Bardian bard college spring 2011
dear bardians, Greetings! It has been a great honor and a tremendous pleasure to serve as president of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors for the last four years. Bard alumni/ae are fascinating people doing interesting things, and it has been wonderful to get to know so many of you. Being a Bardian is a lifetime commitment and I look forward to the next chapter. I am excited to announce that Michelle Dunn Marsh ’95 will be installed as our new president at the May meeting, held during Commencement Weekend. Michelle, who splits her time between Seattle and New York City, will be our first president from the West Coast. She is an award-winning book designer and editor who has developed photo-based books for such institutions as Aperture Foundation Walter Swett ’96 and the Museum of Glass, and has lectured nationally on photography, book design, and publishing. I ©Don Hamerman know you will enjoy getting to know her. This year’s Commencement and Alumni/ae Weekend is an especially proud one for those of us on the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association Board of Governors: we are honoring two of our own. Dick Koch ’40 will receive the Bard Medal for outstanding—and longstanding—service to the College, and Pia Carusone ’03, chief of staff to Representative Gabrielle Giffords, will receive the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service. Pia led her colleagues in reopening the Arizona congresswoman’s offices on the first business day after the tragic shooting in Tucson. In November 1981 Adam Yauch ’86 wrote in his admissions essay to Bard, “My major interest still lies in music, and I am including a tape of my band. All of the music is original, written and performed by the Beastie Boys.” Ten years later, “Check Your Head” by the Beastie Boys wafted nonstop through the windows of main campus during my freshman year. This May, at the President’s Awards Ceremony, Bard will present Adam with the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters for his “significant contributions to the American artistic or literary heritage.” In celebration of music that defined another era, two Bardians will be awarded alumni/ae honorary doctor of fine arts degrees during this year’s Commencement ceremony. Songwriters Richard and Robert Sherman graduated from Bard in 1949 and went on to work for Walt Disney. Their songs, from “It’s a Small World (After All)” to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to “Feed the Birds,” have left an indelible mark on our cultural consciousness. It’s going to be a great weekend and you don’t want to miss it. I hope to see you there! Chim Chim Cher-ee, Walter Swett ’96 President, Board of Governors, Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association
board of governors of the bard–st. stephen’s alumni/ae association Walter Swett ’96, President Roger Scotland ’93, Vice President Maggie Hopp ’67, Secretary Olivier te Boekhorst ’93, Treasurer Jonathan Ames ’05 Robert Amsterdam ’53 Claire Angelozzi ’74 David Avallone ’87, Oral History Committee Chairperson Dr. Penny Axelrod ’63 Belinha Rowley Beatty ’69 Eva Thal Belefant ’49 Joshua Bell ’98, Communications and New Technologies Committee Chairperson Dr. Miriam Roskin Berger ’56 Jack Blum ’62 Carla Bolte ’71 Randy Buckingham ’73, Events Committee Cochairperson Cathaline Cantalupo ’67 Pia Carusone ’03 Charles Clancy ’69, Stewardship Committee Cochairperson Peter Criswell ’89
Arnold Davis ’44, Nominations and Awards Committee Cochairperson Elizabeth Dempsey BHSEC ’03, ’05, Young Alumni/ae Committee Chairperson Kirsten Dunlaevy ’06 Kit Kauders Ellenbogen ’52 Joan Elliott ’67 Barbara Grossman Flanagan ’60 Diana Hirsch Friedman ’68 R. Michael Glass ’75 Eric Warren Goldman ’98, Alumni/ae House Committee Cochairperson Rebecca Granato ’99 Dr. Ann Ho ’62, Career Connections Committee Chairperson Charles Hollander ’65 Dr. John C. Honey ’39 Elaine Marcotte Hyams ’69 Richard Koch ’40 Erin Law ’93, Fund-raising Committee Chairperson Cynthia Hirsch Levy ’65 Isaac Liberman ’04 Michelle Dunn Marsh ’95
Peter F. McCabe ’70, Nominations and Awards Committee Cochairperson Steven Miller ’70, Stewardship Committee Cochairperson Anne Morris-Stockton ’68 Karen Olah ’65, Alumni/ae House Committee Cochairperson Susan Playfair ’62 Arthur “Scott” Porter Jr. ’79, Alumni/ae House Committee Cochairperson Allison Radzin ’88 Emilie Richardson ’05 Reva Minkin Sanders ’56 Joan Schaffer ’75 Barry Silkowitz ’71 George A. Smith ’82, Events Committee Cochairperson Dr. Ingrid Spatt ’69 Paul Thompson ’93 Dr. Toni-Michelle Travis ’69 Brandon Weber ’97 Barbara Crane Wigren ’68 Dr. Dumaine Williams ’03, Diversity Committee Chairperson Ron Wilson ’75 Matt Wing ’06
Manning the Rail, USS Tortuga, Java Sea, 2010, An-My Lê
Bardian SPRING 2011 departments
features 2
Biodiversity’s Impact on Infectious Diseases | Felicia Keesing
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On and Off Campus
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Antisemitism and Education | Kenneth Stern ’75
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Books by Bardians
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Portfolio: An-My Lê | Introduction, Stephen Shore
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Class Notes
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Distinguished Artist in Residence | Bill T. Jones
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Playwright | Thomas Bradshaw ’02
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150th Jubilee
New York City, during the 150th Jubilee (see page 18).
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What Is a Bardian? | David E. Schwab II ’52
Photo: Cory Weaver
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The Campaigns of Alexander | James Romm
cover A view of Columbus Circle from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall,
felicia keesing
biodiversity’s impact on infectious diseases Associate Professor of Biology Felicia Keesing was lead author on an important article in Nature, “Impacts of biodiversity on the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases” (December 2, 2010), the salient points of which she reproduces here. The article garnered national and international attention, including notice in the New York Times under the headline, “As Biodiversity Declines, Disease Flourishes.” Keesing has received grants from the National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, and National Institutes of Health. Her awards include the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship, Anna M. Jackson Award, and prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which represents the priority the U.S. government places on nurturing the professional development of outstanding scientists and engineers. In March, a team on which she is an investigator received a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to assess environmental risk for Lyme disease in Dutchess County, New York.
The Hall of Biodiversity in the American Museum of Natural History ©George Steinmetz/Corbis
Public health initiatives increasingly emphasize the importance of preventing the transmission of infectious diseases, rather than just treating infections after they occur. A number of ambitious public health efforts—including vaccination campaigns, the eradication of pathogens like polio, and focused care for genetically susceptible individuals—are all examples of this new preemptive medicine. But the full development of preemptive medicine must incorporate another type of strategy as well. Recent research has demonstrated that biological diversity (biodiversity) in ecological communities—whether in agricultural fields, coral reefs, barns, or the insides of human bodies—can affect the transmission of infectious diseases. In a recent paper in Nature, my colleagues and I described how understanding the ecology of infectious diseases in nature can help predict, prevent, and mitigate the spread of infections in humans, wildlife, domesticated animals, and plants. Biodiversity encompasses the diversity of genes, species, and ecosystems. Increases in human populations have resulted in an unprecedented and precipitous loss of biodiversitythroughout the world. Current extinction rates are estimated to be at least 100 to 1,000 times background extinction rates and extinction rates over the next 50 years are estimated to be 10 to 100 times present extinction rates. Every major group of organisms faces extinction threats: 12 percent of bird species, 23 percent of mammals, 32 percent of amphibians, and 33 percent of corals. Furthermore, the global abundances of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and fish have declined by almost 30 percent since 1970. Collectively, these declines and extinctions are caused by changing the earth’s ecosystems to meet the growing demands of human populations for food, fresh water, fiber, timber, and fuel; and by climate change. How might the decline of biodiversity affect infectious disease? Infectious diseases by definition involve interactions between at least two species—the pathogen and its host. For example, humans with influenza have been infected with a virus transmitted to them by another human. Often many more species are involved, including other species of hosts. Tuberculosis, for example, is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which can be transmitted back and forth between humans, cattle, and other animal host species. Some diseases also have vectors—meaning they transmit the
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pathogen from one host to another—such as ticks, mosquitoes, or fleas. Malaria in humans is caused by infection with a Plasmodium parasite that is transmitted to humans through the bite of an Anopheles mosquito. Of course, all of the species that are directly involved in disease transmission also interact with other species, such as predators and competitors, interaction that could then indirectly affect disease transmission. As a consequence, changes in biodiversity have the potential to affect risk of infectious disease exposure in plants and animals—including humans. Declines in biodiversity should, in principle, be equally likely to cause increases or decreases in disease transmission in the remaining species. For example, if the host species for a disease disappeared as biodiversity was lost, the transmission of that disease would be likely to decline. However, in recent years, a consistent picture has emerged: biodiversity loss tends to increase pathogen transmission and disease incidence. This pattern occurs across ecological systems that vary in type of pathogen, host, ecosystem, and transmission mode. As an example, West Nile virus is a mosquito-transmitted virus for which several species of birds act as hosts. Three recent studies have found low bird diversity is strongly correlated with an increased human risk or incidence of West Nile encephalitis in the United States. Communities with low bird diversity tend to be dominated by bird species that amplify the virus, leading to high infection prevalence in mosquitoes and people, while communities with high avian diversity contain many species that are poor hosts for the virus and do not amplify it. Another example is hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a potentially fatal disease in humans that was discovered in the 1990s. The virus replicates in the bodies of rodents such as deer mice and is deposited into the environment when mice defecate and urinate. Humans can get sick if they accidentally inhale airborne virus particles. Studies have shown that a lower diversity of small mammals increases the prevalence of hantaviruses in their hosts, thereby increasing risk to humans. Diversity has a similar effect for plant diseases. In one case, the loss of species increased transmission of two fungal pathogens that infect perennial rye grass and other plant species. But why do declines in diversity tend to increase disease transmission? The short answer is that the species that remain when diversity declines tend to be good hosts for diseases. This is best illustrated with an example from my own research on Lyme disease. Lyme disease is caused by infection with a bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. This bacterium is passed back and forth between animal hosts through the bite of particular kinds of ticks, which are called the vectors of this disease. The ticks feed happily on lots of different kinds of animals; they have been recorded on dozens of species of mammals, birds, and reptiles. But some species are better hosts for the ticks, and for the bacteria, than others. In the eastern United States, for example, ticks that feed on white-footed mice survive better—and are much more likely to pick up the bacterial infection—than are ticks that feed on any other kind of animal. In contrast, ticks that feed on opossums are likely to be groomed off and killed by the opossum; and those that avoid being groomed off and survive to feed have almost no chance of picking up the bacterial infection.
Felicia Keesing ©Don Hamerman
changes in biodiversity have the potential to affect risk of infectious disease exposure in plants and animals—including humans. Why is this relevant to biodiversity? White-footed mice can live almost anywhere; they survive in forests even when all other species are gone. They thrive in degraded and fragmented habitats. But opossums are more sensitive to habitat degradation and fragmentation and disappear as diversity declines. So forests with low diversity have lots of mice, a condition that increases Lyme disease risk, and few (if any) opossums, which decreases Lyme disease risk. As a result, Lyme disease risk is very high in patches of forest with low diversity.
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A female Anopheles gambiae mosquito seen at 125x magnification. The Anopheles gambiae is predominant in Africa and is a disease vector for the Plasmodium protozoa that cause malaria. ©David Scharf/Getty Images
When we first made these discoveries about Lyme disease, we thought it was a coincidence that the host that remained when diversity declined was also the best host for the pathogen and the vector. But in the past few years, we have seen study after study that shows the same pattern for a number of other disease systems. We suspect that some underlying biological reason explains why species that thrive in low-diversity habitats are good hosts for pathogens and vectors, but we do not yet know what it is. One hypothesis posits that pathogens evolve to be transmitted most efficiently by the host species they encounter most frequently; abundant species also tend to be ecologically resilient so that they persist when diversity is lost. That would explain the pattern we so frequently see between diversity declines and increased disease transmission. Another hypothesis suggests that species that are “weedy”—short-lived and fast reproducing—tend to invest less energy in defending their bodies from certain kinds of attacks by pathogens. In other words, they may invest less in certain aspects of their immune defenses. A number of species have been shown to conform to this pattern. Pathogens may be able to adapt to these species by circumventing the immune defenses they do have, and these hosts then become good at transmitting the pathogen. Weedy species also tend to thrive in low-diversity habitats, so again, this would also explain the widespread correlation between reduced diversity and increased disease transmission. A final possibility is that both of these hypotheses could be correct: both pathways work together to reinforce the pattern we see. Whatever the underlying reason, the connection between diversity and disease is sufficiently clear and widespread that it lends extra importance to efforts to preserve biological diversity around the world. We know how to conserve diversity in theory—we need to keep natural areas as large as possible because larger areas of habitat have higher diversity. We also need to reinforce efforts to preserve diversity in the face of real-world challenges, such as economic development that appears to be at odds with preservation of natural habitats. The protection of human health is a powerful incentive for us to seek and adopt the appropriate strategies.
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kenneth stern ’75
antisemitism and education Kenneth Stern ’75, an attorney and award-winning author, is the American Jewish Committee’s director on antisemitism. He is also the lead author of a definition of antisemitism used by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and various courts and political leaders around the globe. Stern was instrumental in developing a new academic discipline, hate studies, to analyze the evolution of hate and ways to counter its spread. Stern, who majored in government and political science, received the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service from Bard in 2001.
Jews make up approximately 10 percent of college faculties, and about 30 percent in elite colleges, and as some have noted, this is in many ways a golden age for Jews on the American campus. Yet swastikas sprouted up at Evergreen State College, a progressive campus in Olympia, Washington, last spring, and Jewish students there became afraid to speak out. While this is an unusual “worst-case scenario,” it reflects a real problem. When students are afraid to speak because the climate endorses some ideas as inherently truthful, and counterarguments too evil to be allowed, the purpose of education is subverted. What is behind the incident at Evergreen? And what should educators do when confronted with similar events? An overview of antisemitism might be helpful for college-bound students and their families, as well as those interested in the intersection of the principles of free speech, academic freedom, mutual respect, critical thinking, and combating bigotry. Most students today do not understand the history of antisemitism in the academic world. It was part of life in my parents’ generation. Quotas, sometimes candidly acknowledged, limited the number of Jews admitted to elite colleges. When Judge Learned Hand asked A. Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard in the 1920s, why the limitation on Jews, he said simply, “Jews cheat.” Hand observed that Protestants cheat too. Lowell replied, “You’re changing the subject; we’re talking about Jews.” Contrast that 1920s conversation with the academic world today. Harvard, Dartmouth, Penn, Barnard, Tufts, Princeton, Bard, and too many other elite colleges to catalogue have, or have had, Jewish presidents. The idea that Jews would be seen as outside the mainstream of campus life seems ridiculous. Why, then, was I fielding calls several years ago from a few Jewish parents, asking if it was “safe” for their son or daughter to attend Columbia University with the same trepidation as if they were sending their child to Gaza? 6 kenneth stern ’75
This disconnect between reality and perception has much to do with two things: 1) the Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, and how antisemitism is and is not related to those issues, and 2) the failure of many on both sides to understand the importance of academic freedom and critical thinking on campuses. In 2001 the United Nations held its World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The antisemitism was so thick that the United States withdrew its delegation. Jews were called Christ killers. Some said Hitler should have won so “there would be no Israel.” Many said that Zionism (the notion that Jews, like other peoples, have a right to self-determination in their historic homeland) is akin to Nazism. Anti-Israel groups there decided to use the tactics that helped dismantle Apartheid South Africa (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, or BDS) against Israel—and to start the push on college campuses. In 2002 divestment petitions began circulating at some American campuses, but so did antidivestment petitions, endorsed by far greater numbers. No college divested (nor has any to date), and many college presidents spoke out against the divestment calls. Some well-publicized incidents took place, such as a cinder block thrown through a window at a University of California–Berkeley building that housed Hillel (a national Jewish college organization) and graffiti elsewhere on the campus that said “F**k the Jews.” A near riot occurred at San Francisco State University, where Jews at a propeace rally were threatened. Posters there showed a dead baby with the caption: “Canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license.” A group of more than 300 American college and university presidents issued a statement. Their concern was the threat to the central mission of a college education: exposing students to new ideas, including ideas with which they may vehemently disagree. The goal is to teach students how to wrestle with those ideas in a safe environment. But violence and threats of violence create a chill. Those with a different point of view (in this case, pro-Israel) felt harassed, intimidated, and silenced. The presidents’ statement decried these actions as damaging to academic integrity and pledged to maintain an “intimidationfree campus.” Five years later, more than 400 presidents signed another statement after the United Kingdom’s University and College Union passed a resolution in favor of boycotting Israeli academics. These BDS efforts are unlikely to harm the Israeli economy or seriously hurt the Israeli academic community. But BDS may harm Jews, including Jews on some campuses. If the point is—and it is—to shoehorn Israel into the South African Apartheid paradigm as a pariah
state, then imagine the reaction to someone in the late 1980s getting up in a public square and saying anything positive about Apartheid. Divestment was an issue at Evergreen State. After divestment motions failed in a few California universities, students at Evergreen passed a resolution favoring divestment. Evergreen is the alma mater of Rachel Corrie, the young woman killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. When the resolution was being debated, swastikas sprouted up around campus. Because pro-Israel voices had, for years, been shouted down at Evergreen, no one spoke up. When I met with Jewish student leaders in fall 2010, they refused to meet me on campus, because they believed it would have been risky to be seen publicly with someone from a Jewish human rights agency. We met in a synagogue. I spoke with Evergreen’s president about the need to change this climate and ensure that students were exposed to different ideas about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I find abhorrent the notion of “balance” that some outside academia promote: if teachers teach one side, they must teach the other. This violates a professor’s academic freedom, and in any event, students are not scales that need balance—they need to have their thinking shaken and learn how to confront difficult ideas, including (perhaps especially) biased ones. But the college also has a responsibility to ensure credible theories in any field are being taught. (The Evergreen president’s assertion that the Zionist narrative had been taught a few years earlier by a professor of puppetry was unpersuasive.) Contrast Evergreen Kenneth Stern ’75 ©Don Hamerman with Stanford University. A BDS resolution was considered there last spring too, but the leading Palestinian and Jewish student proponents were both aghast at the level of vitriol the debate unleashed. The resolution was pulled, the two students wrote a joint op-ed, and they held meetings so that proPalestinian students could understand why the call for boycotts struck Jewish students so deeply, given the many instances in history when Jews, alone, were singled out for different treatment. And Jewish students gained a better understanding of what it was like to be a Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza. These students demonstrated the essence of critical thinking by inviting, instead of rejecting, challenges to their most fervently held ideas. While I strongly disagree with those who try to paint antisemitism on campus as normative (it is not), I believe that, when antisemitism does appear, improvement can be made in treating it as seriously as other forms of bigotry. The challenge seems to come especially around antisemitism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a lecture at Brown University, I noted that if a political policy is attacked as one would oppose an American, French, or other such plan, that is fine. But when Israel is singled out in a way no other democracy is, there is a problem. As with any instance of bigotry, substitute the nationality, sex, sexual orientation, race, or
religion (as befits the example), and if the same rules do not apply, something is wrong. The campus has a unique, powerful tool to tackle antisemitism: critical thinking. What is, and is not, antisemitism? Why? How is it the same as, or different than, other forms of bigotry? Is it antisemitic to call for boycotts? How about boycotts of products from the West Bank? Some, possibly out of concern, hysteria, lack of understanding of the academic mission, or a combination thereof, are trying to subvert the process rather than trying to ask and answer these questions academically. I have heard people suggest that anti-Israel professors should be fired, even if they have tenure. Such requests are dangerous, even if directed toward an antisemitic professor. They also change the dynamic: academics no longer see their role as challenging that professor’s bigotry, but rather as offering support to their embattled colleague because they see their own academic freedom at risk. While I do not like antisemitic speech any more than racist or sexist speech, it must be allowed. Jewish groups should not try to censor others, even antisemitic speakers or groups. Instead they should underscore the duty of others on campus to use their free-speech rights in objection, and if done well, in illumination. The Hillel director at Columbia University asked me in 2005 to speak with progressive Jewish students about antisemitism. An allegation had surfaced that some pro-Palestinian professors had mistreated pro-Israel students inside and outside class (which had occasioned those frantic calls from parents). The students had heard comments about “Jewish power” or the “Israel lobby” during debates about the professors, and were confused about whether this was, or was not, antisemitism. I asked if Columbia offered a class on antisemitism, where these events could be discussed. To my surprise, there was not. Upon investigation, I was stunned to find that only three standalone, comprehensive courses on antisemitism likely exist in the world: at Baruch College, the University of Cape Town, and Indiana University. Of course, antisemitism is treated in Holocaust classes and Judaic studies, and mentioned in classes on racism and discrimination. But antisemitism is not deemed worthy of a full-semester course hardly anywhere. Even in Israel. More than incidents here or there, the lack of serious interdisciplinary academic study of antisemitism troubles me. Antisemitism has much to teach us: How a religious-based hatred added a racebased hatred. Why antisemitism is present in countries that do not have Jews. What works to combat it and what does not, and the relevance of both to other forms of bigotry. Antisemitism is serious business. Rather than be discounted or exaggerated for political purposes, it needs to be better understood. The academic community can lead the way. antisemitism 7
Line Shack Supervisor for EA-6B Prowler, USS Ronald Reagan, North Arabian Gulf, 2009
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portfolio
an-my lê In 2005 An-My Lê, professor of photography at Bard, began “Events Ashore,” a series of photographs made on U.S. naval ships and at U.S. naval facilities. It was an outgrowth of her work from the previous two years at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, in the California desert. Through the Marines, An-My made contacts in the navy, which first invited her to photograph a carrier strike group practicing off the coast of California. The naval officers were struck by the technical and aesthetic clarity of her work and repeatedly invited her back. Since then she has visited amphibious assault battleships, destroyers, and missile cruisers. She has photographed at naval facilities in Antarctica, the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Arctic, and Panama, and with the naval rescue force in Haiti. These pictures were made with a view camera mounted on a tripod. At first this must seem a most cumbersome and inappropriate tool with which to photograph the military. But the choice of this camera harkens back to the 19th-century tradition of war photography, and at the same time cuts to the heart of the central aesthetic issue in these images—the avoidance of the illustrative. When 19thcentury photographers worked with their stand cameras—cameras not unlike the one An-My uses, with their lack of mobility and long exposures—they could not photograph battles. They had to settle for photographing the battles’ aftermaths: cannonballs strewn across the Crimea’s “Valley of the Shadow of Death” or bodies of sharpshooters among the rock outcroppings on the hilly fields of Gettysburg. Freed by necessity from the desire to illustrate the battle, these photographers discovered photography’s suggestive potential. Photography is incapable of delineating the order of battle. It can neither explain strategy nor describe tactics. These photographers were forced to explore what photography was capable of communicating. Many photographers, given the remarkable access An-My has been afforded, would produce pictures that simply pointed at previously unseen sights or people doing things: sailors firing artillery or piloting a plane or swabbing a deck. These pictures would not be works of art—they would be illustrations. This is a difficult distinction to describe. I once asked John Swarkowski, the late director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Photography Department, for a definition of “illustration.” He said, “An illustration is a picture whose problems were solved before the photograph was made.” An-My says that illustrations are the expected images, where everything is contained. She, instead, looks between events and between things. “I am interested in making photographs that are layered with suggestions and meanings,” she says. “It is about introducing tension within the frame.” She attempts to suggest something beyond what the picture literally shows—a suggestion of the projection of military power, or of gender and racial issues, or of the military’s interaction with foreign cultures. But photography can never touch these issues in an expository way. It can merely hint. Take the photo of a young, female line shack supervisor. Her eyes communicate focus; the set of her mouth, competence. Her hands hint at vulnerability. Her helmet seems unwieldy. The out of focus background gives context. And the soft sunlight that she’s looking toward creates a sense of a delicate moment. Photography may not be able to explain, but it can allude. —Stephen Shore, Susan Weber Professor in the Arts at Bard and director of the College’s Photography Program an-my lê
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Supply Distribution Convoy, Haiti, 2010
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Patient Admission, US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam, 2010
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Forward Lookout, USS Tortuga, Gulf of Thailand, 2010
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US Naval Hospital Ship Mercy, Vietnam, 2009
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distinguished artist in residence
bill t. jones Dynamic, inquisitive, explosive choreographer Bill T. Jones and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company are about to enter their third year of affiliation with the Dance Program at Bard, the program’s first-ever
Jennifer Nugent in a performance of Another Evening: Venice/Arsenale Photo: Fabrizio Costantini
partnership that involves deep integration of a choreographer and dance company into the curriculum. Jones—winner of a MacArthur Fellowship, Tony Award, and Kennedy Center Honors—reviews and critiques student dance projects, and participates in panel discussions and other Bard programs. He brings the entire company to campus beginning May 11 for a three-week residency; the dancers are to rehearse repertoire for the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, in July, as well as a new project that will be showcased in open rehearsals and master classes. In the spirit of partnership, Jones and company members constructed Another Evening: Venice/ Arsenale at Bard. This site-specific work was performed at the monumental Arsenale’s Teatro alle Tese as part of the Venice Biennale. The dance recombined movements from earlier work with new inspirations, including spirited (“My work. Now. My work”), in-your-face (“Get going. Get in the car. Get in the car. Gogogogogogogo”), and provocative narration (“And then he made me, he forced me, I tried everything, I pleaded with him STOP please STOP”). Below are Jones’s musings about the creation and performance of Another Evening.
Venice is almost too beautiful, too painful to look at. Venice seems to be about timelessness, but we know nothing is really timeless. There is an old American folk song in the piece that Sam Crawford, our composer, is using: “Red River Valley.” It’s a very sentimental song from the early pioneer days of America. I learned this song when I was a child. So I told Sam that I want to use that song, but the song should be almost like a memory of a world that is gone. The song should be almost like when you look at the Grand Canal at night, and you see one little boat bobbing and disappearing. It’s ephemeral, it is fragile, it is a memory. So everything in this piece is moving like light and water, for me, in Venice. I feel that in this work I am talking to myself at a very deep level. The work was almost made by intuition, trying to listen to things in my mind and trying to use material, like a chant from the early 1980s that I wrote. A child; my beautiful codirector, Janet Wong; my company—I am trying to think of them in a new way, a fresh way, and then the piece begins to speak to me. “Get in the car. Get in the car.” What does that mean? Why did I write that? I live in the suburbs in New York; I live outside of the city. Every day I must go in to do my work; yes, that’s true. But then “get in the car”: the way that I have directed it, the way I have seen myself directing it, becomes a much more challenging thing. It’s like a parent directing a child, it’s like a policeman directing a person, it’s like a man who is unhappy with his life directing his life. I don’t think all of these things consciously, but I can see them when I witness what I have made. This is the way in which I refresh myself as a maker. Don’t try to make something mean something. Listen to the heart and mind. I listen to the choices that I am making. I learn something. I learn where I am truly situated in my life now. This finds me at a time where my thinking is changing. I would like to say that dance will always stay a central language, but I give myself permission to continue with text, music, singing, video. I am
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Bill T. Jones Photo: Christina Lane, courtesy of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
an artist first, before a choreographer. I insist on that for myself. But dance, it is heroic to me. When I see and I remember the life of a dancer, I see dancers are very brave. Every day they face pain, doubt, fear; their bodies are changing in front of my eyes. One day a person is doing fine; he has an accident; the next day he cannot move. But everybody in the group must come to the rescue, make profound changes in the choreography, as a group. This is a picture of how I think people should always behave. They bond. This feels like a healthy community. Dance brings people together in that way. So the question is, what do my dancers give, or what have they given, to Another Evening? They are endlessly fascinating to me as beings—men, women, black, white, small, large, open, free, quiet, reserved. They are humanity. Ah! I have a little bit of humanity right here and I can get this humanity to do things. But I talk to this humanity and it is like a computer. It solves problems with me and for me. When I started Another Evening, I was determined I was going
to make every movement. I didn’t want [the dancers’] participation. But it doesn’t work that way. They always give an idea, they change a movement, sometimes by mistake and sometimes purposefully. And I see their change and I can resist or I can accept. The healthy thing is to accept. This is always a struggle for me. The company is now 28 years old. There is nobody in my world who remembers when the company started. So this passage of time is very real, this memory that, as time goes on, becomes my memory. Another Evening tries to make us aware of that passage of time. But I have to make my peace with the fact that everything is changing and it changes rapidly. Sometimes it makes me very anxious, sometimes it makes me sad, and sometimes it’s exhilarating, like a parent with a child. The child is going to learn as they learn. The parent has to enjoy that, as opposed to being frightened by it. I am trying to enjoy it, as change, as rapid change, happens, new personalities, new problems. I’m trying to enjoy the change.
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playwright
thomas bradshaw ’02 Playwright Thomas Bradshaw ’02 may amuse, outrage, and shock you with his studies of human behav-
left Thomas Bradshaw
ior—but he won’t tell you what to think. He will instead challenge you to examine your response to his
Photo: David Paul-Morris, CUNY Archives
characters, who are often sympathetic, yet capable of repulsive actions. “Provocative” remains a favorite word among reviewers. The plays are not easy to watch—they’re not “first-date” material, says Bradshaw—and the performances are for adults only.
right Matt Huffman, Derrick LeMont Sanders, Peter McCabe, Erwin E. A. Thomas, and Hugh Sinclair in Southern Promises, PS122, 2008 Photo: Ryan Jensen
Purity, for example, brings its audience into the life of an Ivy League African American English professor whose pastimes include drinking, cocaine, and pedophilia. Audience members have walked out during an onstage rape scene. The professor’s comfortable existence is challenged only when a “more black” professor is hired in his department. Earlier this year, Bradshaw was in Chicago working on the production of Mary (a Goodman Theatre commission) that was performed from February through March in the Owen Theatre. Mary takes place in 1983 in Virginia and centers on Mary, an African American domestic servant whose family has worked for the same family for hundreds of years, originally as slaves. She is a Bible-quoting homophobe who influences her husband to react violently to a visit by their employer’s gay son and his lover. Bradshaw, who is an assistant professor of mass communications at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, majored in theater and sociology at Bard, study that he says “informs my view of society’s impact on individuals.” He received a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 2009 and a Prince Charitable Trusts Prize in 2010. “While his provocative explorations of race and sexuality like Purity and Southern Promises receive most of the attention, his gift as a stylist marks him as a real talent,” Jason Zinoman wrote in the New York Times. “He has proved in play after play that he has a confident vision of the theater that is his own. The politically incorrect plots jump merrily from one outrage to another, never pausing to explain motivation or linger on subtext. His dramas ask: What would happen if every dark urge, lingering resentment and unedited ugly insult that popped into your head came spilling out of your mouth?” Here Bradshaw talks with the Bardian about what defines his work.
It is true that I have written about pedophilia, rape, incest, and infanticide, but those subjects in no way define the breadth of my work. I guess people tend to focus on those issues because they are considered to be taboo. But are they really taboo, as far as our societal dialogue is concerned? It seems like every episode of Law and Order is about pedophilia, and To Catch a Predator deals exclusively with the subject—and that’s on network TV. All of these subjects are explored in film and no one blinks an eye. When these subjects are presented in the theater, however, people are sometimes outraged. I think that has a lot to do with the nature of the forms. In theater, you have living, breathing people in front of you, carrying out the actions onstage. In film, there is always a distance because the actors aren’t live, performing in front of you. This is why people feel perfectly comfortable stuffing their faces full of popcorn, texting, talking, and coming and going as they please in the movie theater. In a play, there’s something ceremonial about the proceedings. We don’t generally talk, eat, text, or leave the theater once the play has begun. Part of this has to do with respect for the actors, I believe.
16 playwright
We recognize that real people are trying to concentrate and perform their craft on stage. Though people do read plays, I’m writing for performance, rather than simply a good read. You can’t get a true picture of any good play until it’s staged. My plays can often seem very scary on the page because people can’t imagine the tone or the effect the words have when being spoken out loud by real people. In performance, my plays are often very funny. But unless you’ve seen my work, it’s hard to imagine the tone when reading. Also, reading the stage direction “She slaps him in the face” is much different from seeing that performed live. The idea of justice that’s often presented in the theater is a denial of reality. Fifty percent of murders that happen in our country remain unsolved. That means that you have a 50-50 chance of getting away with killing someone. When people commit crimes, they rarely turn themselves in. They seem to feel remorse only once they have been caught. So the remorse often seems to stem from the fear of prison— and in our country the death penalty—not from an innate sense of horror at what they have done. People accept the crimes and horror that shows such as Law and Order present because justice is always rendered. This provides the viewer with a false sense of comfort about the world we live in—an idealized, inaccurate version of reality. I see myself as holding up a mirror to who we are as people, and not in an idealized way. I also believe in showing both sides of this. Sometimes people surprise us in the most wonderfully unexpected ways, and sometimes they surprise us with the depths of their depravity. In my work, no character is presented to the audience as being good or bad. In fact, most of my characters have the best of intentions
in all the actions that they carry out, be they good or bad. Psychological realism often paints a black-and-white picture of the world that is incomplete and false. In reality, everyone falls into some shade of gray. Evil often stems from misguided logic or no thought at all. Slave masters often had the best intentions, but the societal system in which they worked was faulty, to say the least. Hitler believed that he was doing what was best for Germany. Obviously, he was wrong. My point is that in neither of those circumstances did these people sit down and say, “There are some evil actions that I would like to perform today.” Audiences can easily distance themselves from characters that we consider morally reprehensible when they’re demonized on stage. But when characters are painted as human beings with human qualities that we can all relate to, then we become disturbed. The implication is that we, too, have the ability to engage in “evil” behavior, if put in the right circumstances. I’m glad theater has the ability to force an audience to think about who we are as people, to step outside ourselves and question or affirm our core beliefs. My plays force the audience to confront issues from a perspective that they have never considered before. I do this by not attempting to explain the psychology of the characters. I paint a picture of the world and leave it up to the audience to decide the morality of what’s gone on in the play. Should art assume that all of our collective societal beliefs are gospel? Are there ways that our society might be misguided? If we were able to justify slavery and deny women equal rights for hundreds of years, are there possibly things that we as a society are misguided about now? I don’t answer these questions in my plays, I raise them.
thomas bradshaw ’02 17
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150th jubilee Excitement filled the air as more than 450 Bardians and friends came together at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City to celebrate Bard College’s 150th anniversary and 35 years of President Leon Botstein’s inspired leadership. The 150th Jubilee in November was the largest single fund-raising event in Bard’s history. The Jubilee was cochaired by Roland J. and Kathleen Augustine, David C. and Constance Clapp, Mary and James H. Ottaway Jr., David E. Schwab II ’52 and Ruth Schwartz Schwab ’52, Martin T. and Toni Sosnoff, Charles P. Stevenson Jr. and Alex Kuczynski, and Walter Swett ’96 and Rebecca Hall. From the beginning, this very glitzy event caused a stir in the alumni/ae and Bard community. The evening began with a cocktail party in the atrium, where 15-foot-long red Bard banners hung from the ceiling and the archival photography exhibition Bard in Black and White lined the walls. Bard College Conservatory of Music alumnus Ming Aldrich-Gan ’10 regaled attendees with festive piano music against the scenery of Central Park. Bardians’ attire ranged from full-length evening gowns, to mini dresses and boots, to a full suit of tartan plaid. As dinner guests were ushered into the Allen Room they saw for the first time the spectacular view that was the backdrop for the evening’s program. A wall of glass 85 feet high gave the appearance that one was floating over Columbus Circle. Tables on tiers faced the stage and window beyond; each table was decorated with Hudson Valley anemones and multicolored, leather-bound classic books. The program started with the premiere of a short film, Education for the Common Good, commissioned by Bard for the occasion. Huge screens hung from the ceiling so everyone had a front-row seat. The film title was taken from of a book about Bard’s early history written by former president Reamer Kline. It was produced by alumni/ae and friends of the College to highlight Bard’s journey over the last 150 years and its vision for the future. Focusing on the widening scope of Bard and its myriad programs, the film demonstrates how Bard takes risks as an institution and effects real change in society and education. To see the film, go to www.bard.edu/media/commongood/. Charles P. Stevenson Jr., chair of the Board of Trustees, welcomed guests and noted that Bard has the courage to try things other colleges would not. He humorously described how he first met Leon Botstein and was persuaded that his support of Bard would be much more meaningful than supporting his own alma mater—Yale. Other speakers included Walter Swett ’96, president of the Board of Governors, Roger Scotland ’93, alumni/ae trustee, and Pia Carusone ’03, member of the Board of Governors. Bard faculty and students were represented, respectively, by Felicia Keesing, associate professor of biology, and a performance by students from The Bard College Conservatory of Music. The evening ended with George Soros, founder and chairman of Open Society Foundations, taking the stage to introduce Botstein, who thanked all who attended by saying: “We have much to be proud of in terms of what has been accomplished over the last 150 years. It is a joy to be in the presence of so many friends, colleagues, and alumni/ae, and I would like to thank everyone who came out to honor the College and who donated to this great institution and its unique and wide-ranging mission.” The Jubilee was an historic evening, raising over $1.1 million. It was a celebration of both the past and the anticipated success of the 150th Anniversary Campaign for Bard College, which has already raised $246 million of its $594 million goal. Speaking of looking to the future, the statement that really brought down the house, drawing applause and even a few tears, was Botstein’s closing remark: “When I came to Bard I was known as the youngest college president. . . . Let me say that I now fully intend to be the oldest.”
Photos: Cory Weaver
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david e. schwab ii ’52
what is a bardian? Devoted Bardian David E. Schwab II '52, in honor of Bard's 150th anniversary, was asked for his reflections on what constitutes a Bardian. Chair emeritus of the Bard College Board of Trustees, on which he has served since 1964, Schwab in 1969 was one of the first recipients of the Bard Medal, the Bard–St. Stephen's Alumni/ae Association's highest award, given to those whose achievements have significantly advanced the welfare of the College. He received an honorary doctor of civil law degree from the College in 2004, the year he stepped down as chair.
Bard College has been a significant part of my life for more than 60 years. I arrived as a first-year student in the fall of 1948 (and on my very first day, met my future wife, Ruth). Bard was 88 years old; I was 17. It seemed to me that Bard, originally St. Stephen’s College, had been founded around the time of Noah and the Flood. While at Bard, I met men (St. Stephen’s and Bard were all-male colleges until 1944) who had graduated 60 years earlier—in 1888. Is it possible that I am now the modern-day equivalent of those 1888 graduates? It is! And I am. Because of that personal history, I have been asked to undertake a clearly impossible task: define a Bardian. As the College celebrates the 150th anniversary of its founding, I have asked myself and others to identify the unifying trait or quality that allows each of us, including the few St. Stephen’s students still among us, to call ourselves “Bardians.” Just what is a Bardian? Perhaps it refers to the common location at which we go, or went, to college—Annandale-on-Hudson—a hamlet (at best), a post-office address, a campus. Annandale is the only physical place we share. The “Annandale” in Steely Dan’s “My Old School” is more than a word in a song; it’s a place we personally know and to which we personally relate—for some because it’s a current or recent experience, for others because it’s an experience of distant youth. But, for more than 30 years, students at Simon’s Rock College (now Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College) in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, have been Bardians. And there are Bardians in Saint Petersburg, Russia; in Jerusalem; in New York City; in the Central Valley of California; even in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, who have never seen Annandale. And they are Bardians! So the term must refer to something more than physical location. Maybe the unifying characteristic is contained in the careers Bardians engage in after college. St. Stephen’s graduates were once overwhelmingly Episcopal priests. They shared a common career. Later
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years produced few priests, but many writers, artists, poets, teachers, social workers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, research scientists, manufacturers, and on and on. There is no common career. Ethnicity? National origin? Religion? Socioeconomic advantages or disadvantages? No. Bardians come from everywhere and from many backgrounds. So, the answer does not lie in where Bard students come from— or what their backgrounds are—but, rather, in what they become after the experience of a Bard education. Economists created the concept of “value-added,” and educators, hitchhiking on the concept, define value-added as “the enhancement of the knowledge, skills, and abilities of students and the empowering of them as critical, reflective, lifelong learners.” It is the value-added of a Bard education that makes us all Bardians. And, what does that make us? First: We are literate and articulate. No one can receive a Bard education without learning to read carefully and write and speak clearly, concisely, and accurately. Even prior to the required—for entering undergraduates—Language and Thinking Program, now more than 20 years old, Bard teachers instilled in each student the habits (to use the current description of the Language and Thinking Program) of “thoughtful reading and discussion, clear articulation, accurate selfcritique, and productive collaboration.” Rarely do Bardians accept the word of the latest blogger (or even of the most eminent scholar) without question. Professors at Bard, in every generation, have insisted on critical analysis and precision in thought and expression. Second: We possess a willingness to experiment and take risks. The founders of the movement known as “progressive education,” based on the work of John Dewey and others, were eager to try out new methods of education at all levels, from preschool to graduate work—in other words, to experiment. Experimentation, of necessity, involves risk. In the decades of the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, and even beyond, Bard was a charter member of the progressive movement. Some argue that the progressive movement came to an end after the 1940s. Not at Bard. If one looks at “progressive education” as allowing the student to do whatever she or he wants, whenever she or he wants, then Bard was never progressive. Success at Bard has always required hard work. If, instead, one looks at the progressive movement as one that encourages various forms of education, such as (at the college level) individual attention to each student, one-on-one teaching, evaluation in forms other than grades from “A” to “F,” interdisciplinary courses, high school–early colleges, a music conservatory with required majors
Richard Muller '51, left, and David Schwab, center, in discussion with a friend during a field trip in January 1951 to study other colleges' systems of student government. The following semester, the Bard group of five received credit for rewriting the Bard community government constitution using their research. Photo: Courtesy of the Bard College Archives
in the liberals arts, then Bard has always been, and still is, progressive. Certainly, methods of teaching change, as does the substance of courses taught. But experimentation, innovation, and risk taking lie at the heart of Bard and Bardians. There are some Bardians who see the changes that have taken place in the College over the years as a relinquishment of cherished progressive ideas. Whether out of nostalgia for lost youth or a genuine belief in the excellence of the education they received, alumni/ae of all colleges are conservative; they want the institution to be exactly as it was when they were there. And, although it may appear counterintuitive, alumni/ae of progressive institutions are often the most conservative of all. They view lectures, required courses, increased size of a college, increased size of classes—even if those increases are modest as compared to similar institutions—to be an abandonment of progressive idealism. I urge such Bardians to look less to form and more to experimentation and risk taking as the central themes of the progressive movement. Times change and colleges must change with them. Third: We recognize the need for in-depth knowledge. Progressive educators of the 1920s and 1930s believed that students are better educated by proceeding from the specific to the general, from the practical to the abstract. In recent years, some of that thinking has been rejected. However, although Bard has had a First-Year Seminar, or its equivalent, for many years, the College has always believed that intense involvement in a discipline linked to the individual student’s interest yields more than a survey of a traditional canon can. Witness the Senior Project—a staple of a Bard education since the 1930s. Bardians are rarely dilettantes; they tend to know their subjects well. Finally: We appreciate the fine and performing arts. The arts are, and have been for many years, central to the Bard experience. One of the advantages of a small residential college is the ability to meet, know, and grow to understand people who think differently— sometimes radically differently. The economics major, accustomed to seeing the world in macro terms, and the student of government, accustomed to seeing the world in terms of political forces, meet (and get to know) the painter or poet who sees the world in more personal, intimate, terms, and expresses himself or herself accordingly. Through these connections, the life of each individual is expanded exponentially. As a result, Bardians, by and large, are curious and open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new people, new places. Bardians develop independence and a sense of self, an understanding of where they fit in a complex and ever-changing world. Maybe the answer to what makes us a group is that (again, by and large) Bardians reject the concept of group. We are not joiners; we are individuals. (I cannot resist, given my years of involvement with fund-raising for the College, noting that nonjoiners are not the easiest group from which to raise money—no matter how devoted they are to Bard and how generous they may be to other causes. In that sense, although in no other, I would urge Bardians to be joiners.) We Bardians are not joiners because we want to think for ourselves and make our own decisions—and we do. As I said, the task of defining a Bardian is impossible. Suggestions welcomed! what is a bardian? 21
22 james romm
james romm
the campaigns of alexander In the spring of 323 ... Alexander the Great and his army approached Babylon, the city that Alexander, the Macedonian king, had made the capital of his new-won empire, the former Achaemenid Persian territories. Alexander had returned the previous year from the land he called India (now Pakistan), his eastern boundaries firmly fixed; he was planning further campaigns in the West, as well as exploration of the waterways on his northeast frontier. He would never fulfill those plans. The journey to Babylon was to be the last he would make. An unknown ailment, perhaps a tropical disease, ended his life in Babylon on June 11, perhaps two months after his arrival in the city. Babylon was on friendly terms with the Macedonians. Alexander and his men had bivouacked there for several months in 331, after defeating the massive army of the vast Persian empire. Babylonians had welcomed Alexander as a liberator from Persian rule, and he had responded by vowing to later restore their Etemenanki, a shrine to the city’s principal god, Bel (also called Marduk), which the Persians had supposedly destroyed. (Evidence exists that the Persians were wrongly accused of this vandalism, but everyone in the ancient world believed them guilty.) But on his return to the city seven and a half years later, he met with a strangely cold reception. The Chaldaean priesthood, the very sect he had aided with his restoration project, now told him he would be cursed if he entered their city. After he scoffed at this warning, the Chaldaeans mysteriously conceded that Alexander could enter the city after all—but only from the east, not the west. The episode of Alexander’s entry into Babylon is presented here as it appears in the Landmark Arrian, a volume I edited under the direction of Robert Strassler, founder of the Landmark series. Arrian was a Greek writer of the second century .. who recorded Alexander’s campaigns in what is today our most reliable ancient account, even though it postdates by nearly five centuries the events it describes. Arrian follows the Macedonian king’s footsteps as he journeys from his home in the northern Aegean to the edge of the Punjab plain, and then halfway back again, to his fateful end in Babylon. Arrian based his narrative on two now-lost eyewitness accounts of Alexander’s march, written by Ptolemy, a close friend of Alexander who later became king of Egypt, and Aristoboulos, a low-level Greek officer serving in the Macedonian army; Arrian frequently informs his readers which of these two sources he is following for any given episode (as he does here). The Landmark Arrian stands fourth in a series begun in the 1990s by Strassler, an independent scholar, businessman, part-time faculty member at Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College, and chair emeritus of the Simon’s Rock Board of Overseers. The
remarkable design features of the series, consistent across all its volumes, are illustrated in the pages excerpted here. Every location mentioned in the text is shown on clear, easy-to-read maps, designed by Strassler, and comprehensive notes explain references that readers might find obscure. Headings across each page, and side notes in the margins, keep the reader oriented in time, space, and narrative context. Photographs of artifacts and sites accompany relevant episodes. Footnotes are numbered in a way that keys them closely to the text, using the three levels of indexing commonly assigned to classical prose works (“7.16.1,” for instance, means Book 7, paragraph 16, section 1.) The goal is to make these ancient narratives not just intelligible, but—with this new translation by Pamela Mensch—clear and compelling for modern readers, whatever their background in classical studies. Classicists, critics, and general readers have remarked on the clarity, beauty, and utility of the Landmark series. Arrian’s “painstaking reliance upon primary sources makes his Alexander surely the closest of all Alexanders to the original,” according to The Wall Street Journal, which calls the Landmark edition “sumptuously annotated and lavishly illustrated.” The New York Times called it “the most thrilling volume in this fine series.” The impact of the series promises to grow as more volumes are issued. Those interested in the series are encouraged to visit its website, www.thelandmarkancienthistories.com. Alexander’s march from 334 to 323 ... is a gripping story, better told by Arrian than by many of his modern adapters. Thanks to this edition of Arrian’s work, readers who want to follow that march will find their path easier, richer, and more rewarding. Preparing the book over the past five years has certainly been a rewarding journey for me. —James Romm, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics; editor, The Landmark Arrian: The Campaigns of Alexander
From the Book: THE LANDMARK ARRIAN: The Campaigns of Alexander edited by James Romm, Series Editor Robert B. Strassler Copyright ©2010 by Robert B. Strassler and James Romm Published by arrangement with Pantheon, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. Image: Retraite des Dix Mille Tabula, Guillaume de Lisle, 1723. David Rumsey Map Collection, courtesy of www.davidrumsey.com
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Alexander tries to heed the warning 7.16.5–8 Spring 323
Advancing toward Babylon, Alexander is met by Chaldaean priests, who tell him that oracles of the local deity Bel have warned him not to enter the city. If he must enter it, they caution, he should do so from the east, not the west. But fate, as Arrian supposes, was now leading Alexander toward his doom.
7.17.1–6 Spring 323
Alexander suspects that the priests are really seeking to protect their own financial prerogatives. According to one source, he tries to heed their warnings anyway, but is prevented from moving to the city’s eastern entrance by a stretch of marshy ground.
[5] Alexander now advanced to Babylon, and as he crossed the Tigris5a with his army, he was met by the Chaldaean soothsayers,5b who took him aside and asked him to halt his march to the city. They declared that they had received a prophecy from the god Bel 5c to the effect that an entry into Babylon at that time boded evil for Alexander. It is said that he answered them with a verse of the poet Euripides: “The best of seers is he who guesses well.” [6] In reply the Chaldaeans said, “Do not face west, sire, or lead your army into the city in that direction, but go around and enter on the east side.” [7] Even that approach presented difficulties, owing to the difficult terrain; but in any case the power of the divine was leading Alexander to the point beyond which he was fated to die. And perhaps it was better for him to depart at the high point of his fame and of the world’s longing for him, before any of the calamities of man’s lot befell him—the kind of calamities that, in all likelihood, prompted Solon to advise Croesus to look to the end of a long life and not to declare any human being happy until then. 7a[8] Hephaistion’s death had in fact been no small misfortune for Alexander, and it seems to me he would have wanted to die first rather than live on after losing Hephaistion, in the same way that I suppose Achilles would have chosen to die before Patroklos rather than become an avenger of his death. 8a [1] Alexander also suspected that self-interest, rather than prophetic power, prompted the Chaldaeans to try to prevent him from marching to Babylon at that time. For the temple of Bel, a vast structure built of baked brick bound together with pitch, stood in the center of Babylon. [2] On his return from Greece, Xerxes had razed it to the ground, as he had razed all the other Babylonian shrines.2a According to some writers, Alexander had intended to rebuild the temple on the earlier foundation, and that was why he ordered the Babylonians to remove the mound. Others maintain that he planned to build an even larger temple. [3] Since in his absence the men to whom the project had been entrusted had not applied themselves to it with any zeal, he intended to put the entire army to work on it. Large tracts of land and an enormous amount of gold had been dedicated to the god Bel since the time when the Assyrians ruled Babylon, [4] and this fund had long ago supplied the money for temple repairs and sacrifices to the god. But at this time the Chaldaeans were administering the god’s property, since there was nothing on which the revenue could be spent.
7.16.5a Babylon: Map 7.16 and Assyria inset; Tigris River: Map 7.16, Assyria inset. 7.16.5b In Greco-Roman usage the term Chaldaean refers to the Babylonian priestly caste, known for its practice of divination and astrology. See also n. 3.16.5b. 7.16.5c Bel, also known as Marduk or Bel-Marduk, was the chief god of the Babylonian pantheon and protector of the city of Babylon. 7.16.7a The reference is to a famous dialogue found in Herodotus’ Histories (1.30), in which the Athenian wise man Solon seeks to answer the question put by Croesus, king of the Lydian empire, as to who are the happiest human beings. Solon, to Croesus’ surprise, names no wealthy or powerful individuals but, rather, relative nobodies. The two men he judges second happiest in all human history are a pair of Argive brothers, Cleobis and Biton, who died suddenly at the peak of their youth, beauty, and glory, in answer to a prayer to the goddess Hera that they receive the best reward any mortal could aspire to. The lesson Solon draws from their example is that, since human life is subject to unpredictable troubles and misfortunes, the best fate one can hope for is to leave it at one’s peak and not to risk a
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reversal of fortune. Arrian somewhat distorts this teaching by applying it to Alexander, since part of Solon’s point is that the wealth and power that come with imperial rule do not increase the sum of one’s happiness. 7.16.8a Arrian here lends his support to the idea, first fostered by Alexander himself, that the bond between Alexander and Hephaistion paralleled the mythic friendship of Achilles and Patroklos (see 1.12.1 and n. 1.12.1d). 7.17.2a This attack on the Babylonian temples by Xerxes probably took place just before the Persian invasion of Greece in 480, rather than just after, as Arrian asserts. According to Herodotus (Histories 1.183), Xerxes plundered the golden statue of Bel associated with the great temple, probably as part of his suppression of a Babylonian revolt around 482 (though Herodotus does not say the temple was destroyed). The symbolic connections between the worship of Bel and the political control of Babylon are amply demonstrated by Alexander’s own earlier rebuilding of the temple and participation in Bel’s rites (see 3.16.4–5 and n. 3.16.4a).
Spring 323
Alexander’s plans for the temple of Bel
7.16. Digital reconstruction of ancient Babylon (top) as seen from the north, looking down the Processional Way toward the Ishtar Gate. The ziggurat of the Temple of Bel, known to the Babylonians as Etemenanki, is here shown intact, though in Alexander’s time it lay in ruins. The Ishtar Gate (bottom), rebuilt with the glazed bricks removed from Babylon, is now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
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Alexander suspects the priests’ motives
Spring 323
7.17. Plan of Babylon, showing the route by which Alexander attempted to enter the city from the east as the priests had advised but, stopped by the terrain, doubled back to the west entrance.
Alexander suspected that this was why they were opposed to his entering Babylon, lest the swift completion of the temple deprive them of the benefits of the revenue. [5] But Aristoboulos says that Alexander was nonetheless ready to obey them, at least when it came to making a detour at the entrance to the city, and that he made camp on the first day at the bank of the Euphrates; 5a the next day he advanced, keeping the river on his right, since he wished to pass the west-facing part of the city, turn there, and lead his forces eastward. [6] But the difficult terrain prevented such an approach, for anyone who comes up to the city from the west and then turns eastward will find the ground marshy and covered with shoal water. And thus, according to Aristoboulos, Alexander disobeyed the god partly by intention and partly not.
7.17.5a Euphrates River: Map 7.16, Assyria inset.
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Alexander the Great (marble detail), Pierre Puget, 1693 RĂŠunion des MuseĂŠs Nationaux/Art Resource, NY
the campaigns of alexander 27
On and Off Campus
College; and editor and author Roger Hodge provided analysis. Cosponsored by the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities at Bard College and the Hannah Arendt Center at the New School for Social Research, the conference took place March 4 and 5 in New York City.
Bard Launches High School Early College in Newark Bard College and the Newark Public Schools are planning to open Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) Newark, a new four-year school for grades 9 through 12. Based on the successful BHSEC Manhattan and BHSEC Queens, BHSEC Newark will be a selective, tuition-free public school that offers highly motivated students from all neighborhoods in Newark the opportunity to earn a New Jersey high school diploma, 60 college credits, and an associate in arts degree from Bard College. It is expected to open in September.
Benefit Concerts Aid Conservatory Dawn Upshaw, acclaimed soprano and artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at The Bard College Conservatory of Music, will perform on May 15 at the Fisher Center to benefit the Conservatory. The concert will also feature pianist Kayo Iwama, singers of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and the Collaborative Piano Fellows. More information about tickets for this benefit, as well as a complete list of Conservatory events, is at www.bard.edu/ conservatory. On March 5, more than 35 student musicians from the Conservatory performed with acclaimed singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant at the Fisher Center, as a benefit for the Conservatory’s Scholarship Fund. Merchant, a Hudson Valley resident, presented songs from her latest recording project, Leave Your Sleep (Nonesuch Records, 2010), and selected works from her extensive catalogue. For Leave Your Sleep, Merchant adapted the poetry of e.e. cummings, Ogden Nash, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Gerard Manley Hopkins into songs influenced by klezmer, bluegrass, chamber music, and folk. James Bagwell conducted the orchestra, which included special guests Uri Sharlin on piano and accordion and Erik Della Penna on guitar.
Arendt Center Examines Lying and Politics What is the role and danger of lying in politics today? Are lies political acts in which facts are denied and alternative realities created? By denying facts, does the political liar change the world, in order to make reality anew so that it conforms to our needs and desires? “Lying and Politics: What Is the Fate of Politics in the Age of Lying, Advertising, and Mass Market Deception?” took up those questions in March. Noted speakers, such as political theorist George Kateb, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University; Uday Singh Mehta, Clarence Francis Professor in the Social Sciences at Amherst
Natalie Merchant. Photo: Cory Weaver
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First Citizen Scientists Study Infectious Disease With an examination of how to reduce the global burden of infectious disease, the College inaugurated Citizen Science, an intensive introduction to the sciences now required for all first-year students. The course takes place during three weeks in January, and this year it brought noted scientists to campus for public lectures. Bonnie Bassler, professor of molecular biology at Princeton University and president of the American Society for Microbiology, offered “How Bacteria Talk to Each Other.” David Botstein, director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, gave a talk titled “The Fruits of the Genome Sequences for Society.” Chad Heilig, lead methodologist for the international Tuberculosis Trials Consortium, presented “Find TB to Stop TB: How Science Can Improve Global Policy to Curtail the TB/HIV Syndemic.” Carl Zimmer, lecturer at Yale University, author, and journalist, conducted a workshop on the art and craft of science writing.
Iris Awards Luncheon Funds BGC Scholarships Recipients of the 15th Annual Iris Foundation Awards for Outstanding Contributions to the Decorative Arts are Shelley and Donald Rubin, creators of the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, the premier museum in the Western world dedicated to the art of the Himalayas; John Harris, OBE, historian of architecture, gardens, and architectural drawings; Juliet Kinchin, curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Bernard Dragesco, art historian and founder of Galerie DragescoCramoisan, Paris. They were honored during a luncheon on April 6 at 583 Park Avenue in New York City. Proceeds from the luncheon go to graduate student scholarships and fellowships at the Bard Graduate Center. The awards are named for BGC founder and director Susan Weber’s mother, Iris Weber.
Pulitzer Winner Speaks on Campus Robert Olen Butler, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Tabloid Dreams, and Hell, read from his work in the Weis Cinema on March 7. Professor of Literature Bradford Morrow introduced Butler, whose visit was sponsored by the College’s Innovative Contemporary Fiction Reading Series.
Robert Olen Butler. Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00
Books by Bardians Jane Evelyn Atwood by Jane Evelyn Atwood ’70 photo poche Photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood (winner of Bard’s Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters) displays striking images of female inmates in American and French prisons; the blind, hospitalized, and amputated; the people of Haiti; and portraits of luminaries such as Jean Genet and James Baldwin.
The Ethics of Authorship: Communication, Seduction, and Death in Hegel and Kierkegaard Physics studies at St. Stephen’s College, ca. 1895. Photo: Bard College Archives
Archival Photo Exhibition Online The photo exhibition Bard in Black and White: Selections from the Bard College Archives is now online. A collaboration between archivist Helene Tieger ’85 and Tricia Fleming from the Office of Alumni/ae Affairs, the exhibition includes nearly 200 photographs from the College Archives and Special Collections. It was mounted on campus in October and also displayed at Bard’s 150th Jubilee in New York City in November. Some of the images were also featured in the Bardian’s Fall 2010 issue. The exhibition and catalogue can be viewed online at annandaleonline.org and will be displayed in the campus center during Commencement-Alumni/ae Weekend in May.
CCS Honors Two for Curatorial Excellence Helen Molesworth, chief curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, codirector of exhibitions and programs and director of international projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London, were honored with the 14th Annual Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. The awards—which reflect CCS Bard’s commitment to recognizing individuals who have defined new thinking, bold vision, and dedicated service to exhibition practice—were presented at a gala dinner on April 13 at Capitale in New York City. Molesworth’s research areas are concentrated largely within and around the problems of feminism, the reception of Marcel Duchamp, and the sociohistorical frameworks of contemporary art. Obrist has curated or cocurated more than 200 solo and group exhibitions and biennales throughout Europe, the United States, Asia, and Africa.
by Daniel Berthold, professor of philosophy fordham university press Examining the distinct writing styles of German idealist philosopher G. W. F. Hegel and Danish Christian existentialist Søren Kierkegaard, this book explores questions of authorship and responsibility, showing how each writer seduces and lures his readers and then disappears, essentially abandoning them to the text.
Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents by Ian Buruma, Henry R. Luce Professor of Human Rights and Journalism princeton university press Buruma dissects the explosive tensions between religion and democracy in America, Europe, and Asia, and maintains that religion and democracy can be compatible—but only with a vigilant separation of religious and secular authorities.
The Weight of the Ice: The Northeast Ice Storm of 2008 by Dave Eisenstadter ’05 surry cottage books Enlivened by more than 100 photographs, this book documents myriad stories of survival and heroism characterizing the Yankee response to the 2008 ice storm, which devastated New England and left millions without power for weeks.
Panorama by H. G. Adler, translated from the German by Peter Filkins, visiting professor of literature random house Panorama tells the story of Josef Kramer, from his bucolic childhood in World War I–era Bohemia and adolescence in a xenophobic German boarding school to his young adulthood in Nazi labor and extermination camps and postwar exile abroad.
The Correspondence of Paul Celan and Ilana Shmueli Translated from the German by Susan H. Gillespie, vice president, global initiatives; director, Institute for International Liberal Education, with an introduction by Norman Manea, Francis Flournoy Professor in European Studies and Culture sheep meadow press Written during the three years preceding Celan’s suicide in 1970, this passionate correspondence chronicles an intimate creative relationship, which began when Celan and Shmueli met as children in prewar Bukovina and continued sporadically for almost 40 years.
Helen Molesworth, left. Photo: John Kennard Hans Ulrich Obrist, right. ©Gerhard Richter 2010
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Gifts Sustain Programs, Initiatives
Center for Environmental Policy (CEP) Joins Peace Corps Program
Bard continues to innovate in the form of new and continuing programs, validated with the support of distinguished grants. The Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Program received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education Comprehensive Program. The grant will fund 75 percent of Preparing Teachers for These Times: Context-Specific Teacher Education Across the Domains, a three-year model for teacher preparation that addresses a national need to improve learning and close the achievement gap for all students. Environmental and Urban Studies, a new interdivisional major at Bard, has received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support its continued development. The EUS major furthers the College’s holistic approach to ecology and development through studies of the Hudson River estuary and valley, using the river as a laboratory for an integrated understanding of global environmental transformation. The Bard College Prison Initiative has obtained a grant from the TD Charitable Foundation (TD Bank) to support its work to restore higher education to the prisons of New York. BPI offers college classes and degrees inside three long-term, maximum-security prisons and two transitional medium-security prisons in New York State.
The Bard CEP has been accepted as a partner institution in the Peace Corps Fellows/USA program, a graduate fellowship program that offers financial assistance and other support to returned Peace Corps volunteers. Bard CEP already offers the Master’s International Program with Peace Corps, which allows graduate students to complete a part of their degree while they volunteer with the Peace Corps.
Change in Action Starts Series President Leon Botstein gave a talk, “Leading Change,” during a workshop for Change in Action, a leadership development program begun a year ago to provide students with practical and theoretical educational opportunities. Students polled about potential workshop facilitators had suggested Botstein. In “Leading Change,” he discussed channeling one’s passion into action by using organization and persuasion, and by encouraging risk taking. The session also addressed how to maintain commitment in the face of failure.
Critics Salute Bard Fiction Prize Recipient Karen Russell, recipient of the 2011 Bard Fiction Prize, is receiving rave reviews for her new novel, Swamplandia! (Alfred A. Knopf). “Vividly worded, exuberant in characterization, the novel is a wild ride: Russell has style in spades,” Emma Donoghue wrote in the February 6 New York Times Book Review. Russell received the annual Bard Fiction Prize for her short story collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Random House, 2006). Swamplandia! expands on “Ava Wrestles the Alligator,” a short story in the St. Lucy’s collection. The prize, established in 2001 by the College to encourage and support promising young fiction writers, consists of a $30,000 award and a semester-long appointment as writer in residence.
Karen Russell. Photo: Michael Lionstar
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Philosopher Explores Ties to Slave Trade Robert Bernasconi, one of the leading Continental philosophers in the United States, presented “Race, Slavery, and the Philosophers of the Enlightenment” on campus in February. His talk addressed race issues in the wake of controversies about whether John Locke’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade affected the writing of The Two Treatises of Government and whether Immanuel Kant’s failure to condemn publicly the use of African slaves in the Americas is evidence of racism. Bernasconi is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. The Human Rights Project and the Difference and Media Project cosponsored his appearance.
Pulitzer Correspondent Chronicles Iraq Report Anthony Shadid, New York Times foreign correspondent, was a guest of the Human Rights Project and Middle Eastern Studies Program in November. He delivered a lecture titled “Consequences Not Intended: Reporting on America’s War in Iraq.” Shadid has reported from most countries in the Middle East and, until December 2009, was Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes (2004 and 2010) for his Iraq coverage.
BPI Celebrates Graduation The Bard Prison Initiative marked its eighth annual commencement exercise on March 26 at Eastern New York Correctional Facility, Napanoch, New York. Six students received bachelor of arts degrees and 43 got their associate in arts degrees. William D. Brown, who retired that week as superintendent of the facility, received the Bardian Award. Gara LaMarche, president and CEO of Atlantic Philanthropies, was awarded the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service.
MFA Faculty Member Wins Newman Award Luca Buvoli, a faculty member in sculpture at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, is a recipient this year of the Barnett and Annalee Newman Award, a grant given to artists whose work embodies the rigorous and independent ethos of the Abstract Expressionist artist Barnett Newman.
Luca Buvoli. Photo: Sebastiano Piras
Human Rights Lectures Focus on Corporate Complicity Several speakers came to campus in February as guests of the Human Rights Project Lecture and Film Series. Valentina Azarov, lecturer in human rights and international law at Al-Quds University and the Al-Quds Bard Honors College in Liberal Arts and Sciences, presented “Corporate Complicity in Human Rights Violations.” Susie Linfield, associate professor of journalism and associate director of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program at New York University, gave a talk titled “The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence.” Her appearance was cosponsored by the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities.
Distillations and Siphonings
Tower Named Composer of Year Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts, has been honored as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s 2010–11 Composer of the Year. The orchestra will perform six of her works this season, and she will lead master classes with the university’s composition students.
by Amy Herzog ’94 university of minnesota press Drawing upon an eclectic selection of films, from French musicals and Scopitone jukebox films (forerunners to music videos) to Taiwanese cinema, Herzog investigates the power of music to disrupt and transform the formulaic and predictable narrative.
Scholars Review Future of Anglo-American Relationship
Three Ladies Beside the Sea
Richard Aldous, Eugene Meyer Professor of British History and Literature, and Ted Bromund, senior research fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, delivered a joint lecture, “Cameron, Obama, and the Future of the Anglo-American Relationship” as part of the James Clarke Chace Memorial Speaker Series. The Bard College Globalization and International Affairs Program and Foreign Affairs magazine presented the event in February at the SUNY Global Center in New York City.
by Rhoda Levine ’53, drawings by Edward Gorey new york review books In sophisticated and darkly humorous rhyme, this illustrated children’s tale tells of three eccentric Edwardian ladies living by the sea and their pursuit to find the sad reason one spends her life up in a tree.
Prose Wins Distinguished Literary Award Francine Prose, Distinguished Writer in Residence at the College, received the Washington University International Humanities Medal. The $25,000 prize is among the largest literary awards in the United States and honors the lifetime work of a noted scholar, writer, or artist who has made a significant and sustained contribution to the world of letters or the arts.
Alumni Share Their Learning, Talents In celebration of the International Year of Chemistry, the Bard Chemistry Program brought two alumni back to campus. Mahmud Hussain ’05 and James Morris ’07 spoke to students on their individual research in organometallic chemistry. Hussain earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and is now a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard. Morris is completing a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester. Composer-pianist Bruce Wolosoff ’77 returned to campus in early February to perform a recital of original works at Bard Hall.
Alumni/ae Power Thought-Provoking Blog A number of Bardians are behind a blog that is starting to make a name for itself. Established in March 2010, The Busy Signal (TheBusySignal.com) posts new original essays, short or long, focused on issues of the day—politics, policy, culture, and ideas—with the intention of starting conversations. Active in the venture are executive editor Jesse Myerson ’08, editor-inchief Henry Casey ’06, managing editor Julia Wentzel ’09, and staff writers including Akie Bermiss ’05, Andrea Greco ’06, Jacqueline Moss ’06, Meg Gatza ’07, Genya Shimkin ’08, Brian Fabry Dorsam ’09, and Katy Kelleher ’09; and guest contributors Colin Lissandrello ’08 and Dan Wilbur ’09. The Busy Signal has also featured interviews with Jonathan Cristol ’00, director of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program, and author Mat Johnson, who formerly taught at Bard.
by Jonathan Greene ’65 broadstone books Jonathan Greene’s 30th collection in a career spanning five decades represents a poet at the peak of his art: minimal verse appears on the page in elegant simplicity, chronicling the pleasures and trials of rural life with idiosyncratic observations and sly humor.
Dreams of Difference, Songs of the Same: The Musical Moment in Film
Zone by Mathias Énard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell ’90 open letter Widely acclaimed in France, Énard’s epic novel—written as one long, compulsive sentence, which Mandell translates vividly into English— takes place within the mind of a Croatian soldier turned French spy on an overnight train journey.
The Diviner’s Tale by Bradford Morrow, professor of literature houghton mifflin harcourt In Morrow’s newest novel, a literary thriller, struggling single mother Cassandra Brooks is gifted by bizarre divinations that eerily foretell the future while propelling her into a troubling past, forcing her to take control of her life and finally face off with a real-life, long-lost killer.
Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History by Andrew J. Nicholson ’94 columbia university press Challenging the postcolonial theory that the belief system known as Hinduism was created by 19th-century British imperialists, Nicholson posits that a unified Hinduism has its roots between the 12th and 16th centuries C.E.
The Elgar Companion to Hyman Minsky edited by Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, president, Levy Economics Institute, and Jerome Levy Professor of Economics; and L. Randall Wray, Levy senior scholar edward elgar These essays are by economists whose ideas and research have been influenced by the work of Hyman P. Minsky, who was a Distinguished Scholar at Bard’s Levy Economics Institute. Minsky’s work has seen a resurgence in light of the worldwide financial meltdown.
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Bard in Brooklyn Hosts Meetup
Hecht Scholar Focuses on Caesar
Bard in Brooklyn held a gathering in February at Melville House Publishing in DUMBO, the workplace of cohost Kelly Burdick ’04. Burdick and cohosts Dumaine Williams ’03 and KC Serota ’04 greeted nearly 50 alumni/ae at the event, from a member of the class of ’72 through the most recent crop of transplants. Bard in Brooklyn (BiB) has set out to connect the more than 900 Bard alumni/ae who live in the borough—to each other and to Bard. Watch annandaleonline.org, for upcoming BiB events.
Garry Wills, professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University, delivered the Anthony Hecht ’44 Lectures in the Humanities at Bard, March 7–10. The series was rescheduled from October. Wills, the author of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Why I Am a Catholic, among many other books, spoke on “Rome and Rhetoric: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.” An additional lecture took place on March 9, at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. The biennial lecture series honors Anthony Hecht ’44 by reflecting his lifelong interest in literature, music, the visual arts, and U.S. cultural history.
Philosophical Society Honors Professor Francisca Oyogoa, professor of sociology and African-American studies at Bard College at Simon’s Rock: The Early College, received the John Hope Franklin Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation, “Do Employers Have a Race? Employers’ Racial Ideology and the Marginalization of Black Male Workers in the Pullman Railroad Company, 1858–1969.” The American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, presents the award.
Energy-Producing Art Proposal Wins World Prize Robert Flottemesch ’02, Jen DeNike MFA ’02, and two partners won the 2010 Land Art Generator Initiative design competition for their proposal, Lunar Cubit, a public art work that would also generate electricity. The initiative received hundreds of submissions from more than 40 countries for public art installations with the potential for large-scale clean energy generation that could power thousands of homes. Lunar Cubit consists of a ring of eight pyramids circling a central pyramid. More about the proposal can be found at www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/1286.
Private Tour of the Whitney for Alumni/ae Barbara Haskell, curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, gave 30 Bard alumni/ae and their guests a private, after-hours tour of the museum in February, focusing on Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time, which she cocurated.
Split Between Rights Movement, Race Examined International human rights lawyers Matiangai Sirleaf and Tendayi Achiume analyzed how the human rights movement has failed to engage with race, during a daylong series of panels and presentations at Bard focusing on basic human rights and featuring noted activists and scholars. Otis Gaddis, an attorney, scholar at Yale Divinity School, and Episcopal priest in training, also appeared at the February 19 event and spoke about “Is Post-Black the New Black?” The day’s events were cosponsored by the Chinua Achebe Center for African Writers and Artists at Bard College, Institute for International Liberal Education, Dean of Student Affairs, and Human Rights Project.
Conference Honors Team for Sportsmanship The men’s soccer team received the Sportsmanship Award for the fall 2010 semester from the Skyline Conference, which also recognized several Bard student athletes for excellence. Jacob Hartog ’12 won Player of the Year honors in men’s soccer; teammate Deven Connelly ’12 made the First Team as a goalkeeper. Jean Wong ’14 was named Rookie of the Year in women’s tennis, and she made the First Team. Teammates Sofia Commito ’12 and Nelle Plotkin ’14 made the Second Team. In women’s soccer, Perry Scheetz ’13 and Kim Larie ’12 made the First Team; Maddy Huggins ’14 made the Second Team. In women’s volleyball, Rachel Van Horn ’12 earned Second Team recognition.
Publisher, Professor Extol Italian Lyric Poet Jonathan Galassi, publisher at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, read from his acclaimed new translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s Canti at the Fisher Center. He was accompanied by Associate Professor of Italian Joseph Luzzi, who read the poetry of Leopardi (1798–1837) in the original Italian. Together, they discussed the Canti’s fascinating composition process and Leopardi’s prominence among European lyric poets. Bard’s Italian Studies Program sponsored the event, which took place on February 23.
Oldest Living Alumnus Visits Campus
Jonathan Galassi and Professor Joseph Luzzi. Photo: Karl Rabe
The Reverend John Mears ’35 and his wife, Dorothy. Photo: Sasha Boak-Kelly
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The Reverend John Mears ’35 and his wife, Dorothy, visited Bard last fall for the first time since his graduation 75 years before. At 98, Father Mears is believed to be the oldest living alumnus of the institution (the college changed its name from St. Stephen’s to Bard during his time here). He was delighted to visit the parts of campus that have changed little: Stone Row, Ludlow, the original library building, Bard Hall, and the Chapel, and he greatly enjoyed
seeing the newer buildings, especially the Fisher Center. He regaled those he met with stories of his years here, including his work on campus—serving in the commissary, maintaining the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, and even walking Warden B. I. Bell’s dogs. At the chapel, he exchanged stories with Bard Chaplain Bruce Chilton ’71, and met with Bard archivist Helene Tieger ’85, who brought along his yearbook and other documents and photographs so that Father Mears could identify his friends and reminisce.
Dawn Upshaw Sings Works by Tower, Alumni/ae Dawn Upshaw, acclaimed soprano and artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard Conservatory, joined singers from the VAP in a special concert at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City on March 17. The performance featured the first piece written for voice by Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts, and works composed by current students and recent alumni/ae, including Yiwen Shen ’10, Stefan Weisman ’92, and Matt Schickele ’92. The event received a glowing New York Times review.
Rare Film Prints Strengthen Collection Bard is now home to 60 rare English-subtitled film prints that constitute a microhistory of Taiwanese cinema from the 1950s to the 1990s. “The Taiwanese cinema of the 1980s and ’90s was one of the strongest in the world. This collection reflects the range and sophistication of filmmaking in Taiwan both before and during that period,” said Richard Suchenski, assistant professor of film and electronic arts, who coordinated the acquisition from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office and supervises the collection.
Up-to-the-Minute Scores Now on Athletics Website The Bard College Department of Recreation and Athletics has launched www.bardathletics.com, a website with information about varsity sports teams, club and intramural sports, gym and exercise class schedules, and community membership information, as well as photo galleries, video, social networking, and “Live Stats,” providing real-time play-by-play of varsity contests.
Lecture Explores Urban Geography of New Orleans Richard Campanella, associate academic director of Bard’s Urban Studies in New Orleans Program, presented “Urban Geographies of New Orleans: Connecting Nature, Culture, and Economy” during a February 14 visit to Bard. He is associate director and research professor at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane University in New Orleans and author of Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm (2006).
Procedural Elegies / Western Civ Cont’d/ by Joan Retallack, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Humanities roof books Chosen by Artforum as one of the best books of 2010, this collection of poet Joan Retallack’s selected works from the 1970s to date presents an exhilaratingly lyric, exquisitely elegiac, and intelligently humorous homage to poetic experimentation, civilization, and procedure.
Town by Kate Schapira ’01 factory school In this innovative book of poems, Schapira creates an intricate portrait of a made-up town built upon single facts—sometimes contradictory but always true—contributed by fellow writers, friends, and family. The result is a poetic vision stratified by the infrastructure, protocol, and scruples of a very real America.
Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era by Ezra Shales BGC ’07 rivergate books This volume traces the innovative history of the Newark Public Library’s experimental art exhibitions and the founding of the Newark Museum Association, which intertwined art, culture, literacy, civics, and consumption in a tumultuous industrial city at the turn of the 20th century.
My Hollywood by Mona Simpson, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature alfred a. knopf Simpson’s provocative novel alternates between the voices of composer and new mother Claire, recently transplanted from New York to L.A. by her husband’s television writing career, and her nanny Lola, whose caregiver job in America supports her husband and five children in the Philippines, and delves into the delicate balance of disparate yet interdependent social worlds.
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America by Matt Taibbi ’92 spiegel & grau At turns hilarious and horrifying, this trailblazing book by Rolling Stone contributing editor Taibbi traces the roots and untangles the web of the elite “grifter class,” the network of political and economic power grabbers who are at the helm of this country.
Legal Tender: Love and Legitimacy in the East German Cultural Imagination by John Griffith Urang ’97 signale In this original and unconventional study, Urang analyzes a textured selection of East German films and novels to show how romance and love stories played an intricate cultural role in Stalinist-influenced East Germany between 1949 and 1989. Richard Campanella. Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00
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COMMENCEMENT AND ALUMNI/AE WEEKEND May 20–22, 2011
Join this year’s alumni/ae honorees Richard F. Koch '40 (Bard Medal), Richard C. Friedman '61 (John and Samuel Bard Award), Adam Yauch '86 (Kellogg Award), Pia Carusone '03 (Dewey Award), Jean M. French (Bardian Award), Richard M. Sherman '49 and Robert B. Sherman '49 (Doctors of Fine Arts) for the weekend’s happenings and highlights, including:
Annandale Roadhouse Bertelsmann Campus Center, Friday night only, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
BardCorps Airstream Record an audio history of your time at Bard.
Live Music Including the American Symphony Orchestra at the Fisher Center, Bard bands at the Annandale Roadhouse on Friday night, and the annual Jazzfest in Blum Hall on both Friday and Saturday.
Photography Retrospective: Peter Kenner '66 Reception, Woods Studio, Saturday, 11 a.m.
BBQ Celebration Catch up with classmates at reunion receptions, feast at the barbecue, be wowed by fireworks, and dance the night away at Bard's biggest and best annual party.
Details at annandaleonline.org/commencement Photo: Pete Mauney ’93, MFA ’00
Class Notes
Fringe Theater Festival in Scotland. He now works in arts and education in his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Editor’s note: More extensive versions of many of these notes and additional notes
Mary Kate Donovan lives in Madrid. Arriving in 2009 as a Fulbright grantee, she is now a master’s candidate in Spanish and Latin American literature and culture at New York University’s Madrid campus.
are posted on AnnandaleOnline.org, the Bard alumni/ae website. Class Notes of any length, with accompanying photos, may be posted there.
’10 1st Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Brad Whitmore, 845-758-7663 or whitmore@bard.edu After a summer internship in San Francisco, Charlotte Ashlock moved to Rochester, New York, where she works for AmeriCorps, doing afterschool programming for teens in an inner-city library. Justin White is an adviser in the College Success Office of the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, providing academic, financial, and career guidance to local college students.
Elen Flügge is pursuing a master’s degree in sound studies at the University of Arts in Berlin, Germany, where she is active as an installation artist and writer. Chris Herring is pursuing a doctorate in sociology at UC Berkeley, after having completed a master’s degree at Central European University in Budapest and worked in New York City government. Patricia Pforte is working on a master’s degree in museum studies at New York University. This spring, she is interning for the Tenement Museum’s “Tenement Talks” program. Ace Salisbury’s short film A Headless Nun on a Swing Set that Is on Fire, a satire of European cinema, won the award for Best Foreign Film at the 2010 Zero Film Festival in New York City.
’09 Nes¸e Lisa S¸enol completed her master’s degree in comparative literature and literary theory at the University of Pennsylvania in December 2010. She continues to work on her Ph.D., which she aims to receive by 2015. In June, Dan Whitener released a CD entitled On the Tracks, which is available through many online distributors, including iTunes.
’08 Class correspondent: Patricia Pforte, patricia.pforte@gmail.com Robin Brehm lives in Brooklyn, where she’s finishing her first year of the dual M.D./M.P.H. program at the SUNY Downstate College of Medicine. Nathan Churchill-Seder and Sarah Mercer ’07 were married in November 2010 in Seattle. Bardians in attendance included Emily Shornick, Rachel Sanders, and Ella Reily Stocker; Charlotte Hendrickson ’07 and Shraddha Rosidivito ’07; Lilah Steece ’06 and Victoria Jacobs ’06; and, of course, Nathan’s mom, Bard dance professor Jean Churchill. In 2010 Alex Davis worked as sound tech for a one-man show touring two theater festivals in Europe. In August he also worked tech with the Edinburgh
Sam Scoppettone and Reanna Corinne Blackford ’07 are studying city and regional planning at Cornell University. Both plan to earn their master’s degrees there in 2012. In October 2010, Emily Shornick spoke on a Levi’s Photo Workshop panel organized by Spin magazine, on the topic of breaking into music photography. Emily lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and works in the photo department at Lucky magazine. Basha Smolen married Gus Hoffman in early 2011. She is working in conjunction with the BBC, producing a short documentary series on fortune-tellers on New York’s Lower East Side. Jack Woodruff is serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, working on organic fertilizer production with groups of sugar cane growers.
’07 Class correspondent: Reanna Blackford, reanna.blackford@gmail.com Caity (Cook) Bolton completed her master’s degree in Near Eastern studies at New York University in May 2010 and works with Sudanese refugees in Cairo. She was right in the middle of things when the Egyptian revolution toppled Mubarak’s government, blogging on the events in Cairo at owayfarer.wordpress.com. Desiree (Porter) Costello lives in Portland, Oregon, and has three jobs—at a Montessori toddler community, at an organization called Backline (www.yourbackline.org), and with PDX Doulas. She married her “high school drama club crush” in August. Stephen Dickinson spent a semester in Buenos Aires and is working toward a master’s degree in architecture at Arizona State University. His thesis explores urban issues, marginal spaces, and societal values. Christine George graduated from St. John’s University School of Law in June, and is now in a law librarianship program at the University of Texas at Austin. Allyson Grennille received a master of arts in social sciences degree from the University of Chicago in 2008. Her thesis focused on the construction of authority in alternative news outlets.
Jack Woodruff ’08 working with Ecuadorian sugar cane farmers as a Peace Corps volunteer. Photo: courtesy of Jack Woodruff
This spring, Nevada Griffin completes his final year of a joint master’s program in international relations and public health at Yale University.
class notes 35
Shayna Hall lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her boyfriend. She completed her master’s degree at the University of Michigan and works for a juvenile drug court as a therapist. JP Lor is a nonprofit fund-raising professional at the Chinese American International School in San Francisco. He is preparing for AIDS/LifeCycle, a seven-day, 545-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in June.
Nicholas Ugbode finished a master’s degree in business from the University of London. He works in public relations and lives in New York City. Riley Willis has worked in the field of global health since graduating from Bard. She is now part of the program design team at a women’s health organization in New York City.
’06 Howard Megdal and his wife, Rachel, are proud parents of Mirabelle Hope, born in March 2010. His second book, Taking the Field, will be published by Bloomsbury in May. Ananta Neelim lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has experienced his first summertime Christmas and New Year’s Eve. He is training to be an economist at Monash University. Formerly a faculty member at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Nicholas Risko is now a medical student at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Tanya Rosen works as an associate conservation scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society in Montana, focusing on human-wildlife conflicts. She also works for Project Snow Leopard in Pakistan and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Bonnie Ruberg is a comparative literature Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Scott Jon Siegel, who is a game designer with Playdom. Scott spoke at the Montreal International Game Summit in November 2010, and was named one of Develop magazine’s “30 Under 30” for 2010. Leah Schrader joined Teach for America in Phoenix, where she taught fifthgraders with emotional difficulties. She now works in Baltimore as a science teacher at a school for integrated arts. Lillian Slezak works at Art in America in New York, where she “regularly employs the writing skills and enthusiasm for contemporary art” that she developed at Bard. Karen Soskin manages Other Music in New York City, and tour-manages bands for her all-women-run company, Strength In Numbers (www.strengthin123.com), which provides tour management, books tours, and releases records by female-identified/queer artists.
The wedding of Desiree (Porter) Costello ’07 and Salvatore Costello (fourth and third from right) in August 2010. Others, from left to right: Izzy Sederbaum, Tracy Potter-Finns ’10, Litta Naukushu ’08, Genya Shimkin ’08, Julia Wentzel ’09. Photo: Emily Mucha
36
5th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Brad Whitmore, 845-758-7663 or whitmore@bard.edu Class correspondent: Kirsten Dunlaevy, kdunlaevy@gmail.com Shirin Khosravi is the field director for the Hudson Valley chapter of the Human Rights Campaign (shirin.khosravi@hrc.org), working toward equal marriage rights in the state of New York in 2011. She’s also heading up the Reunion Committee for the fifth reunion of ’06, and hopes to see you there. Gordon Stevenson is an artist and designer living and working in New York City. In early 2011 he had a show at Ochi Gallery in Sun Valley, Idaho. Under the name Baron Von Fancy, he designs clothing and other objects that can be found in stores both nationally and internationally. Max Zbiral Teller has been in Mumbai, India, for more than a year, studying with renowned Indian classical musician Panditji Shivkumar Sharma. His studies have been made possible by the American Institute of Indian Studies. To hear what he’s up to, visit www.maxzt.com.
’05 Ashley Bathgate earned a master’s degree and artist diploma in 2008 from the Yale School of Music. Soon after, she became the cellist in the award-winning, electro-acoustic ensemble Bang on a Can All-Stars, and has been touring internationally with them ever since. Her newest side project is a duo called TwoSense with pianist Lisa Moore. Olivia Tamzarian, study abroad coordinator with Learning Programs International in Austin, Texas, presented a lecture at the Bard High School Early College Manhattan in January on the benefits of studying abroad.
’04 Joe Vallese (MAT ’06) coedited What’s Your Exit? A Literary Detour Through New Jersey. Published in May 2010, the book was named a top “Summer 2010
Jean-Marc Gorelick ’02 monitoring Guinea’s presidential elections, summer 2010. Photo: Rita Pavone
Beach Read” by NJ Monthly magazine, and had a cover story in Inside Jersey magazine’s “Literary NJ” issue.
’03 Jibade-Khalil Huffman presented a series of photographs as part of the exhibition Manual Transmission in July 2010 in New York City, as well as the poem-as-slideshow-as-performance, Monster Island Czar, at MoMA/P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in January. He was awarded a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency for 2010–11. In the fall of 2010, Tanya Zaharchenko started a Ph.D. program in Slavonic studies at Cambridge University as a member of King’s College. For more info about the collaborative, transdisciplinary research project she has joined, visit www.memoryatwar.org.
’02 Class correspondent: Toni Fortini Josey, toni.josey@gmail.com Carla Aspenberg displayed a print of a shattered glass plate in the group exhibition New Prints 2011 / Winter at the International Print Center New York. Timothy Goldberg received his doctoral degree in mathematics from Cornell University in August. A visiting assistant professor of mathematics at LenoirRhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, his thesis was titled “Hamiltonian actions in integral Kahler and generalized complex geometry.” Jean-Marc Gorelick spent one month in Guinea, West Africa, in the summer of 2010, working as a democracy officer in the Bureau for Africa at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Jean-Marc monitored Guinea’s first round of presidential elections on June 27 and assisted the USAID mission in coordinating its elections assistance activities.
’00 Levi Stolove is an award-winning wedding photographer—a PDN Top Knots winner, WPJA member, and well published in magazines and blogs specializing in weddings.
’97 Class correspondent: Julia Wolk Munemo, juliamunemo@mac.com Nora Kovacs married Peter Isaac last September in Budapest, Hungary. Many of her friends from Bard attended the event, including Tamas Papp, Zsofia Rudnay, Zoltan Bruckner ’94, and Ana Pericic, Edina Deme, Ivan Lacko, and Radek Dyntar (all PIEs of 1995–96). Nora lives in Vienna and works at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. While studying music in Brazil, Kenny Kozol met his wife, Sandra. They now live in Boston with Sandra’s daughter, Samia (11), and Kenny and Sandra’s two children, Madalena (2) and Benicio (1 year in October). Kenny plays music with his Latin band, Ten Tumbao (www.tentumbao.com), is working on a CD of original children’s music, and teaches music and Spanish at Brookline High School. Ana Martinez is traveling around the world with her husband, Bryan, and their 5-year-old son, Ricky. Follow their adventures on their blog: www. riderbymyside.com. Meri Pritchett has entered her second career. After a successful decade as an Emmy-nominated, docu-reality television writer, producer, and director in Los Angeles, she is now a life enrichment manager at a nursing home in Austin, Texas. Adam Weiss is an architect with Wilson Architectural Group in Houston and is happily married to Lisa Wildermuth.
’96 Dara Marcus will be spending the summer in Berlin and Beirut, and welcomes any Bardians in those parts of the world to contact her at darabmarcus@yahoo.com. Skye McNeill is pursuing her master of fine arts degree in graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She recently designed four book covers for Rescue Press in Milwaukee. Visit www.skyemcneill.com for info and images. Molly Schulman lives in Los Angeles, where she is busy restoring her 1885-era house and trying to get her paper goods company off the ground. You can see her work at www.mshoelace.com. Molly writes a collaborative blog with her sister, Amanda Schulman Brokaw ’99, which recounts the adventures of two Brooklyn boys through short stories and illustrations—visit ZekeAndDestroy.wordpress.com.
15th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Tricia Fleming, 845-758-7089 or fleming@bard.edu Class correspondent: Gavin Kleespies, gwkleespies@hotmail.com In April 2011 Christina Amato completed a six-month internship in book conservation at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. She enjoyed working on rare books such as a 17th-century recipe book and a 15th-century incunabulum.
’01 10th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Sasha Boak-Kelly, 845-758-7407 or boak@bard.edu Class correspondent: Sung Jee Yoo, sujeyo@gmail.com Hannah (Adams) Burque and Christopher Burque were married on August 28, 2010, in their hometown of Chicago. Bardian guests included Ursula Arsenault, Ashley Kammrath, Matt Lucas, and Sam Morgan ’03. Hannah and Chris split their time between Los Angeles and Chicago, run a music licensing company together, and raise Chris’s daughter (now Hannah’s stepdaughter), Estella. Nick Jones’s play The Coward, a comedy about 18th-century England’s dueling culture, had a run in New York City in late 2010 at LCT3, a Lincoln Center initiative featuring the work of emerging playwrights and directors. Hannah (Adams) Burque ’01 and Christopher Burque at their Chicago wedding in August 2010 with Hannah’s new stepdaughter, Estella. Photo: Otto Arsenault
class notes 37
Gavin W. Kleespies was the coeditor of Rediscovering the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House, a collection of short essays by some of the top preservation scholars in New England on the extensive investigation of one 17th-century house. Amy Kosh lives in Keene Valley, New York, where she makes art and teaches photography and yoga. Her photography has been included in exhibitions in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the north country. At the end of 2010 Amie Siegel received the prestigious James and Audrey Foster Prize from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. She also was one of 18 artists in The Talent Show, an exhibition at MoMA P.S.1 earlier this year.
’95 Noah Mullette-Gillman has published his first novel, The White Hairs, available at Amazon.com, lulu.com, and Barnes & Noble.
’94 Last summer Tara Lynn Wagner and her husband Josh Payne welcomed their daughter, Stella Rae, into the world. Five weeks later, Tara Lynn spent the week in Rhinebeck, reporting on the Chelsea Clinton wedding for NY1.
’86 25th Reunion: May 20-22, 2011 Staff contact: Jane Brien ’89, 845-758-7406 or brien@bard.edu Class correspondent: Chris LeGoff, cak64@comcast.net Over the winter China Jorrin exhibited photographs from her Hudson River Psychiatric Center project at Gallery on the Green in Pawling, New York, and at the Hudson Opera House in Hudson, New York. In April she had a show of her Polaroids in Los Angeles.
’85 Philip Pucci has secured the exclusive worldwide motion picture rights to the life story of Andy Kessler, legendary New York City skateboarder, graffiti artist, and skate park designer. Philip is in development talks to produce a major motion picture based on Kessler’s story. Reach him at Philip@PhilipPucci.com. Leonard Schwartz is professor of literary arts at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where he lives with his wife, Zhang Er, who also teaches at Evergreen, and their daughter, Cleo. His most recent book is The Sudden, from Chax Press.
’83 ’92 Class correspondent Andrea J. Stein, stein@bard.edu
’91 20th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Jane Brien ’89, 845-758-7406 or brien@bard.edu
’89 Class correspondent: Lisa DeTora, detoral@lafayette.edu Peter Criswell is executive director of Big Apple Performing Arts, the umbrella organization for the 250-member New York City Gay Men’s Chorus and the 45-member LGBTQ Youth Pride Chorus. He recently completed his master of science in leadership and strategic management from Manhattanville College.
Jesse Browner’s fourth novel, Everything Happens Today, will be published in the United States and Italy by Europa Editions in October. A 2007 recipient of an Albee Foundation fellowship, George Hunka directed his play What She Knew in New York in December. In January, EyeCorner Press published his first book, Word Made Flesh: Philosophy, Eros and Contemporary Tragic Drama. He married pianist Marilyn Nonken in 2008; they have two daughters, Goldie Celeste and Billie Swift. Tim Long premiered his film Key West: Bohemia in the Tropics at the Tropic Cinema in Key West in October 2010. Arlo Haskell ’00, media director at the Key West Literary Seminar, was a consultant on the film, which had its broadcast premiere on Florida PBS in November.
’82 ’87 Class correspondent: David Avallone, ednoon@aol.com
Bill Abelson is putting finishing touches on his third screenplay, Dr. Canard, a romantic comedy set in contemporary Seattle. An earlier script, The Blacktivist (cowritten with Mark Kirby), reached the quarterfinals of the Filmmakers International Screenwriting Competition. Additionally, this spring marks Bill’s 20th season as public address announcer for the University of Washington baseball team. John Leaman released another recording by his electronica project Anesthesia Lounge. The CD, Under the Influence, can be found on the website anesthesialounge.com and elsewhere on the Web.
’81 30th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Jane Brien ’89, 845-758-7406 or brien@bard.edu Kristin Bundesen is happily living in Santa Fe, after completing her doctorate at the University of Nottingham, UK. She teaches at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.
’80
Orange Seats, China Jorrin ’86
38
Linda Mensch lives in Warwick, New York. She directs the Moving Company Modern Dance Center, and also teaches dance for Road Recovery Foundation (www.roadrecovery.org), working with kids who are wards of the state. Linda’s line of jewelry can now be found in Whole Foods and other shops.
’79 East Chicago Central High School teacher Gale Carter spent part of the summer of 2010 taking part in the United Kingdom Parliament’s Teachers’ Institute—one of only three teachers selected from outside the UK for this honor. She spent a week observing Parliament, met with several of its members, and met then newly elected Prime Minster David Cameron at 10 Downing Street.
’78 Cassandra Chan’s new book, A Spider on the Stairs, was released in July by St. Martin’s Minotaur. In honor of the release, Cassandra has learned Dreamweaver and put up a new website: www.cassandrachan.com. Gretchen Fierle has been appointed chief communications officer of HealthNow New York, Inc., the parent company of BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York and BlueShield of Northeastern New York.
Regan O’Connell Burnham writes: “Still in Western North Carolina enjoying the flute, the grandchildren, and working on a book, heaven help me! Good health is enjoyed, but not taken for granted. Greetings to all.” Pierre Joris, who commutes between his Bay Ridge home and Albany, where he teaches Heidegger and the poets, often stops at Bard for lunch with his son, Miles ’14. Eugene Kahn is working on a novel about the gay scene in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Liz Larkin is serving as president of the Faculty Advisory Council at the Sarasota-Manatee campus of the University of South Florida. Peter Minichiello has relocated to New York City from Boston, where for more than five years he was the director of development for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc. He is now senior vice president for development at New York Downtown Hospital, part of the New York–Presbyterian Healthcare System. He also has a home in Stuyvesant Falls, New York, in Columbia County.
’77 The White City, a ballet choreographed by Tony Award winner Anne Reinking to music composed by Bruce Wolosoff, was staged in Chicago in March.
’75 Sculptural works by Jim Perry were included in an exhibition in Hopewell, New Jersey, in October. Jim’s work was featured in the Whitney Biennial Exhibition in 1975, after which he took a three-decade hiatus from the art world, working for the New York Times. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife, Hetty Baiz ’72.
’73 Leslie Phillips’s husband, Glen Ceely, died in May 2009. They had three children, Seth, Courtney, and the late Robbie. Leslie’s sister, Anne Phillips ’69, died in 2010 (see In Memoriam, this issue). Leslie lives in Edmonds, Washington, with her son Seth. Her daughter, Courtney, lives nearby in downtown Seattle. Leslie enjoys hearing from Bard friends and can be reached at lesliephillips@mac.com.
’72 Catharin Dalpino is now the Joan M. Warburg Professor of International Relations at Simmons College, and remains a visiting fellow in Southeast Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She continues to advocate for assistance to Vietnamese people affected by Agent Orange and is conducting research on how we teach the Vietnam War to the generation of Americans born after 1975.
’71
Norman Weinstein’s “Introduction to Humanities” course at the College of Western Idaho is Bard-oriented. He begins with Steely Dan’s “Caves of Altamira,” uses Tom Meyer’s translation of the Dao de Jing, and concludes with Pierre Joris’s essay on the poetry of the diaspora.
’63 Class correspondent: Penny Axelrod, drpennyaxelrod@fairpoint.net 20th Century Fox has purchased the rights to The Locator novels by Richard Greener. The main character in the book series, Walter Sherman, will be introduced as a character in the FOX television series Bones early in 2011. A spin-off series featuring Sherman and using Greener’s novels is planned for the following season.
’62 Eve Sullivan, founder of Parents Forum (www.parentsforum.org), was named the Arminta Jacobson Parenting Education Professional of the Year by the Texas Association of Parent Educators. Eve writes that she is “delighted to be a grandmother of two darling little girls,” both living in the Boston area, close to her home in Cambridge.
’59 Carolee Schneemann was honored with one of six Lifetime Achievement Awards for 2011 by the Women’s Caucus for Art, putting her in the company of past recipients Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Nevelson, Alice Neel, and many other distinguished visual artists.
40th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011 Staff contact: Anne Canzonetti ’84, 845-758-7187 or canzonet@bard.edu
’57
In early 2011, Larry Merrill had a one-man exhibition of photographs, Looking at Trees, at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York.
In the fall of 2010 Mari Lyons had her 14th one-person exhibition, Sunsets/Hillsides, at the First Street Gallery in New York, receiving a glowing review in the Wall Street Journal. She continues to live and work in both New York City and Woodstock.
’70 In June, Steven Miller, executive director of the Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey, received the Honey and Maurice Axelrod Award for contributions in teaching about the Holocaust, genocide, and the reduction of bias, bigotry, and prejudice.
’69 Class correspondent: Elaine Marcotte Hyams, eshyams@yahoo.com
’52 Class correspondent: Kit Ellenbogen, max4794@netzero.net While on a visit to New York City from Menlo Park, California, last November, Mort Besen found himself just in time to attend the big 150th Bard bash and Leon’s 35th anniversary at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Great was his surprise when he found himself pictured in a Bard chemistry lab in one of the many archival photographs exhibited for the occasion.
class notes 39
In early 2011 Kit Ellenbogen attempted to retire from her work as a lawyer at Advocates for the Children of New Jersey, but they insisted that, at least until this June, she work from home for 10 hours a month. She will retire one day! After living most of his life in New Jersey, Bob Stempel and his wife, Ray, relocated to Highland Beach, Florida, in 2008. Bob has already begun planning for his 60th Bard reunion in May 2012, where he hopes the class of ’52 will be well represented.
’51 60th Reunion: May 20–22, 2011
George Rosenberg lives in Tucson, Arizona, with “the same loving room-mate of 55 years (wife #1).” He also enjoys his five children, ten grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
’38 Lou Koenig reports that he has been retired for 22 years from New York University, where he taught political science. He is still writing in his field. Lou is happy to have attended Reunion Weekend 2010. Charlie McManus only attended Bard for two years, but still has happy memories of his time here.
Staff contact: Anne Canzonetti ’84, 845-758-7187 or canzonet@bard.edu
’35 George Coulter is very busy, although he has retired from his work as a dentist. He lives in Pawling, New York, where he has served on the Village Planning Board, is president of the cemetery board of advisors, is involved in the Chamber of Commerce, and is director emeritus of the library. In the fall of 2010 the library board dedicated the library’s main building to George and his mother.
’40 Class correspondent: Dick Koch, dickkoch88@gmail.com or 510-526-3731 Neil Gray is an Episcopal priest, retired. He has Parkinson’s disease, but is still able to use a computer. Dick Koch is happy to report that he will be awarded the Bard Medal this May. The ceremony will take place at the President’s Dinner during Commencement and Alumni/ae Weekend. Dick and his wife, Gladys, look forward to making the trip east from their home in Berkeley, California.
’39 Jack Honey writes that he is “still fortunate in having Mary,” his wife of about 65 years. As a Rhinebeck resident, Jack can be driven to the Bard campus, and enjoys looking around. Domenick Papendrea reports that his physical health is poor, but his mind is good. He loves Bard. Joe Pickard lives in an assisted care facility, where he has been for six years. He has happy memories of Bard, which he last visited for his 60th reunion, and sends his best wishes to all Bardians.
The Rev. John Mears is an Episcopal priest serving at two churches. He visited the Bard campus in the fall of 2010—his first visit since his graduation 75 years before. He enjoyed meeting the alumni/ae affairs staff, and numerous members of the Bard faculty during his day of touring both the old and the new Bard.
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts ’12 Dustin Hodges (painting), Andrew Lampert (film/video), Adam Marnie (sculpture), Ed Steck (writing), and Nathan Baker ’13 (photography) were all represented in the College Art Association New York Area MFA Exhibition, which ran from February 9 to April 9 at the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery. Two of their 2012 MFA classmates, Sergei Tcherepnin (music/sound) and Lucy Dodd (sculpture), were also represented, with a collaborative piece.
’11 Trisha Baga performed her piece Madonna y El Niño at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on October 14. The performance was in conjunction with the exhibition In the company of . . . curated by Terri C. Smith CCS ’08. Richard Garet created a nearly one-hour-long projected installation titled Electrochroma and presented it as part of the Crossing the Line Festival organized by the French Institute Alliance Française. The piece was installed last September in The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn and was reviewed by Robert Shuster in the Village Voice. Duron Jackson had a solo exhibition, Selected Works, at 1 GAP Gallery in Brooklyn from October 8 to January 23. Caitlin Keogh and Joanne Cheung ’13 were part of Another Romance: The 2010 New Wight Biennial Exhibition at UCLA in September. Tim Ridlen had a video installation at Renwick Gallery in New York in September. Sara Wintz and Thom Donovan cocurated The Segue Reading Series at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York for December and January.
’10 Alisa Baremboym participated in the group shows Real Nonfiction at BRIC Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn and 179 Canal / Anyways at White Columns in New York. Also featured in the White Columns show were Caitlin Keogh ’11, Thomas Torres Cordova ’08, and Charles Mayton ’08.
William Lamson ’07, video still from A Line Describing the Sun, at Pierogi’s The Boiler in Brooklyn. Photo: courtesy of William Lamson
40
Paul Branca and Nathan Baker ’13 took part in the small group exhibition A Knot for Ariadne in December and January at Kavi Gupta Gallery in Berlin.
A. K. Burns and Katherine Hubbard collaborated on The Brown Bear: Neither Particular Nor General, at Recess Activities, Inc., in New York last fall. They adapted the storefront into a working installation that intentionally conflated the hair and art salon, and invited other artists to present work in the space each Saturday, including Joshua Kit Clayton, Corrine Fitzpatrick ’11, and Sergei Tcherepnin ’12. Lauren Luloff had an installation in September at Buoy in Kittery, Maine, a gallery cooperative cofounded in 2008 by Jeremy LeClair. She also participated in the group exhibition Material Issue and Other Matters at Canada in New York.
’09 Kabir Carter participated in several European sound art festivals and conferences in September: Transmissions at Overgaden in Copenhagen; Sound ACTs at Aarhus University in Denmark; and Full Pull 2010 at Inter Arts Center in Malmö, Sweden.
Anna Vitale got a lot of press in 2010: her chapbook Anna Vitale’s Pop Poems was published by OMG; her story “She-Boxes” was published in an issue of Vanitas; and the online journal textsound, which she cofounded, was featured in a special section on “Indie Innovators” in the November/December Poets & Writers.
’06 Joshua Thorson curated The Sense Ritual as part of the Mix 23 New York Queer Experimental Film Festival in November. A screening of eight videos by various artists, it included works by Glen Fogel ’10 and MFA faculty member Cecilia Dougherty. Annette Wehrhahn, Munro Galloway, Paul Branca ’10, and Pat Palermo opened a gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last August called Soloway. As of this writing, they’d held five exhibitions, including a solo show by Fawn Krieger ’05 and the small group show Dirty Hands, which featured Wehrhahn and Jessie Stead ’07.
’05 Christopher DeLaurenti performed the live surround-sound version of his piece N30: Live at the WTO Protest November 30, 1999 at INSTAL in Glasgow. That same month he performed in Seattle as a member of the Seattle Phonographers Union.
Wynne Greenwood presented Strap-on TVs at Lawrimore Project in Seattle in December. It was the fourth installment in an ongoing series of exhibitions in which artists are paired with a writer and a page from Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés. Greenwood was paired with Amra Brooks.
Jeremy Hoevenaar, Brett Price ’10, and Corrine Fitzpatrick ’11 read new work at MoMA P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City in October.
’04
’08
Sue Havens showed new work in the group exhibition Hand’s Tide at Regina Rex in Queens. She is also featured on the website artinbrooklyn.com.
Debra Baxter and Dawn Cerny ’12 were in a three-person exhibition of Seattle-based artists, Every Distance is Not Near, curated by Marji Vecchio ’01 at Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery in Reno, Nevada. Corin Hewitt was one of the 25 recipients of the Joan Mitchell Foundation 2010 Painters & Sculptors Grant in the amount of $25,000. Corin is an assistant professor of sculpture at Virginia Commonwealth University. Alisha Kerlin’s solo show, Cat and Mouse, was on view at Real Fine Arts in New York last spring, from May 22 to June 27. She also participated in shows at MoMA P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City and Ditch Projects in Springfield, Oregon.
’07 An article on Corinne May Botz appeared in the November 3, 2010, issue of the New York Times. Corinne also did several lectures and readings surrounding the publication of her book Haunted Houses (The Monacelli Press, 2010). William Lamson had a solo show, A Line Describing the Sun, at Pierogi’s The Boiler in Brooklyn in September. A two-channel video and sculpture created in the Mojave Desert, the installation was a record of two daylong performances in which Lamson imprinted a hemispherical arc into the desert floor. Sreshta Rit Premnath had a solo show, LEO (procedures in search of an original index), at Galleryske in Bangalore, India, from October 22 to December 4.
Matt King had a solo exhibition, Fall Solos 2010, at Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia, last fall. Carlos Motta took part in How to Do Things with Words, an exhibition of radical speech acts presented by The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. His piece Six Acts: An Experiment in Narrative Justice (2010) reenacted a series of speeches concerning the concept of peace, originally delivered by six liberal Colombian presidential candidates from the last century who were assassinated because of their ideologies. Laurel Sparks participated in the inaugural exhibition Dramatis Personae at DODGEgallery in New York last September. Mark Swanson had a solo show, Acquisitions in Context, at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. The show provided context for his sculpture Descent of Civilization, which pays homage to the herds of Plains bison that were killed off in the 19th century. The sculpture stands in downtown Kansas City and was commissioned by the Kemper Museum in partnership with DST Systems, Inc.
’03 Samuael Topiary’s multimedia performance piece Landscape with the Fall of Icarus was presented at Abrons Arts Center in New York in November.
’02 Dominique Rey’s solo show Pilgrims, on view at the University of Winnipeg last fall, featured her oil paintings and ink drawings, and she also gave a public talk and performance. Dominique was Winnipeg’s Visual Arts Ambassador for the duration of the city’s designation as Cultural Capital of Canada in 2010. Chris Sollars presented the solo exhibitions Trouble Everyday at Booklyn Artists Alliance in Brooklyn and ri-FLEKT at WEartspace in Oakland, California.
Carrie Moyer, in conversation with Mira Schor, presented “How to Paint, Write, Teach, Be an Activist, and Generally Try to Stay Sane” as part of the SkowheganTALKS lecture series in October.
’00 Jan Baracz presented a solo show, How to Float Above the Psychic Stampede and Other Traditional Remedies, at Stephan Stoyanov Gallery in New York.
class notes 41
’95
’04
Tim Griffin received a 2010 Arts Writers Grant for his book Compression. The Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program awarded a total of $600,000 to 20 individual writers in four categories—articles, blogs, books, and short-form writing—to support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences.
Jennifer Dindinger is a regional watershed restoration specialist in the Sea Grant Extension Program at the University of Maryland.
’93 Derek Haffar was part of the three-person exhibition A State of Flux from September 12 to October 10 at FiveMyles in Brooklyn.
Maureen Flores was appointed sustainability manager for the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. Jon Griesser and his wife, Sarah, welcomed a daughter, Anya Claire Griesser, on Wednesday, January 5, 2011. Anya Claire is named for Sarah’s maternal grandmother, Anita, and Jon’s paternal grandmother, Clara.
’87 Jill Vasileff participated in two group shows last summer: Sensory Overload at Corcoran Gallery of Art/Gallery 31 and Flower (Re) Power at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was curated by Terri C. Smith CCS ’08.
Maddy Rosenberg had an installation based on her artist’s book, Berlin Bestiary, in Space and Sequence at the Free Library in Philadelphia; she had pieces in two shows in London. She curated Chemical Reactions at Central Booking in Brooklyn.
Bard Center for Environmental Policy
Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture
’10 Kristina Connolly works as a quality control analyst in the chemistry department at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Emily Fischer is an energy program associate for Environment America, based in Boston. As an energy analyst with the Energy Studies Institute at the National University of Singapore, Matthew Guenther is conducting research on how Singapore is affected by the Cancun Agreements. Victor Pierre Melendez works as an environmental associate and community project leader for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., in its Environmental Action Department. Kaleena Miller had the opportunity to take an all-expense-paid trip to play volleyball in the Maldives, where she is also researching the Maldivian president’s efforts to combat the effects of climate change.
’06 In spring 2010, Jacquelann Killian completed her stint as the Eleanor Norcross Fellow in Decorative Arts at Fitchburg Art Museum in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, where she helped the museum acquire a Louis C. Tiffany Favrile glass vase and a Philadelphia rococo silver cream jug. Kate Montlack is the registrar and manager of museum records at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. Monica Obniski, assistant curator of American decorative arts at the Art Institute of Chicago, passed her preliminary doctoral exams in architectural and design history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her dissertation will examine the postwar design projects of Alexander Girard. Rebecca Tilles is a curatorial research associate for decorative arts and sculpture in the Art of Europe Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She is currently working on the reinstallation of 18th-century English period rooms, which will open in 2012.
’08 Kate Rosenfeld is the senior director of government affairs at D.C. Legislative and Regulatory Services.
’07 Lindsey Lusher Shute is now the director of state policy at Transportation Alternatives. She also directs the National Young Farmers Coalition.
’06 Ben Hoen coauthored a federal study on the impact of wind farms on property values, which was released in November by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he works.
’05 Rachel Baker and her sustainability team at Kaiser Permanente were recognized as sustainable business leaders by Supply & Demand Chain Executive. She and the team received the 2010 Green Supply Chain Award.
’05 Having marked her first year as a survivor of cancer, Erika Brandt is approaching life from a new perspective. She plans to move to Berlin in the spring, and will take a year to read, write, and travel with her partner, Joe. Martina Grünewald completed her doctoral studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria. She successfully defended her dissertation, “Doing Design, Practicing Thrift: Material Culture and the Social Construction of Value at Auctions in Vienna,” in November 2010. Jen Larson is the collections specialist for the Center for Book Arts, New York City, where she has compiled an in-house database and online digital collections catalogue of the Center’s fine art, reference materials, and institutional archive. Jen is also a project archivist at Parsons The New School of Design’s Kellen Design Archives, where she is processing the archival holdings of designer and educator Michael Kalil (1943–91).
’00 Steven Wilcox is a habitat biologist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in the Division of Wildlife Resources.
42
Ayesha Abdur-Rahman has launched Lanka Decorative Arts (LDA), a society for the study and appreciation of the decorative arts of Sri Lanka. This August, in Colombo, LDA is scheduled to present its first international Symposium on
the Decorative Arts of Sri Lanka: “The Interconnected World of Eurasia.” For details, e-mail lankadecorativearts@gmail.
Terri Smith curated “It’s for You”: Conceptual Art and the Telephone at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she is curator and collections manager.
Caroline Hannah gave a talk last fall titled “Henry Varnum Poor, Wharton Esherick, and Modern Craft in the USA” at the Second Annual Anne d’Harnoncourt Symposium, which was held at the University of Pennsylvania in conjunction with the exhibition Wharton Esherick and the Birth of the American Modern.
’07
Center for Curatorial Studies
Chen Tamir, an independent curator and critic and director of Flux Factory in Manhattan, curated Into the Eye of the Storm at the Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon.
Kate McNamara is the director and chief curator of Boston University Art Gallery. She was formerly a curatorial assistant at P.S.1.
’10 Michał Jachuła, a curator at the Arsenal Gallery in Bialystok, Poland, curated Ana Ostoya: Autopis, Notes, Copies, and Masterpieces at Galeria Foksal in Warsaw. Ginny Kollak was selected as one of three participants in the 2011 edition of the Young Curator’s Residency program at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turín. She has been traveling throughout Italy and Sicily, visiting artists, curators, and institutions. Daniel Mason curated Broom: The Full Sweep at Stevenson Library, Bard College. The exhibition presented all 21 volumes of Broom, the seminal avant-garde magazine published from 1921 to 1924. Gabi Ngcobo returned to Johannesburg, where she has been working on a project with Manifesta 8 and the Manifesta Foundation, heading a team to examine the usefulness of a Manifesta model for Africa.
’06 Montserrat Albores Gleason, an independent curator in Mexico City, helped to organize Clarisse Hahn at PETRA, a space where she organizes projects with Pablo Sigg. Zeljka Himbele-Kozul curated Carey Young: Uncertain Contracts at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, where she is curatorial assistant of contemporary art. Zeljka and William Heath cocurated My Little / Membrane, two exhibitions in one that open May 9 at NURTUREart in New York City. After three years as curatorial associate at the New Museum in Manhattan, Amy Mackie is now director of visual arts at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.
’05
Mackenzie Schneider continues to work on the AS-AP project with Ann Butler, director of the CCS Library and Archives, and also works part-time at Renwick Gallery in SoHo, Manhattan.
Aubrey Reeves is an artist, curator, and arts manager based in Toronto. Her dual-screen, 16 mm film installation, Glide, had its international premiere at the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival in Kassel, Germany.
Yulia Tikhonova, founder of the ART4BrightonBeach initiative, was the moderator between four women’s art collectives—A Feminist Tea Party, The Brainstormers, For the Birds, and The Projects—at the College Art Association’s annual conference in February.
Erin Riley-Lopez, an independent curator in New York, curated Acting Out at the Bronx River Art Center.
Andrea Torreblanca and Carlos Palacios are both on the arts faculty in the masters in visual arts program at Morelos State University in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Yasmeen Siddiqui organized a book launch for A Contingent Object of Research. She edited the book for Do Ho Suh’s The Bridge Project at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, where she was formerly curator at large.
’03 ’09 Mireille Bourgeois, formerly programmer/curator at Saw Video in Ottawa, is now the director at the Centre for Art Tapes in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Katerina Ilanes is the curator of an ongoing series, “Queers on Film,” at the LGBT Center in New York City. Christina Linden curated About the Object—which was first presented as her thesis exhibition at the Center for Curatorial Studies—at Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey. The art gallery in Ramapo’s Berrie Center for the Performing and Visual Arts is directed by Sydney Jenkins ’96. Bartholomew Ryan, after working for a year as a curatorial fellow, is the new assistant curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Ingrid Chu, codirector of Forever & Today in New York City, cocurated O Zhang: A Splendid Future for the Passed, an installation by Zhang, a New York–based Chinese artist.
’02 Cassandra Coblentz curated Unlocking, an exploration of the key by artist Jean Shin and architect Brian Ripel, at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona, where she is associate curator. Jenni Sorkin, postdoctoral residential fellow at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, was invited to participate in a special Centennial Session on Feminism at the College Art Association’s conference in February.
’01 ’08 Tyler Emerson-Dorsch, a partner at Dorsch Gallery in Miami, presented Clifton Childree’s Orchestrated Gestures, a solo show of new sculptures in the form of old arcade machines, with film and audio components. A text by Milena Hoegsberg, an independent curator in New York City, was included in The Biennial Reader, an anthology of large-scale perennial exhibitions of contemporary art.
Cecilia Brunson cofounded AMA Fellowship, a grant facilitating art residencies abroad for Chilean artists. After moving to London in 2010 and curating a series of monographic shows on contemporary Chilean artists for House of Propellers, she was invited by Phillips de Pury and Saatchi gallery to organize Tectonic Shifts: Contemporary Art from Chile. Dermis León, an art critic, curator, and art historian, curated Des-Habitable, an exhibition about architecture and urbanism in Latin America, in Peru.
class notes 43
’00
’09
Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy is the curator of contemporary art for the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, based in New York and Caracas. She is responsible for collection growth, exhibitions, grants, and other projects related to the institution’s mission to enhance appreciation of the diversity, sophistication, and range of art from Latin America.
Solange Merdinian, mezzo-soprano, this season performs at the Argentinian Consulate for the Atahualpa Yupanqui Foundation, as Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina with Pocket Opera New York, at WMP Concert Hall in the Armenian Journey series, and in Argentinian folk music concerts in Washington, D.C.
’08 ’98 A text by Sarah Cook, “The behaviors of new media—towards a post-hype ‘hospitality’ aesthetics?” was recently published in Art Lies. Sarah is the coeditor of CRUMB and a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sunderland, UK.
’97 Brian Wallace curated From Huguenot to Microwave: New and Recent Works by Marco Maggi at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, where he has been curator since 2006.
Yulia van Doren, soprano, became the first singer to win all four North American Bach vocal competitions. During the 2010–11 season she was featured artist at the Cartagena International Music Festival, Colombia, where she performed Bach’s B-minor Mass with soprano Dawn Upshaw, artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and the Orchestra Sinfonia of London. Yohan Yi, bass-baritone, is a member of the Los Angeles Opera Young Artists program. Yohan returned to Bard in April to perform as soloist in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (German Requiem) with Leon Boststein and the American Symphony Orchestra, Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, and Bard College Chamber Singers at the Fisher Center.
’96 Regine Basha, an independent curator living in New York City, curated An Exchange with Sol LeWitt, a huge, two-part exhibition that was jointly presented by MASS MoCA and Cabinet. Rachel Gugelberger, an independent curator/writer living in New York City, curated What Is Left at the Curatorial Research Lab at Winkleman Gallery in New York.
Graduate Vocal Arts Program ’11 Julia Bullock will debut at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra in 2012, singing Délage’s Quatre Poèmes Hindous. Jeffrey Hill, tenor, was a winner of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition in July, and sang a recital in Weill Recital Hall in January. He’ll also perform in Mozart’s Zaide at Zankel Hall with Maestro David Robertson and Ensemble ACJW.
’10 Mary Bonhag, soprano, teaches at Johnston State College in Vermont and has founded a new chamber music series, Scrag Mountain Music, with her husband, bassist Evan Premo. She returned to Bard in February to perform Sibelius’s Luonnotar and Handel’s “Let the Bright Seraphim” with the American Symphony Orchestra at the Fisher Center. Ariadne Greif, soprano, founded Uncommon Temperament, “a bold new Baroque collective based in Manhattan,” and performed in Le Poisson Rouge, earning a great review in the New York Times. Katarzyna S˛adej, mezzo-soprano, will give a recital of French, American, Polish, and Spanish songs at Arlington Street Church in Boston this spring. Recent performances have included a September 2010 debut with the Lviv Philharmonic in Ukraine, and a concert with Marianna Humetska and Nada Kolundzija, pianists, and Lynn Kuo, violin, at the Tchaikovsky National Museum Academy in Kiev. Megan (Taylor) Weikleenget, soprano, is a vocalist for the U.S. Coast Guard Band. She will be touring nationally and internationally, performing a wide variety of music, from patriotic to popular to classical.
44
In Memoriam ’03 Luke J. Gabler, 30, died on November 6, 2010. After attending Simon’s Rock College of Bard, he majored in film and electronic arts at Bard. His family and many friends will remember him always as a gifted artist who left a huge archive of drawings, paintings, films, photos, and lively dispatches from all corners of the globe. In recent years, he traveled and worked on film and photo projects in Indonesia, Haiti, Los Angeles, and New York. Until the earthquake in 2010, much of his energy was focused on working with local children to sow and care for the Jardin Exotique in Jacmel, Haiti, as a showcase for baobab trees and other plants to promote reforestation of the island he loved so much. His survivors include his parents, Mirko and Ann Gabler, and his older brother, Alec.
’02 Mauricio Mora Lindo died February 16, 2011, in a kayaking accident in his native Costa Rica. He was a gifted writer and poet, performing readings in both his native Spanish and his adopted language of English. Mauricio studied languages and literature and creative writing at Bard, where his mentor was the celebrated American poet and retired Bard professor, John Ashbery. He loved the outdoors—he could often be found reading in Blithewood Garden or walking through Tivoli Bays, and he also enjoyed hiking and climbing in Colorado and in the jungles near his home in San José. He had a large group of friends at Bard, and he was generous with his laughter, compliments, and affection. “When you were around Mau, you were always laughing, either with him or at him,” noted Paul Vranicar ’01, a close friend. “To Mau, the distinction was insignificant—as long as his friends were laughing, he was happy.” He dreamed of living in New York and publishing his writing, but he had difficulty obtaining permanent residence and returned to Costa Rica in 2003 to become a river guide. He is survived by his parents, Carlos Mora and Martha Lindo, and his two older brothers, Ricardo and Carlos.
’01 Mara Alyse Ciereszynski, 32, died on June 19, 2010. After studying at Bard, she moved to San Francisco, where she worked for the Exploratorium for more than 10 years. She is survived by her mother, Susan Ciereszynski; a brother, Adam; her maternal grandmother, Gloria; her longtime friend and companion, Guy; a nephew, Ezra, and a niece, Alexandra; and many aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.
’97
’69
Amy Kathryn “Rion” Chesbro of Ypsilanti, Michigan, died on December 17, 2010. A native of Alaska, she studied poetry at Bard and later earned a master’s degree in information science at the University of Michigan. At the time of her death, she was a teacher at Cleary Business School and Washtenaw Community College and was seeking an M.B.A. to further her career. She is survived by her fiance, PJ Two Ravens; her parents, James and Patricia; three sisters, Carrie, Jennifer, and Heidi; two brothers, Jim and Mark; and her grandmother, Helen.
Anne Phillips died at home on June 30, 2010. She was a literature/creative writing major at Bard, and went on to become a well-loved teacher in the Frederick County School System in Maryland. She is survived by her husband, Donald Franz ’70; her daughter, Laura, and son, Joshua; a sister, Leslie Phillips ’73; and a grandson, Gavin.
’93 Portia Tsehai “Poppy” Shapiro died on January 1, 2011. She was born in Brattleboro, Vermont, and attended Bard for the 1989–90 academic year. She worked for several years in the family business in Northampton, Massachusetts, and then moved to San Francisco in 1995. She is survived by her mother, Dianne; a brother, Noah; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins.
’62 Abner Symons died on October 14, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Susan A. Symons.
’58 Maxine Wynkoop died on May 10, 2010, in Florida. She majored in psychology at Bard. Her husband, John, writes, “She adored Bard. Her memories of Bard were very special to her.” She is also survived by her daughters, Holly and Hilary, and a granddaughter, Nicole.
’86 Edwin Rosado died on December 27, 2008. A sociology major at Bard, he went on to earn a master’s degree in media studies from The New School for Social Research in New York City. He spent many years working with a local “I Have a Dream” program, mentoring more than 100 young students. He also worked for the national “I Have a Dream” Foundation for a time, and then for the American Civil Liberties Union. At the time of his death, he was the managing partner of the company DPM Events. He is survived by his parents, Mercedes and Clemente; his brothers, Raul and Ivan; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. A number of his 1986 classmates are raising funds to establish a Bard scholarship in his memory.
’79 Ruth Maxwell Hill died on September 24, 2010. A lifelong resident of New York, she was a studio arts major at Bard, and completed a master of fine arts degree at New York University. She pursued artistic interests in painting, silk screening, photography, video, and music. She participated in group shows and taught art in underprivileged schools in the Bronx. Her survivors include her dearest friend, Timothy Druckrey; a half-brother, Peter Hill; and many cousins.
’74 Ruben Nelson Bennett died on February 17, 2010. He lived in Houston, and was a laboratory supervisor at Baylor College of Medicine.
’71 Deborah Davidson Kaas died on January 10, 2011, after a long illness. A math major at Bard, she went on to a long and dedicated career supporting victims of domestic violence. She spoke at police officer trainings, testified at the state and national level, and, for nearly 20 years, volunteered as a court advocate for victims of domestic violence, seeking orders of protection in two county courts in Pennsylvania. She and her former roommate, Wendy Weldon, were instrumental in creating the Alumni/ae Memorial Bar at the Fisher Center for Performing Arts, with panels dedicated to beloved classmates and professors who had died. She served for many years on the Board of Governors of the Bard–St. Stephen’s Alumni/ae Association; during her tenure, she started the Life After Bard program, bringing together alumni/ae and current students, as well as the Bard Oral History project, recording Bard stories by alumni/ae during reunion weekends. Over the years, during graduation ceremonies, she provided gourmet snacks and exotic beverages to friends and strangers camped out on the lawn in front of Stone Row. Her sense of humor, intellectual prowess, and generosity will be missed by many Bardians who knew and loved her. She is survived by her husband, Donald Kaas.
’57 Carlisle Chandler “Chan” McIvor died in January 2011. He lived in Bermuda, and was a journalist for many years, writing for the Mid Ocean News. More recently he started and ran the Bermuda Macintosh Users Group and was helpful to many in creating websites.
’55 Dan Norman Butt died on August 24, 2010. After graduating from Bard, he had a long career in the performing arts field, working as a stage and production manager for the American Ballet Theatre, New York City Opera, Joffrey Ballet, and other dance, theater, opera, and music organizations. A blues pianist himself, Butt was also a lifelong auto racing enthusiast with a love of vintage sports cars. He is survived by his children—Peter, Elizabeth, Jeff, and Michael—and six grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Sari. Gail Sudler Rockwell died on December 1, 2010. The daughter of artists Arthur Emory Sudler and Janet Starr Whitson Sudler, she was born in New York City and spent her childhood in Douglaston, on Long Island. She was a gifted singer, but decided to pursue art instead, and became a well-known illustrator of children’s books—including three by her husband, Thomas Rockwell ’56: Rackety-Bang, The Thief, and The Portmanteau Book. The Rockwells lived in a renovated barn in LaGrange, New York, and had two children, Barnaby and Abigail.
’52 Peter W. Price died on November 19, 2010, after a short illness. His son writes: “He was very proud of his association with Bard College and enjoyed maintaining those contacts until his death. He particularly enjoyed returning to the college a few years ago and revisiting many of the places he had first visited when he spent a year there.” He lived in the United Kingdom, and was “the dearly loved husband of Margery, and a much loved father and grandpa.” Joyce Lasky Reed, 76, an author, editor, and foreign policy adviser to the U.S. State Department, died on September 12, 2010, after a long battle with lung cancer. She attended Bard for a semester in the early 1950s, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and a master’s degree in political affairs from Georgetown University. At the time of her death she was on the Board of Overseers of Smolny College, Russia’s first liberal arts college, created as a partnership between Bard and Saint Petersburg State University. With her first husband, Anatole Shub, a journalist who worked for the New York Times and the Washington Post, she was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1969; her novel Moscow by Nightmare (1973) was a widely read
class notes 45
indictment of the Soviet system. She later worked as a foreign policy assistant on Capitol Hill, eventually joining the staff of then Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.) and later serving as a special adviser to the State Department under Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Michael H. Armacost. For the last two decades of her life, she worked for the nonprofit Fabergé Arts Foundation, organizing major exhibitions and coediting Fabergé Flowers (2004), a book that documented Peter Carl Fabergé’s botanically inspired jewelry. She was predeceased by Shub and by her second husband, Leonard Reed. Her survivors include two children from her first marriage, Rachel Shub and Adam Shub, and two grandchildren.
’51 Steven John Covey died on January 30, 2010, in his home in Broomfield, Colorado. He was the son of Lois Lenski Covey, a renowned children’s book author, and Arthur Covey, an artist and muralist. After graduating from Bard, he earned a master’s degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Upon leaving the army in 1955 he met his first wife, Yolanthe, in Holland; they were married in Paris and settled in Phoenix. He was employed by the city’s park and recreation department for more than 30 years as an art teacher and supervisor of the arts and crafts program. His children with Yolanthe— Michael, Vivian, and Jeanine—survive him. He is also survived by his wife, Joy, and four grandchildren.
’50 Isabella von Glatz died on August 4, 2010, in Maryland. She was raised in New Jersey, then attended Bard and Columbia University, where she met her husband of 58 years, Richard A. von Glatz. They lived in the Chicago area for the 10 years, where their children were born. Richard then joined the foreign service, and together they spent the next 25 years living in India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Pakistan. In addition to her husband, she is survived by two daughters, Adrienne and Jocelyn, and two grandchildren, Lewis and Natalie. Reporter Anthony Hart Harrigan died on May 28, 2010, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He started his career in 1948 with The News and Courier (now The Post and Courier) in Charleston, South Carolina, working there for 20 years and eventually becoming associate editor. After retiring from the newspaper business, Harrigan enjoyed success as a columnist, author, and contributing editor to the National Review. He wrote several books and dozens of essays on military affairs, foreign policy, and domestic issues, particularly economics. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; four children, Anthony, Elliott, Chardon, and Mary; a sister; and 12 grandchildren.
’49 Charlotte Hahn Arner died on February 21, 2011. She was a native of Germany, where her family survived Kristallnacht in Berlin before fleeing to the United States in 1938. She majored in sculpture, and was among the earliest women to graduate from Bard. She went on to study in New York and Paris, and had a one-woman show in Italy in the mid-’50s. She married her classmate Robert Arner, whose paintings are in collections throughout the world, including two paintings on permanent exhibit at Bard. They had two children, Charlotte and Franz. She maintained close ties to Outward Bound, the organization founded by her late uncle, Dr. Kurt Hahn. After Robert’s death in 2002, she began working with a neighbor to document her husband’s life and work, as well as her own family’s story of survival, in words, photographs, and documents. Hundreds of pages had been completed at the time of her death.
’48 Morton Leventhal died on April 23, 2010. He majored in psychology at Bard and went on to earn a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He had a long career,
46
including work as a consulting psychologist for the U.S. Navy, a therapist at the Hines VA clinic in Chicago, and as chief of psychological services at the VA Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. He was also a therapist in private practice in Chicago, Louisville, and Ft. Myers, Florida. He is survived by his wife, Elaine; a son, Mitchell; a daughter, Valerie; and a sister, Lucille. Janet Reinthal Nash died on May 29, 2010. She majored in social studies at Bard. She was the mother of David and Daniel Nash; grandmother of Benjamin, Lucas, Julia, and Hannah; and sister of the late Robert Reinthal.
’47 Christina Frerichs Person died August 9, 2010, after a long illness. She studied drama/dance at Bard, and went on to be a dancer on the Jimmy Durante Show; a June Taylor dancer on the Jackie Gleason Show; a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall; and a dancer in Broadway and vaudeville productions. She later taught at Calvin Leete School, an elementary school in Guilford, Connecticut. She is survived by three daughters, Sarah, Martha, and Abigail; five grandchildren; and her dear companion, George Hatch. Elaine Postal died on October 10, 2010, in Palm Beach, Florida. After majoring in economics at Bard, she attended the Columbia School of Business and went on to a career that culminated in her position as chairman and chief merchant of Judy Bond, Inc. She is survived by her husband of 64 years, Bob Postal; their children Andrew, Louise, and Debora; and six grandchildren.
’44 Jin Kinoshita died on August 20, 2010, in San José, California. His research focused on treating diabetic cataracts, and he was internationally recognized as a researcher, administrator, professor, and adviser to many young scientists. He was a pioneer in the biochemical study of cataracts and his research continues to have a profound influence on ophthalmic biochemistry. During World War II, the Kinoshita family was relocated from San Francisco to Santa Anita Assembly Center and then to Topaz Relocation Camp in Utah. He was allowed to leave camp to attend Bard. He then received his Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard University and joined the Harvard Medical School faculty. In 1967 he was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree from Bard. In 1971, Kinoshita was appointed chief of the Laboratory of Vision Research in the newly formed National Eye Institute, where he later became scientific director of basic and clinical research. He retired from NEI in 1990 and moved to California to be a clinical research professor of ophthalmology at UC Davis. His awards include the Friedenwald Award, Proctor Medal, Alcon Research Institute Award, and the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He was also a two-time nominee for the Nobel Prize and a recipient of Japan’s medal of honor, The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays. His wife, Kay Kimura Kinoshita, predeceased him, as did his brothers Reiju, Satoshi, and Tadashi. He is survived by his sister, Emiko Chino.
’43 Henry C. Hopewell Jr. died on May 19, 2010. A native of Massachusetts, he graduated from The Choate School, then studied for two years at Bard before enlisting in the U.S. Navy. He served in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, then returned to his childhood summer home of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where he pursued multiple business interests. In the 1960s, he moved to Maine to continue real estate development and building projects. He is survived by his wife, Vicki Cahill Madden; two daughters from a previous marriage, Hillary and BlakeLee; a brother, Frank; two stepsisters, Margaret and
Sally; three stepsons, Gregory, Glenn, and Christopher; seven grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews. James Casper Silvan died on December 3, 2009, after a long illness. He was born in Toledo, Ohio, and studied at Bard before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he received graduate degrees in biology from Teacher’s College Graduate School of Education, Columbia University. He moved to Baltimore in the mid-’60s to work as an editor for Johns Hopkins University Press. After retiring, he founded York Press, and published scholarly books. His only surviving relatives are a niece, a nephew, and first and second cousins.
’40 John Frank Goldsmith died on October 14, 2010. He graduated from Bronxville High School in 1936, attended Bard for two years, and graduated from University of Colorado in 1940. In World War II, he led an infantry platoon in Italy and France. He was wounded in action and awarded a Purple Heart. He enjoyed a long and successful writing and editorial career—he was on staff at Factory magazine, managing editor of Fleet Owner, and chief editor of Housing magazine (now House & Home). He maintained connection with Bard over the years, most recently with the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York City. He was predeceased by his wife, Caroline Steinholz Lerner. His survivors include his children, Katherine, Elizabeth, and John; a stepson, David; three grandchildren; and his dear friend Margot Tallmer. After a brief illness, Peter Hobbs died on January 2, 2011. Born in Etretat, France, he was raised in New York City, and majored in drama at Bard. In World War II he served as a sergeant in combat engineering and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he enjoyed a 50-year career as an actor, performing on Broadway (notably, Teahouse of the August Moon and Billy Budd); on television (from his role as Peter Ames in Secret Storm from 1954 to 1962, to Perry Mason, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Bonanza, All in the Family, The Odd Couple, Streets of San Francisco, Barney Miller, Lou Grant, M*A*S*H, L.A. Law, and dozens more); and in films (Sleeper, The Man with Two Brains, 9 to 5, Andromeda Strain, and The Lady in Red). He is survived by his wife, Carolyn Adams Hobbs; three daughters, Anna, Jennifer, and Nancy; two stepsons, Mark and Adam; and six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Faculty Beth A. Casey, 73, died on August 23, 2010, in Toledo, Ohio. She had been an assistant professor of English at Bard from 1972 to 1973. Beginning in 1978, she embarked upon a lengthy career at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, serving as an instructor in literature and Canadian studies and later as an administrator, creating and directing the university’s first general studies curriculum. She also taught at the University of Rochester and Empire State College, and was briefly an associate dean at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She had a B.A. from Penn State University and master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. Stephen Pace, 91, a noted second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter who served as an assistant professor of art at Bard for one semester (1970– 71), died on September 23, 2010, in New Harmony, Indiana. A friend of Milton Avery, whom he met in Mexico, Pace moved to New York in 1947 and studied at the Art Students League and with Hans Hofmann. During the heyday of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s, he exhibited in several Whitney Annuals, had his first New York show at the Artists Gallery in 1954, and was represented by the Poindexter Gallery and later the A. M. Sachs Gallery. By 1963, he had “developed a broad-brushed representational style and a range
of subjects that celebrated everyday life and labor . . . [resulting in] a magnified Fauvism or Post-Impressionism that takes inspiration from Avery, Matisse, and Bonnard, as well as Chinese painting,” according to his obituary in the New York Times. His wife of 61 years, Palmina Natalini, is his only survivor. Garry Reigenborn, 58, a dancer, choreographer, and teacher who taught at Bard for nine years, died on March 10, 2011, in Pueblo, Colorado, his home state. He was an assistant professor of dance at the College from the fall of 1998 through May 2004, after which he served as artist in residence in the Dance Program from the fall of 2004 through the spring of 2007. Over a long and distinguished career in modern dance, he was a principal dancer with Andy De Groat and Dancers from 1977 to 1979; a member of the Lucinda Childs Dance Company and its assistant choreographer from 1984 to 2000; a faculty member at Merce Cunningham Dance Studio from 1995 to 2004; and artistic director of Round 2 Dance in New York City for nearly 15 years, beginning in 1996. His choreographic work was presented throughout the United States and Europe, including several collaborations with Robert Wilson, most recently in two revivals of Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, in 1984 and 1992. He had a B.F.A. from the University of Utah, and was the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, and Jerome Robbins Foundation. He is survived by his mother, Ellen Mae Reigenborn of Sterling, Colorado; a sister, Carol Lauer; two brothers, Alan and Clarke; and many nieces and nephews.
Staff Isabelle Clum, 90, a 20-year employee of Bard, died on December 14, 2010. She worked in the housekeeping department, which was part of Bard’s Buildings & Grounds (B&G), from 1969 through 1989. Her survivors include two sons—Randy Clum Sr., assistant director of B&G, and Edwin Clum; three daughters, Nancy Rose, Jeanette Bushnell, and Roberta Coons; 12 grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren. Shirley M. Minkler, 80, who worked in Bard’s Central Services Department for more than 25 years until her retirement in 2006, died on January 28, 2011. A lifelong resident of Tivoli, she served as a secretary for St. Sylvia’s Parish prior to her employment at the College, and was a 62-year member of the Tivoli Fire Company Ladies Auxiliary. Her survivors include a son, James, and his wife, Linda; four sisters; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband of 47 years, Gordon; and three sisters and two brothers.
Friends Anne Botstein, M.D., 98, a distinguished pediatrician and the mother of Bard president Leon Botstein, died on Sunday, October 17, 2010. Born Ania Wyszewianska in Poland and educated at the University of Zurich, Dr. Botstein was a pioneer in pediatrics, both in Switzerland and the United States. During her studies in Switzerland as the chief resident of Guido Fanconi, who discovered cystic fibrosis, she was the first to show that cystic fibrosis is inherited. She spent most of her career in this country at Montefiore Hospital, where she worked at one of the first HMOs in New York and was chief of pediatrics for 25 years, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she was professor emerita. Since the death of her husband, Dr. Charles Botstein, a professor at Albert Einstein, she lived on the Bard College campus. In addition to her son Leon, she is survived by another son, Dr. David Botstein; a daughter, Dr. Eva Griepp; and six grandchildren.
class notes 47
Untitled by Chris Fedorak ‘08, an image from his project 33 Mill Street. Fedorak, a native of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, has been technical director of the Photography Program at Bard for three years. He begins an M.F.A. program in photography at California College of the Arts in San Francisco this fall.
Board of Trustees of Bard College
Charles S. Johnson III ’70
Office of Development and Alumni/ae Affairs
David E. Schwab II ’52, Chair Emeritus
Mark N. Kaplan
Debra Pemstein, Vice President for Development and Alumni/ae Affairs,
Charles P. Stevenson Jr., Chair
George A. Kellner
Emily H. Fisher, Vice Chair
Cynthia Hirsch Levy ’65
Jane Brien ’89, Director of Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7406, brien@bard.edu
Elizabeth Ely ’65, Secretary
Murray Liebowitz
Tricia Fleming, Assistant Director of Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7089, fleming@bard.edu
Stanley A. Reichel ’65, Treasurer
Marc S. Lipschultz
Anne Canzonetti ’84, Assistant Director of Alumni/ae Affairs, 845-758-7187, canzonet@bard.edu
845-758-7405, pemstein@bard.edu
Peter H. Maguire ’88 Fiona Angelini
James H. Ottaway Jr.
Roland J. Augustine
Martin Peretz
Leon Botstein, President of the College +
Bruce C. Ratner
Mary Smith, Director; Ginger Shore, Consultant; Leslie Coons Bostian, Mikhail Horowitz,
David C. Clapp
Stewart Resnick
Ellen Liebowitz, Cynthia Werthamer, Editors; Diane Rosasco, Production Manager;
Marcelle Clements ’69*
Roger N. Scotland ’93*
Francie Soosman ’90, Designer
Asher B. Edelman ’61
The Rt. Rev. Mark S. Sisk,
©2011 Bard College. All rights reserved.
Robert S. Epstein ’63
Published by the Bard Publications Office
Honorary Trustee
Barbara S. Grossman ’73*
Martin T. Sosnoff
Sally Hambrecht
Susan Weber
Ernest F. Henderson III, Life Trustee
Patricia Ross Weis ’52
Marieluise Hessel
+ ex officio
John C. Honey ’39, Life Trustee
* alumni/ae trustee
1-800-BARDCOL annandaleonline.org
john bard society news It may seem strange to write a will at 28, but even if you have only $1,000 in the bank, don’t you want to make sure it goes to a place that’s important to you? I’ve always wanted to give back to Bard in a larger capacity than the amount I’m able to give annually. As a young alum I don’t have a lot, but I want what I have to go to institutions that have had meaningful impacts on my life. Bard has deeply influenced who I am, and I want my money to contribute to the great things that Bard has done and will continue to do. —Sarah Mosbacher ’03 This spring the John Bard Society (JBS) welcomed two new members, Sarah Mosbacher ’03 and Brandon Grove ’50. Sarah made the choice to join this very special group of Bardians because she believes in planning for the future—her own and that of Bard College. Brandon joined to demonstrate his commitment to a place that changed his life; he remembers his time at Bard, he says, as one of “enlightenment, enjoyment, and inspiration.” Both Brandon and Sarah now belong to a club that is delighted to have them as members—and they are in good company. The JBS is made up of loyal alumni/ae, faculty, and friends of the College who have included Bard in their estate plans. JBS members share the belief that Bard provides an outstanding liberal arts education and continues to be a courageous, ambitious, and innovative institution, worthy and deserving of their support. JBS members have provided for Bard’s future, and in some instances, for their own. Some have included a bequest to Bard in their will, some have contributed to Bard’s Pooled Income Fund and some have even established a Charitable Gift Annuity with the College. Both the Pooled Income Fund and Charitable Gift Annuity provide an income to you for your lifetime or the lifetime of someone you designate, thereby providing for their future and for the future of the next generation of Bardians. If you are making estate plans, we encourage you to consider including Bard. By making this important decision during our 150th Anniversary Campaign for Bard College, you are helping to ensure the success of Bard for another 150 years. For further information on the JBS please contact Debra Pemstein, vice president for development and alumni/ae affairs, at pemstein@bard.edu or by calling 845-758-7405. All inquiries are confidential. Photo: ©Mark Peterson/Corbis
Bard College
Nonprofit Organization
PO Box 5000
U.S. Postage Paid
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000
Bard College
JULY 7 – AUGUST 21, 2011
BARDSUMMERSCAPE
Address Service Requested
dance July 7–10
film festival July 14 – August 18
Tero Saarinen Company
Before and After Bergman: The Best of Nordic Film
A triple bill of dances by one of Europe’s most innovative and daring dance artists
From "golden age" Swedish silents to Bergman and Kaurismäki
theater July 13–24
The Wild Duck By Henrik Ibsen Directed by Caitriona McLaughlin A masterful tragic comedy about the lies that sustain existence
opera July 29 – August 7
Die Liebe der Danae By Richard Strauss American Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
spiegeltent July 7 – August 21
Cabaret and more Afternoon family entertainment, rollicking late-night performances, dancing, and intimate dining
twenty-second season
bard music festival
August 12–14 and 19–21
Sibelius and His World Two weekends of concerts, panels, and other events bring the musical world of Jean Sibelius vividly to life
Directed by Kevin Newbury A Mozartean blend of comedy, romance, and drama
operetta August 4–14
Bitter Sweet By Noël Coward Directed by Michael Gieleta Conducted by James Bagwell The charming tale of a soprano’s elopement with her music teacher
Special SummerScape discount for Bard alumni/ae: order by phone and save 20% on most Bard SummerScape programs. Offer limited to 2 tickets per buyer and cannot be combined with other discounts. The 2011 SummerScape season is made possible in part through the generous support of the Board of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, the Board of the Bard Music Festival, and the Friends of the Fisher Center, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and Consulate General of Finland, New York. The honorary patron for SummerScape 2011 and the 22nd annual Bard Music Festival is Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of Finland.
Box Office 845-758-7900 | fishercenter.bard.edu Photo: ©Peter Aaron ’68/Esto