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Hua Hsu’s Stay True: A Memoir Wins 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) has announced the recipients of its book awards for 2022. Bard Professor of Literature Hua Hsu’s Stay True: A Memoir won the award for autobiography. NBCC Committee Chair Heather Scott Partington called Hsu’s account of a college-age friendship a “clear-eyed and vulnerable exploration of platonic friendship and lifelong loss” that “demonstrates how earnest teens seek to define themselves in dichotomies, and how it’s our routines that create our identities.” One of the most prestigious of literary honors in the United States, the NBCC awards are selected annually by a committee of book critics and review editors. The awards recognize works published the prior year and are open to books published in English in the United States.

Post Date: 03-29-2023

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Valentina A. Grasso Joins Bard College as Assistant Professor of Medieval History in the Division of Social Studies

Bard College’s Division of Social Studies is pleased to announce the appointment of Valentina A. Grasso as Assistant Professor of Medieval History. Her tenure-track appointment will begin in the fall of the 2023–24 academic year.

Grasso is currently an assistant professor of Semitics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She was previously visiting assistant professor at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, an affiliate member of the European Research Council (ERC) project “The Qur'an as a Source for Late Antiquity,” and of the Cambridge Silk Road Program, which focuses on the study of the history and culture of the Silk Road countries. She is part of the committee of the London Society for Medieval Studies and a chair of the Society of Biblical Literature and International Qur'anic Studies Association (SBL/IQSA) “Qur'an and Late Antiquity” Program Unit. 

Grasso holds a Ph.D. (Divinity, 2021) from the University of Cambridge, where she completed her doctoral dissertation which came out as a monograph, Pre-Islamic Arabia: Societies, Politics, Cults, and Identities during Late Antiquity, published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. She is currently working on her second monograph while co-editing a volume on Indic imagery (Brepols 2024) and a special issue on Arabian epigraphy and Early Islam. 

Post Date: 03-28-2023

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Climate Despair to Climate Repair: Global Teach-in on Climate Change, Led by Bard College, to Be Held March 29, 2023

Through a global initiative led by Bard College, more than 250 colleges, universities, and high schools worldwide will engage students and teachers in 40 countries to move from “Climate Despair to Climate Repair.” Now in its fourth year, the Global Teach-in is meant to help participants move from despair to determination, working together to change the future. 

On Wednesday, March 29, Bard will host its own teach-in from 5–8 pm in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. A free, low-carbon dinner will be provided alongside “People and Planet Working on Climate Repair,” a panel discussion led by Professors Felicia Keesing and Eban Goodstein. The evening will culminate in discussion groups focused on climate solutions. In addition to the teach-in, 40 Bard courses will integrate climate discussion into their classes this week, and on March 30, a Climate Game Night will be held in Kline Commons.

The Worldwide Teach-in is a project of the Graduate Programs in Sustainability at Bard College in partnership with educators across the world. The project has received support from the Open Society University Network, Lever for Change, an affiliate of the MacArthur Foundation, and the United States Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.

Post Date: 03-28-2023