Posted in HISTORIES
By the late 1930s, the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research was a center for the study of Husserlian phenomenology in United States. This was mainly due to the presence of refugee scholars Felix Kaufmann and Alfred Schutz, and then the scholars Dorion Cairns and Aron Gurwitsch […]
Posted in HISTORIES
A collage of the covers of the New School catalogs over the years.
Posted in HISTORIES
In Spring 2014, Shannon Mattern’s graduate course in Media Studies, “Digital Archives + Institutional Memory,” investigated the history of Media Studies at the New School. The students created a Scalar-based online exhibition-view it on Shannon Mattern’s blog, Words in Space, here.
Posted in PEOPLE
“Breaking the rules, taking risks comes at a price,” says Sondra Farganis, Director Emeritus of both the Vera List Center for Art and Politics (VLC) and the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at the New School (WC). Dr. Farganis was a draft resistance counselor during the Viet Nam War. In her oral history interview for […]
Posted in PEOPLE
You walk into her office on the ninth floor of Joseph Urban’s Modernist architectural masterpiece, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, at 66 W. 12th St. She gives you a warm smile with a firm, friendly handshake. BB: Hello, I’m glad to be here, Gerard. Not a lot of people care about my history here at The New School. […]
Posted in HISTORIES
There is an ongoing history of efforts to build bridges between labor and management at the New School that lasted from 1919 through the 1970s. Courses on labor and management were initially offered in the New School’s first full academic year (1919-20): Modern Trade Unionism by Robert Bruère and Administration of Human Relations in Industry by H.C. Metcalf. […]
Posted in HISTORIES
The Parsons table is not a physical object but an idea, the platonic ideal of a table, characterized by a simple form, unadorned, adaptable to any material, with legs as wide as the tabletop is deep. The “ur-modern” table, the “essence of tableness,” it is capable of assuming many different forms: a singular model with […]
Posted in REFLECTIONS & ANALYSIS
or Alumni Day on May 11, 2013, the Alumni Office asked twenty faculty and staff to give a 60-second lecture. Tasked with the topic of “New School History,” it was quite a challenge! The results are available here. I started off with a longer version that better encapsulates my theme — I hope we’re still a school rather […]
Posted in HISTORIES
The Human Relations Center began in 1951 at the behest of Clara Mayer, the infamous right-hand woman of Alvin Johnson, the long-time director of the school. By 1951, Mayer was Vice President and Dean of the School of Philosophy and Liberal Arts of what was known informally known as the Adult Division (to distinguish it […]