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First-Year Seminar

Required Texts Spring 2026

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Required texts are available from the College Bookstore. Rely on the ISBN to be sure you are getting the correct edition. Students should purchase hard copy books, not electronic ones.
 
  • Ellison, R., Invisible Man, Vintage, ISBN:  978-0679732761
  • Longsoldier, L., WHEREAS: Poems, Graywolf Press, ISBN: 978-1555977672
  • Locke, J., Second Treatise on Government, Hackett, ISBN: 978-0915144860
  • Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Penguin, ISBN:  978-0141395098
  • Woolf, V., Orlando:  A Biography, Harper Collins, ISBN:  978-0156701600

Any student for whom acquiring these core texts is a significant financial burden should email [email protected] with a request to use the First-Year Seminar book fund to acquire books.
Buy Now from the Bookstore
Required Texts Fall 2025

Required Texts Fall 2025

Required texts are available from the College Bookstore. Rely on the ISBN to be sure you are getting the correct edition.  Students should purchase hard copy books, not electronic ones.

* G. Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera, Aunt Lute Books, ISBN:  978-1951874025
* Aeschylus, Oresteia, Trans. R. Latimore, Chicago, ISBN: 978-0226311470
* M. Cavendish, Blazing World, Penguin, ISBN: 978-0140433722
* Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale,  Chicago, ISBN: 978-0226303109
* V. Nabokov, Bend Sinister, Vintage, ISBN: 978-0679727279


Through a generous grant, students will also receive a copy of the FYSEM Course Reader, and two volumes of Plato's Republic, Trans. C. Emlyn-Jones and W. Preddy from W.W. Norton.

Any student for whom acquiring these core texts is a significant financial burden should email [email protected] with a request to use the First-Year Seminar book funds to acquire books.
Campus Bookstore →

Contact Us

Program Directors

Robert Cioffi, Simon Gilhooley, and Kathryn Tabb

The program directors hold regular office hours throughout the semester. 
We welcome the chance to meet with you about the course and your experiences.

Fall Semester Office Hours: 
Wednesdays from 12:15 - 1:15 pm in the Kline Dining Room
Please note that this is in addition to your own FYSEM instructor's office hours, which you should attend with specific questions / concerns about your own FYSEM section and your own personal progress in the course.

For further information, contact Program Assistant Julie Cerulli
[email protected] | 845-758-7514
Bard College
30 Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 845-758-6822
Admission Email: [email protected]
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