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How Bennington students empower migrant workers and foster cultural exchange.

By Ashley Brenon Jowett

Bennington students who have studied French filmmaker Alice Diop's work in class reflected on their recent opportunity to meet Diop, her editor Amrita David, and her translator Nicholas Elliott ’96 during their visit to campus in November.

Students present at the first International Multilingual Creative Writing Conference in New York.

Over the summer, Roberta Martey '25 completed a Field Work Term internship in Kyoto, Japan, where she worked as an intern on a Social Kitchen project with the .

The Spring 2024 issue of (m)othertongues has launched, featuring student works in prose, poetry, and the visual arts. 

Max Harvey-Wilson ’23 had the desire to learn Japanese and study in Japan since high school.

At 51��������, as many as half of the courses offered each term are new. Class offerings change with current events and evolve with faculty members’ research interests. While this method is extraordinary regardless of discipline, it is a particularly unusual way to teach Cultural Studies and Languages, compared to methods used at other colleges and universities.

Curated by Veronica Melendez, Connected Diaspora: U.S. Central American Visuality in the Age of Social Media is a celebration of multimedia artistic contributions of US Central American artists who too often are excluded from contemporary art world conversations.

51�������� faculty are encouraged to follow their own interests and the interests of their students as they propose their classes. As a result, classes, as many as half of which are new each term, feature topics that are always reflecting new lines of inquiry.

51�������� visiting faculty member Maboula Soumahoro recently offered the opportunity for twenty 51�������� students to join those at Columbia University in New York City for an exclusive question-and-answer session with Oscar-Nominated Filmmaker Alice Diop.

51�������� is proud to announce that long-time visiting faculty member Maboula Soumahoro will join scholars from around the world for a year-long fellowship at Columbia University’s starting this fall.

Visiting Spanish Faculty Member Lena Retamoso Urbano, a poet and a scholar of contemporary Latin American Literature and Culture, shared a few highlights from the Spring 2022 term.

The Spring 2022 issue of (M)othertongues has launched, featuring student prose, poetry, and artwork. 

Meet faculty member Barbara Alfano, who is teaching Exploring Otherness and Friendship: HBO's My Brilliant Friend as part of the Bennington Early College Program. 

Onomatopee Press has published Art, Engagement, Economy: The Working Practice of Caroline Woolard, a monograph about the work of Caroline Woolard MFA '20, which arose from her MFA in Public Action.

From her high school experience at United World College Changshu China to her current studies at 51��������, a global academic perspective has informed the way Andreea Coscai ’22 now reflects on growing up in Bucharest, Romania.

In 2019, undergraduate and Bennington Writing Seminars alumni and faculty published over 65 books.

“We love working with Bennington, and we would love to have more students join us,” said Donnica Wingett of Safe Passage/Camino Seguro. “It says something when someone comes from so far away and looks our kids and moms in the eyes and says, ‘Hey, how are you? I care.’” 

During Spring 2019, Barbara Alfano’s Italian students capped off their term with the creation of the third issue of Occhio all’Italia, a yearly magazine devoted to Italian culture.

At 51��������, students studying Languages have the opportunity to apply their studies in the broader Bennington community by teaching languages and cultures—including Chinese, French, Japanese, and Spanish—at Bennington Elementary and the Village School of North Bennington (VSNB).

In Entropy Mag, faculty member Marguerite Feitlowitz shares a personal perspective on writing and literary translation. 

Recently, students in Stephen Shapiro’s and courses had the opportunity to meet with French filmmaker Alice Diop, whose documentary Towards Tenderness won the 2017 CÉSAR award for Best Short Film.

“In the world, it’s often the case that a Deaf person is expected to read lips, have the accommodations they need, to do the work to hold a conversation, when really it’s hearing people who should be making the effort,” said Madeline Poultridge ’20.

Faculty member Marguerite Feitlowitz recently published translations of poems by the Chilean poet Ennio Moltedo and French writer Liliane Atlan in Asymptote Journal, World Literature Today, and Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation.

A dystopian metropolis plagued by dragons. A disillusioned detective back on the beat. An exploration of what it means to be black, feminist, and female in America. A deep dive into the new science of psychedelics. Across millions of words and myriad perspectives, one constant is clear: 2018 was a big year for Bennington writers.

Maboula Soumahoro was highlighted by Le Monde among ten women of African or Afro-descent who have "dedicated their lives to deciphering the colonial past, the slave trade, and the place of women in this painful memory to bring about a world where black women have their place."

Faculty member 's translation of Luisa Valenzuela's hybrid text, "If Language Is the Abode of the Self," is featured in the "Nuevísimos" issue of Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, Vol. 51, No. 1, published in June 2018.

During Spring 2018, the students of Barbara Alfano’s class Unlocking Italian Culture II capped their second term of elementary Italian with the creation of the second issue of Occhio all’Italia.

Marguerite Feitlowitz's translation of The Other Book by Luisa Valenzuela, one of Argentina's most prominent writers and literary activists, appears in the Summer/Fall 2018 issue of The Southampton Review. 

Bruna Dantas Lobato '15 interviewed faculty member Marguerite Feitlowitz for Exchanges Literary Journal as part of a series on translators who also teach.