The Vera List Center for Art and Politics Hosts an Expanded New School New Books
Since 2023, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics has hosted an interdisciplinary event focused on highlighting recent publications by New School faculty members. Now in its third year, this year’s edition of New School New Book 2025 was spread out over three days and included the launch of the VLC’s latest book, As for Protocols, and was presented in conjunction with the Spitting Image Art Book Fair, a community exhibition and tabling event with a focus on artists’ books, zines, chapbooks, and print ephemera, led by students of Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and Parsons School of Design.
The faculty reading event featured 13 authors from all five colleges, as well as a number of centers, and institutes at the university: Michael A. Cohen, Pablo Helguera with Noah Fischer, Luis Jaramillo, Theodore Kerr, David T. Little, Romy Opperman, Dominic Pettman, Kristin Reynolds, Kamala Sankaram, Sara Serpa, and McKenzie Wark. Their presentations were curated around thematic clusters that included “Time, Space, and World Building,” “Planetary Politics,” and “Telling Stories.” The gathering was co-presented with the Creative Writing Program and the Office of Equity & Belonging, with additional support from the Provost’s Office and The New School Libraries.
“Each iteration of New School New Books has felt unique, aided in new collaborations with partners from across the university,” says Carin Kuoni, Senior Director/Chief Curator of the Vera List Center. “This is the exciting and beautiful promise of the project, that it brings together in a unique symbiosis the expertise of faculty from across the university, who are reading, performing, talking, even singing and drawing parts of their publications. The creativity and the range of approaches is what defines The New School. Who would have thought that readings between musicians from CoPA and political scientists from NSSR would magically connect!”
The topics explored in each of the thematic clusters ranged from political satire and collective organizing to personal narratives, the oral/aural, and interspecies intelligence. The VLC organizers were drawn to each topic because of the ways they touch on the protocols of how people come together and produce knowledge.
“Convening around these exchanges of new scholarship also opens up new ways of reading, thinking, critiquing, complaining, and organizing around cultural ideas,” says Re’al Christian, Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the VLC.
“I love how the string of conversations unfolds over the entire day, and how one writer presents after another, passing on ideas and offering space to the next one, for them to take them up and weave them into their own presentation,” shares Kuoni.
As for Protocols, the newest book from the VLC, comes after a two-year research theme that critically examines the form and function of “protocols” across a wide range of disciplines. A number of the book’s contributors joined the launch event, including artist Salome Asega, former New School professor Shannon Mattern, performer Silas Riener, and artist and New School faculty member Robert Sember of the sound art collective Ultra-red—who guided attendees through a collective performance, readings, and conversations, each reflecting on protocols as concrete circumstances and political cues.
The VLC also published a broadsheet that speaks to the reach of The New School’s scholarship and features a new edition of the Center’s Incomplete* Listing of NYC Libraries, Reading Rooms, and Archives—a growing map of freely accessible reading spaces throughout New York City coupled with roving libraries and open access digital collections. The aim is to foreground libraries as sites of intervention, liberation, and repair.
“With this year’s edition of New School New Books, we really wanted to demonstrate how the university’s scholarship fits within a larger publishing ecosystem, placing New School scholarship into conversation with the wide array of publishing, reading, and listening practices across New York,” explains Christian. “This complemented the Spitting Image Art Book Fair, which we were excited to co-present for the second year in row.”
“New School New Books is celebratory, irreverent, and creative,” says Kuoni. “The juxtapositions are unexpected, hierarchies of knowledge and expertise are dismantled, we insist on participation of both junior and senior faculty, students, and staff, and a wide range of ‘publications’ is admissible, from zines to peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Add to that a spirit of generosity and hospitality—with breakfast and receptions strewn throughout the day—and you have created a situation that invites people in, brings communities together, fosters empathy and understanding, and expands on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, all through the lens of art and writing.”
The Vera List Center organizers are optimistic that attendees of the three-day event left feeling inspired by the readings, and encouraged to lend their voice to new ways of organizing, thinking, and working together.
“We can’t ignore the political backdrop of this year’s event, as we’re navigating increasingly divisive anti-solidarity efforts around the country,” says Christian. “Gatherings such as this—around public scholarship, around language, and around free speech and listening—are especially crucial today as we reconsider the protocols of coming together and organizing.”