Bard Human Rights Project’s Anthony Lester Fellowships Featured on WHPC’s “Law You Should Know” Radio Show
Host Ken Landau talks with barrister Maya Lester, sister of Gideon Lester, Bard Fisher Center artistic director and senior curator at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts, about the work of their late father, human rights lawyer Anthony Lester, and the fellowship that’s being offered in his name through the Human Rights Project at Bard College.
Bard Human Rights Project’s Anthony Lester Fellowships Featured on WHPC’s “Law You Should Know” Radio Show
Host Ken Landau talks with barrister Maya Lester, sister of Gideon Lester, Bard Fisher Center artistic director and senior curator at the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard, about the work of their late father, human rights lawyer Anthony Lester, and the fellowship that’s being offered in his name through the Human Rights Project at Bard College. The Lester Fellowships support lawyers and law students early in their careers to undertake a project of their choosing anywhere in the world that helps affect positive, practical change in relation to the rule of law and human rights, inspired by Lester’s experience. Two fellowships of $25,000 are being offered in its first year. The deadline to apply is March 28, 2024. “My personal hope is that if there is a great uptake and need for this kind of opportunity, and people are inspired by it, then we may be able to reach out and offer more fellowships and more opportunities in further years. We’d be really grateful for anyone who feels they can spread the word about this opportunity to any institutions or individuals who might be interested worldwide,” says Lester.
Learn more and apply for the Lester Fellowships here.
“The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672,” writes Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism, in an opinion piece for the New York Times. In the United States in 2024, “in a time of book-banning, intellectual intolerance, religious bigotry, and populist demagoguery, [Spinoza’s] radical advocacy of freedom still seems fresh and urgent,” Buruma argues.
Ian Buruma for New York Times Opinion: “The 17th-Century Heretic We Could Really Use Now”
“The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672,” writes Ian Buruma, Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism, in an opinion piece for the New York Times. Buruma writes that, during Spinoza’s lifetime, his arguments for reason and intellectual liberty “were considered so inflammatory that his authorship had to be disguised.” Now, in the United States in 2024, “in a time of book-banning, intellectual intolerance, religious bigotry, and populist demagoguery, his radical advocacy of freedom still seems fresh and urgent,” Buruma argues.
Bard College is proud to be included on the list of US colleges and universities that produced the most 2023–24 Fulbright students and scholars. Each year, the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the US government’s flagship international educational exchange program.
Bard College Named a Top Producer of Fulbright Students for 2023–24
Bard College is proud to be included on the list of U.S. colleges and universities that produced the most 2023–24 Fulbright students and scholars. Each year, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the top producing institutions for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes the lists annually.
Seven graduates from Bard received Fulbright awards for academic year 2023–24. Getzamany “Many” Correa ’21, a Global and International Studies major, and Elias Ephron ’23, a joint major in Political Studies and Spanish Studies, will live in Spain as Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Biology major Macy Jenks ’23 will be an ETA in Taiwan. Eleanor Tappen ’23, a Spanish Studies major, will be an ETA in Mexico. Juliana Maitenaz ’22, who graduated with a BA in Global and International Studies and a BM in Classical Percussion Performance, was selected for an independent study–research Fulbright scholarship to Brazil. Bard Conservatory alumna Avery Morris ’18, who graduated with a BA in Mathematics and a BM in Violin Performance, won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Poland. Evan Tims ’19, who was a joint major in Written Arts and Human Rights with a focus on anthropology at Bard, received a Fulbright-Nehru independent study–research scholarship to India. Additionally, Adela Foo ’18 won a Fulbright Study Research Award to Turkey through Yale University, where she is a PhD candidate in art history.
“As an institution, Bard College is proud and honored to be included in the list of Top Producing Fulbright Institutions for 2023-2024,” said Molly J. Freitas, Ph.D., associate dean of studies and Fulbright advisor at Bard. “We believe that Fulbright's mission to promote and facilitate cross-cultural exchange and understanding through teaching and research is in perfect alignment with Bard's own institutional identity and goals. We wish to extend our congratulations to our newest Fulbright awardees and reiterate our gratitude to the faculty, staff, and community members who have supported these students during the Fulbright application process and throughout their time as Bard students.”
“Fulbright’s Top Producing Institutions represent the diversity of America’s higher education community. Dedicated administrators support students and scholars at these institutions to fulfill their potential and rise to address tomorrow’s global challenges. We congratulate them, and all the Fulbrighters who are making an impact the world over,” said Lee Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Fulbright is a program of the U.S. Department of State, with funding provided by the U.S. Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 Olin Auditorium1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This lecture on the term “Genocide” is part of the Spring 2024 common course Keywords for Our Times: Understanding Israel/Palestine and will be open to the Bard College community as a whole. The course critically explores the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine with a focus on contemporary Gaza, and the vocabularies we use to understand it. The course brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to help students understand the histories of and contestations around important concepts and ideas that define our contemporary moment, and to stimulate informed dialogue within our community. Presenting the lecture on the term "genocide" to the course and the wider campus community will be Omer Bartov, the Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University.
Omer Bartov's early research concerned the crimes of the German Wehrmacht, the links between total war and genocide, and representation of antisemitism in twentieth-century cinema. More recently, he has focused on interethnic relations and violence in Eastern Europe, population displacement in Europe and Palestine, and the first generation of Jews and Palestinians in Israel. His books include Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz (2018), Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past (2022), and Genocide, The Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis (2023). Bartov is currently writing a book tentatively titled The Broken Promise: A Personal-Political History of Israel and Palestine. His novel, The Butterfly and the Axe, was published this year in the United States and Israel.
This event is cosponsored by the Politics Program, the Middle Eastern Studies Program, the Global and International Studies Program, the Human Rights Program, and the Center for Human Rights and the Arts.
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Olin Auditorium
5/02
Thursday
Thursday, May 2, 2024 Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This panel on the terms "Anti-Semitism" and "Anti-Palestinian Racism" is part of the Spring 2024 common course Keywords for Our Times: Understanding Israel/Palestine and will be open to the Bard College community as a whole. The course critically explores the ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine with a focus on contemporary Gaza, and the vocabularies we use to understand it. The course brings scholars from a range of disciplines together to help students understand the histories of and contestations around important concepts and ideas that define our contemporary moment, and to stimulate informed dialogue within our community. Participating in the panel on the terms "Anti-Semitism" and "Anti-Palestinian Racism" will be Ken Stern of Bard College & Radhika Saineth of Palestine Legal.
Kenneth S. Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate. He is an award-winning author and attorney, and was most recently executive director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation. Before that he was director of the division on antisemitism and extremism at the American Jewish Committee, where he worked for 25 years. Stern is the author of numerous op-eds and book reviews, appearing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and elsewhere. He most recently published The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (New Jewish Press, 2020), and previously published Loud Hawk: The United States vs. The American Indian Movement. Mr. Stern graduated from Bard College in 1975.
Radikha Sinath is a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, where she oversees the organization’s casework on free speech, censorship, and academic freedom. Prior to joining Palestine Legal, Radhika represented clients in individual and class action civil and constitutional rights cases involving discrimination, human rights abuses, and prison conditions at one of California’s most prestigious civil rights firms. Radhika has successfully litigated numerous state and federal class actions and other federal civil rights cases. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Jacobin, and Literary Hub. Radhika is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and the University of California, San Diego. She is based in Palestine Legal’s New York City office and is admitted to the California and New York state bars.
This event is cosponsored by the Politics Program, the Middle Eastern Studies Program, the Global and International Studies Program, the Human Rights Program, and the Center for Human Rights and the Arts.
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium