News

“Creative Process in Dialogue: Art and the Public Today” will be held at BHSEC Manhattan on October 31, followed by a lunch hour talk at Bard at Brooklyn Public Library on November 1.

Poet Elizabeth Alexander and Painter Amy Sherald in Conversation

Creative Process in Dialogue: Art and the Public Today with Elizabeth Alexander and Amy Sherald 
Bard High School Early College Manhattan, October 31 at 6:30 p.m.

Lunch Hour Talk with Amy Sherald and Thelma Golden
Bard at Brooklyn Public Library, November 1 at 12:45 p.m.

Watch Live Starting at 6:30 Eastern Time on October 31:



Bard High School Early College Manhattan (BHSEC) hosts a discussion with poet Elizabeth Alexander and painter Amy Sherald about their creative processes and their commitments to the humanities. This public conversation seeks to diversify perspectives on the arts disciplines and to offer models for collective and inclusive community dialogues. The event is free and open to the public. It takes place on Wednesday, October 31, from 6:30pm to 8:00pm at BHSEC on 525 East Houston Street in New York City. Preregistration is required. Register here. A live webcast of the event will also be available.

Poet and president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Elizabeth Alexander and painter Amy Sherald have both produced works critical to marking and reflecting on recent periods of political and social change in the United States. Alexander wrote and recited the poem “Praise Song for Our Day” to usher forward the presidency of the first black American president, Barack Obama, and Sherald painted the official portrait of the first lady, Michelle Obama, one of two works to mark the end of the Obama Presidency. Moderators BHSEC literature professor Brittney Edmonds and Bard Associate Professor of History Christian Crouch will ask Alexander and Sherald four contextualizing questions around the process of patronage and collecting in the arts, artistic practice and black feminism, how their work speaks across artistic media, and how their work engages with the image of body.

“This event, the first of a series, is inspired by an ongoing dialogue within Bard’s Africana Studies Program surrounding race and diversity and social engagement in the visual and performative arts. We hope to create the opportunity for public dialogue around creative artistic practice and the humanities, and how artists engage their audience and broader community,” says Director of Africana Studies at Bard and Assistant Professor of Africana and Historical Studies Drew Thompson.

This event is cosponsored by Humanities New York, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard Center for Civic Engagement, Bard Undergraduate Program in Africana Studies, Bard High School Early College, and Bard American Studies Program.

On Thursday, November 1, from 12:45pm to 2:00pm, Amy Sherald will be in conversation with curator Thelma Golden at Bard at Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), the first New York City Microcollege. In this inaugural Bard at BPL Lunch Hour Talk, Golden and Sherald discuss an understated aspect of the creative process: the relationship between curator and artist. Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, has presided over exhibitions in which painter Amy Sherald’s works were included and was involved in the selection of Sherald to paint the portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. The event is free and open to the public. It takes place at BPL Central Library, Dweck Center, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn. Preregistration is required. Register here.
 

Kenneth S. Stern ’75 has been named director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate (BCSH). The Center, a new program of Bard’s Human Rights Project, will support faculty and students throughout the Bard network who want to study and combat hatred and its various manifestations. Stern, a recipient of Bard’s John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service, is an attorney and award-winning author, and an internationally known expert on hatred and antisemitism.

The murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi could finally push a long-overdue review of American policy in Saudi Arabia, Hof writes.

“The roots of Bolsonaro’s opposition to LGBT rights, feminism, the environment, and the like is, first and foremost, his fondness for authoritarianism,” writes Encarnación.

This collection of unpublished works highlights Arendt’s “desire to revive political freedom and public happiness in a world endlessly defined by wars, revolutions, and violence.”

BGIA has welcomed new staff and faculty, has started a joint program with Central European University, and is finalizing renovations of its space in midtown Manhattan.

Stephen Mucher, director of Bard’s MAT program in LA, asks why the nation is not discussing college education as the surest defense against voter suppression.

The Center will work with faculty and students throughout the Bard network to increase the serious study of hatred, to identify ways to combat hate, and to stimulate public discussion.

The first volume of Arendt’s complete works has been published, with “countless flashes of insight, edited with great care.” Bard faculty member Thomas Wild is an editor of the edition, and Thomas Bartscherer is an editor of a subsequent volume. (In German.)

Poet Layli Long Soldier reflects on the relatively unknown official apology issued to indigenous people on behalf of the U.S. government in 2009.

Nadia Murad will share the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize with Dr. Denis Mukwege. Murad spoke at Bard in 2016 on the Yazidi genocide and sexual slavery. Watch the video from the Hannah Arendt Center.