water Archives - Public Seminar

Habitats

A look at how residents throughout the city’s history have chosen what to drink

March 20, 2024 • by Liviu Chelcea

The three forms of water distribution form a fluid archive of community formation, civic pride, and the many different possible ways New Yorkers can choose the water they drink....

Climate & Ecology

Modern infrastructure has created the expectation of a continuous, drinkable flow of water

March 5, 2024 • by Oana Filip and Liviu Chelcea

Water use has always been an indicator of social relations. In western societies, most treat drinking water as a simultaneously infinite and hyper-individualized resource. But plastic pollution and the climate emergency are forcing us to question our consumption habits....

Activism

Water Belongs to the People, Not Corporations

Protecting our water is a sacred commitment to all life on earth

April 19, 2022 • by Simona Perry

Is water sacred? In the Roman Catholic tradition, it is through a rite of minor-exorcism: prayers that both breaks the influence of evil and sin in a person's life and sanctifies water as “holy.” In this ancient rite, a priest blesses the living “creature of water” to cast out devils, put sickness to flight, ...

Water Belongs to the People, Not Corporations

Climate & Ecology

A Near-Future Novel for Our Gorgeous and Beleaguered Present

Alexandra Kleeman chats with Helen Schulman about her new book, Something New Under the Sun

September 10, 2021 • by Alexandra Kleeman and Helen Schulman

_____ Upon the publication of her new novel, Something New Under the Sun (Hogarth, 2021), New School faculty Alexandra Kleeman sat down with Helen Schulman, faculty and fiction chair at the Creative Writing program, to talk about Los Angeles, the climate crisis, and writing about the very near future. The interview was presented by the Creative Writing ...