Bard’s extraordinary faculty are dedicated to the philosophy of teaching. Today and throughout Bard’s history, members of the faculty have effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, journalism, scientific research, and education, among other endeavors. These distinguished scholars are advisers as well as instructors: Bard has no graduate teaching assistants. And the average class size of 16 in the Lower College and 12 in the Upper College allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction.
David Bloom ’13 MM ’15. Photo by Bruce Kung
“What brought me to Bard, in a word, was the faculty.”
“To work with Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, and James Bagwell was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. I had long followed and admired their work, and then I found out that each of them taught here. It’s easy for musicians to focus only on music, whereas I wanted to have a broader education that would prepare me for a world that requires a more well-rounded base of knowledge and experience.”
—David Bloom ’13 MM ’15
—David Bloom ’13 MM ’15
Faculty News
Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse Featured in MSN
“Marcuse describes ‘Woven’ as an attempt to hold together ‘beauty and terror, reverence, and grief.’”
Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse Featured in MSN
A photo series by Associate Professor of Photography Tanya Marcuse is on display in an exhibition now showing at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) in Kingston, New York. Photo by Jonah Romm
“Marcuse’s photographs are meticulously staged over weeks or months,” Dench continues. “She gathers, composes, paints, burns and transplants natural materials. The photograph is the last stage of a long process. Her flowers wither, spiders build webs and organic matter blooms then decays. The camera then records the final spectacle.”
Marcuse’s work is held in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, George Eastman Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and National Gallery of Art. The CPW exhibition includes one large-format photograph, 15 smaller prints, and an 11 minute film made in collaboration with filmmaker Ben Stechshulte. In addition to her exhibition at CPW, Marcuse’s photo series “Book of Miracles” is running at The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York.
The Photography Program at Bard College offers instruction in the medium while providing a historical and aesthetic framework for student development within the context of a broad-based liberal arts education.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
Acting President Jonathan Becker Featured in Journalist’s Resource
“Some of the systems used to exclude African Americans [from voting] have been used on young people,” Becker said last month.
Acting President Jonathan Becker Featured in Journalist’s Resource
A student holding an "I voted" sticker. Photo by Joseph Nartey '26
Jonathan Becker, who has previously published on voting access and has contributed to get out the vote initiatives by Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement and Election@Bard, echoed this point. “Some of the systems used to exclude African Americans [from voting] have been used on young people,” Becker told college students who gathered at Emerson College for Constitution Day this September. Becker recently published an opinion piece on student voting in the New York Times, where he argued colleges have a responsibility to help students navigate the voting process.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
More News
-
Levy Institute Holds Panel on the AI Bubble, Featuring Pavlina Tcherneva
Levy Institute Holds Panel on the AI Bubble, Featuring Pavlina Tcherneva
The Levy Economics Institute at Bard College held a presentation in its Capitol Hill Lecture Series in Washington DC, “The AI Bubble: From Boom to Financial Bust.” Moderated by Zachary Carter and featuring Levy Institute President Pavlina Tcherneva, the panel was cosponsored by the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. Four panelists discussed the sustainability, or lack thereof, of the artificial intelligence industry. Tcherneva focused her remarks on providing a framework for the financing of the AI buildout, including its fragilities. “Our job [is] not to predict the next [crisis] but to outline the anatomy of a crisis,” she said.Pavlina Tcherneva (center) and fellow panelists at the Capitol Hill lecture series.
The Capitol Hill Series panel on October 14 was followed up on October 15 by a Levy Institute briefing with congressional staffers and DC-based think tanks on the topic of the job guarantee. Tcherneva previously published "The Case for a Job Guarantee," which she called, in conversation with Business Insider, “a public option for jobs . . . provided irrespective of what the state of the economy is.”
The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization that encourages diversity of opinion in the examination of economic policy issues while striving to transform ideological arguments into informed debate. The Capitol Hill Series, established last year, brings together financial experts, academics, and policymakers in Washington, DC to discuss the most pressing issues facing the US economy.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
-
Professor Joseph Luzzi Describes His Storytelling Inspiration in LitHub
Professor Joseph Luzzi Describes His Storytelling Inspiration in LitHub
In a story published by LitHub, Professor Joseph Luzzi details how inspiration for his 2011 memoir My Two Italies came from his mother, Yolanda. Part memoir of his family’s life in southern Italy and part work of cultural criticism, My Two Italies was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice upon its release. But before the book’s accolades came numerous morning coffees and summer dinners Luzzi and his mother shared. “But make no mistake,” he writes, “those summertime stories about love and loss in Calabria, about the first uncertain steps of a family in the New World, were as much for her as for me. Yolanda Luzzi understood the first cardinal rule of a great story: it has to be interesting to you first, if it’s going to hold the attention of your listeners and readers.”Joseph Luzzi. Photo by Helena Baillie
Professor Luzzi is the author of eight books, the most recent of which, The Innocents of Florence: The Renaissance Discovery of Childhood, was named one of the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2025. He teaches in the Literature Program at Bard, which emphasizes cultural, linguistic, and geographic diversity, challenging national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries.
Post Date: 10-20-2026
-
Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason Published in the New York Times
Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason Published in the New York Times
Bard Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason reviewed a new biography of author Cormac McCarthy in the New York Times. Tracy Daugherty’s Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited, to be published this month, is the first major biography of the author, spanning McCarthy’s entire career until his death in 2023. Daugherty draws on ten interviews with McCarthy, as well as magazine features, that together give a fuller picture of his relationship to the press.Writer in Residence Wyatt Mason.
“McCarthy’s 60-year career divides neatly into 30-year halves: obscurity and fame,” Mason writes, noting that the author’s legacy has been tarnished by his mistreatment of women, a subject Daugherty doesn’t ignore. His “detailed account of McCarthy’s life … may give us the means to consider whether [his] art was able to transform, even transcend, the life [he led].”
Mason teaches in Bard’s Written Arts Program, which encourages students to experiment with their writing in a context sensitive to intellectual, historical, and social realities. Students consider writing as an act of critical and creative engagement, a way of interrogating and translating the world.
Post Date: 10-13-2026
-
Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History Susan Aberth Interviewed on the FolkArtwork and Friends Podcast
Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History Susan Aberth Interviewed on the FolkArtwork and Friends Podcast
Susan Aberth, the Edith C. Blum professor in the Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard, appeared on the FolkArtwork and Friends podcast. She spoke with host Adam Oestreich about a range of topics, including the persistence of public interest in UFOs, the history and rising popularity of tarot cards, the various meanings of “outsider art,” and artists Paulina Peavy and Hilma af Klint. They also discussed an exhibit that Aberth curated, titled “Conduits of the Unseen: Women Artists Imagine Other Worlds”, now on display at Andrew Edlin Gallery in New York City until October 31st.Edith C. Blum Professor of Art History Susan Aberth.
“My entire art historical career, as I like to say, has been skulking around the periphery,” says Aberth, “which I have found always more interesting than the center, because the center is often more conventional and geared towards art markets.”
Aberth is also the coordinator of the Theology concentration, teaching courses on Surrealism, Spiritualism, Freemasonry, Alchemy, Latin American and Outsider Art. Her books include The Tarot of Leonora Carrington and Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art, and she has contributed to numerous other books and exhibition catalogues. Aberth is also a founding member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.
The Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard introduces students to visual material across a broad range of periods and societies.
Post Date: 10-13-2026
-
Bard College Faculty Member and Student Receive Open Space Institute Grant
Bard College Faculty Member and Student Receive Open Space Institute Grant
Lily Rubino, visiting faculty member in Bard College’s science, mathematics, and computing division, and undergraduate student Stael Toussaint ’27 have received a 2026 Barnabas McHenry Hudson River Valley Award from the conservation organization Open Space Institute (OSI). The award has allowed Toussaint to continue supporting Rubino’s ongoing research into drinking water contamination in the city of Newburgh.Stael Toussaint ’27 and Lily Rubino, presenting their poster at the McHenry Awards Annual Celebration in August 2026.
Rubino, who joined Bard’s faculty in 2025, was recently a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where her PhD thesis explored the social, political, and economic dimensions of water contamination in Newburgh. For his McHenry Award project, Toussaint has been working toward creating a publicly accessible digital archive that documents Newburgh’s ongoing drinking water contamination crisis from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or “forever chemicals.” The archive is informed by his extensive research in local collections on the history of Newburgh’s watershed, and his close study of activist actions since the public became aware of the crisis.
In addition to the digital archive Toussaint is compiling, his project activities include workshops and community events; his research is already featured in a forthcoming self-guided, environmental justice-focused walking tour of the watershed produced by the local organization Outdoor Promise.
PFAS contamination of Newburgh’s watershed was disclosed to the public in 2016. “Although 2026 marks 10 years since the public disclosure of PFAS contamination, the contamination of the watershed and the ongoing impact of toxic exposure remain,” said Rubino. “Stael's research focuses on how public archives can be used as a tool to support and sustain a community’s intergenerational fight for environmental justice.”
Beyond Toussaint’s work in Newburgh, Rubino said, “Stael is using the skills he has learned in his research and throughout this experience to contribute to his senior project, which explores the intersection of displacement, memory, and human rights in his hometown in Haiti.”
Founded in 1974, OSI is a national conservation leader partnering in the protection of more than 2.5 million acres across the eastern United States. In honor of former trustee Barney McHenry’s contributions and accomplishments, OSI has established and administers an award to celebrate his leadership and foster future leaders in the Hudson River Valley. The annual award provides financial support to promising young leaders and exemplary projects that make significant contributions to environmental conservation, environmental justice, historic preservation, tourism, and the arts in the Hudson River Valley.
Post Date: 10-13-2026
-
Levy Economics Institute Event in Washington, DC, Focuses on A.I. and Financial Instability
Levy Economics Institute Event in Washington, DC, Focuses on A.I. and Financial Instability
On Wednesday, October 14, in Washington, DC, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College will host the next installment of its Capitol Hill Series. Planned in partnership with the national coalition Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, the discussion will focus on the connections between artificial intelligence and economic instability.Photo by Gage Skidmore
Panelists will examine the extraordinary run-up of A.I.-related valuations and consider the sustainability of this growth. The forum aims to illuminate potential sources of financial fragility brought about by A.I., and identify possible solutions.
The Levy Economics Institute launched its Capitol Hill Series in 2025. The annual series brings together financial experts, academics, and policymakers in Washington, DC, to discuss the most pressing issues facing the United State’s economy.
The forum will take place in the South Congressional Meeting Room of the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center between 3–5 p.m. Registration is free. For full details and to register, click here.
Panelists include:
Corey Frayer, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America; Maya Jenkins, senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund; Levy Research Scholar Yeva Nersisyan, an associate professor of economics at Franklin and Marshall College; and Levy Economics Institute President Pavlina R. Tcherneva, professor of economics at Bard and the founding director of the Bard Economic Democracy Initiative. The panel will be moderated by Zachary Carter, author of the New York Times bestseller The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the Life of John Maynard Keynes; Texas Representative Greg Casar, who serves as chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, will provide opening remarks.
Post Date: 10-12-2026
Faculty Search
Click the link below to browse through an alphabetical list of Bard Faculty