Lee is a聽theater maker, educator, screenwriter and community steward based in Brooklyn. Lee鈥檚 plays are often an urge to honor their mother鈥檚 broken English, to translate experiences despite the gulf of cultures, to know their own psychic blood and guts, and to give up on words entirely and commune through epic imagery and ritual.

Lee is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award for聽顿础顿叠翱罢听(2026), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist and Special

Haruna Lee (Photo: Heather Sten for The New York Times)

Commendation for聽49 Days聽(2025), the Steinberg Playwright Award (2021), and the Obie Award for Playwriting and Conception for聽Suicide Forest聽(2019).聽For TV, Lee has written for Apple TV+鈥檚聽Pachinko聽and HBO Max鈥檚聽The Flight Attendant聽and has developed multiple projects across television, film, and podcast.聽Lee鈥檚 writing has been published by Broadway Licensing, Yale鈥檚聽罢丑别补迟别谤听Magazine, Table Work Press, and 53rd State Press.聽Lee helmed the 可乐视频 M.F.A. Playwriting program between 2021 and 2023 and is currently teaching at Hunter College (CUNY) and Yale University.

Lee is in the early stages of the project DADBOT, a hybrid technology-performance piece where Lee鈥檚 deceased dad will be resurrected by using conversational AI to simulate the iconic father-child conversation.聽The performance will be a mix of scripted and nonscripted improvisation between Lee and the AI that will feel a lot like a low-budget talk show where Lee receives the proverbial 鈥渇atherly advice.鈥澛燗t the heart of this piece is Lee鈥檚 yearning to understand the ties between fatherhood, rebelliousness, and romantic love. The 可乐视频 alumna hopes to capture a spiritual levity in 鈥渞aising the dead鈥� while interrogating AI鈥檚 application in grief work.

Rosenfeld聽is a composer and artist based in New York. Her works have been presented by institutions including the Park Avenue

Marina Rosenfeld (Photo: Veronique Kolber)

Armory, the Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen, the Serralves Foundation, and Portikus Frankfurt; festivals including Wien Modern, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Ultima, and the Holland Festival; and the Whitney, Montreal, PERFORMA, Son, and Gwangju biennials, among many others. She was awarded the Alpert Award in Visual Art in 2024.

Her project 鈥淣ulls鈥� is hybrid in nature, linking work with generative sound and recorded media. It deals with research into the sonic and sculptural aftereffects of sound inscription. Thrilled to receive the honor, Rosenfeld聽added she will use the fellowship as an open-ended time period for research and production.

Karen B. Stern Gabbay

Stern is a respected scholar, educator, and award-winning author who has earned widespread recognition for her interdisciplinary work bridging history, material culture, and religious studies. She is author of Inscribing Devotion and Death: Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Populations of North Africa (Brill 2007) and Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity (Princeton University Press 2018; 2020); winner of a 2020 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award; and co-editor of With the Loyal You Show Yourself Loyal (SBL Press, 2021). Her current book project considers Jewish history through the senses.

Her Guggenheim Fellowship on the topic of 鈥淪anctity: An Archaeology of the Senses in the Ancient Synagogue鈥� will support ongoing field and scientific research overseas, which aims to transform understandings of Jewish history through new interpretations of ancient objects and inscriptions associated with archaeological remains of synagogues, further solidifying her reputation as a leading voice in her field.

Thien has taught literature and fiction in Canada, Hong Kong, Germany, Nigeria, the United States, Zimbabwe, and Singapore. From 2018 to 2024, she was a full professor of English at 可乐视频, teaching primarily in the M.F.A. Program in Fiction.

Madeleine Thien

Over the past 25 years, she has written about music, neurology, mathematics, physics, and philosophy, and about totalitarianism, protest, survival, and mourning. Her five books include the Booker-shortlisted novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Norton, 2016) and The Book of Records (2025), in which a girl and her father live in a building where different centuries wash in like the sea. She has been shortlisted for The Women鈥檚 Prize for Fiction, The Folio Prize, The Climate Fiction Prize, The Tadeusz Bradecki Prize, and longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and a Carnegie Medal. She is a recipient of the Governor-General鈥檚 Literary Award for Fiction, The Writers Trust of Canada Engel-Findley Award, and an Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Her current project, A Kind of Beginning, follows two sisters who leave Hong Kong and whose lives diverge. The novel is partly about the incandescence聽of talent, how brightly it can burn, and how its light dims and transforms. Thien continues to teach as an adjunct professor and remains deeply connected to 可乐视频鈥檚 English Department and its students.

The post 可乐视频 Faculty, Alum Named 2026 Guggenheim Fellows appeared first on 可乐视频.

Yearwood鈥檚 appointment comes at a time of continued impact for the organization, which has long been a leader in connecting graduates with the college and with one another. Through reunions, regional gatherings, mentorship initiatives, and volunteer鈥慸riven programs, the 可乐视频AA works to strengthen relationships across generations of alumni.

鈥淎lumni are vital to advancing 可乐视频鈥檚 mission,鈥� says 可乐视频 President Michelle J. Anderson. 鈥淭heir achievements strengthen our reputation, their mentorship supports student success, and their service helps move our strategic goals forward. Leaders like Trina exemplify how alumni extend the College鈥檚 values and impact well beyond campus.鈥�

Yearwood describes her vision for the 可乐视频AA as both forward鈥憀ooking and deeply rooted in the association鈥檚 legacy. 鈥淢y platform is 鈥楤rooklyn, Always.鈥� That means centering the 可乐视频AA鈥檚 purpose with the college鈥檚 strategic priorities,鈥� she says. She added that 鈥淏rooklyn, Always.鈥� echoes the school鈥檚 watchword All In and the alumni community鈥檚 role in extending 可乐视频鈥檚 values beyond graduation.

Anthony Castellanos 鈥�85, chair of the 可乐视频 Foundation Board of Trustees, adds: 鈥淭rina Yearwood鈥檚 leadership reflects the very best of our alumni community. Throughout my career, I have seen how powerful alumni involvement can be in shaping the lives of our students. Her vision and dedication will help ensure that our graduates continue to lift one another up and expand what is possible for our community.鈥�

A 可乐视频 graduate with bachelor鈥檚 degrees in English and Africana Studies, she earned an M.Ed. from Cambridge College, an Ed.D. in educational leadership and higher education administration from West Virginia University, and a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University. An educator and administrator, she has served as an adjunct assistant professor at 可乐视频 since 2011, directed the Teacher Opportunity Corps II, and held associate dean roles at Long Island University and Queens College. She is also the founder of TREAT鈥擳eachers Ready to Educate, Advocate, and Transform鈥攁nd has served as an advisory member for the Center for SDG Global Education (formerly the UNESCO Center for Global Education鈥檚 Advisory Support Council) since 2018.

As she looks ahead, Yearwood returns to the message that continues to guide her leadership.

鈥淚t鈥檚 the spirit of community, persistence, and discovery鈥攖he spirit of Brooklyn. The 可乐视频AA is a continuum of that spirit. It鈥檚 how we carry those values into our workplaces, how we lead, how we show up for our communities, and ultimately how we show up for our students. 鈥楤rooklyn, Always.鈥� is a reminder of our stewardship and what we commit to as members of the 可乐视频AA board.鈥�

The post Trina Yearwood 鈥�00 Is New President of the 可乐视频 Alumni Association appeared first on 可乐视频.

Having just completed her coursework in December, Plush reflects on her journey back to higher education and the unexpected moments that made it possible.

You first came to 可乐视频 in 1999. What brought you here originally?
I was born and raised in Brooklyn and graduated from South Shore High School. Coming to 可乐视频 felt like the natural next step. I was a psychology major, and for a while I was doing pretty well. I remember one class in particular, Psych Statistics, just stopped me in my tracks. I tried it multiple times and couldn鈥檛 get past it. Also, life started happening. Responsibilities piled up, and I stepped away from school.

What happened after you stepped away?
I moved to New Jersey, got married, and had two children. I built a career as the director of a preschool and was doing well professionally. At that point, going back to school didn鈥檛 feel urgent. I was working, raising a family, and managing everything that comes with adult life. College felt like something I had already tried鈥攁nd moved on from.

But things changed. What was the turning point?
It started with a medical issue. I had a severe toothache, needed a root canal, and developed a dry socket afterward. The pain was intense, and I was prescribed opioid medication. I was hooked before I even realized it. That period led to a cascade of problems鈥攆amily tension, separation from my husband, and eventually losing my job when the preschool I worked at closed due to the casino shutdowns in Atlantic City.

How did you end up back in New York?
I needed a fresh start. I didn鈥檛 have a car anymore, I wasn鈥檛 working, and things in New Jersey had completely fallen apart. I came back to New York thinking I could rebuild. I thought I would stay with a cousin, and when that didn鈥檛 work out, I found myself homeless.

What was that experience like?
From 2017 to 2020, I lived on the streets of Manhattan, sleeping near 30th Street and Park Avenue. Not in shelters鈥攐n the sidewalk. It was an incredibly hard time. I was in an abusive relationship, cut off from my family, and just trying to survive day to day.

What changed your trajectory?
During the early days of the pandemic, a woman and her husband started coming around, handing out money to people on the street. She stopped to talk to me鈥攁nd kept coming back. Her name is Traci. She was a retired patent attorney and had started the College Education Milestone Foundation, in memory of her father. She got to know me and said I seemed more like the type to be doing The New York Times crossword puzzle. She told me I wasn鈥檛 what she expected. She didn鈥檛 just see a homeless person, she saw me.

How did education reenter the picture?
Once I was able to secure housing and leave an abusive situation, Traci asked if I鈥檇 ever consider going back to school. At first, it wasn鈥檛 even on my radar. Instead, we started by writing a book together about homelessness during the pandemic. That book, , ended up on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Writing came naturally to me. I鈥檝e always been strong in English鈥攎y mother was an English teacher鈥攁nd that project reminded me of what I was capable of.

Is that what led you back to 可乐视频?
Yes. Traci encouraged me to take a writing class, just to see how it felt. I breezed through it. That鈥檚 when I thought, maybe I can do this. With Traci鈥檚 support, I reapplied to 可乐视频 and was accepted in spring 2022.

What was it like returning as an older student?
Intimidating at first. I was clearly older than everyone else, sitting there with a notebook and pen while other students had tablets and fancy tech. But once I put my head down and focused on the work, it stopped mattering. Online classes helped a lot, too. They made it possible to balance everything without feeling so out of place.

Who supported you along the way at 可乐视频?
So many people. Gina Priolo [an associate director in the college鈥檚 Student Success Unit], Professor Roni Natov, [Associate] Professor Martha Nadell, and the late Professor Carey Harrison were all instrumental. They worked with me to retain as many credits as possible from my earlier years and helped me map out a realistic path to graduation. Professor Harrison, especially, really reignited my love for learning.

Where are you now鈥攁nd what鈥檚 next?
I have another book just released called . It picks up where my first book ends鈥攇oing back to school, caring for my father before he passed, and rebuilding my life.

I don鈥檛 know exactly what I鈥檒l do next, but I know it will involve writing, editing, or publishing.

What would you say to other adults considering a return to college?
I鈥檓 44 years old. It鈥檚 never too late to start again. You might be surprised by how flexible and supportive the process can be. If I can come back after everything I鈥檝e been through, it鈥檚 doable for a lot of people out there who think it isn鈥檛.

The post A Long Road Back appeared first on 可乐视频.

Burgess is widely known for his contributions to children鈥檚 literature, poetry, and education, and has long championed creativity, literacy, and the power of storytelling, inspiring students both in and out of the classroom. This award places Burgess among an elite group of writers whose work has made a lasting impact on children鈥檚 literature.

Published by Clarion Books, Fireworks follows two siblings on a steamy summer day in the city, capturing the anticipation and joy of fireworks with immersive, sensory art.聽It was selected for its exceptional artistic quality, imaginative storytelling, and ability to capture the wonder and emotional resonance of its subject for young readers.

Other notable recognitions for Fireworks include:

• Society of Illustrators Gold Medal
• New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Book
• Kirkus鈥� Best Books of 2025
• School Library Journal鈥檚 Best Books of 2025
• Publisher鈥檚 Weekly Best Picture Books of 2025
• Blue Ribbon Award 2025
• 2026 Charlotte Zolotow Honor for Outstanding Writing in Picture Books

Burgess, who has been teaching at 可乐视频 since 1999, is a noted expert in a wide range of fields, including poetry, creative writing, and children’s literature, as well as education and pedagogy.

He is the author of one poetry collection and 16 books for children, including Words With Wings and Magic Things, The Bear and the Moon, Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring, As Edward Imagined: A Story of Edward Gorey in Three Acts, and Sylvester鈥檚 Letter. Burgess also edited two book-length collections: Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry and Dream Closet: Meditations on Childhood Space.

The post Professor Matthew Burgess Book Fireworks Awarded 2026 Randolph Caldecott Medal appeared first on 可乐视频.

Tell us about your background.

I was born and raised in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. My family owns and operates a church on the South Side of the city (my grandfather is the bishop, my mother the pastor). I flew the nest, dropped out of school, and moved to New York when I was 19 years old. Now I find myself here at 可乐视频, finishing the degree I started over 10 years ago at Illinois State University. I initially moved to the city to pursue acting and theater, but other avenues opened up to me. I found myself working as a storyteller and producer, and I鈥檝e been blessed to work across the industry, telling stories in multiple mediums鈥攆rom short and longform videos on the internet at places like VICE and BuzzFeed to documentaries for companies like HBO and Hulu. But I鈥檓 eager to get back to my first love: theater.

Why did you choose 可乐视频?

Honestly, proximity was my initial attraction. I live in Bed-Stuy, and it鈥檚 nothing for me to just hop on the B44 and jet to campus. The more I spoke to people about the school鈥攅veryone raved about its English Department, primarily creative writing. That paired with what I鈥檝e come to learn about the Theater Department, made the choice a practical one.

Why did you choose the creative writing program and what do you like most about it?

Before anything, I am a writer, a poet. Words and the bending of language are things I鈥檝e been doing before I even knew what I was doing. The core of everything I love and everything I鈥檓 good at lives on the foundation of my curiosity about words, language, and text. This was my entry point into theater. It鈥檚 what made it possible for me to explore documentaries and filmmaking. The key to conveying anything is the ability to tell a story, to harness language to do your will. All those years ago, during my first attempt to obtain a degree, I majored in theater鈥攁cting. This time around, it made more sense to pursue creative writing (playwriting), with a minor in acting.

Have you completed any internships, or received any grants, stipends, or scholarships from 可乐视频?

Most recently, I was selected for the Mellon Undergraduate Transfer Student Research Program, where I am developing a project on the intersections of performance, memoir, and poetry under the mentorship of Professor Rosamond S. King. The English Department awarded me the Louis Goodman Creative Writing Scholarship [overseen by the 可乐视频 Foundation] for an outstanding creative writing submission. I was a a paid program that places CUNY in arts and cultural institutions in New York City. Through that program I was paired with the . I was a , serving as a dramaturg for the Public Playwrights residency.聽I was a Magner Career Center stipend winner; this funded a documentary project and work with an emerging New York City production company. I was chosen by to be a student ambassador connecting CUNY students with accessible, affordable theater experiences.

How do you envision your first year after graduating?

I would love to be workshopping and developing new works in and around the city, maybe even getting out of New York City, squatting elsewhere, and writing a play. I鈥檓 open.

If you had to convince another student like you to go to college here, what would you say?

The world runs on the backs of public school students. New York City shines because of public school students. It can pay to go to a public school. I would encourage anyone looking to further their education to look at what is available to them in their immediate communities and backyards. Enrichment is so accessible; all you have to do is reach for it.

Do you have any advice for your fellow students?

Two things. Take full advantage of the resources and facilities around you. Access such as this exists in very few places outside of academia or in our city. While they are available to you, not only use them, but maximize your use of them so that what you do or where you go next, you鈥檙e fully prepared because of the work you鈥檝e already done and the connections you made.

And two: There鈥檚 sooo much 鈥渇ree鈥� money on this campus鈥攆rom fellowships, stipends, endowments, etc. Deadlines are scary, but get on them. The only shots you miss are the ones you don鈥檛 take. If you don鈥檛 get it the first time, apply again, and again, and again. Someone is reading those applications; they are seeing your name. Some things may not come around immediately, maybe not even the third time, but you鈥檇 be shocked to learn that in many cases what you do now is setting you up for the sixth thing, the seventh. Get yourself out there.

The post Harnessing Language appeared first on 可乐视频.

English Department Chair Martha Nadell at a recent convening about AI.

Science fiction has long imagined artificial intelligence, but few could predict the scale and speed of its real-world impact. Today, AI is reshaping every sector, sparking both excitement and unease.

At 可乐视频, faculty and staff are navigating this transformation in real time. We spoke with three faculty experts鈥�Martha Nadell (English), MJ Robinson (Television, and Radio & Emerging Media), and Karen Stern-Gabbay (History, Roberta S. Matthews Center for Teaching and Learning)鈥攚ho shared how the college is responding.

Here, they discuss AI鈥檚 influence on classroom learning and how both learners and educators are preparing for an AI-driven future.鈥燫esponses have been edited for clarity.

What was the initial reaction to AI by your colleagues? 鈥�

Martha Nadell: Late in 2022, when ChatGPT first made headlines, academia seemed to lose its collective mind; the Great AI Panic of 2023 was about to begin. Some of my colleagues immediately went apocalyptic, imagining a world in which AI took over. A few were ready to have AI integrated, somehow, into their brains. But others stuck their heads in the sand and pretended it didn鈥檛 exist.

How have you seen AI take shape in the classroom?鈥��

Nadell: Early on, it was very easy to spot generative AI-produced work. ChatGPT was producing solidly mediocre work, C+ at best. The problems were obvious: deeply conventional language, workaday structures, and unoriginal thought. Some students were offloading their cognitive work to a pattern-matching machine, which could produce prose that possessed an air of authority, if only you didn鈥檛 read too closely.

MJ Robinson:鈥� As a journalism professor, I teach, per Phil Graham, that journalism is the first rough draft of history.鈥疭o, in one respect, the students I teach are writing the history of AI鈥攊n culture, society and their anticipated industry and practice but鈥攁nd here’s the difference: that technology can also be writing it with, or prompted by, them. So that’s an interesting conundrum.

I started including AI modules in my Journalism Capstone course in Spring 2023.鈥� From the beginning we were examining how journalism was covering the release of ChatGPT to the general public as well as interrogating how it was affecting the journalism industry itself and considering how these text-generating technologies will affect the future of journalism as an industry and a public good.

How should a college education prepare students for this new world?鈥��

Karen Stern-Gabbay: It is unclear what sorts of preparation students have for working with AI (agentive and otherwise) when they enter college. Colleges today, therefore, play a critical role in establishing expectations and setting rules for the game. We are uniquely positioned to encourage students to interrogate their assumptions about authorship and intellectual property, and to reinforce how essential it is to develop human skills (related to critical thinking, emotional intelligence, analog skills, etc.). College students have opportunities to practice responsible AI use inside classroom settings before these skills in the workplace.

Nadell: Universities are where critical thinking happens, and where students can recognize the limits of what AI is good at鈥損redicting the likelihood of common and formulaic arrangements of language and thought鈥攁nd can think through ethical quandaries with empathy.

How important is it to develop AI literacy among educators?

Robinson:鈥疻e will, shortly, be in a world where K-12 educators have been educated in the age of AI and teaching children with these technologies from a very early age. That’s going to make critical鈥疉I literacy even more important. Asking questions about why one is using generative AI for a particular task prior to using it, insisting upon human-in-the-loop processes, knowing what one does not know about these platforms鈥攖hese are key.

What have you and your colleagues been doing to enhance the understanding of AI on campus?鈥�

Stern-Gabbay: At the Roberta S. Matthews Center for Teaching and Learning we have hosted events and workshops during the past year that particularly engage with the complex roles of AI in the classroom. Of course, academic integrity and data privacy appear to be the biggest issues that we have explored, but several of our faculty (rightly) point out the environmental impact of big data associated with AI.

I do think, however, that discussions of AI in the classroom bring into starker relief topics that we should be discussing anyway, including the reasons why college classrooms have become more invaluable than ever鈥攖hat is, to engage in and strengthen students鈥� critical thinking skills鈥攖hese are invaluable in an increasingly automated and AI driven world.

The post Education in the Age of AI appeared first on 可乐视频.

The 32nd Annual Faculty and Staff Authors Reception, held in the Christoph M. Kimmich Reading Room, shone a spotlight on more than 30 individuals whose recent works鈥攊ncluding scholarly books, novels, monographs, poetry, and other creative artistic pieces鈥攐ffer fresh insight into our world and deepen our collective imagination.

The 32nd Annual Faculty and Staff Authors Reception shone a spotlight on scholarly books, novels, monographs, poetry, and other creative artistic pieces by faculty and staff.

The talent came from the schools of Visual, Media, and Performing Arts; Education; Humanities and Social Sciences; and Natural and Behavioral Sciences, the Department of Classics, as well as the Division of Institutional Advancement. The works ranged from CUNY Presidential Professor of Art Archie Rand鈥檚 artistic work in Popeye, Unchained and Archie Rand: Oz, to Associate Professor of Education Yoon-Joo Lee鈥檚 fascinating and personal book, Stories on Disability Through Our Voices: Born This Way.

President Michelle J. Anderson praised the honorees, acknowledging the dedication behind every publication鈥攖he late nights, countless revisions, and the unshakable passion for their craft鈥攁nd describing the event as a way for the college to say: We see your work, we value it, and we are incredibly proud.

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Bedford echoed that sentiment, expressing gratitude for the honorees鈥� scholarship and creativity. She reminded everyone of the privilege and responsibility of being part of a community of ideas鈥攁 place that champions lifelong learning and intellectual growth.

Lucas Rubin, the College鈥檚 Assistant Dean for 可乐视频 and director of the CUNY Latin/Greek Institute, had his book The Latin/Greek Institute at the City University of New York on display.

鈥淚 especially enjoyed seeing the depth and breadth of material, which spanned the scholarly to the creative, with works intended for audiences of all ages,鈥� Rubin said. 鈥淚 was particularly delighted to take part this year, as the first chapter of my book is a retrospective of 可乐视频鈥檚 Department of Classics, which has had a remarkable and storied history, especially in its outsized contributions to language pedagogy.鈥�

First held in 1993, the event was thoughtfully organized and hosted by Mary Mallery, chief librarian and director of Academic IT, with key support from Judith Wild, associate librarian for acquisitions, cataloging, serials, and interlibrary loans. Together, they welcomed the extended 可乐视频 family, including President Michelle J. Anderson, Provost April Bedford, Associate Dean for Faculty and Administration James T. Eaton, and many others.

The full list of authors and their contributions is available .

The post Celebrating the Creative Heart of 可乐视频 appeared first on 可乐视频.

Photo Credit: Peter Bienkowski

When he was two, Ocean Vuong 鈥�12 landed in Connecticut with his family, refugees from Vietnam. Considering himself his family鈥檚 鈥渙ne chance鈥� at moving up the socioeconomic ladder, he found his way to 可乐视频, where he graduated with a B.A. in English with a focus on 19th century American literature.

Vuong went on to write the bestselling novel On Earth We鈥檙e Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin Press, 2019) and two books of poetry, Night Sky With Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) and Time Is a Mother (Penguin Press, 2022).

Currently on hiatus from writing as he awaits the publication of his second novel, The Emperor of Gladness (Penguin Press, 2025), the MacArthur 鈥済enius鈥� fellow has been focusing on photography and his first show at the Toledo Museum of Art. We caught up with him to talk about his journey from Saigon and his life as an artist.

How was your family鈥檚 experience moving to the United States?

I was two when I came over and, interestingly enough, my first memory of America鈥攁nd it became a very quintessential American memory鈥攚as eating KFC. That was because the church that sponsored us gave us a stack of KFC coupons, which my family immediately called Old Man Chicken because of the picture of Colonel Sanders on the coupons. None of us could read English.

It was unfathomable how good it was to us. We were coming out of postwar Vietnam at a time when folks were cutting their rice rations with sawdust. I remember my grandmother and my mother coming home with these buckets of chicken, and we felt like we made it.

Your family started out life in the U.S. in New England?

Hartford, Connecticut. We were surrounded by Jamaican, Haitian, and Dominican immigrants whose families had worked the fields in New England after World War II, so it was already a place of deep, rich immigration. It was not so strange to us, and we were not received as strangers. We had no TV or radio, so I did not know America was mostly white until I was 11, 12 years old. Not until I finally made it to a mall and the suburbs. Nowadays immigrants can go to YouTube to get some sense of the world.

The community embraced us, they saw us. At the heart of this was a legacy of endurance and success from Black and Brown immigrant communities coming through the Great Migration, settling in Hartford, and working in those fields.

We were war refugees. Many of us never aspired to be doctors, lawyers, or businesspeople, even in the old country. We were farmers, and we would be farmers forever, and that was fine. We’ve been doing that for a thousand years. When we came to America, there was none of that aspiration. And so we received everything in that community as a bonus. I’m grateful for that.

What prompted you to come to New York?

I think the larger answer might be queerness. I didn’t know what New York was, but I had to try it. And so it was kind of like this North Star. I went to New York to go to business school. There was no pressure from my family. I didn’t have to overcome immigrant family expectations, but I ended up putting pressure on myself. I was lucky to have folks who said, 鈥淕o do whatever you want. If you fail, there鈥檚 a seat right next to me at the nail salon.鈥� And even McDonald鈥檚. My mom said, 鈥淵ou can be a manager at McDonald鈥檚. That’s a salary, right?鈥�

But the pressure is there for anyone who is awake in America. You look around and say, okay, my people tell me I can do whatever I want, but I see them struggling, and I know that I’m their way out. I’m the foot forward. So I鈥檝e got to put that foot in the right place, in the most practical place.

I thought maybe marketing. Marketing is art, and I can look at art. It鈥檚 communication. I had this desire to communicate. I didn’t yet know I wanted to be a poet, but I had this desire to communicate. I went to Pace University to study business and marketing. But I couldn’t do it. I was surrounded by people in suits, and when they went off to internships at Goldman Sachs and Chase Bank, I felt like a fraud. Who was I kidding?

So I walked out one late October afternoon. You could see the Brooklyn Bridge from Pace Library. And I looked at that bridge and remembered poems I had read by Hart Crane and Walt Whitman, 鈥淭o Brooklyn Bridge鈥� and 鈥淐rossing Brooklyn Ferry.鈥� And I thought, okay, let me walk across that bridge and decide. I walked across and said, 鈥淭hat’s it. I’m not going to go back.鈥� I never went back.

Photo Credit: 漏 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation鈥搖sed with permission.

What happened next?

I was too ashamed to go home and tell my mom I failed. So I bummed around. I lost my housing, so I stayed on friends鈥� couches. I went to open mics. I told myself that if I was going to be here, I might as well follow in the footsteps of my heroes, Allen Ginsburg, James Baldwin, and Amira Baraka, and stay in the East Village and see what happens.

One day, I realized I had to go home. I was running out of money, but I couldn鈥檛 go home empty-handed. I was the only one. My family had one die to cast, not even two dice, just one鈥攎e. A friend suggested I try CUNY; I was still considered a resident and could get in-state tuition. So I enrolled in 可乐视频 and earned a B.A. in English. I told my mom I was earning a business degree.

Could you talk about your experience in the English department? Who were your mentors?

The B.A. was great in that I got the core curriculum, which people bemoan and ask things like, 鈥淲hy am I here studying rocks when I’m a biochemistry major?鈥� I asked the same thing for about five minutes, and then my mind started opening. I鈥檓 telling you, to this day, I still use stratified rock as a metaphor for history and time and literary traditions. When I teach, I say, 鈥淟ook, it鈥檚 like stratified rock. We are the top. We鈥檙e the grass, and the grass is the thinnest part. And it’s the briefest part. So while we’re alive, we have to do what we can. The dead have spoken, and they are the stratified rock there.鈥� And that came from Geology 101, core curriculum, 可乐视频.

My professors and mentors were Ronnie Natov, Geri DeLuca [professor emerita], and Ben Lerner. At the time, I didn鈥檛 have a sense that Vietnamese American life and Vietnamese history were viable for poetry. My teachers at 可乐视频 said, 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 do it, who will?鈥�

I didn’t understand that at first. So they gave me Isaac Bashevis Singer and they gave me Toni Morrison. They said, 鈥淟ook at Morrison鈥檚 Beloved; she鈥檚 writing about the first generation coming out of slavery. I was able to see the parallel. My mother is similar in how she witnessed the war, and now she’s on the other side of it. So if Morrison can go back 150 years and salvage a story, here I am living in the first generation of it; I need to write this down.

Your work speaks directly to your life as a Vietnamese refugee in America and a gay man.

Everything I write comes through this body and how this body is perceived in the world. And so that鈥檚 categorical, but it’s also specific. It’s this body and it’s an Asian body. But I can鈥檛 start the day seeing myself as a category determined by media or cultural abstractions. I have to start as Ocean. And Ocean moves through all of this.

You are taking a break from writing and reacquainting yourself with photography.

Yes. Photography is not new for me; I began shooting some years ago, photos of my friend鈥檚 band. But what got me exploring other subjects is that when I was 19, I published my first poem in the Connecticut Poetry Society鈥檚 journal. It was a small thing. And I had won this little award at that time. It might as well have been the Pulitzer鈥攜ou鈥檙e 19, you win a poetry prize. I remember getting the prize and the issue in the mail, and I biked to my mother’s nail salon. I couldn鈥檛 wait to tell her that I was legitimate, that I didn’t waste my life on this weird thing that I’d been doing that nobody understands. And I got to her nail salon and showed it to her. The first thing she said was, 鈥淲ell, how come it’s only one page?鈥� There’s nothing like a mother to bring you right back down to earth. And being illiterate, the next thing she said was, 鈥淚 can’t read it.鈥�

After that incident with my mother, I wanted to start shooting photographs of my family. I wanted to show my mother my vision of the world and how I saw all of us. So I鈥檝e been taking these little documentary photos ever since. When I showed them to her, she said something that kind of haunts me to this day, and colors my understanding of my work. I showed her the photos, and she looked through them and she said, 鈥淲ow, our life is so sad.鈥�

As soon as she said that, that鈥檚 exactly what I saw. And it鈥檚 interesting that in Vietnamese, the word sad is bu峄搉. But it doesn’t just mean sad. There’s an undercurrent. It has a more capacious definition that includes a type of wistful, melancholic beauty. You can say, 鈥淚 am bu峄搉,鈥� and you just said you’re sad. But if you go look at a sunset鈥攜ou stop your car, go out, and seek it out鈥攜ou can also say bu峄搉. So it applies to this kind of fleeting lost somberness, which made a lot of sense with what I was taking.

And I started to see that in all of my work, my novels later on, in my poems, which are laced with this kind of sadness. It was a private practice. Only very recently, my friends, many of whom are photographers, started to see my images. And they told me that I needed to start sharing them or it would be a waste. So I began to commit to it, and it’s been a lovely, lovely relationship.

With writing you have to be exact, and there’s no luck. Sontag said it best鈥攖here’s no luck in writing. I’ve never accidentally written a good sentence. You wrangle away and it’s painstaking. But you can accidentally take a good photo.

You are a poet, novelist, photographer, and as importantly, an educator. What do you see as today’s generation of students鈥� greatest strengths?

They鈥檙e so good at expressing their needs. I admit my generation was a bit 鈥渋t is what it is. Take it or leave it. Do what you can.鈥� But they have this kind of spirit that says, 鈥淣o, we are going to get what we want.鈥�

This new sense of self-determination has come from the efforts of LGBTQ activism, which has made space for queer folks to be more normalized in fighting for our rights, and I’m really proud to see my young students not only make space for queer voices, but for queer students to lead discussions, movements, and to center the cultural conversation around themselves and their needs with poise, determination, and pride.

And I think we’re seeing a lot of that in the political discourse as well. Their demands are heard. The students who I educate, educate me as much as I do any of them.

Is there anything else you鈥檇 like to share?

I want to thank the 可乐视频 Department of English for getting me an emergency grant in 2009, when I lost my housing and was one semester away from graduating.

My housing situation blew up and I was out on the street, and I don’t know how they did it but they bailed me out. The Department of English advocated to help me. I wrote them a note that I had to go back to Hartford and they said, 鈥淣o, no, no. We’re not going to let you leave. We’re going to figure this out the one last semester.鈥� Then they came back with the funds. I don’t know what would have happened without that.

The post Life Through a Different Lens appeared first on 可乐视频.

Events for fall 2024 are as follows:

Revolutions and Generations: A Conversation With Nathan Perl-Rosenthal and David G. Troyansky

Sept. 16, 2:15鈥�3:30 p.m.
USC Professor Nathan Perl-Rosenthal鈥檚聽The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It聽examines two generations of revolutionaries in late-18^th– and early-19^th-century Europe and the Americas, while 可乐视频 Professor of History David G. Troyansky鈥檚聽Entitlement and Complaint: Ending Careers and Reviewing Lives in Post-Revolutionary France聽explores careers and memories across the first half of the 19^th century. These authors ask: What did it mean to be a revolutionary?聽 How did individuals make revolutions, survive revolutions, and build identities in the shadow of revolution? And how did revolutionary pasts feed into the creation of institutions associated with the modern political world?

Gender and Development in Nigeria: Concepts, Issues and Strategies鈥擜n Interdisciplinary Discussion on Gender Discourses and Policy Approaches in Nigeria

Oct. 23, 6鈥�7:15 p.m.
The event celebrates the publication of聽Gender and Development in Nigeria: Concepts, Issues, and Strategies, edited by Professors Oluwafunmilayo Josephine Para-Mallam, mni. Director of Studies, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru,聽Nigeria, and 可乐视频 Professor of Political Science Moj煤b脿ol煤 Ol煤f煤nk茅 Okome.聽The book asks: What conceptual and theoretical frames of analysis explain gender identity, status, roles and relationships across Nigeria鈥檚 richly diverse and culturally complex ethnic nationalities? What are the implications of such diversity and complexity for gender and development thinking, planning and policy? For academic as well as policy-related reasons, gender and development issues and analyses must reflect the socio-cultural, political and economic dimensions of the Nigerian State from the perspective of those who live Nigerian realities. The speakers will be Para-Mallam, Okome, and Clement J. Dakas, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Principal Partner, CJ Dakas SAN & Co.

Until We’re Seen: Public College Students Expose the Hidden Inequalities of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Oct. 24,12:30鈥�2 p.m.
Woody Tanger Auditorium, 可乐视频 Library

This event centers the voices of 可乐视频 student-authors who contributed to the recent book聽Until We鈥檙e Seen: Public College Students Expose the Hidden Inequalities of the COVID-19 Pandemic, co-edited by Professor of English Joseph Entin and Distinguished Professor of Political ScienceJeanne Theoharis. Through firsthand accounts by college students at 可乐视频 and California State University Los Angeles,聽Until We鈥檙e Seen聽chronicles COVID-19鈥檚 devastating, disproportionate effects on working-class communities of color. Very few of these students and their families had the luxury of laboring from home; if they were able to keep their jobs, they took subways and buses and worked. They drove delivery trucks, worked in private homes, cooked food in restaurants for people to pick up, worked as EMTs, and did construction. They couldn鈥檛 escape to second homes; if anything, more people moved in, as families were forced to consolidate to save money. The accounts in this book show that the COVID-19 pandemic did discriminate, following the race and class fissures endemic to U.S. society. Recounting 2020鈥�22 through the experiences of predominantly young, working-class immigrants and people of color living in the first two major U.S. COVID-19 epicenters,聽Until We鈥檙e Seen聽spotlights untold stories of the pandemic in New York, Los Angeles, and the nation.

Love Can鈥檛 Feed You: A Conversation With Author Cherry Lou Sy and English Professor Helen Phillips

Oct. 30, 6鈥�7:15 p.m.

Celebrate the publication of Cherry Lou Sy鈥檚 debut novel,聽Love Can鈥檛聽Feed You. Sy will be joined in conversation by novelist and 可乐视频 English Professor Helen Phillips. The book is a stunning coming-of-age story that finds Queenie, a young woman attempting to assimilate after immigrating to the United States, adrift between familial expectations and her burning desires. As the pressures of assimilation compound, and the fissures within her family deepen into fractures, Queenie feels caught in the middle of everything. Full of rich prose and the pulsing, sensual curiosity of young adulthood,聽Love Can鈥檛 Feed You聽is perfect for fans of contemporary coming-of-age novels and novels about the immigrant experience. Exploring shifting notions of home and the disintegration of the American dream, the novel asks readers: What does it mean to be of multiple cultures without a road map for how to belong?

Cognition and Language: How Are Our Memory, Attention, and Inhibition Functions Related to Our Language Skills?

Nov. 14, 6鈥�7:15 p.m.

The panel discussion centers around Klara Marton鈥檚 recent book,聽Cognitive Control Along the Language Continuum. The discussion will center on some of the most relevant and controversial questions in cognitive science about the relationship between cognition and language. In addition to current findings, experts will discuss educational and clinical implications with an emphasis on individual differences. The panel features Klara Marton, professor and chair of the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders at 可乐视频, and director of the Cognition and Language Laboratory at the CUNY Graduate Center; and Baila Epstein, associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts, Sciences, and Disorders, and director of the Child Language and Cognition Laboratory at 可乐视频. They will be joined by Caroline Larson, assistant professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and director of the Larson Language and Cognition Lab at the University of Missouri; and Luca Campanelli, assistant professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders, and director of the Psycholinguistics Laboratory at the University of Alabama, and affiliated scientist at Yale University.

Affective Masculinities: From Colonial Fathers to Bachelor Banisters in India and England (19^th and 20^th Centuries)

Nov. 19, 2:15鈥�3:30 p.m.
Woody Tanger Auditorium, 可乐视频 Library

Celebrate History Professor Swapna M. Banerjee鈥檚 latest book,聽Fathers in the Motherland: Imagining Fatherhood in Colonial India. Banerjee will be joined by Emory University History Professor Gyanendra Pandey and NYU History Professor Ren Pepitone. The book contends that during a period of social and political change in late 19th- and early 20th-century colonial India, fathers extended their roles beyond breadwinning to take an active part in rearing their children. Exploring specific moments when educated men鈥攁s biological fathers, literary activists, and educators鈥攁ssumed guardianship and became crucial agents of change, Banerjee interrogates the connections between fatherhood and masculinity. The last chapter of the book draws on the lives of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru to provide a broader salience to its argument. Reclaiming two missing links in Indian history, the book argues that biological and imaginary 鈥渇athers鈥� assumed the moral guardianship of an incipient nation and rested their hopes and dreams on the future generation.

Fiction, Technology, and Climate Change: Helen Phillips Discusses Her Novel聽Hum聽With Sociologist Ken Gould聽

Nov. 19, 3:40鈥�5 p.m.
411 可乐视频 Library

Professor of English Helen Phillips discusses her new novel,聽Hum聽(Marysue Rucci Books/Simon & Schuster, 2024), with Ken Gould, Professor of Sociology and Urban Sustainability. Early in the research process for聽Hum, Phillips interviewed Gould about climate change and capitalism. In this conversation, they will reflect on that interview and discuss how creative works can intersect with sociological inquiry related to science and technology, with a particular focus on climate change and artificial intelligence. More information on the book is available here.

Liberty Road: Professors Greg Smithsimon and Prudence Cumberbatch Discuss the Black Middle Class

Nov. 20, 2:15鈥�3:30 p.m.
Woody Tanger Auditorium, 可乐视频 Library

To celebrate the publication of his recent book,聽Liberty Road: Black Middle-Class Suburbs and the Battle Between Civil Rights and Neoliberalism, Sociology Professor Gregory Smithsimon is joined in conversation by Africana Studies Associate Professor Prudence Cumberbatch. In聽Liberty Road, Smithsimon focuses on a Black middle-class suburb of Baltimore to tell the story of how residents broke the color barrier, against all odds, in the face of racial discrimination, tensions with suburban Whites and urban Blacks, and economic crises like the mortgage meltdown of 2008. Drawing on interviews, census data, and archival research, he shows us the unique strategies that suburban Black residents employed, creating a blueprint for other Black middle-class suburbs. Smithsimon re-orients our perspective on race relations in American life to consider the lived experiences and lessons of those who broke the color barrier in unexpected places.

The post New Books by 可乐视频 Faculty Series Returns for Fall appeared first on 可乐视频.

As the only department within CUNY to offer a comprehensive selection of graduate programs in theater (acting, design and technical theater, directing, performing arts management), the 可乐视频 Department of Theater capitalizes on its New York City location and the expertise of its nationally recognized faculty in order to give students an excellent yet financially accessible education in the art, craft, study, and appreciation of theater.

(Top row left to right) Haruna Lee, former M.F.A. Playwriting Program co-chair; Diana Lobontiu 鈥�23 M.F.A. Playwriting, Marissa Joyce Stamps 鈥�23 MFA Playwriting and Weasel 2024 director; Max Keane 鈥�23 M.F.A. Playwriting; Nic Adams 鈥�23 M.F.A. Playwriting and Weasel 2024 stage manager; Dennis Allen II, Playwriting Program co-chair; and Alina Jacobs 鈥�23 MFA Playwriting.
(Bottom row left to right) Madison Wetzell 鈥�24 M.F.A. Playwriting and Weasel 2024 playwright; Leslie Gauthier 鈥�24 M.F.A. Playwriting and Weasel 2024 playwright, Utkarsh Rajawat 鈥�24 M.F.A. Playwriting and Weasel 2024 playwright; Tracy Carns 鈥�24 M.F.A. Playwriting and Weasel 2024 playwright; and Lori Felipe-Barkin 鈥�24 M.F.A. Playwriting and Weasel 2024 playwright.

The festival is written and presented by the college鈥檚 M.F.A. playwriting program鈥檚 2024 graduates: Tracy Carns, Nurit Chinn, Lori Felipe-Barkin, Leslie Gauthier, Utkarsh Rajawat, and Madison Wetzell.

Other 可乐视频 playwriting students and alumni who will lend their expertise to the programming are director Marissa Joyce Stamps 鈥�23 M.F.A.; co-producers and current M.F.A. playwriting students Kurt Chiang, Ann Marie Dorr, Claire Greising, and Andrew Hardigg; and Nic Adams 鈥�23 M.F.A., who is working as stage manager.

The festival was founded in 2006 by Mac Wellman and a group of 可乐视频 alumni M.F.A. playwrights, including Erin Courtney 鈥�03 M.F.A, Kate E. Ryan 鈥�04 M.F.A, and Karinne Keithley Syers 鈥�06 M.F.A.

This year鈥檚 plays are all inspired by The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the 18^th-century poet, artist, and iconoclastic visionary William Blake, common source material suggested by program directors Sibyl Kempson and Dennis A. Allen II. Playwrights, directors, designers, and actors from 可乐视频 and the wider New York City theater community collaborate on these explosive, form-bending new works, presented in two programs featuring three plays apiece.

The performance schedule is as follows:

PROGRAM HEAVEN

(September 13 at 7:30 p.m.; September 14 at 2:30 p.m.)

The Peepholeman
By Lori Felipe-Barkin; directed by Benjamin Viertel
Synopsis: Lillian and Frank, an elderly couple, share everything: a home, a life, and a liver. What they don’t share is an outlook. That is…until a mysterious peephole salesman knocks on their door. Lillian is convinced he has come for their liver. Frank is convinced Lillian is crazy. Slowly, they begin to share one more thing in common: paranoia.

SLIMRZ
By Utkarsh Rajawat; directed by Kedian Keohan
Synopsis: SLIMRZ by White Castle is a first-of-its-kind fast-food-style slime restaurant, in which we explore slime as the sublime, and 鈥渂rat鈥� as symbol of theater industry complicity with genocide, and of the union of reason/desire, the marriage of heaven and hell, through a chiasmus of scenes all set in the restaurant itself.

Corrosives Are the Cure for Her Crushing Nostalgia
By Tracy Carns; directed by Benjamin Viertel
Synopsis: Corrosives Are the Cure for Her Crushing Nostalgia is a haunting, an ache, a revolution of the mind, a blown-out Polaroid. Dixon and Sue Lyon plot away on a blistering hot day. The radio鈥檚 playing, there鈥檚 beer in the cooler, and some devils may be writing a manifesto in acid on flesh. Welcome. The devil knows you鈥檙e here.

PROGRAM HELL

(September 14 at 7:30 p.m.; September 15 at 3 p.m.)

Choreomania
By Madison Wetzell; directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
Synopsis: A scream into the void in which the void is also me screaming. Includes fun facts about death, a conceptual exploration of puppets, an encounter between strangers, and a dance number.

Proverbs of the Mojave
By Leslie Gauthier; directed by Marissa Joyce Stamps
Synopsis: Proverbs of the Mojave is a post-grief, post-Americana desert “sand study” in which a cowboy and housewife reveal desire in the creosote.

Godbird
By Nurit Chinn; directed by Kedian Keohan
Synopsis: Deb鈥檚 up early and can鈥檛 sleep. During off-leash hours in a neighborhood park, she meets Hugo and his pit bull. Also lurking in the shrubs: a birdman, with a birdlike view on things. A play about wanting to be seen, fully and inexplicably.

Tickets for Weasel Festival are $20 and can be reserved by calling (718) 636-4100, online at , or in person at the BAM box office, located in the Peter Jay Sharp Building at 30 Lafayette Avenue.

The post Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival Comes to BAM appeared first on 可乐视频.