FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: THE ILLUSION OF COLOR. Many prominent philosophers, scientists, and artists have argued that our experience of color is an illusion, that colors as we see them do not really exist. This course traces the history and philosophical significance of this idea, from its origin in a series of surprising discoveries about light and vision, through to its contemporary manifestations in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and art. Topics to be discussed will include whether we can ever really know what someone else’s experience is like, how language relates to perception and thought, what art can tell us about experience, and whether perception tells us how the world really is.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS: NEW YORK'S LITERARY LANDSCAPE. This course aims to tap into the storied literary landscape of New York City in order to delve into our own creative writing and close reading practices. As a hybrid exploration/creation lab, we will conduct a multi-tiered engagement with different New York-based authors (both dead and alive) to soak in their habitat. We will partake in short communal readings of texts; visit historical points of reference and relevance; craft individual and group exercises based upon the text and excursions; and workshop them with the goal of leaving with a portfolio of your own New York-centric work. In class and out of class readings will include E.B. White, Walt Whitman, Anne Waldman, Allen Ginsburg, Patti Smith, Edna St. Vincent Millay, James Baldwin, Edith Wharton, Joseph Mitchell, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and many more.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: WORK AND POWER IN NEW YORK CITY. This first year seminar introduces students to labor and labor movements in New York City over the last hundred years. Topics include: historical transformations in work, including industrialization, globalization, and the rise of high- and low-wage service jobs; the role of unions and the state in shaping employment patterns and labor-management relations; and the efforts of working people to resist harmful conditions on the job and beyond. The course also covers inequalities of social class, gender, citizenship, and race/ethnicity as they affect work and workers. We will ground these inquiries in particular NYC neighborhoods and in the daily lives of students.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: POETS AND ARTISTS OF THE NEW YORK SCHOOL. The generation of writers and artists to emerge in the mid-twentieth century in New York City is usually referred to as the New York School. Writers most often associated with this movement are poets such as Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Bernadette Mayer, Amiri Baraka, Alice Notley and Eileen Myles, to name a few. But what do these writers have in common beyond sharing the geography of New York City in their formative years? This course will examine the intersections between poetry and art from this period and consider their ongoing influence on contemporary writing in New York. In addition to reading the writings of several New York School poets and listening and viewing visual and acoustic works by some of the artists and musicians with whom they collaborated, students will explore first-hand how some of New York's downtown neighborhoods shaped the work in question. Assignments for this course include a creative writing option.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: BIOLOGY, ART & SOCIAL JUSTICE. Using a social justice and planetary health framework, we explore how artists and scientists use interdisciplinary inquiry, creativity, interpretation, and personal expression to propel social change. Drawing on the work of Latin American muralists, Black artist Wangechi Mutu, environmental artist Alexis Rockman, and Visual AIDS artists, we traverse history to imagine a different future. The course is modular, spanning topics such GMOs, urban health, biomedicine, genomics, and disability justice. Assignments include journal entries, essays, visual narratives, design statements, and an independent project that re-examines how we define ourselves, how we interact with one another, and how we can simultaneously promote science and social justice. We will conduct two experiments: isolating your DNA and the use of microbial pigments for non-toxic painting and dyeing.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: THE BODY IN PERFORMANCE ART. The seminar focuses on the human body in performance art. What is performance art? Is everyone a performance artist? What makes it different from experimental theatre, or visual art? We will look at artists whose work concentrates on the body: Cassils, Yana Evans, Niv Acosta, Yoko Ono, among others. Students will go to see performances, read theory and make short performances of their own. The final project is a creative response to a performance artist of their choice.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: STORIES ABOUT HIGHER EDUCATION. In this course, we will read (listen to, watch…) reported stories about college. The class will consider these stories both as exemplars of journalistic craft and as real-world accounts that support or challenge ideas about higher education. Stories will explore issues such as access, labor, money, and innovation. Sources will include general-interest newspapers, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Open Campus, narrative podcasts, and student publications.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: DIY RELIGION. Since its earliest years the New School has been the site for research and reflection on religion’s place in society and what comes after it. This class explores today’s spiritual landscape, in which more and more people reject institutional and politicized “religion,” instead designing practices and forming communities of their own. Taking religious pluralism and experimentation for granted, these new formations mix and update ancient traditions. They leaven old legacies with new sciences and experiences, while also finding in them powerful resources for contemporary liberation struggles from sexuality to ecojustice. Lang students have been doing this important work since its beginnings. In honor of Lang’s 40th anniversary in 2025, this class will center conversations with alums who are putting their Lang learning into visionary and inspiring practice.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: HISTORY OF FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY IN THE U.S. This seminar will study the history of movements for gender equity in the U.S. A chronological approach will be taken, beginning in the 19th century with “the woman question,” continuing with the suffragettes who achieved the vote for women in 1920, to “second wave” feminism that unfolded alongside the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, to “third wave” feminism and up until the current moment. By the 1990s, a shift had begun to an intersectional understanding of the ways that gender identity is entwined with race, ethnicity, class, age, citizenship status, ability, religion, sexuality, and more. The course will also address current culture wars around trans rights, reproductive rights, and other gender-related topics, placing them in historical context.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: DICKENS AND CRIME. Who goes to prison, and for what sort of crimes? This is a central question in *Little Dorrit *(1855-1857), Charles Dickens’s masterful novel of financial crime. We read the tale of an imprisoned debtor’s daughter and a massive bank fraud in installments, as it was first published, over the course of the semester. Reading Dickens slowly allows us to savor his prose and to explore the politics of his writing, in the context of his life. We also read journalism from Dickens’s time and our own, while considering parallels in our own lives. George Bernard Shaw once claimed that Little Dorrit was more revolutionary than Marx’s *Das Kapital*. We find out why.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: HUMANIMALS: SOCIOCULTURAL EXPLORATIONS. Have you ever wondered about the role of animals in social and cultural life? Have you been curious about why the film industry creates half-human/half-animal creatures to evoke our fears or fantasies? Or how animals are also workers? This course explores different forms of animals and more-than-human life, engaging in an intellectual journey of human-animal relationships worldwide to explore contemporary social issues. We will read about animals in novels, analyze them in movies, explore them in the city, and connect their life trajectories to social theory and current critical issues. In other words, we will study animal and social theory by making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Additionally, this seminar introduces other subjects relevant to college life, such as developing critical reading skills, conducting university-level research, learning about field research methods, presenting and communicating ideas in the classroom, and developing social networks to learn and produce knowledge collaboratively.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: SEX AND SOCIAL CHANGE. From national debates over the future of reproductive rights to the viral outrage of #MeToo, the conjunction between “sex” and “politics" seems everywhere today to saturate social structures, cultural institutions, and the fabric of our everyday lives. But what exactly is political about sex? In this seminar, we will look at how sex has been theorized and practiced by a range of intellectuals, activists, and artists invested in different visions of social transformation. What, if anything, does one’s sex have to do with one’s politics? How do big political ideas about democracy, freedom, equality, and revolution articulate to seemingly personal and intimate matters like pleasure, desire, love, and the erotic? How do racism, capitalism, and colonialism shape sexual meanings, cultures, and values in the historical present? Throughout, we will pay special attention to the way that feminist and queer cultural workers have sought to reimagine what justice might look (and feel) like when and where sex is concerned. Readings will likely include: Anne Anlin Cheng, Lauren Berlant, Drucilla Cornell, Angela Davis, Silvia Federici, Jules Gill-Peterson, Saidiya Hartman, Sophie Lewis, Audre Lorde, and Kim TallBear, among others.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: TRANS WRITERS AND ARTISTS. This seminar explores the ways that trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary artists and writers express form and embodiment in their work, and considers the ways in which this expression invites us to transform and radicalize our own artistic practices. While we are now familiar with the word “trans” as synonymous with transgender identity, the prefix itself offers incredible richness of formal meanings connected to transformation, change, liminality, and ongoing states of being that move beyond historically traditional boundaries. As we engage with the expression of artists who communicate in this state of “beyond,” we will work on both collaborative and individual projects in a joint discussion and workshop format, incorporating and expanding upon our source texts in new, transformative production. Poets, musicians, performance and visual artists we explore may include but are not limited to: Andrea Abi-Karam, Samuel Ace, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Tona Brown, Micha Cárdenas, Ching-In Chen, Vaginal Davis, Meg Day, Anaïs Duplan, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Rickey Laurentiis, Billy Tipton, and Wu Tsang.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: THE MAKING OF ECONOMIC SOCIETY. Why did the industrialized world experience a financial collapse and "Great Recession" in the first decade of the 21st century? What accounts for the remarkable rise of the economies of China and India? These are some of the questions that we will address in this first-year seminar in world economic history. Our focus will be on the rise of capitalism and especially the interplay of economic, political and cultural forces in social change. We begin with a discussion of economics and the different ways in which "the economic problem" has been solved at different historical moments. After a consideration of ancient, medieval and feudal economies, we look at the emergence of market economies and then of capitalism. A close analysis of the industrial revolution in Europe sets the stage for the study of capitalism in the 20th century, with its booms and busts of economic activity (including the Great Depression), the rise of the public sector and, finally, the globalization of finance and production. We look briefly at the rise and fall of socialism, and conclude with a consideration of the problems with, and possibilities for, capitalisms in the 21st century.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: PERFORMING POLITICS. Activists have long employed performance to achieve political goals, and performers have created great art in response to political challenges. Performance is everywhere, from the ways in which we experience our gender and racial identities to the versions of ourselves we advertise online. Professional politicians have long realized that style makes more votes than actual policy, and contemporary politics is more tightly crafted than many theatrical productions. This course investigates the relationship between politics and performance. By reading, viewing, and analyzing performance and politics theory and practice, we will explore the ways in which artists have responded to challenging political environments, as we analyze the ways in which politics is performed in the public square.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: WHAT ARE POETS FOR? “There is an old quarrel between poetry and philosophy,” writes Plato in The Republic. And while Plato banned poets from his ideal republic, the relationship between poets and philosophers is ongoing: sometimes as quarrel, but more often as conversation, inspiration, affinity. This course traces this cross-genre conversation in the work of a number of contemporary poets and the philosophers who inspire them. We read philosophers who write with the grace and depth of poets, and poets who enlarge the scope of their investigations with the rigor and analytical clarity of philosophers. Poets are likely to include: Paul Celan, Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, Fred Moten; philosophers: Nietzsche, Weil, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Baldwin, Heraclitus.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: IMPROVISING THE POSSIBLE. Improvisation is all around us. It occurs in a wide range of human activity, from creative practice in the arts to everyday conversations to spontaneous negotiations with one’s environment. Nevertheless, perhaps because of its liveness and unpredictability, improvisation is often difficult to define and analyze. In this course, students draw from recent scholarship on improvisation within the fields of philosophy, anthropology, musicology, as well as dance and performance studies, in order to grapple with the nature of improvisation, and to consider its potential as a meaningful political practice. At various points, the course also turns to jazz and jazz studies, where one finds a vast and rigorous analysis of improvisation, and often an exacting look at race, gender, and the politics of performance. Where does improvisation come from, and where might its power exist? In addition to critical texts, students consider a range of live and recorded performances throughout the semester.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: THE REALITY OF FICTION. What is fiction? In this course, we will ask how fiction—in an age of simulation, post-truth, and artificial intelligence—can be defined against reality (the reality of the visual world, experience, and identity). Can fiction fortify or critique what we take to be reality? Are there certain political facts that must be defended against fiction, and how has fiction also been emancipatory, freeing the body and identity from the biological and social scripts of race and gender? Who has the power and freedom to create reality anew? We will discuss works by Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Nella Larsen, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and Jean Baudrillard, as well as films, plays, painting, photography, and social media.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: VISUAL CULTURE: ART AND DESIGN. This seminar introduces students to an academic understanding of the close connection between art and design from antiquity to the present, paying special attention to the politics of design across the dynamics of art (classically defined by “autonomy” and “disinterestedness”) and design (defined by function, form and technology). The course is aimed at training students to develop analytical and critical skills when interpreting the different media and materials that both art and design depend on, as in the practice of sculpture, drawing, painting, photography and film, as well as their applications in architecture, furniture and fashion. Besides art history and the history of design, the course will draw on the disciplinary resources of visual anthropology and ethnographic studies in order to broaden the horizon of the subject to also include non-Western visual cultures of art and design.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: SOLIDARITY AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION. Solidarity is often called upon as a tool for action and social change across different political struggles. But what does it mean to act in solidarity and what forms does this take? What differentiates solidarity from humanitarian aid or charity? Are practices such as mutual aid and sanctuary forms of solidarity or something else? How and when are actions of solidarity transformative? This first year seminar engages these questions through a dynamic combination of theory, practice and action. We will discuss academic readings, poetry, primary documents, zines, and films focusing on the history, concepts and methods of grassroots organizing and movement building across different struggles. We will meet different organizers and activists in New York, visit their spaces, and learn about their vision and practices of solidarity. We will consider different movements in the U.S. and around the world including undocumented youth activism, Black Lives Matter, the sanctuary movement, the family collectives that search for the disappeared in Mexico, indigenous resistance and environmental justice, mutual aid networks, and activism to prevent border deaths. In addition to developing a critical analysis of questions related to social action and solidarity, students will practice skills such as writing a mission statement and a call to action, and they will explore their own practice of solidarity through research, fieldwork, and creative expression.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: SONIC FUTURES. This course examines scientific breakthroughs in music technology that had major impacts on 20th and 21st century politics and culture. For example, developments in radio not only introduced widespread broadcasting of music and entertainment to the American public, they also enabled the U.S. Military to communicate between land and sea during World War One. At the end of the 20th century, digital innovations in the storage and transmission of music reduced the cost of musical production such that artists could create albums without financial support from professional studios, yet it also led to the economic collapse of independent labels with the emergence of streaming services such as Spotify. We will study these examples of technological innovation and their impact on musical culture and sonic infrastructure, along with other case studies such as synthesizers, cochlear implants, sonography, and AI.

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: DEMOCRACY & EDUCATION: RADICAL THEORIES OF SOCIAL JUSTICE. In this course, students will be introduced to a series of books, essays, debates, artistic works, and activists that have shaped, complicated, or critiqued the idea of “progressive education." In its most basic sense, as it was articulated within the philosophy of John Dewey at the turn of the 20th century at the time of The New School's founding, "progressive education" has always involved a double movement: (1) it has stood for an attempt to diagnose how traditional forms of education reflect and reinforce social and political hierarchy along axes of class, gender, and race; (2) it has attempted to imagine new forms of educational and social institutions that would deconstruct those hierarchies in the name of human emancipation. In tracing this idea of progressive education, we will begin by contextualizing its intellectual origins in the ideas of political liberalism and the Enlightenment. We will then consider how the idea of progressive education might be complicated by socialist, feminist, queer, trans, critical race, anticapitalist, and decolonial traditions. Over the course of the semester, we will examine a series of significant episodes, documents, and artifacts from The New School that are relevant to its own contested history as a self-professed progressive institution, including visiting some politically significant works from its site-specific art collection. Potential authors and artists whose works we will consider include: Sara Ahmed, James Baldwin, W.E.B. DuBois, John Dewey, Andrea Geyer, Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Alfredo Jaar, Glenn Ligon, John Stuart Mill, Charles Mills, Herbert Marcuse, Booker T. Washington, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Ann Snitow.