New Histories
Exploring the histories of The New School on the occasion of its centenary to contextualize and confront pressing issues facing higher education, hosted by Julia Foulkes and Mark Larrimore.
Read the 1918 proposal for “An Independent School of Social Science for Men and Women.”
Episode 1: A Place to Go For Adult Values
The centenary of The New School offers a chance to look at a university that began as an educational experiment and critique of higher education. Nothing has changed more than the school's shift away from its original mission as a school devoted to adult education. In this episode, we listen to people who took classes at the New School in the 1950s and '60s and interview the person directing initiatives in life-long learning now. The absence of older folks in our once intergenerational classrooms raises questions about inclusion and diversity. What does age add to learning?
Alvin Johnson to Hans Simons (2 February 1953)
For more on adult education, read the exchange between two presidents of the New School in 1953:
Hans Simons to Alvin Johnson (25 February 1953)
Hans Simons, Statement of Purpose (16 March 1953)
The Institute for Retired Professionals was created in 1962-and still exists today. Members of the IRP recently wrote a series of essays about the history of the IRP.
Julia Foulkes looks at the role of adult education at The New School in What Does it Mean to Educate Adults?
Episode 2: Allergies to Gender
The New School has been a place of visionary innovation in education, but also one of endless starts-and-stops, failed initiatives, and cut-off successes. In this episode we chart the troubled path of Gender Studies with Ann Snitow, the celebrated feminist thinker and activist who started a program in Gender Studies at the school—twice.
Listen to the full oral history with Ann Snitow from 2014.
Julia Foulkes looks at the career of alumna Gerda Lerder who helped form the field of women's history in The Majority Finds Its School.
Mark Larrimore examines photographs and materials that reveal the importance of women at the New School in Exiled Knowledge Salvaged for World Use.
Episode 3: Building Pirate Ships and Castles
The centenary celebration has prompted a flurry of books, exhibitions, marketing campaigns, and festivals. But the history of The New School gets told every day, in less official but perhaps more far-reaching ways. We follow a student who gave tours of the school, converse with the archivists who collate and seed our histories, and talk with a student activist who uses the past to ground his protest and critique of the institution.
Ira Katznelson, former Dean of the Graduate Faculty, outlines competing visions of The New School's past in his reflection on the 80th anniversary of the University in Exile in 2013.
Mark Larrimore examines Parsons' 100th centennial celebration in 1996 as a commentary on the New School's 100th in 2019 in How to Mark a Centennial.
The 2014 exhibition Voices of Crisis examined the American Race Crisis lecture series at which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke.
Archivists at The New School explore the objects in the collections here.