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Two Bard College Professors Receive 2025 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant

Miriam Felton-Dansky, associate professor and director of Bard College’s undergraduate Theater and Performance Program, and Drew Thompson, associate professor of Africana and Historical Studies at Bard and associate professor at Bard Graduate Center, have received 2025 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grants. Felton-Dansky was awarded a grant in the category of Articles for “Vetting Regimes: The US Politics of Artist Visas from the Berlin Wall to the Muslim Ban,” and Thompson was awarded a grant in the category of Books for Coloring Surveillance through Polaroids: The Poetics of Black Solidarity and Sociality.

In its 2025 cycle the Arts Writers Grant has awarded a total of $1,040,000 to 31 writers. The program supports writing about contemporary art and aims to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging with the visual arts. The grant has funded over 450 writers over 20 years, providing more than $13.5 million of support. “The Arts Writers Grant honors excellence in the field, and celebrates the generative role arts writing plays in creative and intellectual spheres,” said Joel Wachs, president of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Felton-Dansky will receive a grant in support of her research into the history and evolution of US visa classifications for international performing artists. Her article will examine how the O and P visa systems, established in 1990, have shaped which performers can enter the US to present work on American stages and how these administrative processes have evolved over the past three decades. The research traces the origins of these visa categories and their role in international cultural exchange, drawing on archival materials, immigration policy analysis, and case studies from the performing arts sector.

“This project emerged from conversations with valued colleagues in the arts community at Bard, which I am proud to be a part of,” Felton-Dansky said. “I am honored by the meaningful recognition and support of this grant, which will allow me to pursue my research about the politics of international artist visas at a time when conversation about our immigration system has never been more urgent. My work on the article will feature prominently in my forthcoming book, The January Years: Infrastructures of New Performance in New York.”

Thompson will be awarded a grant in support of his book project, Coloring Surveillance through Polaroids: The Poetics of Black Solidarity and Sociality, which studies the practices of Black artists in order to understand the role of Polaroids in African and African-American histories. The book explores why Black artists use Polaroids and what their projects reveal about the relationships between Polaroids and Black life, in the context of everyday histories of labor, activism, and artistic expression. Artists under study for the project include Dawoud Bey, Lorna Simpson, Zarina Bhimji, Kay Hassan, Djabulani Dhlamini, Anthony Barboza, Zun Lee, and others.

“I am grateful for the support and community that the Arts Writers Grant provides,” Thompson said. “The prestigious honor is an opportunity to be more expansive and imaginative with my curatorial and writing practice. I developed many of the ideas behind this project through my undergraduate and graduate teaching, a testament to the creativity and spirit of collaboration that flourishes at Bard.”

Post Date: 12-11-2025

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M. Gessen Writes About the Responsibilities of Citizenship for the New York Times

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Distinguished Visiting Writer M. Gessen wrote about how Americans can learn from citizens of other countries that grapple with human rights issues. Speaking to Jewish citizens of Israel, Gessen discusses what it means to benefit from government actions one disagrees with. Gessen spoke with Michael Sfard, a human rights lawyer who represents Palestinians in Israeli courts, and Ella Keidar Greenberg, who refused to enlist in the Israeli army. “Being an idle bystander is doing something,” Greenberg says of her decision. “I’m either maintaining the system or dismantling it.”

“To be a good citizen of a bad state, one has to do scary things,” Gessen concludes. “It may be using your body to shield someone more vulnerable, [or] withdrawing your economic cooperation, weighing… flying under the radar against taking a risk.”

Post Date: 11-05-2025