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Isaac Dwyer '17 spent eight weeks this summer studying the Urdu language in India as a recipient of the 2017 U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship—a government initiative aimed at expanding the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages.

During Spring 2017, the students of Barbara Alfano’s class Unlocking Italian Culture II capped their second term of elementary Italian with the creation of an original magazine: Occhio all’Italia.

It is at times the difficult search for understanding of cultural identity that brings artists to a stronger understanding of themselves and their work; their fragmented discoveries merit consideration of how they are externally perceived by the culture in which they have come to exist or identify, of how they choose to internally interpret shifting cultural identity, and of how all of this can affect artistic practice. My analysis is therefore an exploration of displacement, an attempt to dismantle the internal struggle of the individual, specifically of artists who are either Italian immigrants or Italian-American and who have been physically or metaphorically displaced from their homeland. The argument considers artistic interpretation of cultural identity at a physical and emotional remove, and looks historically to failed nationalist art movements in Italy.

—Anya Smith

My final project in the class America in Italy was a paper looking at relations between the United States and Italy by analyzing characters of a book, Vita by Melania Mazzucco, and a documentary about Italian immigration called Finding the Mother Lode by director-couple Gianfranco Norelli and Suma Kurien. I focused on the stories of women and connected their situations through my thesis, which was that female immigrants that had freed themselves from men were able to find independence and success. The relationship between characters from the book and from the documentary was interesting, and the importance of education for immigrants and especially for immigrant girls seemed to be the most important thing to emancipate the entire family.

–Lucia Pompetti 

All’inizio del diciannovesimo secolo, il futurismo italiano, che veniva lanciato nel 1909 con il primo manifesto di Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, sembrava all’apice dell’arte avanguardista. Anche oggi, quando si pensa alla storia dell’arte e alla letteratura, il futurismo si distingue per il suo estremismo. Il futurismo si costituisce sul desiderio di cambiare il mondo distruggendo tutte le cose legate al vecchio modo di pensare e creare. Secondo i futuristi, il mondo in realtà è cambiato ed è dovere dell’artista di rappresentare fedelmente questo cambiamento.

–Nicole Gounalis

Marguerite Feitlowitz was on a panel at the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) in February, called "Tipping the Scales: Addressing Gender Imbalance in Literature in Translation,” which was highlighted on Words Without Borders.

In an interview with The New York Times about the upcoming Festival Albertine, Ta-Nehisi Coates mentioned faculty member Maboula Soumahoro's work and called her "really brilliant." Soumahoro will speak at the Festival on Saturday, November 5 at 5:00 PM. 

Barbara Alfano published an essay on Elena Ferrante’s La Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey, in Stanford’s Arcade in response to Claudio Gatti's exposé of Elena Ferrante’s identity.

Cultural conflict and resolution in the mother-daughter relationships in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club

Thesis by Mai Tran '16

In La Fontaine in Motion, Sophie Sauvayre '16 adapts the works of French poet, Jean de La Fontaine, into a series of comics as part of a combined art, research, and translation project.

Thesis by Sylvia Madaras '16

Jamie Weaver ‘15 continues work she began at Bennington as a Fulbright Fellow working in community theater in Quito, Ecuador.

Mint Use as Measurement for the Current Status of Mapuche Medicine in Northwestern Patagonia

Thesis by Tessalyn Morrison '16

Born out of student response to community need, supported and informed by study with faculty, GANAS brings together students, migrant workers, and organizations focused on promoting healthcare, human rights, and education for the undocumented workforce supporting Vermont's dairy industry. .

Need caption to provide further context for Plan question. —Student Name 'XX

Marguerite Feitlowitz pens an essay in Words Without Borders about teaching in translation.

The Wall Street Journal profiles Ann Goldstein '71, who translated works by Elena Ferrante, Jhumpa Lahiri and Primo Levi, and has become a rare celebrity among translators.

In a new project at the Usdan Gallery at 51��������, artists, dancers, curators, students, and thinkers from China and the U.S. are turning the process of collaboration into a form of art. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays 1:00 to 5:00 pm; admission is free.

Bennington was well represented in Vermont's Japanese Speech Contest, with students Thomas Melvin ’15 and Hoa Nguyen ’16 winning first place in the intermediate division, and Ella Peake ’17 and Carolina Roque ’17 taking second in the introductory division.

A collaboration between 51�������� and the newly independent Village School of North Bennington has students as young as 5 years old speaking a foreign language.

Faculty member Barbara Alfano’s new book, The Mirage of America in Contemporary Italian Literature and Film, examines the use of images associated with the U.S. in Italian novels and films released between the 1980s and the 2000s. The book explores how the individuals portrayed in these works—and the intellectuals who created them—confront the cultural construct of the American myth.

In his column in the Buenos Aires Herald, celebrated journalist and human rights hero Robert Cox dubbed faculty member Marguerite Feitlowitz's book on Argentina's infamous Dirty War "the most important book to appear so far on the consequences of the vicious cycle of terror and violence that enveloped Argentina in the 1970s." 

Participating in Bennington's new Local Field Experience program, 16 students spent Field Work Term volunteering at 11 organizations in Bennington and North Bennington, including schools, counseling services, family support centers, and other community-based agencies.

Field Work Term is 51��������'s annual work-learning term during which students gain hands-on experience and test their classroom ideas in the world of work.

This photo contest brings those experiences  to life. Students use #FieldWorkTerm to share photos of themselves making, working, and learning to tell the story of their unique work exploration over Field Work Term.