Skip to main content.
Bard
  • Bard
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Bard College Commencement
    • Academics
      • Programs and Divisions
      • Structure of the Curriculum
      • Courses
      • Requirements
      • Discover Bard
      • Bard Abroad
      • Academic Calendar
      • Faculty
      • Libraries
      • College Catalogue
      • Dual-Degree Programs
      • Bard Conservatory of Music
      • Other Study Opportunities
      • Graduate Programs
      • Early Colleges
  • Admission sub-menuAdmission
    • Applying
      • Apply Now
      • Financial Aid
      • Tuition + Payment
    • Discover Bard
      • Campus Tours
      • Meet Our Students + Alumni/ae
      • For Families / Familias
    • Stay in Touch
      • Join Our Mailing List
      • Contact Us
  • Campus Life sub-menuCampus Life
    Bard Campus Life

    Make a home in Annandale.

    • Living on Campus
      • Housing + Dining
      • Campus Resources
      • Get Involved on Campus
      • Current Students
      • New Students
      • 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 Weekend
      • Alumni/ae Reunion
      • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
      • Fisher Center
      • Bard SummerScape
      • Bard Athletics
  • About Bard sub-menuAbout Bard

    A private college for the public good.

    Support Bard

    Legacy Challenge
    • 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 and Nondiscrimination
      • HEOA Disclosures
      • Institutional Support
      • Safety and Security
      • Inside Bard
      • Alumni/ae Network
      • Family Network
      • Support Bard
      • Legacy Challenge
  • Give
  • Search

Bard Press Releases

Back to All Releases

Newsroom Menu
  • Newsroom
  • Events Calendar
  • News Archive
  • Press Releases
  • Video Gallery
  • Special Programs sub-menuSpecial Programs
    • Commencement + Reunion Weekend
    • Family + Alumni/ae Weekend
    • Fisher Center
    • Bard SummerScape
    • Bard Athletics
  • Office of Communications
  • COVID-19 Updates
 Image Credit: Matt Mendelsohn

Bard Professor Daniel Mendelsohn Wins 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Literary Award

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Daniel Mendelsohn, celebrated author, critic, and Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College since 2006, is one of 20 writers to receive a 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature. Mendelsohn has won the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award of $20,000, given to a writer whose work merits recognition for the quality of its prose style. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awards will be presented in New York in May at the academy’s annual ceremony. The literature prizes honor both established and emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The academy’s 250 members nominate candidates, and a rotating committee of writers selects winners. This year’s committee members were Louis Begley, Louise Glück, Alison Lurie, Francine Prose, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright.

Daniel Mendelsohn was born on Long Island and educated at the University of Virginia and Princeton University. Since 1991 his essays and reviews have appeared in many publications, most frequently in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Books Review, for which he is currently a “Bookends” columnist. He has also been the weekly book critic for New York and is a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure. Mendelsohn’s international bestseller The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, published by HarperCollins in 2006, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and the National Jewish Book Award, as well as the Prix Médicis in France, among other honors; it has been published in more than 15 languages. His other books include a memoir, The Elusive Embrace (1999), a New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; C. P. Cavafy: Complete Poems (2009), an acclaimed translation with commentary, also a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; and two collections of reviews, How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken (2008), a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; and Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture (2012), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and runner-up for the PEN Art of the Essay Award. Mendelsohn’s other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Book Reviewing, and the George Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism. He is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Association.

#
About the American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was established in 1898 to “foster, assist, and sustain an interest in literature, music, and the fine arts.” Election to the Academy is considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in this country. Founding members include William Merritt Chase, Kenyon Cox, Daniel Chester French, Childe Hassam, Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Vedder, and Woodrow Wilson. The Academy currently comprises 250 of America’s leading voices in the fields of art, architecture, literature, and music. The Academy presents exhibitions of art and manuscripts, funds staged readings and performances of new works, and purchases works of art to be donated to museums. It is located in three landmark buildings designed by McKim, Mead & White, Cass Gilbert, and Charles Pratt Huntington, on Audubon Terrace at 155 Street and Broadway, New York City.

 
TO DOWNLOAD A HIGH-RESOLUTION PHOTO, go to: www.bard.edu/news/pressphotos/
PHOTO CAPTION: Daniel Mendelsohn, author, critic, and the Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College, wins the 2014 Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Mendelsohn


###

(03/11/14)

This event was last updated on 03-11-2014

back to top

Bard Press Contact:
Jennifer Wai-Lan Huang
845-758-7008
[email protected]
Recent Press Releases:
  • Bard Playwright-in-Residence Daaimah Mubashshir Awarded Three Residencies
  • Bard College Awarded Two $30,000 Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts
  • Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard Hosts 2023 July Weeklong Workshops
  • Kingston Air Quality Initiative at Bard College Reports After Three Years of Monitoring
Bard College
30 Campus Road
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
Phone: 845-758-6822
Admission E-mail: [email protected]
©2023 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
COVID-19 Info