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Bard Literature Program
Main Image for Literature

Literature

Mary McCarthy and Ralph Ellison
Literature Menu
  • Curriculum + Course of Study
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Apply Now!
More about the Program

Toni Morrison, “Literature and Public Life"

“Literature allows us—no, demands of us—the experience of ourselves as multidimensional persons. And in doing so, is far more necessary than it has ever been. As art it deals with the human consequences of the other disciplines: history, law, science, economics, labor studies, medicine. As narrative its form is the principal method by which knowledge is appropriated and translated.”

About the Program

  • Curriculum and Course of Study
    The Literature Program at Bard challenges the national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries that have too often dictated the terms by which we understand the meaning and value of the written word. Our curriculum emphasizes cultural, linguistic, and geographic diversity and is vitally engaged with interdisciplinary programs such as Africana Studies, Asian Studies, Environmental & Urban Studies, Experimental Humanities, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Human Rights, Latin American & Iberian Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies.
    Curriculum and Course of Study
  • Community and Resources
    The Bard Literature Program has a long-standing commitment to fostering the work of writers and thinkers who challenge political authority, diversify literary canons, and expand the parameters of public discourse. As poets, critics, novelists, scholars, translators, teachers, editors, journalists, and political activists, our faculty, students, and alumni/ae are uniquely positioned to interrogate inherited forms of knowledge and to chart out innovative models of imaginatively and socially engaged responsibility.

    Community and Resources
  • Our Mission and Aims
    Literary study wakes us up to the historical weight of our individual and collective voices and expands the analytic and expressive tools we use to engage other beings. Thinking critically, both individually and collectively, speaking up with compassion and conviction, and writing with clarity and purpose are the cornerstones of what we teach and practice as a faculty. These skills are essential to the study of literature, to active citizenship, and ultimately, to having a voice in the world. 
    Mission and Aims
  • Equity and Justice Initiatives
    To study literature is to insist on the value of our differences, and to learn to encounter difference in expansive ways. Yet when it comes to social inequalities and educational access in this country, the humanities have a long and complicated history. In order to address these systemic injustices, the Bard Literature Program is committed to frank self-scrutiny, to transparency, and to  ensuring genuine equity for all members of our community.
    Equity and Justice Initiatives

Additional Contact

To find out more about the Bard Literature Program, our upcoming events, and current initiatives, please contact us at [email protected].

Literature Events

View all News + Events

  • 11/04
    Friday

    Friday, November 4, 2022

    IWT Writer as Reader Workshops

    Olin Humanities Building 9:30 am – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
    This year, IWT’s Writer as Reader workshops will be held on Friday, November 4, 2022. The lineup features novels, poetry, nonfiction, historical documents, plays, letters, and more. Each workshop will highlight writing-to-read strategies that foster close reading and help readers develop an appreciation for the connections between different but related texts. Writer as Reader workshops emphasize the pedagogical value of teaching texts that are unfamiliar to students, prompting them to read closely and critically, with attentiveness and an open mind. 

    These workshops offer opportunities for critical reading and discussion, while modeling writing and reading activities that can focus class discussion, help students engage with difficult material, and emphasize the social character of all learning.

    Workshop offerings:

    1. Writing to Read Beloved
    Toni Morrison, Beloved; Charles W. Chesnutt, “Po’ Sandy”; Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (excerpts)

    2. “To Make Real the Promise of Democracy:” Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau on Citizenship and Civil Disobedience
    Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; Henry David Thoreau, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”

     3. Oedipus and Tiresias: Performing Status and Sexuality
    Sophocles, Oedipus Rex (trans. Ellen McLaughlin); Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours; selections from Ovid’s Metamorphoses; and Keith Johnstone, Impro for Storytellers

    4. The Radical Power of the Partial Perspective: Valeria Luiselli’s Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions and Brian Dillon’s Essayism
    Brian Dillon, Essayism: On Form, Feeling, and Nonfiction; Valeria Luiselli Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions

    5. The Cannibal, the Witch, and the Colonizers: Shakespeare’s The Tempest Historicized
     William Shakespeare, The Tempest; selections from James Baldwin, Aimé Césaire, Jamaica Kincaid, Michel Montaigne, and Jimmie Durham (provided).

     6. Listening to N.K. Jemisin and Janelle Monáe: Writing and the Arts of Change
    N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season; music videos by Janelle Monáe. 

    7. Mapping Elizabeth Bishop: The Poetics of Geography
    Selected poems by Elizabeth Bishop; selected maps from the Library of Congress online archives.
     
    8. Sentience, Loss, and Empathy in Klara and the Sun 
    Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun; Loren Eiseley, “The Bird and the Machine”; Adam Gopnik, “Death of a Fish” 
     
    9. Love in a Time of Terror: Connection and Recognition in James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s Undrowned 
    James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time; Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals

    10. Telling Our Stories: Building Bridges Through Language, Image, and Form
    Trung Le Nguyen, The Magic Fish; Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

    9:30 am – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Olin Humanities Building
  • 2/03
    Friday


    Credit: China Jorrin
    Friday, February 3, 2023

    New Kinds of Attention

    An Introduction to Writing-Based Teaching
    Online Event 9:00 am – 3:30 pm EST/GMT-5
    In 2021, we launched an online workshop series to give teachers a new opportunity to experience IWT’s writing-based teaching practices. This series continues in 2023, allowing teachers to join us for an immersive, online introduction to IWT writing practices. Intended for those who might not be able to attend IWT’s one-day workshops at Bard, these workshops provide a taste of our popular July Weeklong Workshops on the Annandale campus. Check the website for an up-to-date list of offerings!

    Workshops include:
    • Introduction to Writing and Thinking (February 3)
    • Introduction to Writing to Learn (February 3)
    • Introduction to Thinking Historically through Writing (March 3)
    • Introduction to Writing to Learn in the STEM Disciplines (March 3)
    • A selection of online Writer as Reader workshops (TBA)

    Participants are welcome to register for one or both dates. Visit iwt.bard.edu for details.

    9:00 am – 3:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Online Event
  • 3/03
    Friday


    Credit: China Jorrin
    Friday, March 3, 2023

    New Kinds of Attention

    An Introduction to Writing-Based Teaching
    Online Event 9:00 am – 3:30 pm EST/GMT-5
    In 2021, we launched an online workshop series to give teachers a new opportunity to experience IWT’s writing-based teaching practices. This series continues in 2023, allowing teachers to join us for an immersive, online introduction to IWT writing practices. Intended for those who might not be able to attend IWT’s one-day workshops at Bard, these workshops provide a taste of our popular July Weeklong Workshops on the Annandale campus. Check the website for an up-to-date list of offerings!

    Workshops include:
    • Introduction to Writing and Thinking (February 3)
    • Introduction to Writing to Learn (February 3)
    • Introduction to Thinking Historically through Writing (March 3)
    • Introduction to Writing to Learn in the STEM Disciplines (March 3)
    • A selection of online Writer as Reader workshops (TBA)

    Participants are welcome to register for one or both dates. Visit iwt.bard.edu for details.

    9:00 am – 3:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Online Event
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