The New School Archives - Public Seminar

An Awful Color

A short story inspired by the history of the Orozco frescoes at The New School

May 6, 2026 • by Mary Karmelek

The New School for Social Research will keep indefinitely a yellow cotton curtain over the "Revolutionary Violence" section of a mural in the school's cafeteria by the late Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco, because the painting "does not express the philosophy of the faculty," Dr. Hans Simons, president of the ...

Rethinking Orozco

Orozco’s Rainbow

An alchemical analysis

April 23, 2026 • by Jaime Arredondo

José Clemente Orozco’s first experience in the United States was colored by Jim Crow–era violence. At the border entrypoint of Laredo, Texas, guards burned 60 of the young artist’s drawings. This was 1917; it could have been worse. At least 124 people of Mexican descent were lynched in Texas between ...

Literature

A Transdisciplinary Foray Into Classical Performance

Cloud Variations presents performers, chamber orchestra, and poetry in a prismatic exploration of language, translation, and mother tongue

December 18, 2025 • by Grace Dignazio

Poet and performer J. Mae Barizo’s monodrama Cloud Variations is a transdisciplinary foray interweaving poetry, chamber orchestra, visual art, and theater. The piece places Barizo’s “Cloud Pantoum,” a poem previously published in The Atlantic, in conversation with Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3 to create a kaleidoscopic meditation on body, technology, ...

A Transdisciplinary Foray Into Classical Performance

Literature

A New Media Artist from Tehran at The New School

Her photographs and poetry make the ordinary seem extraordinary

July 3, 2024 • by Alexia Underwood and Zohreh Zadbood

Persian poetry is a treasure. I never thought that I would be interested in poetry in any other language, but when my soul encountered English poetry, I felt a new magic....

A New Media Artist from Tehran at The New School

East Asia & Pacific

How Vanessa Chan Came to Write a Global Bestseller, The Storm We Made

A graduate of The New School’s MFA in Creative Writing shines a light on a rarely discussed period of Malaysian history

June 5, 2024 • by Evangeline Riddiford Graham

In the lonely period of the pandemic, Vanessa Chan could not get home to her family. In those years, she lost her mother. She sheltered in place. And she wrote her first book, The Storm We Made....

How Vanessa Chan Came to Write a Global Bestseller, The Storm We Made

New York City

The Elevator Paradox at The New School for Social Research

What goes up doesn’t always come down

February 7, 2024 • by Austin Tannenbaum

The elevators at The New School’s 6 East 16th Street building, hide a perplexing paradox. Known for delays and unpredictable patterns, these lifts challenge the student....

The Elevator Paradox at The New School for Social Research

Announcements

Live at Public Seminar: John D’Emilio

Public Seminar celebrates the publication of Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood

October 10, 2022 • by Public Seminar

John D’Emilio, a pioneering figure in the field of LGBTQIA+ history, will join Public Seminar Co-Executive Editor Claire Potter in a discussion of Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood....

Science & Technology

Ocellus XR: Visualizing Climate Risk, Vulnerability, and Equity in NYC

An open source mobile app democratizes access to local climate data

October 10, 2022 • by Daniel Sauter, Timon McPhearson and Christopher Kennedy

New technologies such as augmented reality and data visualization tools have emerged over the past decade offering new ways for audiences to not only view and understand big data, but to also interact with it. ...

Ocellus XR: Visualizing Climate Risk, Vulnerability, and Equity in NYC

Europe & Central Asia

The Politics of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Peter J. Hoffman, Nina Krushcheva, Jessica Pisano, and Everita Silina discuss the conflict and its consequences

March 16, 2022 • by Nina Khrushcheva, Jessica Pisano, Everita Silina and Peter Hoffman

This conversation between Peter J. Hoffman, Nina Krushcheva, Jessica Pisano, and Everita Silina was organized by The New School’s Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs, with an eye towards bringing light to different angles and perspectives on this conflict. It occurred on March 1, 2022, and has been ...

Feminism

Reading Your bell hooks

Alone, together, or in community, this Black feminist icon always insisted on reading as a transformative act

February 16, 2022 • by Judy Pryor-Ramirez

bell hooks was blessed, and I believe that she transitioned to the land of milk and honey knowing how important her work was for so many people’s lives. Reading bell hooks is an action and a step towards personal and social transformation. ...

Activism

Statement about Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

A letter from the president of The New School

November 22, 2021 • by Dwight A. McBride

Dear New School students and colleagues, I want to take a moment to respond to the verdict that was delivered last Friday afternoon in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, wherein Mr. Rittenhouse was found to be not guilty on all counts. I have heard from many individuals in The New School community ...

Statement about Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict

Gender

The Making of a Girl

New School Alum Melissa Febos uses memoir to understand the startling shame of becoming a woman in the eyes of others in this excerpt of her book Girlhood

October 20, 2021 • by Melissa Febos

"I got my period when I was ten, and I’d been reading Judy Blume books for a while so I knew it was coming," said Tanaïs. "And when it came, I wasn’t prepared for it anymore." A 2011 American Association of University Women (AAUW) school survey shows that early development ...