Where do we go from here? Notes on editing during a pandemic and racial justice revolution … [more]
A CONVERSATION WITH THE PRESIDENT
President Laura Walker on leading through crisis and telling the institutional story ... [more]
MOST CELEBRATED MAGAZINE AT CASE
Winner of five Circle of Excellence Awards, the magazine was the most celebrated at CASE this year... [more]
Features
This season, the Bennington community has had their books reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Washington Post, NPR, among many other outlets. Note to readers: *BWSFM refers to Bennington Writing Seminars Faculty Member.
These Women
"The story unfolds through the perspectives of five characters, all women, with overlapping and interweaving histories. Their voices sizzle and sparkle; each of them helps advance the plot, and each brings to it her own particular pain and her own particular tragedy."
The Force of Nonviolence
"…a slim volume that makes an outsized argument: that our times, or perhaps all times, call for imagining an entirely new way for humans to live together in the world—a world of what Butler calls “radical equality."
Wandering in Strange Lands
“…a mesmerizing reminder that this divide between Black and white is a false binary. On the premise of reconnecting her Northern identity to its Southern roots, Jerkins embarks on a journey that is anything but direct, or simple. Instead the story of her personal heritage, and its erasure within her own family, reveals the reductive power of the white gaze to flatten the complexities of Black lineage..."
The Everlasting
"For Smith, this is a literary hook, a means of exploring large moral questions: How much do we owe to those we love? To ourselves? What does it mean to lead a good life? Can you do that without being religious? Her eloquent storytelling shows us glimpses of certain answers, sometimes serious but just as often comic."
Nobody's Child
"[I]n ways large and small, ‘Nobody’s Child’ dismantles troubling legacies in our legal and mental health systems while also illuminating shortcomings in our approach to child protective services, foster care and incarceration — not to mention social ills like racism, poverty, gender and educational inequality."
A Short Move
"The beauty of the novel is that the teams don’t particularly matter. You go from one to another, your career hurtles on, your exhaustion grows. The pace of the storytelling here is breakneck — an entire life wind-sprints past — an elegant time-lapse in which we see the flower bud, bloom, wither, die. A short move, let’s call it."
Kept Animals
"Milliken trusts us to keep up with her fast-paced tale, catching clues on the fly as we careen through the intricate story lines. But she’s at her best when she lingers, treating us to deft insights and gorgeous, sensual description, especially of the natural world and the esoteric practices of horse breeding and competitive riding."
American Harvest
"[Marie Mutsuki Mockett] has the kind of deft touch with the English language that would make me read a book by her, no matter what it was about. . . . The Midwest has changed her. That, perhaps, is her greatest talent: the willingness to examine, even abandon, her own biases before she casts stones."
The Peanuts Papers
"[I]t’s occasionally humorous to note the collision of opinions, such as when writer Clifford Thompson says he found ‘Peanuts’ to be ‘uproariously funny,’ while Glass says he doesn’t recall ever finding ‘Peanuts’ funny."
Eat Joy
"Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers, is a multi-genre, illustrated work of food writing. Literary luminaries …share personal essays and an associated recipe."
Alice Knott
"Read this beautifully unsettling novel and prepare to be ravished — and ravaged — as it winds its way inside your psyche, snake-like and persistent. . . . Blake Butler’s latest is a meditation on trauma and art, creation and destruction. . . . It’s a profound, exuberant disturbance, just what you want all art to be."
The Distant Dead
"Powerful…a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them."
Glorious Boy
"Booklist’s Top Ten Historical Fiction of 2020, New York Post’s Best Books of the Week, Good Housekeeping‘s 20 Best Books of 2020 to Add to Your Reading List ASAP, Brit+Co’s 12 Books That Will Take You on a Literary Vacation, Travel & Leisure‘s 20 New Books to Gift This Mother’s Day, Parade‘s 30 Best Beach Reads of 2020."
Faculty, alumni, staff and students are in the headlines calling attention to toxic waste sites, single use plastics, children in ICE detention camps; their films, artwork, journalism, performances, businesses albums and more are earning national attention as well. For the full recap of the headlines, click on the stories below.
Single Use Plastic Ban
Senior CAPA Fellow, founder of Bennington’s Beyond Plastics institute, and former EPA administrator Judith Enck has been all over the news as a top expert in plastics reform ... [more]
When We First Arrived
Faculty member Mary Lum was one of 100 leading and emerging artists who made work for DYKWTCA (Do You Know Where The Children Are?) ... [more]
Exposing Soil Contamination
Associate Director of Bennington’s Elizabeth Coleman Center for Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) David Bond and Beyond Plastics founder and visiting CAPA faculty member Judith Enck discovered PFAS in soil and water surrounding
the incinerator ... [more]
The Astronomy Club
The Astronomy Club, a new Netflix sketch comedy show featuring the first all-Black house team at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre in New York is receiving rave reviews and earning loyal audiences beyond the stage it first originated ... [more]
Pulitzer Prize Nominee
Nigel Poor ’86, co-creator of the hit podcast Ear Hustle, was nominated this year for a Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting. Speaking with the Sacramento Bee Poor reacted to the nomination, “To me, it came as a shock, a total shock ... [more]
Initiating Creative Chaos
Forbes featured Asad J. Malik ’18—founder and head of 1RIC—this past fall after the exclusively Augmented Reality (AR) studio inked a seven figure investment deal ... [more]
Shirley Captivates and Haunts
Shirley—the novel by Susan Scarf Merrell MFA ’09, which takes Shirley Jackson as its main character and is plotted on Bennington College’s campus—was adapted into a critically acclaimed, genre-blending film by the same name ... [more]
Familiarity and Surprise
Work by visiting faculty member Farhad Mirza ’12 and Katarina Burin was exhibited in Boston’s Anthony Greaney last fall. The show received a rave review and was featured in The Boston Globe ... [more]
Queer Coming-of-Age
Cubby, a “quirky queer coming-of-age comedy” co-directed by Ben Mankoff ’11, made the rounds of the international queer film festival circuit since its release last year ... [more]
Segregated Academies
Last summer, journalist Ellen Ann Fentress MFA ’08 penned an essay for The Bitter Southerner about her experience attending a segregated school—a reality more than an estimated 750,000 white children experienced in the 1970s ... [more]
Concert/Documentary
NPR favorites, Sylvan Esso (Amelia Meath ’10 and Nick Sanborn) performed another Tiny Desk Concert in May, this time at home ... [more]
True Crime Hit
True crime podcasts are enjoying a heyday. Following the hit, groundbreaking podcast Serial, hundreds of serialized crime podcasts have sprung up on public radio stations and online ... [more]
Behind the Song
This past year, Jonathan Mann ’04 announced the launch of his new podcast, “As it Happens: Song a Day.” Mann’s YouTube Channel, Song A Day Guy, publishes a new song every day, that is written, performed and produced by Mann ... [more]
Beethoven & Aortic Dissection
Forbes featured Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Stamford Hospital Dr. Michael Coady ’89 in a report published this past December ... [more]
Faking Fine Art for Film
When The New York Times featured the work of Fanny Pereire ’XX in May, she summed up her role on film and tv in one sentence: “I create art collections for people who don’t exist.” ... [more]
A Tribute Album
This spring The Liz Swados Project was released, an album of 14 songs from 10 of her works for stage ... [more]
Celebrating the lives of those we’ve lost in the Bennington community.
Beloved teacher, justice scholar, and stalwart proponent of progressive education ... [more]
Former Bennington trustee, lifelong nurturer of causes that advanced the progress of humanity, and one of the College’s most stalwart supporters ... [more]
Who brought world cuisine, hydroelectric power, and an entrepreneurial tenacity to Bennington ... [more]