundation for New Journalism, in Cartagena, Colombia, and taught the first workshop of the year there through 2010. She has been a visiting professor in both Latin American history and journalism, at Chicago University, Harvard, USC-Berkeley, and Princeton.
Post Date: 06-01-2023
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Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, Memoir by Poet Jane Wong ’07, Reviewed in the New York Times and Boston Globe
Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, Memoir by Poet Jane Wong ’07, Reviewed in the New York Times and Boston Globe
Interviews:
LA Review of Books: “Tenderness and Ferocity Go Hand in Hand: A Conversation with Jane Wong”
Lit Hub: “Jane Wong: How Non-Linearity Mirrors the Experience of Migration”
Post Date: 05-31-2023
Languages and Literature Events
- 9/25MondayMonday, September 25, 2023
Ukrainian Table
Please join us weekly. Stay for as long as you like.
Kline Commons 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Language tables are held at Kline and entail about an hour of casual discussion during meal times, where students interested in a language get to know each other and practice colloquial conversations. They are held by the tutor of the language, and although sometimes professors join the table, it is a very low-stakes and fun setting to immerse yourself in a language, its culture, and the foreign language community at Bard.
Since Ukrainian language instruction is not currently available at Bard, we also welcome folks interested in learning some basic Ukrainian phrases to join us! - 9/25Monday
Monday, September 25, 2023
Literature Salon
David Vichnar, Senior Lecturer,
Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures,
Charles University in Prague
Olin Humanities, Room 202 5:10 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
The first Literature Salon event of the year will feature Professor David Vichnar, a Bard Literature alumnus and current senior lecturer in the Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures at Charles University in Prague. Prof. Vichnar's presentation will offer an overview of his recently published book, The Avant-Postman: Experiments in Anglophone and Francophone Fiction in the Wake of James Joyce (Karolinum Press, 2023).
The Avant-Postman explores a broad range of innovative postwar writing from France, Britain, and the United States. Taking James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as a joint starting point, David Vichnar draws genealogical lines from there through the work of more than fifty writers up to very recent years, including William Burroughs, B. S. Johnson, Ian Sinclair, Kathy Acker, Alan Moore, David Foster Wallace, and many others. Centering the exploration around five strategies employed by Joyce—narrative parallax, stylistic metempsychosis, concrete writing, forgery, and neologizing the logos—the book reveals the striking continuities and developments from Joyce’s day to our own. - 9/25Monday
Monday, September 25, 2023
Written Arts Open House
Shafer House 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Meet faculty and other student writers, and ask questions about workshops and Moderation.
The Written Arts Program welcomes any and all interested students to an open house in Shafer House. Members of the faculty will be in attendance to answer any specific questions you may have and/or to talk with you generally about workshops, Moderation, and Senior Projects.
Enjoy the waterfall and have some refreshments as you chat with other student writers about their experiences in the program and Senior Projects.
Shafer House (9 Cedar Hill Road) is located at the Annandale Triangle on south campus. - 9/26TuesdayTuesday, September 26, 2023
Korean Table
Please join us weekly. Stay for as long as you like.
Kline, College Room 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Language tables are held at Kline and entail about an hour of casual discussion during meal times, where students interested in a language get to know each other and practice colloquial conversations. They are held by the tutor of the language, and although sometimes professors join the table, it is a very low-stakes and fun setting to immerse yourself in a language, its culture, and the foreign language community at Bard. - 9/26TuesdayTuesday, September 26, 2023
Spanish Table
Please join us weekly. Stay for as long as you like.
Kline, College Room 1:15 pm – 2:15 pm EDT/GMT-4
Language tables are held at Kline and entail about an hour of casual discussion during meal times, where students interested in a language get to know each other and practice colloquial conversations. They are held by the tutor of the language, and although sometimes professors join the table, it is a very low-stakes and fun setting to immerse yourself in a language, its culture and the foreign language community at Bard.