Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students at The Festival of New!
Next week, October 1-6, is the Festival of New here at The New School, and the Bachelor’s Program for Adults and Transfer Students has a number of events that cover a breadth of topics scheduled for the centennial celebration. Check out our schedule below that highlights the events at which our BPATS faculty and alumni will be speaking, and make sure to come on out and celebrate with us next week!
Tuesday, October 1
4:00pm-5:15pm, Open Discourses: New School Histories
The university continues to strive to offer disciplinary experimentation, political involvement, and a global lens that provides a critical perspective on higher education even 100 years after opening its doors. In this course, Julia Foulkes of the BPATS program seeks to construct answers to the question “In what ways have these values been realized (or not), and how?” by assembling a history of the university from scrapbooks of newspaper articles, memoirs, artwork, and interviews.
Wednesday, October 2
11:00am-1:00pm, Public Engagement in the Digital Age
For those concerned with improving the quality of democratic engagement globally, come join the conversation with a roundtable of international experts on varied in-person and online forms of public engagement. Engagement in the world, be it the neighborhood or the global commons, is a human experience. Humans are drawn to interactive engagement with others. Led by BPATS and Media Studies professor, Melanie Oliviero, this roundtable invites students to proactively make democratic deliberation an accessible, adaptable routine.
12:00-1:30pm, The Future of Writing: The Editors of 12th Street
Student editors of the award-winning literary journal from 12th Street host an interactive event exploring the possibilities for engaging with contemporary culture, art, and politics.
2:00-4:00pm, Martha Graham and Modernism
Julia Foulkes hosts this performance examines the physical and emotional trauma in Martha Graham’s 1947 Night Journey with movement from the original dance reshuffled, re-presented, and accompanied by spoken commentary.
6:00-8:00pm, Molly O’Neil: Culinary Luminary
Bea Banu and Andrew F. Smith of the BPATS and Food Studies programs host this discussion which looks at the works and life of Molly O’Neil, a major innovator in America’s food writing world for more than three decades who co-founded the festival LongHouse Food Revival, which promoted innovation in food writing, and hosted workshops and retreats and offered mentorship for food writers.
Thursday, October 3
3:00-4:00pm, Indigenous Knowledge and Resistance Matters: The Time for Decolonizing Academia is Now
What would it mean to center Indigenous knowledge, history, and social movements at The New School, as it celebrates 100 years as “a dynamic center of scholars, artists, and activists”? How might such a change shift the way we look at climate and environmental justice, colonial violence, state building, migration and border control, design strategies, racial justice, capitalism, and radical social and global transformation? How would it influence our hiring practices, the focus of our research projects, our methodology, our pedagogical goals and strategies, the choice of texts in our syllabi? Join BPATS and Milano professors, Leonardo Figueroa Helland and Jaskiran Dhillon, in a discussion that seeks to answer these questions.
5:30-8:30pm, Praxis Tank Lunch: Purpose, Politics, and Power
Join BPATS professor Ujju Aggarwal at the launch of Praxis Tank, a project dedicated to elevating knowledge born from freedom struggles and the practices, pedagogies, and experiments that advance collective transformation and movements for liberation. Invited artists, organizers, and scholars will share their praxis-based work and reflections on it.
6:00-9:30pm, Birthing a Nation: History, Memory, the Artist Self
What happens when an artist’s behavior as a “private” citizen overshadows the critical acclaim of their artistic endeavors? Using Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation,” this screening and panel discussion aims to dissect some of the complex forces at play that determined the outcome of this film and the resulting career pathway of its director. The panel, led by Media Studies and BPATS faculty Michelle Materre, Tracyann Williams, and Marcus Turner, will include one of film’s lead actors, Aunjanue Ellis, and New School faculty members – in the areas of filmmaking and media history, as well as gender and African American studies – who will consider whether it is possible to determine the value of a work of art as a distinctive element, rather than as a convergence with the artist’s personal history.
Friday, October 4
2:00-4:00pm, Race at The New School
Race at The New School is a discussion, panel, and set of performances that excavate and put into context the history of racially charged events affecting staff, students, and faculty at The New School. Presented by the committee for Staff on Race, and in conjunction with 400 Years of Inequality and The New School Archives and Libraries, this program includes a presentation of the Race at The New School Timeline, an evocation of the university as a space for healing and a critical conversation with heralded authorities on race in America moderated by BPATS faculty and African-American Studies scholar, Tracyann Williams.
Saturday, October 5
1:00-3:00pm, Women’s Legacy at The New School
Led by BPATS and SPE faculty, Gina Luria Walker and Mary Watson, “The Women’s Legacy Project” recognizes women – scholars, artists, educators, philanthropists – who have been erased from the official history of The New School: The Founding Mothers, ten eminent women who helped to establish this progressive institution in 1919, Women creators of other schools and programs that now form part of the university, and visionary feminists who have worked consistently at the cutting edge, both in the humanities and in the arts.
5:00-6:00pm, A Conversation with Dr. Ruth
The world-famous sexpert and alumna Dr. Ruth Westheimer, MA Sociology ‘59, discusses her new documentary with Bill Ritter, BA Liberal Arts ‘16, BPATS alum and anchor at Eyewitness News in New York City.
Don’t miss out on all these exciting performances, conversations, and courses with our BPATS faculty and alumni! For more information and locations, follow the links provided for each event. Here’s to #100YearsNew!
