Black Studies: Related Content

In celebration of Black History Month, Bennington College is compiling a spotlight of the community's favorite Black authors and favorite books by Black authors.

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.

The Guardian covered visiting faculty member Maboula Soumahoro, whose invitation to speak as part of a European parliament event discussing equality and inclusion in the workplace was rescinded after attacks by the French far right.

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 Africa Diaspora Network Japan.

More than 100 people attended the Ben Belitt Colloquium on Arts and Literary Culture in Tishman Auditorium on Bennington College’s campus on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. They joined panelists Pulitzer Prize Winner Jericho Brown, the MacArthur Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem ’86, celebrated poet Camille Rankine, and moderator and Bennington faculty member Benjamin Anastas to learn about the life and work of Queer Black poet and essayist Reginald Shepherd ’88, an underrecognized member of the Bennington literary community in the eighties. Below is a piece Lethem wrote for and read at the event.

This fall, Bennington College welcomes two new faculty members: Alex Creighton, who teaches Critical Writing, and Kaolack Ibrahima Ndiaye, who teaches Africana Dance.

Poet and Memoirist Safiya Sinclair ’10, author of the memoir How to Say Babylon, a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner and one of the most notable books of the year according to the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, TIME Magazine, and many others, will address the 89th graduating class at the conferring of degrees on Saturday, June 1. We connected with her to learn more about her time at Bennington and how it influenced her career.

Roberta Martey ’25 studies Politics and Psychology at Bennington. She has a particular interest in Black Diasporic Studies and Environmental Advocacy and integrated her academic knowledge into a practical setting during her FWT at The Alliance of Rural Communities in Trinidad.

On the second Monday before opening night, rehearsal for this term’s faculty production—Sweat by Lynn Nottage—started with a fight. Student actors executed a choreographed-but-believable series of punches and holds. They threw each other across the barroom set while the assistant stage manager and fight captain Tennyson Perkins ’26 took careful notes to deliver to the breathless actors at the end of the scene.  

Then they did it again. And again. And again. Each time, they incorporated Perkins’s tweaks, and each time, the action was clearer and cleaner.  

Winston Foundation Grant funds 2024 Ben Belitt Colloquium on Arts and Literary Culture

Ryan Chigogo ’23, energy analyst at Charles River Associates, reflects on his time at Bennington College. 

Article by Gaurav Aung '24