As Jacqui Alexander writes in Pedagogies of Crossing, since the inception of its Adult Division in 1919, “The New School was envisioned as a place for new pedagogic practices [and] interdisciplinarity, and as an experiment to place education in the service of transformation… [I]ts reputation derived both from an alternative vision of education and from its outsider status — outside the Ivy League.” Over the years the university has both embraced those ideals and, at the same time, struggled to overcome the liabilities of perpetual “outsider”/”radical” status. It, like all universities, has weathered periods of unrest, and, most recently, suffered some growing pains. Regardless, many of us remain proud to be affiliated with an institution that, throughout its history, has drawn “outsiders” and brave thinkers and creators like Cage, who was preceded by Martha Graham, Edwin Piscator, Aaron Copland …and the following:



Also in 1926, what is probably one of the first film studies classes:



1940 seemed to be a particularly vibrant year:






I could’ve spent all day skimming through these old catalogues, but I forced myself to stop around 1940. Yet I had to include this, from 1963:

3 replies on “Cage’s “Experimental Composition” and Other New School Curricular Treasures”
Original course descriptions for classes with Veblen, Dewey, Auden, and more: http://t.co/uLLPji967Q
Cage’s “Experimental Composition” and other New School curricular treasures http://t.co/rCFbRHJd6m // when a school is avant-garde
“Poetry and Culture” W.H. Auden (1940). May 15 ‘America is where you find it. The task of the #poet today’ http://t.co/rCFbRHJd6m