“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.”
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 and concentrations such as Africana Studies, Asian Studies, Environmental Studies, Experimental Humanities, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Human Rights, Latin American and Iberian Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. Curriculum and Course of Study
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.
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
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].
Bard Hall3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 In Ancient Greece, professional performers of Homer were called Rhapsodes. Their job was to memorize Homeric poetry and perform it at festivals around Greece. Today we honor their tradition and that of Bill Mullen, a former professor of Classics and Rhetoric at Bard College.
The Contest
The Bill Mullen Recitation Contest is an annual competition amongst Bard College and BHSEC Cleveland students. The recitation prize competition encourages the love of literature, the joy in oral recitation, the committing to memory of great poetry, the love of public speaking, and the agonal spirit, all of which are at the heart of how we remember Bill Mullen’s intellectual legacy. The Bill Mullen Recitation contest aims to expose students to, and perhaps instill a love for, the art of memorizing and reciting poetry. Read more here.
We are no longer accepting entries as we have reached our upper limit for capacity at the event!
Contest Rules
- Participants must be undergraduates at Bard College. - Poem must be recited in English (translations into English are welcome). - The poem’s author must be deceased. - Full texts only, no excerpts. - Recitation length: no longer than 3 minutes. - Entry deadline: April 12, 2024.
Prizes:
$500 1st place $100 2nd place
Who Is Bill Mullen?
In 2021, Bard College announced the William C. Mullen Memorial Fund, created by a generous donation from longtime Bard professor Bill Mullen. This fund is used to promote his legacy through grants to any of Bill’s former students to continue their studies in the liberal arts and sciences. William “Bill” Mullen (1946–2017) was a professor of classics and taught at Bard from 1985 until his death.
Thomas Bartscherer is the Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at Bard College. He writes on the intersection of literature and philosophy, with a particular focus on tragic drama, aesthetics, and performance. He also writes on contemporary art, new media technology, and the history and practice of liberal education.
Ann Lauterbach is a poet and essayist. Her eleventh collection of poetry, Door, will be published by Penguin Random House in March (2023). She writes at the intersection of poetics, politics and the visual arts. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986) and a MacArthur Fellowship (1993), she is Ruth and David Schwab Professor of Languages and Literature (Written Arts) at Bard College.
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Bard Hall
4/22
Monday
Photo credit: Judith Clute
Monday, April 22, 2024
CANCELED: A Reading by Elizabeth Hand
The acclaimed, genre-spanning writer reads from her work. Campus Center, Weis Cinema EVENT CANCELED
Novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Hand will read from new work at Bard College on Monday, April 22 at 4:00 pm in Weis Cinema, located in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. Hand is the author of over 20 genre-spanning, award-winning novels and collections of short fiction. Her most recent novel, A Haunting on the Hill, is an homage to Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House and was commissioned by Jackson’s family. The reading, which is being presented as part of Bradford Morrow’s course on innovative contemporary fiction, is free and open to the public.
A longtime critic and reviewer, Hand’s writing has also appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Times, Boston Review, Salon, the Los Angeles Times, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among other outlets. Her noir novels featuring post-punk photographer and provocateur Cass Neary have been translated into myriad languages and are being developed for a TV series. Hand has been an instructor at writing workshops across the US and abroad, including Oxford and Pakistan, and is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. She divides her time between the Maine coast and North London, and is at work on Unspeakable Things, which is loosely inspired by Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.
Praise for Elizabeth Hand
“Hand has a gift for the sensuous, evocative detail, and her descriptions are often simultaneously seductive and spooky.” —The New Yorker
“A Haunting on the Hill is a love letter to Hill House and a very impressive tribute to Shirley Jackson. It is also a tremendous addition to Hand’s already outstanding, multi-genre oeuvre.” —Gabino Iglesias, NPR
“Only the brilliant Elizabeth Hand could so expertly honor Jackson’s rage, wit, and vision with a 21st century twist. The old place is as creepy, disorienting, and menacing as ever.” —Paul Tremblay
“To describe Elizabeth Hand as a mystery writer is to not have read another Elizabeth Hand book. Over decades, she has proved that she’s eclectic, genre-bending, and comfortable in fantasy and mystery, crime, myth, magic—and more.” —The Washington Post
Campus Center, Weis Cinema
4/22
Monday
Monday, April 22, 2024
Literature Salon: Reading Archivally – Alphabetic Codes and Verbal Puzzles in Nabokov's 1951 Diary
Olga Voronina, Associate Professor of Russian, Bard College Olin Humanities, Room 2055:00 pm – 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Our second Literature Salon of the semester coincides with the 125th anniversary of Vladimir Nabokov’s birth. To mark the occasion, Associate Professor of Russian Olga Voronina will share her archival research into Nabokov’s works from the early 1950’s. She invites us to consider Nabokov's notoriously difficult "ghost" story, “The Vane Sisters." Some of the keys to this text are hidden in the writer's diary from 1951, a manuscript version of which we will study together. In anticipation of this event, participants are encouraged (though not required) to read “The Vane Sisters” so that we might collectively scrutinize it through the archival lens. A PDF copy of “The Vane Sisters” is available at this link. For more information about the event, please contact Adhaar Desai ([email protected]).