The Vera List Center for Art and Politics Presents New School New Books Event Series
It’s no secret that faculty from throughout The New School are some of the most engaged scholars, researchers, and educators in their respective fields. Often at the forefront of education and practice, they routinely publish critically acclaimed books that advance their areas of study through innovative research and bold analysis.
Since 2023, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics has hosted New School New Books, an annual celebration of faculty publications and reading series that recognizes achievements in a variety of fields, including film studies, fashion, musicology, design, sustainability, environmentalism, philosophy, and more.
This year’s edition of the series was organized by the VLC, co-presented with the Creative Writing program and the Office of Equity & Belonging, and co-sponsored by the Provost’s Office and The New School Libraries. The VLC also convened this year’s series in conjunction with the Spitting Image Art Book Fair, a student-led organization that focuses on zine culture and DIY aesthetics.
“Working with artists and other creatives, as we do at the Vera List Center, we strive to support and advance interdisciplinary research every day,” says Carin Kuoni, Senior Director and Chief Curator of the Vera List Center. “There are so many different ways of being in and knowing the world, from AI to Indigenous cosmologies, and each program and college at The New School brings their distinct voices to the urgent questions of social justice and engaged scholarship. We are inspired by this intellectual richness and wanted to bring some of those positions together through the work and words of those who develop them. But we’re also inspired by the students, and it was particularly rewarding to present New School New Books in association with the Spitting Image Art Book Fair.”
In addition to the 17 publications that were presented at the reading series, the book fair included selections from the VLC Fellows Library, a collection of publications by each of the nearly fifty fellows the Vera List Center has hosted over its thirty-year history, along with other recent VLC publications.
“At the VLC, our publishing initiative unfolds across anthologies, artist books, exhibition booklets, and experimental digital publications,” says Re’al Christian, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the VLC. “Combining forces with SIABF, along with the Creative Writing program and the Office of Equity & Belonging, New School New Books showcased the rich intersections of the university’s scholarly, creative publishing community.”
Faculty members presented their publications during the event in thematic clusters that were hosted by VLC staff members, where they read a brief excerpt, and discussed the journey of how their book came to be published. New connections were formed between attendees and faculty members from different programs and colleges thanks to discussions about the books and research that were featured.
“New School New Books benefits from the meeting and juxtaposition of world class faculty from programs of very different kinds,” explains Kuoni. “All publications were recent, and it was exhilarating to see these experts speak to topics ranging from critiques of modern-day systems—the political, the academic, the medical—to the intersections between cultural production and identity. It was rewarding to witness how diverse, distinct, relevant, and individual everyone’s position is. Where else can you launch a faculty publication showcase with a musical performance and singing by the great Ahmed Abdoullah with Monique Ngozi Nri, based on Abdoullah’s book A Strange Celestial Road: My Time in the Sun Ra Arkestra?”
New School New Books 2024 featured Ahmed Abdullah, Ujju Aggarwal, T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Alexandra Délano Alonso, Ana Isabel Baptista, Ben Barry, Katayoun Chamany, Camonghne Felix, Alan McGowan, Natalia Mehlman-Petrzela, Marisa Morán Jahn, Kirstin Munro, Dmitri Nikulin, John Reed, Jennifer Rittner, R. Trebor Scholz, Helen Schulman, and Kelly Walters. View the full list of authors’ publications via the Libraries’ New School New Books 2024 guide.