Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics

    A place to think.

    Discover Bard
    • Academics
      • Programs and Divisions
      • Structure of the Curriculum
      • Courses
      • Requirements
      • Academic Calendar
      • Faculty
      • Libraries
      • College Catalogue
      • Bard Abroad
      • Dual-Degree Programs
      • Other Study Opportunities
      • Graduate Programs
      • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission

    Do you love to learn?

    Discover Bard

    Apply Now
    • Discover Bard
      • Our Students
      • Our Alumni/ae
      • Campus Tours
      • Bridge Program
      • Video Gallery
    • Applying
      • First Year
      • Transfer Students
      • Early College Transfers
      • International Students
      • Homeschooled Students
      • DACA and Undocumented
      • Bard Conservatory
      • Return to College
      • Admitted Students
      • Enroll Now!
      • New Students
      • Prospective Families
      • Familias
      • Financial Aid
      • Tuition and Payment
      • Contact Us
      • Admission Team
      • Tour Guides
      • Graduate Admission
      • Early College Admission
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Bard Campus Life

    Make a home in Annandale.

    • Living on Campus
      • Housing + Dining
      • Campus Resources
      • Get Involved on Campus
      • Bard Connects
      • Visiting + Transportation
      • Athletics + Recreation
      • New Students
  • Civic Engagement sub-menuCivic Engagement
    • Bard CCE The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at Bard College embodies the fundamental belief that education and civil society are inextricably linked.

      Take action.
      Make an impact.

      Get Involved
      • Campus + Community
      • In the Classroom
      • U.S. Network
      • International Network
      • About CCE
      • Resources
      • Support
  • Newsroom sub-menuNews + Events
    Upstreaming
    • News + Events
      • Newsroom
      • Events Calendar
      • Video Gallery
      • Press Releases
      • Office of Communications
      • COVID-19 Updates
    • Special Events
      • Commencement + Reunion Weekend
      • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
      • Fisher Center
      • Bard SummerScape
      • Bard Athletics
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout Bard

    A private college for the public good.

    Support Bard
    • About Bard College
      • Mission Statement
      • Bard History
      • Love of Learning
      • Visiting Bard
      • Employment
      • OSUN
      • Bard Abroad
      • The Bard Network
      • Montgomery Place Campus
      • Campus Tours
      • Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
      • Sustainability
      • Title IX
      • HEOA Disclosures
      • Institutional Support
      • Safety and Security
      • Inside Bard
      • Alumni/ae Network
      • Family Network
      • Support Bard
  • COVID-19 Response
  • Search
Academics Menu
  • Curriculum sub-menuCurriculum
    • Structure of the First Year
    • Courses
    • Requirements
  • Programs sub-menuPrograms + Divisions
    • Division of Arts
    • Division of Social Studies
    • Division of Science, Mathematics, and Computing
    • Division of Languages and Literature
    • Interdivisional Programs and Concentrations
  • Faculty
  • Resources sub-menuResources
    • Academic Calendar
    • College Catalogue
    • Libraries
  • Additional sub-menuAdditional Study Opportunities
    • Bard Abroad
    • Dual Degrees
    • Graduate Programs
    • Early Colleges
  • Academics Home

Bard Faculty News

View All Faculty News

Justus Rosenberg

Professor Emeritus of Languages and Literature and Visiting Professor of Literature

Academic Program Affiliation(s): French Studies, Jewish Studies, Literature

Academic Expertise: Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures

Area of Specialization: Politics and ideology in modern literature

Biography:

Justus Rosenberg, a French Legion of Honor recipient for his resistance work during World War II, has been a member of the Bard faculty since 1962. He received France’s highest honor, Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur, in 2017, when, at 96, he was the last surviving member of the Varian Fry Group, which rescued hundreds of artists and intellectuals from Nazi-occupied France. He later worked with the Forces Françaises de l'intérieur and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. At the time of the ceremony and afterward, Professor Rosenberg was teaching courses in the 19th-century novel, plays that shook the world, and contemporary literature from Africa, the Middle East, India, and Asia—some 20 years after “retirement.” At Bard and at Swarthmore College, where he began his teaching career after earning his PhD, he also taught many languages, including French, German, Russian, Yiddish, and Polish.

Born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), Rosenberg was sent to school in Paris as a teenager after the Nazis expelled all Jewish students in Danzig. He lost contact with his family in 1939 and fled Paris after the Nazi occupation in 1940, finding his way to Toulouse. There he met someone who worked for Varian Fry, a journalist and head of operations in Marseille for the American Rescue Committee, a New York–based organization of political activists. Among the refugees the group helped to escape were Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, and Max Ernst. Rosenberg later worked for the U.S. Army as a scout and translator, earning the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. After the war, which his parents and sister survived, he worked for the UN, helping thousands of displaced persons. In addition to his classes at Bard, Rosenberg taught a weekly course in political and cultural history at the New School until 2013. In 2011, he and his wife, Karin, started a foundation to fund efforts fighting hate and anti-Semitism; the Bard Center for the Study of Hate was established in 2018 with a generous endowment from the foundation. In 2020, Rosenberg’s memoir, The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground, was published by William Morrow. Publications also include Constant Factors in Translation; Sound and Structure of English; Rilke’s Duino Elegies; Bertolt Brecht in Mandarin; Le Bateau Sobre; and numerous reviews, biographies, and translations. Additional honors include awards from the New York Council for the Humanities and New School University. He has served as a guest professor at the universities of Belgrade, Cologne, Singapore, and Aix-en-Provence.

PhD, University of Cincinnati; LL, Sorbonne, Paris. Postdoctoral research fellow, Columbia University, Syracuse University. At Bard since 1962.

Interests:

  • Research Interests: The writing of biographies and autobiographies
  • Teaching Interests: Translations, Senior Projects; contemporary non-Western literature; 19th-century European novel; ten plays that shook the world; understanding Modernism and post-Modernism
  • Other Interests: History and cultural history; the theater

Contact:

Phone: 845-758-7244
E-mail:
Location: Aspinwall
Office: Room 201
Bard College
Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 800-BARDCOL
Admission Phone: 845-758-7472
Admission E-mail: admission@bard.edu
©2020 Bard College
Follow Us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Follow Us on Instagram
You Tube
Information For:
Prospective Students
Current Employees
Alumni/ae 
Families
Quick Links
Employment
Travel to Bard
Site Search
Support Bard