By Any Name (PDF) celebrates The New School’s 90th anniversary at a time when the university contends with a highly publicized period of internal criticism and activism. The voices assembled in this publication examine the school’s legacy of progressive pedagogy and institutional policy, and ask that it remain a catalyst for social transformation in the future.

The related exhibition and series of workshops and lectures, took place at The New School, October 19-24, 2009.

As The New School considers its past, psychics Sherene Schostak and Kiki T consider its futures. Throughout the week, psychic services will be available to any member of the university community. In the space of free 15-minute consultations, short- and long-term predictions regarding grades, careers, change, etc. will be offered in the intimate, comfortable setting of Parts & Labor Gallery. Signup sheets available at all times; walk-ins welcome.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

In this re-visitation of John Cage’s 1961 sound work WHERE ARE WE GOING? AND WHAT ARE WE DOING?, sounds of The New School, sampled from recordings collected across campus, are re-configured through processes involving various methods of chance and randomization. Cage was first asked to respond to the questions in the title when he addressed art students at the evening school of Pratt Institute. He has also described the resulting piece as emerging from conversations with friends about the mutually influential relationship between art, science and nature.

Echoing the structural elements of Cage’s original piece, this response to the questions “where are we going and what are we doing? ” draws on site recordings made during sound walks through The New School. These recordings are superimposed on each other using chance procedures and amplified as a two-channel composition onto the street around The New School’s main building.  The live ambient sounds function as the performer does in Cage’s work. While drawing attention to ongoing shifts in time they also encourage attention to and reflection on the conditions that produce those shifts–conditions that may themselves, be shifted.

When no events are taking place in the gallery and Parts & Labor lies inactive and mute, these recordings will emanate  from the vicinity of the truck, evocative of the institution and the activities around it.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

Join Bichlbaum’s class as it consults resident psychic Sherene Schostak about their own future and the future of their teacher.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

The New School hosts Peter M. Rutkoff, Professor of American Studies at Kenyon College, to deliver a lecture commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the founding of The New School. Professor Rutkoff wrote New School: A History of The New School for Social Research, the seminal history of The New School and the only publication to deal with the university’s storied history in depth. The co-author of the only published monograph on the history of The New School, Rutkoff considers the heritage of the university on its 90th anniversary. In light of current debates on the challenges posed by urban schooling, pedagogy, and philosophy he will reexamine the influence of The New School in progressive education. Can the teachings of John Dewey (on the 150th anniversary year of his birthday) continue to serve as a guide to the direction of progressive education? He will draw on examples of school and university alliances and the on-going importance of experiential pedagogy in contemporary education. He will, to cite Zorah Neale Hurston, urge American schools to leave the classroom.

Sponsored by The New School and held in conjunction with the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

Part of the Eugene Lang First Year Seminar Series focusing on the history of The New School. Seminar Fellow Tess Harrison leads a discussion about the nature of institutionalized education and the distinctions between pedagogical and experiential knowledge.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

Part of the Eugene Lang First Year Seminar Series focusing on the history of The New School. Seminar Fellow Ali Krasners leads a discussion about citizenship, leadership and community at The New School.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

An informal gathering among faculty, librarians and archivists of The New School who will address how notions of institutional memory and identity are created through libraries and archives. Examining the way bodies of knowledge are structured and organized, the participants will also explore possibilities for the future of information science, and consider how the social production of knowledge contributes to identity – on both the level of the individual, and in society at large.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

This class is a query on the nature of history, interrogating the relationship of the things we collect to how we construct our pasts. We explore archives broadly defined, from the contents of family photo albums to vast collections housed in libraries to the design of buildings that contain such collections. Ultimately, the city itself is examined as an archive in its own right-a vibrant collection of interrelated artifacts that records the selective presence of the past in built form. Students visit archival sites and undertake projects that consider the history, condition, scope, format, and design of archives in New York City.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”

Since the 1930s, artist-instructors such as Berenice Abbott, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Lewis Mumford, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Ralph Pearson have brought a resolve of professionalism to The New School. Legendary art historian Meyer Schapiro’s lectures of 1936-1952 thrilled a generation with their sense of philosophical dialogue. Painter Robert Motherwell said, “It was in order to study with Meyer Schapiro that I came to New York.” Since then, The New School has hosted international art luminaries from Joseph Beuys to John Currin to Trisha Donnelly. Yet, the institution now finds itself at a crossroads of purpose and identity. How should it go forward in art education? What is “academic” and what is “professional”? What has the university been doing right? What has the university been doing wrong? Artist-instructor John Zinsser hosts an open discussion with current and former New School students, asking questions essential to the ongoing mission of the arts at The New School.

Presented as part of the week-long exhibition and event series, “By Any Name: Institutional Memory at The New School.”