Education Archives - Page 10 of 29

Education

Language Matters

How do we teach classic literature if we cannot discuss offensive words?

September 2, 2019 • by Laurie Sheck

Since the spring of 2016, I have taught a seminar in the New School’s MFA program on writing and literature as radical questioning. As I put the syllabus together, I sought out texts that would challenge our most basic assumptions (for instance, that a novel has a plot; an author’s work must ...

Art & Design

True to the Paradox

An exhibition for the centennial of a contradiction

August 21, 2019 • by Macushla Robinson

This essay was originally published on August 21 2019. To mark the centennial, The New School approached Anna Harsanyi and myself (we are both alumni of The New School) to curate an exhibition in the Sheila Johnson Design Center. For me, the task raised many questions, bringing me back to the ...

Education

The Reviews Are In

Will Durant’s The Life of Greece

August 14, 2019 • by Lora Burnett

Will Durant’s The Life of Greece, the second volume in the “Story of Civilization” series, was published in 1939, a grim year for “Western Civilization.” Despite -- or perhaps because -- the book was such a popular success, it was reviewed in a handful of academic journals. Two reviews of this volume ...

The New School

Sex for Fun: Reflections From Ann Snitow’s Przegorzały Classroom

Ann Snitow helped change the discussion around sexuality in Poland, and she also changed my life.

August 12, 2019 • by Agnieszka Kościańska

In 2017, I published a book about the history of sex education in Poland. To See a Moose describes how Polish sex education textbooks under state socialism and after dealt with sexuality related issues. Although in many ways progressive, these books treated sex elliptically. Instead of talking about sex, they were full ...

Education

The Scholarly Reach of Popular History

Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization

July 13, 2019 • by Lora Burnett

The full eleven volumes of The Story of Civilization, Will and Ariel Durant’s popular history of (mostly) the “Western world,” take up exactly 22” of shelf space, fitting perfectly on the top shelf of one of a couple of unfinished pine bookcases I recently bought to accommodate the spillover from my ...

The New School

Horace Kallen and the Jewish Roots of The New School

The longest-serving member of the faculty was instrumental in helping Alvin Johnson to organize the University in Exile in 1933

June 27, 2019 • by Matthew J. Kaufman

Kallen's name, it seemed, was indelibly connected to the New School. And yet, it was only an accident of circumstance that this was so. Horace Kallen was among the first lecturers at the New School in Spring of 1919. Probably no one was more surprised at this than he. Beginning in ...

Horace Kallen and the Jewish Roots of The New School

Education

How Shakespeare Helps Us Challenge the Far-Right in Europe

His works prove that migration has always been central to European society

June 19, 2019 • by Mercedes Sapuppo

Shakespeare’s England was also full of migrants, many refugees from the European wars of religion. He lived near and worked with people of many different backgrounds, and maybe this is why he asked his audience to “imagine that you see the wretched strangers, their babies at their backs and their ...

Feature

Learning to Hate Shakespeare

What are the implications of being engaged with Shakespeare at the expense of what could otherwise be regarded as a black or African authenticity?

June 17, 2019 • by Jordan Mubako

Looking at Literature syllabi across former British colonies, Shakespeare has persisted to this day. The recent syllabus from the West African Examinations Council (including countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone) has Othello as a compulsory text, with Shakespeare granted equal status as “Non-African Drama” and “African Drama.” Paper 3 of the ...

Education

Public Shakespeare in Public Seminar

Public writing is framed as an alternative to both academic writing and creative projects

June 17, 2019 • by Jeffrey R. Wilson

The assignment, which you’re welcome to use or adapt as you like, starts with students selecting two essays from our Public Shakespeare page. Based on their research topics, they identify three possible venues for their Public Shakespeare essays, reading some recent (non-Shakespearean) essays from these venues to get a feel for public writing. In ...

Education

‘Our Readers Feel We Are on Their Side’

A Q&A with InsideSchools founder Clara Hemphill

June 16, 2019 • by Clara Hemphill

Urban Matters: Let’s start with InsideSchools. It’s immensely popular; it's web site gets more than 1.5 million annual visitors. Its individual school profiles have made it the first place many parents go for information about schools as well as about school policies and procedures. What makes InsideSchools work? Hemphill: People trust us. ...

Education

Accumulation by Education

White Property and Racialized Debt

June 14, 2019 • by Iyko Day

A key loophole that perpetuates both legal and illegal corruption is the outsized role that varsity sports play in the admissions process, widening the path to acceptance for predominantly white athletes in lacrosse, sailing, tennis, crew, water polo, and other “white sports.” Despite the perception that Black students are the face of ...

Education

Why Occidental College Revoked a 1929 Honorary Degree to White Supremacist Paul Popenoe

Confronting the legacy of eugenics in the United States and its ties to the founder of modern marriage counseling

June 13, 2019 • by Peter Dreier

In recent years, many colleges and universities have created task forces and programs to excavate their racist histories. These efforts explore their institutions’ financial ties to slavery; the racist views of some founders, faculty, and alumni; their admissions and hiring practices; and their evolving curriculum that, wittingly or unwittingly, reflected society’s white ...