Earth Day 2022 is just around the corner, and both this week and next, The New School has an exciting lineup of virtual events focused on the changing climate, environmental justice, and more. In addition to these events, we’ve also gathered resources from our community to help kick off the week.

We hope you use the information below as a starting point to understanding and bettering the world around us, not just during Earth Week, but throughout the year.

RESOURCES

The New School’s Tishman Environment and Design Center has a list of book recommendations perfect for Earth Week and beyond. “We wanted to share some works to help understand the world we are living in and a more just world that we want to see,” TEDC says. Click here to check out their Earth Week reading list.

The Tishman Center serves as a nexus between academia and the environmental and social justice grassroots movements, with a specific focus on underserved communities. To learn more about their research, click here.

In February 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a historic report based on the contributions from Working Group II which assesses the impacts of climate change and options for adapting to it. Professor of Urban Ecology and Director of the Urban Systems Lab Timon McPhearson was the lead author of the report. Read more about it here.

The work of The New School Urban Systems Lab can be placed within eight converging fields: Big Data & Artificial Intelligence, Community Engagement, Data Visualization & Design, Urban Ecology, Environmental Justice & Equity, Nature-Based Solutions, Urban Policy & Planning, and Urban Climate Resilience. To learn more about their work, click here.

The New School’s Climate Justice club will be celebrating Earth Week in University Center Cafeteria (63 5th Avenue, 2nd Floor) where they’ll be starting conversations about Climate Justice and sharing giveaways with The New School community.

Visit them at the cafeteria:
Monday, April 18, from 12–4 pm
Tuesday, April 19, from 11–12 pm
Wednesday, April 20, from 12–1 pm
Thursday, April 21, from 12–3:30 pm
Friday, April 22, from 1–2 pm

To learn more about the Climate Justice Club, follow them on Instagram or check out their Narwhal Nation listing for more information about upcoming events and how you can get involved.

The Climate Justice club also worked with Parsons Paris student Anisa Williams (Fashion Design BFA ’25) who created her own Earth Week celebration on the Parsons Paris campus. Williams will be at the St. Roch lounge from April 19–22 (details above) where she’ll be raising money for Zero Waste France.

In one of its recent gatherings, the Climate Justice Club played Ekos: The Path to Resilience, a multi-player board game exploring issues of urban resilience, social equity and green infrastructure created by Ryann Abunuwara (BAFA Product Design and Environmental Studies ’23) and the team at the Urban Systems Lab. Want to learn more about Ekos? Click here.

The Parsons Healthy Materials Lab podcast Trace Material explores the convergence of our lives and the lives of the materials that surround us. The podcast’s latest season focuses on plastics and uncovers the human stories behind the synthetic material. To learn more about or subscribe to Trace Material, click here.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Online: Nancy Dayanne Valladares: PHOTO/SYNTHETIC: Plants and the Metabolic Image

Monday, April 18, 2022, 6:00PM to 7:15PM (EDT)
Join The Arts department at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School for a conversation with Interdisciplinary artist Nancy Dayanne Valladares. Valladares’ practice closely examines photography’s historical entanglement with botanical imaginaries and chemical legacies. In this talk, Nancy will present their ongoing research that traces plant agency in historical narratives of visuality.

Click here to learn more.

Online: Climate Change and Cities: From the Global IPCC Report to Local Action

Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 2:00PM to 3:30PM (EDT)
In February 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a historic report based on the contributions from Working Group II which assesses the impacts of climate change and options for adapting to it. Join the Urban Systems Lab and Tishman Environment and Design Center as they bring together researchers, scientists and practitioners involved in the IPCC and NYC Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) to discuss regional and local implications based on the report’s findings, as well as adaptation options and best practices to ensure equitable resiliency planning and governance.

Click here to learn more.

Online: Street Futures: How Covid-19 has Changed our Streetscapes

Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 5:30PM to 7:00PM (EDT)
At this point, two years into the pandemic, how has our conception of the public street changed? What do we want to bring forward from recent practices as we look ahead to the future? Using the conversion of parking spaces into alternative temporary uses for restaurants, seating areas and public spaces as the focus of discussion, a panel of distinguished guests will examine the intersection of design, public policy, and social justice that coalesce around the future of our streets. Hosted by the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School and the Parsons School of Constructed Environments.

Click here to learn more.

Online: The Steel Miller’s Daughter: Love in a Changing Climate

Friday, April 22, 2022, 5:00PM to 6:30PM (EDT)
Join the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis for a screening of and conversation surrounding The Steel Millers Daughter. Stephen Kennedy Murphy’s modern adaptation of Franz Schubert’s The Millers Daughter is a one-hour series of video vignettes that reimagine the classic musical story through the lens of global warming and climate disasters. The story follows a steel worker’s pursuit of his boss’ “green-movement” daughter against the backdrop of the mill towns of Pennsylvania.

Click here to learn more.

Online: New School Alumni Presents Convenient Fantasies About Climate Change

Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 12:00PM to 1:00PM (EDT)
Join us for a conversation with New School alum Tri Vo, MFA Industrial Design ’20, and Founder and President of CarbonBetter and Nicole Sullivan, Climate Services Manager at CarbonBetter, for a conversation focused on jargon like “net-zero,” “carbon neutral,” “energy transition,” “RSG,” and more. Vo and Sullivan are leaders in energy and sustainability and will share their insider perspectives on the words and concepts that may not be moving us forward.

Click here to learn more.

Online: Magdalena: a Threatened River of Music, Knowledge and Culture

Friday, April 29, 2022, 2:00PM to 3:30PM (EDT)
Join the Tishman Center, Pratt Institute GCPE and Bomba Estero for a conversation about the environment, history and culture of the Magdalena River, the main River of Colombia. This event will feature people speakers that have intimate knowledge of how the river has shaped the not only the history and culture of Colombia, but also the world. Since most of the event will be in Spanish, interpretation to English will be available.

Click here to learn more.

Other Earth Week events and celebrations in New York City:

• Celebrate Earth Day in Union Square with our neighbors at the Union Square Partnership. Learn more.
• Our friends at NYC Parks have numerous free, exciting events coming up across the city. Learn more.
• NYCgo has also put together a list of events taking place throughout the city. Explore them here.

At The New School, our buildings department has numerous sustainable initiatives that address climate change in a variety of ways. To learn more about these initiatives, click here.

In 2021, the Tishman Center led the effort to complete The New School’s AASHE STARS Certification. The university retained a silver rating and a slightly higher score than its previous assessment. This report is not only a snapshot of the school’s sustainability efforts today, but it also provides guidance for things that we can do to improve even more.

The New School is here to shower you with a refreshing lineup of online and in-person events in April! From expert panels, performances, and programs, we hope you can join us in celebrating the work of our students, faculty, alumni, and more. You can also keep an eye on our events calendar so you’ll know when new events are added!

Design and Technology Cloud Salon: Kyle McDonald

Online | Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 3:00PM to 4:00PM (EDT)

Join Parsons BFA and MFA in Design and Technology programs for a conversation with Kyle McDonald, an artist working with code. McDonald crafts interactive installations, sneaky interventions, playful websites, workshops, and toolkits for other artists working with code. He also explores possibilities of new technologies: to understand how they affect society, to misuse them, and build alternative futures; aiming to share a laugh, spark curiosity, create confusion, and share spaces with magical vibes.

To register for this event, click here.

PERN Salon: Mechanism Design and Platform Capitalism

Online | Tuesday, April 5, 2022, at 4:00PM (EDT)

Join the Platform Economics Research Network at The New School for a conversation with Salomé Viljoen, Jake Goldenfein, and Lee McGuigan about their recent essay, “Design choices: Mechanism design and platform capitalism,” published in Big Data & Society (August 2021).

To register for this event, click here.

A conversation with Ai-jen Poo, Sheryl Evans Davis and Felicia Wong

The Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street | Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 7PM EST

Join the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy and The Economic Security Project for this conversation featuring Ai-jen Poo, Sheryl Evans Davis and Felicia Wong.

This event will be available both in person and online. To register and learn more please click here.

Mannes Orchestra with Martha Graham Dance Company

New York City Center | April 06–10, 2022

The Mannes Orchestra will accompany classic Martha Graham Dance Company works during the world-renowned dance group’s New York City Center performances April 6–7 and April 9–10 as part of the inaugural City Center Dance Festival. The Mannes Orchestra will play live during Graham’s celebrated masterpiece Appalachian Spring (1944), with a luminous score by Aaron Copland and a spare set by Graham’s longtime collaborator Isamu Noguchi. The orchestra will also perform live during Graham’s stark, powerful work Chronicle, from 1936, set to a score by Wallingford Riegger, will also be presented. Performed by the women of the Company, Chronicle was created as a response to the rise of fascism in Europe; its underlying theme of political activism continues to reverberate today.

Please note that these works will not be played at all performances.

To find out more and register for this event, click here.

Mycelium Millennium: Fashioning the Future with Carole Collet and Mylo™

Online | Thursday, April 7, 2022, 12:00PM to 1:30PM (EDT)

The fashion industry is one of the most wasteful industries on the planet, and is rife with toxic materials. Experts agree that change is needed, but what kind of change? Could the root system of mushrooms offer a possible solution? Join the Healthy Materials Lab for a discussion surrounding the future of fashion as they dig into these questions and more with people on the frontline of research into mycelium.

To register for this event, click here.

The City of Ladies

10 East 76th Street, NY | Saturday, April 9, 2022, 7:30PM to 9:00PM (EDT)

To mark the launch of The New Historia Website, directed by Gina Luria Walker, Professor of Women’s Studies (SPE), we present The City of Ladies, a spectacle combining old and new magic to showcase our archive, and celebrate the long-invisible lives of women across place and time. The ghosts of earlier women will visit 5th Avenue and East 76th Street across from Central Park on April 9th.

Keep vigilant, as their presence will be made known in winks throughout the hidden corners of Manhattan. Follow along our map, and post as many ghosts as you encounter. We look forward to welcoming them with you.

To register for this event, click here.

LANG FEST

Online | April 11–15 2022

Join Eugene Lang College for a digital series of activities, exhibits and events to celebrate, learn more about and engage with the work of its students. Some events include the annual Dean’s Honor Symposium, which is an academic summit that celebrates student work including class projects, internships, study abroad experiences, senior capstones, and independent work in the community.

To learn more and register for these events, click here.

With/In Environments: Reimagining Frameworks and Practices for Environmental Philosophy

Hybrid | April 14–16, 2022

Since Plato, western philosophy has been set down a path paved by a disavowal of the sensuous, bracketed material bodies, and delimited aesthetic conceptions, leaving human beings and their built environments separated from the natural world. Even the concept “environment” often, and ironically, brings with it implicit anthropocentric assumptions, conceptualizing, and thereby separating, the human as independent from the surrounding world and reinforcing the human/nature divide. Join the New School for Social Research as it tackles these topics and more through this conversation that reimagines frameworks and practices for environmental philosophy.

For more information and to register for these events, click here.

Earth Week 2022 Hub Art + Design + Democracy

Online | April 11–29, 2022

During the Month of April, the Tishman Center will be hosting, co-sponsoring and promoting Earth Month and Earth Week events. Their theme this year is: Art, Design, Democracy: Tools to Achieve Climate Justice. They will have a number of events featuring musicians, chefs, artists, planners and academics who will share their experiences, art, music and more to help us think of creative and engaging ways to get closer to a more just and safe world.

To learn more and register for these events, click here.

IS GOD IS directed by Bakari Lebby

Bank Street Theater | April 15–16, 2022

The School of Drama is proud to present Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is directed by Bakari Lebby (MFA ’22) as part of the New Visions Directors Festival.

Synopsis: In this new epic, Anaia and Racine, are black twin sisters sent on a revenge mission from God. The task: to deliver justice to the Man who tried to kill them all eighteen years ago. Join Anaia and Racine on their journey across America to meet their father.

Performances will be April 15 at 7:30pm and April 16 at 2pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are free.

To register for this event, click here.

Nancy Dayanne Valladares — PHOTO/SYNTHETIC: Plants and the Metabolic Image

Online | Monday, April 18, 2022, 6:00PM to 7:15PM (EDT)

Interdisciplinary artist Nancy Dayanne Valladares’ practice closely examines photography’s historical entanglement with botanical imaginaries and chemical legacies. In this talk, Nancy will present their ongoing research that traces plant agency in historical narratives of visuality. She will also discuss her film The Density of Breath (2020). Shot with an electronic microscope. The Density of Breath is a meditation on vegetal agency, plant exchanges, and botanical representation.

To register for this event, click here.

Design and Technology Cloud Salon: RNDR Studio

Online | Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 3:00PM to 4:00PM (EDT)

Join Parsons BFA and MFA Design and Technology programs for a workshop focused on their RNDR Studio. RNDR is a design studio for interactive media that develops ‘tools’ that are only finished by how they are used. To achieve this, they develop processes, create structures, design visualisations, code programs, and create interactions. This work explores and engages with hybrid space as it embraces both digital and physical realms.

To register for this event, click here.

Soft, Hard; Penetrable and Capable of Penetration: Bodies Against Cisness

Online | Tuesday, April 26, 2022, 5:00PM to 7:00PM (EDT)

Who says that bodies -as objects composed of organs, apertures, tissues, follicles, chemicals, liquids, flesh, and sensation- are divided into the mutually exclusive categories man and woman? Join the New School for Social Research for a talk led by Emma Heaney, Assistant Professor of English at William Paterson University. Her first book is The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory (Northwestern, 2017).

To register for this event, click here.

The list above is just a sampling of what to look forward to this month. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our events calendar, as more events are added regularly.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, and war broke out across the country, the New School community has been connecting, reflecting, and expressing solidarity through scholarship, dialogue, creative expression, and public engagement. Below is a roundup of this work as well as a list of resources for students, faculty, and staff.

Message of Solidarity and Support from President McBride

In a recent message of solidarity and support, New School President Dr. Dwight A. McBride shared his own heartbreak for what is happening in Ukraine, his commitment to our community members struggling during this time, and a list of resources for students, faculty, and staff.

“The accounts of human suffering, displacement, and insecurity are harrowing. Our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine and to the people of Russia who are protesting their government’s actions at enormous personal risk.”

–Dr. Dwight A. McBride, President of The New School

A Concert for Ukraine

The Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street
Friday, March 11, 2022, from 7:30–9pm
Join us for an evening of music featuring duo Laurie Anderson (vocals) and John Zorn (saxophone), Phillip Glass (piano), and more. This benefit concert is hosted with the goal of raising funds for the people of Ukraine, and all attendees encouraged to donate to one of the following causes:

• Save the Children
• International Rescue Committee
• Razom

Teach-In on Ukraine for Artists, Activists, and Arts Workers

Virtual | Saturday, Mar 12, 2022 from 11:00–1:00pm ET
What does solidarity look like, with the Ukrainian people and oppressed people internationally? Join the Vera List Center for a free teach-in that asks the questions: How did we get here? What are anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-settler colonial pathways forward? What does solidarity look like, with Ukraine and oppressed people internationally? And what might the role of artists and art workers be in this struggle?

The Politics of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Hosted by the Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs, this event called together some of the university’s top thought leaders in international affairs to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The event featured New School faculty members Nina Khrushcheva (Professor, International Affairs), Jessica Pisano (Associate Professor, Politics), Everita Silina (Assistant Professor, International Affairs), and Peter J. Hoffman (Associate Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in International Affairs).

Nina Khrushcheva on National News

Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs
As a Russia expert and great-granddaughter of the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev, Khrushcheva has been vocal about the invasion across national news outlets where she’s shared her thoughts, expertise, and insight with Vanity Fair, the New York Times, WBUR radio, CNBC, and MSNBC. For more from Khrushcheva you can follow her on Twitter: @ninakhrushcheva

NY1: Ukrainian-born New Yorker reacts to the Russian invasion of his native country

Featuring Ihor Andriichuk, NSSR PhD Politics student
Andriichuk talks to Spectrum News NY1 about his family who are still in Ukraine and shares his thoughts on the war.

Politico: Why Didn’t Putin Invade Under Trump? It Wasn’t Personal.

By Jessica Pisano, Associate Professor of Politics
Why is Putin invading Ukraine now and not during the Trump administration? In her latest Op-Ed for Politico, Pisano argues that it has less to do with Trump’s friendliness and more to do with his policies.

Jacobin: Russia’s Feminists Are in the Streets Protesting Putin’s War

By Anastasiia Kalk, NSSR PhD Politics student
In her latest with Jacobin, New School student Anastasiia Kalk shares that in today’s Russia, feminists form one of the most active social movements defying state repression. Now they’re uniting to resist Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Critical Theory in Context Podcast: The Nascent Anti-War Movement in Russia

Featuring Grigory Yudin, NSSR Politics PhD candidate
In late February, Yudin was beaten and detained by police at an anti-war protest in Moscow. In this podcast, he discussed the reactions of Russians to the war in Ukraine, possible fractures in the Russian elite, prospects for resistance, & responses of the Western left.

Yudin also spoke to Meduza about his experience. You can read that interview here.

The New Republic: The American Pundits Who Can’t Resist “Westspalining” Ukraine

By Jan Smoleński, Politics PhD candidate, and Jan Dutkiewicz, PhD Politics 2018
In their latest essay for The New Republic, Smoleński and Dutkiewicz explain how foreign policy figures are treating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine like a game of Risk.

Past and Present Podcast: The Russia-Ukraine War

Featuring Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Associate Professor of History, Eugene Lang College
In this episode, hosts Natalia, Niki, and Neil discuss the American response to the escalating war between Russia and Ukraine.

BBC: Family of seven refugees now live in volunteer’s flat in Poland

Featuring Zuzanna Krzątała, MA Liberal Studies 2019
Krzątała spoke to BBC about her experience sharing her home with a family fleeing the war in Ukraine.

Public Seminar

NSSR PhD Politics candidate Mariia Shynkarenko has published OpEds with Public Seminar over the past few weeks. Read her work:

• “Not About NATO”
• “What’s At Stake in Ukraine”

Anastasia Shteinert, MA student in Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism at NSSR, also shared an OpEd with Public Seminar. Read her work: The Russian Resistance to Putin Has Just Begun.

In addition to Shynkarenko and Shteinert’s work, Public Seminar has been sharing Ukrainian writers’ thoughts and insights on the war, read more here.

Democracy Seminar: What explains Bolsonaro’s position on Russia’s aggression to Ukraine?

By Felippe Ramos, NSSR PhD Politics student
In his latest for Democracy Seminar, Ramos looks at Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and his stance of “fierce neutrality amidst the most serious threat to world peace and security in the twenty-first century.”

The Democracy Seminar is based out of NSSR’s Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) and brings together political actors and thinkers who support democracy against the looming global threats of authoritarianism. In addition to Ramos’ writing, their recent forum explores and condemns Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Resources for New School Community members:

Resources for Students

• International Student and Scholar Services
• Student Health Services
• Student Support and Advocacy
• Housing and Residential Education

Resources for Faculty and Staff

• Employee Assistance Program

After last year’s fully virtual celebration, #SXSW is back IRL in Austin, Texas. The annual innovation festival will take place from Friday, March 11, 2022, through Sunday, March 20, 2022, and features numerous New School community members in its lineup.

We’ll have a team on the ground sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the week’s events, so be sure to follow @thenewschool on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok for day-to-day coverage.

TNS x SXSW EVENTS ROUNDUP

Quantum Computing for Design and Social Good

Thursday, March 17, 2:30pm (CT)
This year, the university’s main SXSW event will be the panel Quantum Computing for Design and Social Good, where you can hear how The New School and Parsons School of Design partnered with IBM to integrate emerging quantum computing technology into the creative arts, applying it to purposes of social good.

We are also happy to highlight seven additional SXSW 2022 talks, panels, and sessions that will feature the university’s faculty and alumni:

The State of XR in Education: Trends & Insights

Tuesday, March 8, 2:30pm (CT); part of SXSW EDU
The New School’s Maya Georgieva will also host a talk discussing the trends that will have the most significant impact on the future of learning and work.

Featured Session: Designing Consciousness

Friday, March 11, 11:30am (CT)
The world we live in has been designed, but by whom? For whom? Join Dario Calmese, Professor at Parsons, as he helps answers these questions and discusses what it means to design for liberation.

LGBTQ+ Rights and Politics

Saturday, March 12, 2:30pm (CT)
From 2015 to 2022, we’ve seen LGBTQ rights take center stage in Texas politics with an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ measures. Join CEO at Equality Texas Ricardo Martinez (MS Nonprofit Management ’09) as he joins a panel of LGBTQ political organizations and advocates to break down the current response to LGBTQ rights in the state.

Battling Inequity with the Power of Gaming Tech

Saturday, March 12, 2:30pm (CT)
The stories that shape our world the most are the ones we hear the least — those told by underrepresented voices. Giving rise to the voices from these communities can help tackle inequality through understanding that spurs action. Join Haus of Dust artist Gabriel Torres (BS Media Studies ’21 and MA Media Studies ’22) and other creators who are using gaming technologies to fight inequity.

Redefining the Mainstream: Indie Games in 2022 & Beyond

Monday, March 14, 2:30pm (CT)
Join Lead Producer at E-Line Media Carolina Torres (MFA Design & Technology ’08) for a discussion on the ever-changing notion of “indie.” This panel celebrates the impact innovating gamemakers have made to the mainstream and covers the opportunities and challenges for independent gamemakers, why they do what they do, and how the panelists imagine where the indie scene will go in the years to come.

Convenient Fantasies About Climate Change

Wednesday, March 16, 4:00pm (CT)
Join Founder and President of Carbon Better Tri Minh Vo (MFA Industrial Design ’20) for a conversation between leaders in energy, sustainability, & private equity as they share their insider perspectives on the words and concepts that may not be moving us forward.

Mentor Session: Josh Rabinowitz (Brooklyn Music Experience)

Thursday, March 17, 4pm (CT)
Media Studies faculty Josh Rabinowitz is the Founder of Brooklyn Music Experience and has produced over 10K tracks for brands, cinema, recording labels and television. Advance sign-up for his mentor session is required, click the link above for more information.

Mentor Session: Nihal Pimpale (Moonraft Innovation Labs)

Timing TBA
Nihal Pimpale is the Chief Design Officer at Moonraft Innovation Labs and is currently a studying in Parsons’ Design Leadership for Business certificate program. Advance sign-up for his mentor session is required, click the link above for more information.

Are you a New School alumni or friend of the university and going to be at SXSW this year? Let us know by tagging or messaging us on social media using @thenewschool. We hope you join us at our Alumni Reception for New School Alumni & Friends on March 17, 2022, from 6–8pm at Hilton Hotel.

March is officially upon us, and The New School has a refreshing lineup of hybrid and online events for all to learn from and enjoy. From expert panels, performances, and programs, we hope you can join us in celebrating the work of our students, faculty, alumni, and more. You can also keep an eye on our events calendar so you’ll know when new events are added!

The Politics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Online | Tuesday, March 1, 2022, 4:00PM to 5:30PM (EST)

Since Russia’s occupation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the armed conflict in Ukraine has been simmering but the outbreak of all-out war on February 23 illustrates a new phase that holds devastating consequences for Ukraine and threatens to unravel security in Europe as well as challenged world order. Join us for a conversation that examines the current situation.

Register for this event here.

Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood — Threshold of Confinement: Art, Museums, and Prisons

Online | Wednesday, March 2, 2022, 5:00PM to 6:30PM (EST)

Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood is a writer, curator, and the inaugural James Weldon Johnson Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU. She is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow and the author of Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration (2020), winner of the National Book Critics Award in Criticism, the John Hope Franklin Publication Prize of the American Studies Association, the Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize for Interdisciplinary Scholarship, and both the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award in art history and the Frank Jewett Mather Award in art criticism from the College Art Association. She is also curator of the touring exhibition Marking Time, which debuted at MoMA PS1 in September 2020. Her other books are On Racial Icons: Blackness and the Public Imagination (2015) and Troubling Vision: Performance, Visuality, and Blackness (2011). She is also co-editor of Aperture magazine’s “Prison Nation” issue, focusing on photography’s role in documenting mass incarceration, and co-curator of Aperture’s touring exhibition of the same name. Fleetwood has co/curated exhibitions and programs on art and mass incarceration at the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, the Andrew Freedman Home, Aperture Foundation, Cleveland Public Library, Eastern State Penitentiary, MoMA PS1, Mural Arts Philadelphia, the Zimmerli Art Museum, and Worth Rises. Her work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, NYPL’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, ACLS, Whiting Foundation, the Art for Justice Fund, Denniston Hill Residency, Schomburg Center for Scholars-in-Residence, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the NEH.

Register for this event here.

Transgender Psychoanalysis: Race, Class, and the Unconscious

Online | Thursday, March 3, 2022, 2:00PM to 4:00PM (EST)

This week the Gender and Its Discontents: The New School Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute spring speaker’s series features Patricia Gherovici, Ph.D. a psychoanalyst and analytic supervisor, and recipient of the 2020 Sigourney Award for her clinical and scholarly work with Latinx and gender variant communities.

Her single-authored books include The Puerto Rican Syndrome (Other Press: 2003) winner of the Gradiva Award and the Boyer Prize, Please Select Your Gender: From the Invention of Hysteria to the Democratizing of Transgenderism (Routledge: 2010) and Transgender Psychoanalysis: A Lacanian Perspective on Sexual Difference ​(Routledge: 2017).

Register for this event here. To register for other events in this series, click here.

Re:Frame. Interrogating Capitalism through Historical Narrative and Creative Practices

Online | February 25, 2022 — March 24, 2022

This year’s Stephan Weiss Lecture Series, presented by the School of Design Strategies, centers Raoul Peck’s four-part HBO documentary series, Exterminate All the Brutes. This year’s talks explore indigenous knowledge, interdependence, decolonizing futures and other approaches in challenging racist systems and institutional power. Through screenings and discussions, we collectively challenge dominant worldviews around colonialism, capitalism, business practices, and material inequities, asking how students, educators, designers, and business leaders can intervene in the stories, myths, frames, and systems that inform our practices and pedagogies. Moving beyond the rhetorical, the series challenges participants to identify concrete steps to transform and transition their own practices from the oppressive and exploitative to the equitable and just.

Please note the optional corresponding screenings will take place before each discussion and are open to the public. Participants from The New School will be able to screen the documentary asynchronously at any time during the Weiss Lecture series from February 25- March 24th via the links that will be sent to registered participants.

Learn more about this series here. Register for your programs of interest below:

Thursday, March 3: Challenging Institutional Power

Friday, March 11: Unlearning Imperialism, Decolonizing Futures

Thursday, March 24: Questioning Systems, Interdependence and Building Relationships

Senator Nina Turner and Angela Glover Blackwell in conversation with Melanie Hart

Hybrid | Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 7:00PM to 8:30PM (EST)

As part of the Milano School’s Henry Cohen Lecture Series and in honor of International Women’s Day, please join us for a conversation as these three dynamic leaders discuss and chart a more inclusive and just political economy.

Join Nina Turner, former Ohio State Senator and Bernie 2020 Campaign Co-Chair; Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder in Residence, PolicyLink, and the host of the Radical Imagination podcast; and

Melanie Hart, Senior Vice President for Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice and Chief Diversity Officer, The New School.

The series is free and open to the public. Join us in person or online. All visitors to campus must provide proof of full vaccination with a booster on arrival to enter. Masks are required on campus at all times.

Register for this event here.

Afro-Asian Solidarity Politics

Online | Thursday, March 10, 2022, 6:00PM to 7:00PM (EST)

When 29 leaders from Africa and Asia met in Bandung in 1955, their purpose was to define a common vision of the postcolonial future, for their countries and the world. They constituted a coalition — The Third World — to pursue an agenda for a decolonized world order, with commitments to human rights, equality and self determination.

In this event, Christopher Lee will explore Afro-Asian solidarity politics (representing half of the world’s population), both historically and contemporary, including Bandung, the Non-Aligned Movement, New International Economic Order, the Right to Development, South-South cooperation, up and through COVID-19.

Register for this event here.

Mannes Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall: Singleton, Frank and Dawson

Alice Tully Hall | Sunday, March 13, 2022, 3:00PM to 4:30PM (EST)

After a two-year hiatus, the Mannes Orchestra returns to Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on Sunday, March 13 with a concert featuring three great works by BIPOC composers, including one US premiere, one New York premiere, and a rarely performed masterpiece.

The 2021/22 Season sees the orchestra return to the stage and features many exciting performances, collaborations, and projects, including performances at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, John L. Tishman Auditorium at The New School, appearances with the Mannes Opera at the Bank Street Theater and the Martha Graham Dance Company at New York City Center.

Tickets: $10 available from: lincolncenter.org, the Alice Tully Hall Box Office, or CenterCharge at 212.721.6500. Free for New School students, staff and faculty with ID at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office.

Register for this event here.

Decomposed Theater

Online | March 18–19, 2022

School of Drama is proud to present a special opportunity to stream the BFA production of Matei Visniec’s Decomposed Theater directed by Ana Margineanu. Please register to receive the streaming link on March 18 at 7:30pm ET. You will have 24 hours to stream the production.

In a fragmented world, what remains? How much of ourselves, our memories, our souls, and our experiences will survive — and in what order? And how do we fit these pieces together? Using theatrical magic, Ana Margineanu and students from the New School’s BFA in Dramatic Arts have reassembled Matei Visniec’s Theatre Decomposed into an original confection that explores and celebrates the emergence of the human spirit even as the world has shattered all around us.

Register for this event here.

Philosophy Film Club: “Call Me By Your Name”

Online | Friday, March 25, 2022, 7:00PM to 10:00PM (EST)

The Philosophy Film Club presents “Call Me By Your Name” (dir. Luca Guadagnino), the final installment of the director’s “Desire” trilogy providing a “ravishment of the senses,” with pre- and post-film discussion facilitated by Tara Mastrelli.

In the spirit of community, TNS Philosophy Film Club invites you to the Spring 2022 screenings. Everyone with an interest in philosophy, film, and/or engaging with the meaning of what we experience through film is invited. Each screening will begin and conclude with a discussion facilitated by a member of the NSSR Philosophy Department.

Register for this event here.

The list above is just a sampling of what to look forward to this month. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our events calendar, as more events are added regularly.

Welcome back Narwhals! To kick off the Spring 2022 semester, The New School has produced a sensational lineup of online events for the month of February. With a variety of expert panels, symposiums, and performances, we hope you join us in celebrating and engaging with our students, faculty, alumni, and more. You can also keep an eye on our events calendar so you’ll know when new events are added!

“CRAZYWISE” Film Screening & Panel with Dr. Gabor Maté and Phil Borges

Online | Wednesday, February 2, 2022, 12:30PM (EST)

Crazy…or wise? The traditional wisdom of indigenous cultures often contradicts modern views about a mental health crisis. Is it a ‘calling’ to grow or just a ‘broken brain’? The documentary CRAZYWISE explores what can be learned from people around the world who have turned their psychological crisis into a positive transformative experience.

Register for this event here.

Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris

Online | Thursday, February 3, 2022, 3:00PM to 5:00PM (EST)

This webinar, which is part two of a three-part film series, Racial Violence and Colonial Accountabilities, is devoted to James Baldwin, one the most prolific, searing witnesses to what the Black experience is and has been under the dominance of racism in the history of the making of the United States, and its proliferation and amplification in the twentieth century.

This event will be introduced by Prof. Ann Laura Stoler, followed by a showing of the film “Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris”- an extraordinary brief film in which Baldwin confronts the filmmakers with the white fantasy they are constructing, missing why Baldwin went to Paris, and what it is to live with racism always on your back.

Register for this event here.

PRACTICING THE ENVIRONMENT

Online | February 07–April 25, 2022

Hosted by faculty from the Department of the Arts at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School, PRACTICING THE ENVIRONMENT is a virtual, public-facing event series with artists, curators, activists, and scholars across the world who explore and engage in various aspects of environmental concern.

Learn more about this series and explore its lineup:

February 7 — A.K. Burns — Negative Space

February 14 — Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves — Network Metaphysics: Houseplant Culture & An Ethics of Love

February 28 — Alex Tatarsky — Fear of the Decaying State: On Clowns and Compost

All events are free and open to the public, but prior registration is required. To register or to find out more information on the remaining event lineup, click here.

Remote Control: Surveying Drones and Culture Today

Online | February 09–11, 2022

High Line Art, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, and writer and researcher Arthur Holland Michel present Remote Control: Surveying Drones and Culture Today, a symposium examining contemporary intersections of drones and drone warfare, arts, and culture. The symposium takes place online and in person from February 9–11, 2022, and features performances and conversations with leading experts, artists, activists, academics, and practitioners across diverse disciplines.

Click here to view the schedule and register for this event.

Food Entrepreneurship, Sustainability and Social Justice

Online | Thursday, February 10, 2022, 12:00PM to 1:30PM (EST)

Food systems management takes place in diverse sectors and at different scales. This can include: kitchen management by culinary professionals and chefs; management of food businesses, cooperatives, and organizations; farm management; and labor management — whether worker-led or proprietor-driven. Meanwhile, food justice — as a movement, concept, and field of academic scholarship — insists that inequities in the food system are grounded in social structures such as structural racism, gender-based disparities, and intergenerational wealth and economic inequalities.

This panel discussion explores these themes from the perspectives of food entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders in non-profit, government, and business sectors. Panelist comments will be followed by audience questions and participatory discussion.

Register for this event here.

Polly Irungu: How to be the Change You Want to See in the World

Online | Thursday, February 10, 2022, 6:00PM to 8:00PM (EST)

As a self-taught photographer and writer and now successful multimedia journalist, Polly Irungu truly represents the “for creatives, by creatives” mantra. During this event Irungu will share how her journey as a creative herself led her to found Black Women Photographers, a global community and directory of 800+ Black women and non-binary photographers.

Register for this event here.

A Brighter Future with Baby Bonds: How States and Cities Should Invest in Our Kids

Online | Thursday, February 17, 2022, 12:30 PM to 1:45 PM (EST)

Join the New School’s Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy (IRPPE) and Prosperity Now for an exciting virtual event to discuss the newly-released paper “A Brighter Future with Baby Bonds: How States and Cities Should Invest in Our Kids.” This event will be moderated by Kimberly Adams, host of NPR’s Marketplace, and feature The New School’s Darrick Hamilton, university professor, Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and founding director of IRPPE; Connecticut Treasurer Shawn Wooden; DC Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie; Gary Cunningham, President and CEO of Prosperity Now; and Shira Markoff, Policy Fellow at Prosperity Now.

Register for this event here.

Categorizing Currencies: Making Money, Making Subjects

Online | Friday, February 18, 2022, 12:00PM to 2:00PM (EST)

Professor Allan Lumba (Virginia Tech) and Professor Tinashe Nyamunda (University of Pretoria) will lead a seminar discussion on the historical use of currency as a means of creating subjects and citizens. Prof Lumba will discuss his latest work on currency in American colonial Philippines and Prof. Nyamunda will present work on currency in colonial south and central Africa.

Register for this event here.

The Stone at The New School Presents: Sara Serpa Quartet

Glassbox Theater | February 23–26, 2022

The Stone at The New School serves as an artist-centric home and community for experimental and avant-garde artists, where they can perform what they want without any interference. The Stone at The New School continues the tradition of the landmark non-profit performance space founded in 2005 by Artistic Director John Zorn, within a greatly improved space.

Feburary 23–24 features Sara Serpa (voice), Caroline Davis (sax), Chris Tordini (bass), and a drummer.

February 25–26 features Sara Serpa (voice), Ingrid Laubrock (saxophones), Angelica Sanchez (piano), and Erik Friedlander (cello).

Tickets are $20 (unless otherwise indicated at the door); there are no advance ticket sales but it is strongly recommended that those seeking to attend a performance register in advance. Admission is free for College of Performing Arts students with ID.

Register for this event here.

PERN Salon: The Constitution of Algorithms with Florian Jaton

Online | February 24, 2022, 6–7PM (EST)

Join the Platform Economies Research Network for a conversation with Florian Jaton about his recent monograph, “The Constitution of Algorithms,” a laboratory study investigating how algorithms come into existence, published by The MIT Press (2021).

Register for this event here.

The list above is just a sampling of what to look forward to this month. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our events calendar, as more events are added regularly.

Looking for that perfect book to cozy up to on the couch? Whether you’re craving some darkly funny spec fic, or a suspenseful office drama, our winter reading list has got your perfect match!
Follow us on Tiktok and IG @thenewschool (or just check back here) as we add book recs from our current Creative Writing students!

Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman (Faculty, Creative Writing MFA)

Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman: 9781984826305 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

East Coast novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Hollywood with simple goals in mind: overseeing the production of a film adaptation of one of his books, preventing starlet Cassidy Carter’s disruptive behavior from derailing said production, and turning this last-ditch effort at career resuscitation into the sort of success that will dazzle his wife and daughter back home. But California is not as he imagined: Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are omnipresent, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Patrick partners with Cassidy — after having been her reluctant chauffeur for weeks — and the two of them investigate the sun-scorched city’s darker crevices, where they discover that catastrophe resembles order until the last possible second.

In this often-witty and all-too-timely story, Alexandra Kleeman grapples with the corruption of our environment in the age of alternative facts. Something New Under the Sun is a meticulous and deeply felt accounting of our very human anxieties, liabilities, dependencies, and, ultimately, responsibility to truth. (Synopsis from penguinerandomhouse.com)

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (MFA Creative Writing ‘16)

The Other Black Girl

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.

A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist. (Synopsis from simonandschuster.com)

No Heaven For Good Boys by Keisha Bush (MFA Creative Writing ‘15)

No Heaven for Good Boys by Keisha Bush: 9780399591969 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Six-year-old Ibrahimah loves snatching pastries from his mother’s kitchen, harvesting string beans with his father, and searching for sea glass with his sisters. But when he is approached in his rural village one day by Marabout Ahmed, a seemingly kind stranger and highly regarded teacher, the tides of his life turn forever. Ibrahimah is sent to the capital city of Dakar to join his cousin Étienne in studying the Koran under Marabout Ahmed for a year, but instead of the days of learning that Ibrahimah’s parents imagine, the young boys, called Talibé, are forced to beg in the streets in order to line their teacher’s pockets.

To make it back home, Étienne and Ibrahimah must help each other survive both the dangers posed by their Marabout, and the darker sides of Dakar: threats of black-market organ traders, rival packs of Talibé, and mounting student protest on the streets.

Drawn from real incidents and transporting readers between rural and urban Senegal, No Heaven for Good Boys is a tale of hope, resilience, and the affirming power of love. (Synopsis from penguinerandomhouse.com)

The Shimmering State — Meredith Westgate (MFA Creative Writing ‘15)

The Shimmering State

Lucien moves to Los Angeles to be with his grandmother as she undergoes an experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s using the new drug, Memoroxin. An emerging photographer, he’s also running from the sudden death of his mother, a well-known artist whose legacy haunts him.

Sophie has just landed the lead in the upcoming performance of La Sylphide with the Los Angeles Ballet Company. She still waitresses at the Chateau Marmont during her off hours, witnessing the recreational use of Memoroxin — or Mem — among the Hollywood elite.

When Lucien and Sophie meet at The Center, founded by an ambitious yet conflicted doctor to treat patients who’ve abused Mem, they have no memory of how they got there — or why they feel so inexplicably drawn to each other. Is it attraction, or something they cannot remember from “before”? (Synopsis from simonandschuster.com)

We Are Watching Eliza Bright by A.E. Osworth (MFA Creative Writing ’16)

We Are Watching Eliza Bright

Eliza Bright is living the dream as an elite video game coder at Fancy Dog Games, the first woman to ascend that high in the ranks — and some people want to make sure she’s the last. To her friends, Eliza Bright is a brilliant, self-taught coder bravely calling out the misogyny that pervades her workplace and industry. To the men who see her very presence as a threat, Eliza Bright is a woman who needs to be destroyed to protect the game they love.

When Eliza’s report of workplace harassment is quickly dismissed, she’s forced to take her frustrations to a journalist who blasts her story across the internet. She’s fired and doxxed, and becomes a rallying figure for women everywhere. But she’s also enraged the beast comprised of online male gamers — their unreliable chorus narrates our story. Soon, Eliza is in the cross-hairs of the gaming community, threatened and stalked as they monitor her every move online and across New York City.

As the violent power of the angry male collective descends upon everyone in Eliza’s life, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust, even when she’s eventually taken in and protected by an under-the-radar Collective known as the Sixsterhood. The violence moves from cyberspace to the real world, thanks to a vicious male super-fan known only as The Inspectre, determined to exact his revenge on behalf of men everywhere. We watch alongside the Sixsterhood and subreddit keyboard warriors as this dramatic cat-and-mouse game plays out to its violent and inevitable conclusion in this thrilling story of resilience and survival.
Synopsis from GrandCentralPublishing.com)

Girlhood by Melissa Febos (BA Liberal Arts ’03)

Girlhood

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others’ expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.
Written with Febos’ characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.
(Synopsis from bloomsbury.com)

An Ordinary Age — Finding Your Way in a World That Expects Exceptional by Rainsford Stauffer (BA Liberal Arts ’17)

An Ordinary Age

Young adulthood: the time of our lives when, theoretically, anything can happen, and the pressure is on to make sure everything does. Social media has long been the scapegoat for a generation of unhappy young people, but perhaps the forces working beneath us — wage stagnation, student debt, perfectionism, and inflated costs of living — have a larger, more detrimental impact on the world we post to our feeds.

An Ordinary Age puts young adults at the center as Rainesford Stauffer examines our obsessive need to live and post our #bestlife, and the culture that has defined that life on narrow, and often unattainable, terms. From the now required slate of (often unpaid) internships, to the loneliness epidemic, to the stress of “finding yourself” through school, work, and hobbies — the world is demanding more of young people these days than ever before. And worse, it’s leaving little room for our generation to ask the big questions about who they want to be, and what makes a life feel meaningful.

Perhaps we’re losing sight of the things that fulfill us: strong relationships, real roots in a community, and the ability to question how we want our lives to look and feel, even when that’s different from what we see on the ‘Gram. Stauffer makes the case that many of our most formative young adult moments are the ordinary ones: finding our people and sticking with them, learning to care for ourselves on our own terms, and figuring out who we are when the other stuff — the GPAs, job titles, the filters — fall away. (Synopsis from Harpercollins.com)

Ghost Hour by Laura Cronk (Faculty, Creative Writing/MFA Creative Writing ’05)

Ghost Hour - Persea Books

Sometimes compact, sometimes expansive, the poems in Ghost Hour emanate from adolescence and other liminal spaces, considering girlhood and contemporary womanhood — the ways both are fraught with the pleasures and limits of embodiment
Laura Cronk writes personally, intimately, yet never without profound consideration of contemporary violence, which we must love in spite of and rage against. (Synopsis from perseabooks.com)

For even more reads from our talented network of alums, check out our Alumni Bookshelf:

Alumni Bookshelf

2021 is almost over, and The New School has a fun lineup of hybrid and online events to celebrate the end of the year. With a variety of expert panels, performances, and programs, we hope you can join us in celebrating the work of our students, faculty, alumni, and more. You can also keep an eye on our events calendar so you’ll know when new events are added!

Cities and Migration in Global Networks

Online | Wednesday, December 1, 2021, 10:00AM to 11:15AM (EST)

Cities are the destination areas for the majority of migrants and those forcibly displaced. Their role in creating pathways to integration for migrants has been recognized across various academic and policy fields. In recent years we have witnessed an increasing engagement of global city networks around the topic of migration. Such networks advocate for the important place that cities hold for harnessing opportunities and addressing the challenges associated with human mobility. Through these networks, cities exchange ideas, policy expertise and learn from each other’s experiences. This panel will discuss global city networks and their importance in (re)shaping and reframing the migration debate focusing on the role of “infrastructures of reception”, the kinds of programs, policies, and knowledge needed to strengthen the response to cities to increasing migratory flows.

Register for this event here.

Nonfiction Forum: Kristen Radtke

Online | Thursday, December 2, 2021, 6:00PM to 7:00PM (EST)

Join us for a reading with author Kristen Radtke, as she sits down with Honor Moore, nonfiction coordinator at the Creative Writing program.

Kristen Radtke is the author of the graphic nonfiction book Imagine Wanting Only This (2017), and published books Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness (July 2021), for which she received a 2019 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and Terrible Men, a graphic novel, all from Pantheon. She is the art director and deputy publisher of The Believer magazine. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Elle, Vogue, NPR.org, and many other places.

Register for this event here.

Collaboration and Democracy: Confronting Enemies, Opponents and Friends

Online |Friday, December 3, 2021, 11:00AM to 1:00PM (EST)

Collaboration with the enemy is a political “offense.” Collaboration with friends is a political necessity, and collaboration with opponents presents a puzzle in need of careful exploration and judgment.

In this webinar, colleagues from Afghanistan (Obaidullah Baheer), South Africa (Shireen Hassim), the United States (Jeffrey C. Isaac), Brazil (Daniel Peres) and Poland (Karolina Wigura) will discuss, informed by their contrasting political experiences and analyses, the “offense,” the necessity and the judgment.

Register for this event here.

In Conversation with Citi Digital: Recruitment Opportunities & the Value of Design in FinTech

Online | Monday, December 6, 2021, 12:00PM to 1:00PM (EST)

When we think of financial services, the words “design” or “creativity” are often not the first descriptors that come to mind. Citi Digital is on a mission to change this, looking to put the consumer experience first and innovation as a core tenet of its work. Today’s panel includes some of Citibank’s leadership (including BBA Strategic Design & Management Alum Zoia Kozakov) who will discuss the next generation of building out its digital organization, as well as what it’s like to begin and grow your career in product management at Citi. There are a variety of roles open in the organization, so make sure to attend to get insights on applying and what makes candidates stand apart.

Register for this event here.

New School Studio Orchestra with Emilio Solla

Livestream | Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 7:30PM to 9:00PM (EST)

The College of Performing Arts’s newest large ensemble, the New School Studio Orchestra, is composed of students from the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and Mannes School of Music, performing music from a wide variety of genres including jazz, soul, pop, and improvised music. This evening the group is led by band leader, arranger/producer and pianist Emilio Solla.

Register for this event here.

Rethinking Residencies Symposium

Online | December 08–10, 2021

The Rethinking Residencies Symposium invites artists, curators, scholars, and residency organizations worldwide to come together to address residency programs as critical sites of production within the field of visual arts. The symposium will consider existing scholarship and cultivate new thinking about the history, institutional structures, and conditions of visual art residencies.

Founded in 2014, Rethinking Residencies is the first network of New York-based artist and curator residency programs, and the symposium will be its most extensive event to date. The 16 member institutions of Rethinking Residencies generate knowledge and resources, anchored together in cooperation and collaboration.

Register for your seminars of choice here.

Lang Dance Fall Production

Tishman Auditorium | December 10 & 11, 2021

Lang Dance invites you to their Fall 2021 production at Tishman Auditorium, Free and Open to the Public.

Featuring works created by guest choreographers Joanna Kotze and Mariana Valencia, along with student-created senior capstone video-dances from 2020 & 2021 graduates.

All choreography will be performed by students of the Eugene Lang College Contemporary Dance Program.

Register for December 10 performance here and December 11 performance here.

MANNES ORCHESTRA: Debussy, Rautavaara, and Genese

Livestream | Sunday, December 12, 2021, 2:00PM to 3:30PM (EST)

The Mannes Orchestra returns to John L. Tishman Auditorium for its second live performance this semester. Music Director David Hayes leads the orchestra in a performance of Claude Debussy, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Michael Genese, MM ’21, who is the 2020 Martinů Award Winner.

Known for their bold and adventurous programming, the Mannes Orchestra has been hailed by The New York Times as an orchestra whose quality is “a revelation”,” and for their “intensity of focus.”

Register for this event here.

The list above is just a sampling of what to look forward to this month. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our events calendar, as more events are added regularly.

Happy fall folks! November is just around the corner, and The New School has an exciting lineup of hybrid and online events. With a variety of expert panels, performances, and programs, we hope you can join us in celebrating the work of our students, faculty, alumni, and more. You can also keep an eye on our events calendar so you’ll know when new events are added!

The Revolution Will Be Dramatized: Black Theater Now

Online | November 15–24, 2021

The Revolution Will Be Dramatized: Black Theater Now is a public conversation series organized by the Theater Program at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts, The New School. A part of the Lang undergraduate course of the same name, the mission of the series is to introduce students to leading black theater artists, professionals, and practitioners whose work traverses the boundaries of art, politics, and social justice. What is the relationship between black theater and black activism? Moreover, what does it mean to think of black theater as activism? Inspired by the writer Toni Cade Bambara’s famous claim that “the role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible” this public facing conversation series invites audiences to think about the ways in which theater — -and the arts more broadly — — “matter” to the work of social justice.

This series features seminars with Drew Shade, Jordan Cooper, Bryan Terrell Clark, Britton Smith, and Antoinette Nwandu, five prominent figures in American theater today. Register for your seminars of interest below:

Drew Shade | November 1, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:00PM (EST)

Jordan Cooper | November 3, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:00PM (EST)

Bryan Terrell Clark | November 15, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:00PM (EST)

Britton Smith | November 17, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:00PM (EST)

Antoinette Nwandu | November 24, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:00PM (EST)

Design and Technology Cloud Salon: Veil Machine

Online | November 2, 2021, 7:00PM to 8:00PM (EST)

This fall, the DT programs co-present several Cloud Salon talks with Decoding Stigma, an interdisciplinary, international group of people within the Venn diagram of sex work, technology, and academia, hosting events and meeting regularly to deconstruct and re-generate the relationship between sex work and tech. We make up a distributed network of radical individuals “stranded” on different institutional islands, coming together to try to answer the question: what can tech learn from sex workers?

Veil Machine is the project of sex worker artists, Sybil Fury, Cléo Ouyang, and Empress Wu. This talk will begin with a 20-minute presentation by members of Veil Machine, followed by a 40-minute conversation with participants, moderated by Gabriella Garcia, Decoding Stigma co-founder.

Register for this event here.

MACE: Mannes American Composers Ensemble

Hybrid | November 2 & 4, 2021, 7:30PM to 9:00PM (EST)

Founded in 2012 by composer Lowell Liebermann and directed in the Fall 2021 season by David Hayes, MACE presents works by iconic American composers such as John Adams, Mason Bates and Steve Reich, as well as works by young and up-and-coming composers such as David Hertzberg and Nina C. Young. The ensemble aims to embrace a broad view of the vital landscape of contemporary American Music, and to bolster that landscape through premieres and, soon, commissions. This event will be led by the Mannes Conducting students: Bryant Denmark, Ethan Osman, Julius Mauldin, and Will Cabison. While this in-person event is exclusive to the New School Community, a public livestream is also being offered.

Register for 11/2 performance here.

Register for 11/4 performance here.

New School Studio Orchestra: The Kennedy Dream

Hybrid | November 3, 2021, 7:30PM to 9:00PM (EST)

The College of Performing Arts’s newest large ensemble, the New School Studio Orchestra, is composed of students from the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and Mannes School of Music, performing music from a wide variety of genres including jazz, soul, pop, and improvised music. This evening the group is led by conductor, trombonist, and bandleader Ed Neumeister and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra’s lead trumpeter Nick Marchione. While this in-person event is exclusive to the New School Community, a public livestream is also being offered: Register for this event here.

Issues Facing Indigenous Youth: Healing and Resilience Through Culture

Online | November 4, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:30PM (EST)

The Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring and The New School’s “Child and Adolescent Global Mental Health” course, instructed by Dr. Miriam Steele, in partnership with Urban Native Youth Association proudly present: “Issues Facing Indigenous Youth: Healing and Resilience Through Culture,” hosted by Raffi, acclaimed children’s singer/songwriter and founder of The Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring.

Register for this event here.

J+D Career Fair

Online | November 12, 2021, 4:00PM to 5:30PM (EST)

Join the Journalism and Design department for its Fall 2021 career fair, in which you will get to speak with a range of J+D alumni about professional pathways, as well as opportunities for work and internship experience. We will be joined by Sadie Bell (J+D ’17) from Thrillist, Tricia Vuong (J+D ’18) from The Counter, and more! The event will begin with a conversation where alumni will share stories and advice about networking, job searching, and their journeys post-graduation. Afterwards, students will be invited to engage more with the alumni in rotating breakout rooms to learn about their experiences and companies. This is a great event to hear from people who have been in your shoes and find out about the variety of opportunities out there during and after college for students majoring in J+D. Please come as you are: no resumés or past jobs fair experience necessary.

Register for this event here.

Doc Talks: The Giverny Document Screening and Q+A with Ja’Tovia Gary

Online | November 18, 2021, 2:00PM to 3:30PM (EST)

Join us for a conversation with filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary to discuss her film The Giverny Document, which won the 72 Locarno Film Festival Moving Ahead Award. Filmed on location in Harlem, USA and in Claude Monet’s historic gardens in Giverny, France, The Giverny Document is a multi-textured cinematic poem that meditates on the safety and bodily autonomy of Black women. Filmmaker Ja’Tovia Gary unleashes an arsenal of techniques and materials including direct animation on archival 16mm film, woman on the street interviews, and montage editing techniques to explore the creative virtuosity of Black femme performance figures while interrogating the histories of those bodies as spaces of forced labor and commodified production.

Register for this event here.

Kris Grey: Craft Identified: Body as Raw Material

Online | November 29, 2021, 6:00PM to 7:15PM (EST)

As part of the Fall Semester ’21 Arts Platform course, PERFORMANCE IN THE AGE OF PANDEMIC, Maya Ciarrocchi will lead a conversation with performance artist Kris Grey. During the hour-long lecture, Grey will discuss their practice of using their body as raw material, often presenting themselves in states of extreme vulnerability as an invitation to experience transcendence or discover hidden queer histories. This event is part of PERFORMANCE IN THE AGE OF PANDEMIC, a virtual, public-facing event series exploring the context of the radical reorganization of life under the current COVID-19 pandemic and other health crises such as the AIDS and 1918 influenza pandemics.

Register for this event here.

The list above is just a sampling of what to look forward to this month. Don’t forget to keep an eye on our events calendar, as more events are added regularly.

Passing by 506 Spruce Street in New Castle, Pennsylvania, you might think this early-20th-century house in the former manufacturing capital was simply getting a freshening up. The 800-square-foot dwelling is in fact the site of cutting-edge design and construction research led by Parsons’ Healthy Materials Lab in collaboration with local community partners. But to witness the home’s radical innovations firsthand, you would need to take a chainsaw to a side of the building.

In a typical freestanding American home, an exterior wall has as many layers as the functions it performs. Wood framing is placed between panels and sheets dedicated to waterproofing, blocking drafts, insulating interiors, and finishing surfaces. While the assembly encloses a space effectively, the many individual components add cost and often harm occupants: The building products typically contain known asthmagens, endocrine disruptors, and other compounds that damage human health. Even lumber usually contains endocrine-disrupting flame retardants.

The mission of Parsons’ Healthy Materials Lab (HML) is to reduce human exposure to such chemicals, especially in affordable housing. Jonsara Ruth, who co-founded HML with Alison Mears, says this work reached a turning point in 2017, two years after the collective’s launch. Observing that healthful materials advocacy focused on products that contain toxic substances, Ruth recalls realizing that “removing one harmful ingredient at a time is an important but slow process. So we convened a group of student researchers to identify available building products that best safeguard health.”

This shift in HML’s perspective — from mitigating the effects of toxic substances in mass-market materials to promoting healthful alternative products — soon led the team to HempLime, a material made from hemp’s woody fibers; lime, a silica material from limestone; and water. The biodegradable mixture can be cast or blown into wall cavities to perform the functions of several layers of a typical wall section. It is naturally mold resistant, flame retardant, antimicrobial, vapor regulating, and insulating. Instead of off-gassing, HempLime continuously absorbs airborne toxics, even sequestering carbon dioxide. HML’s Trace Material podcast refers to HempLime as a “superstar” of the healthful materials toolbox.

A multipurpose plant, hemp has been grown in the United States since the 17th century but was banned in 1970 for sharing a species category with marijuana. Because industrial hemp production was re-legalized federally only in 2018, HempLime’s benefits have not yet been thoroughly documented, and designers and builders are only now learning how to use it in conjunction with standard wall section components. In 2019, HML discovered a fellow HempLime champion in the organization DON Enterprise, which renovates and develops affordable, accessible housing in New Castle for people with disabilities. The nonprofit recognized that the material could improve the lives of its residents while revitalizing the local agricultural economy, and it teamed with HML to explore HempLime’s building applications, ultimately leading to the renovation at 506 Spruce Street.

The collaboration began in earnest in January 2020, when classes conducted by HML and Parsons’ Master of Architecture (MArch) program charged students with designing affordable housing for a New Castle site using HempLime as a building material. Inspired by those proposals, DON then tapped HML to prototype a renovation. With Meryl Smith — an MArch student who participated in the HempLime Architecture Studio in spring 2020 — Mears and Ruth developed architectural and construction plans in which HempLime blown into the existing balloon frame simplifies the traditional sandwichlike wall section. Mears explains that the interior- facing wall is then finished with locally sourced lime plaster applied directly to the HempLime. The exterior locally milled hemlock boards, which are visible from the street and set off slightly from the wood frame, serve as a rainscreen; the air barrier between the two surfaces prevents mold from developing inside.

Although the project is just wrapping up, its transformative potential has already attracted considerable notice. The Pennsylvania Housing Research Center has signed on to monitor 506 Spruce Street’s performance, and the groundbreaking renovation method is featured in the television series America by Design, which began airing in June. Watch here.

This piece was originally printed in re:D 2021 “Health and Wellness for All” re:D (Regarding Design), the magazine for Parsons alumni and the wider Parsons community, is a publication of Parsons School of Design and The New School. Below we feature highlights from the 2021 issue: “Health and Wellness for All”. You can read a full digital copy of the magazine here.