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How to Write the NYU Essays 2024-2025

NYU has one supplemental prompt for all applicants this year, and an additional prompt which is required for Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholars Program applicants. 

Although the prompt for all applicants is technically optional, NYU’s prime location in the heart of downtown New York City, campuses all across the globe, and affiliation with excellent graduate schools in a range of subjects make it highly competitive to gain admission. So, we strongly encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to share something new about yourself with admissions officers.

Read these examples of past NYU essays about diversity and “Why NYU?” written by real students to inspire your writing!

NYU Supplemental Essay Prompts

All applicants, optional.

Prompt: In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay:

• What personal experiences or challenges have shaped you as a bridge builder?
• How have you been a bridge builder in your school, community, or personal life?
• What specific actions have you taken to build bridges between diverse groups, ideas, or cultures?

How do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond? (250 words)

Mlk scholars applicants, required.

Prompt: In under 250 words, please share how you have demonstrated your commitment to the legacy of Dr. King’s ideals of “Beloved Community” as evidenced through academic achievement, research or service. (250 words)

In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay:

Since NYU has a reputation for being highly competitive, especially in recent years, we strongly recommend that you respond to this optional prompt. You only get so many chances to share yourself with the admissions committee, so any time you’re given an extra one, you should seize it! Especially when the margins between applicants are so thin, you never know what could be the difference-maker.

Understanding the Prompt

This prompt seeks to understand how your experiences have shaped you as a connector and collaborator, and how you will use these experiences and the skills you learned from them to continue working with others in the future. NYU even provides some more specific questions that should help you brainstorm your narrative:

• How do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond?

Brainstorming

To start generating answers to these questions, consider the following ideas:

• Personal Experiences: What experiences have exposed you to different cultures, perspectives, or groups? Have you ever felt like an outsider and had to connect with others who were different from you? What did you take away from those experiences?
• Challenges: Have you faced any personal challenges that required you to bring people together? What obstacles did you overcome in these situations? How did you change as a result?
• School and Community Involvement: Have you ever organized events or led initiatives that brought different groups together? Did you start or participate in clubs that fostered understanding among diverse students? What was your motivation for doing so, and were you successful?
• Future Plans: How do you see yourself continuing to build bridges in college? Are there specific clubs, organizations, or initiatives at NYU where you plan to make an impact?

Thinking of robust anecdotes, that are both engaging and reflect your values, before you start writing will streamline things significantly. Note, however, that you have a limit of 250 words. While this should be ample space to express your ideas, you likely won’t be able to cover more than one experience in detail, or two shorter ones that are directly linked.

As you brainstorm, though, don’t worry about filtering your ideas just yet. On the contrary, having a longer list is better, as you can then evaluate a wider range of possibilities and determine which one is just right for the point you’re trying to make.

What Makes a Good Response

A strong essay will include:

• Personal Narrative: Begin with a specific story or example that highlights your role as a bridge builder. This could be an instance where you connected different groups at school, or a moment when you mediated a conflict, among other options.
• Clear Examples: Provide concrete examples of your actions. Instead of saying, “I brought people together,” describe exactly what you did—whether it was organizing a multicultural event, leading a discussion group, or facilitating a project that involved different perspectives. This is one of the most important rules for writing vivid narrative essays: “Show, don’t tell.”
• Impact: Reflect on the impact of your actions. How did your efforts change the situation? What did you learn from the experience?
• Future Vision: Conclude by connecting your past experiences to your future plans at NYU. Mention specific programs, clubs, or opportunities where you hope to continue your bridge-building efforts. Don’t just say “I’d love to do something similar at NYU”–instead, tell NYU admissions officers exactly where and how you’ll do so, as that in turn will help them envision you as a member of their community.

Hypothetical Student Examples

To give you some ideas of what a bridge builder could look like, here are some hypothetical examples:

• Ravi , a student with a background in both Indian and American cultures, grew up balancing two very different worlds. In high school, he noticed that students from different cultural backgrounds rarely interacted. To address this, Ravi organized an annual cultural showcase that brought together diverse groups to share their traditions, foods, and music. His essay could focus on how this experience taught him the power and importance of cultural exchange, and on how he plans to continue fostering cross-cultural understanding by taking advantage of opportunities at NYU’s satellite campuses around the world.
• Elena , who was the only female member of her school’s robotics team, noticed that girls in her community were underrepresented in STEM fields. She founded a mentorship program that connected female high school students with women working in tech. Her essay could discuss the challenges of starting the program and how she plans to continue her efforts through WinS, a mentorship program at NYU that pairs students with girls at NYC public high schools who are interested in STEM.
• Marcus grew up in a neighborhood with significant racial tension. In high school, he initiated a dialogue series where students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds could share their stories and experiences. His essay might explore how this project not only reduced misunderstandings but also created a more inclusive school environment. He could then connect this experience to his interest in social justice and the law, and how BIPOC Legal Society at NYU would give him a strong network as he pursues his goals.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Vagueness: Avoid general statements about being a bridge builder. Also don’t rely on generic definitions of what makes someone a bridge builder. Instead, provide specific stories and examples that show your actions and their impact, and clearly demonstrate what being a bridge-builder means to you personally.
• Clichés: Don’t rely on Hallmark card-y sentiments like “At the end of the day, we’re all human.” Instead, connect your points to your real experiences, to make your story personal, tangible, and easy to understand.
• Overemphasis on Future Goals: While you do want to discuss your future plans, make sure the majority of your essay focuses on past experiences. The admissions committee wants to see evidence that you’ve already acted as a bridge builder, and talking too much about the future without connections to the past may make you sound naive.

Good and Bad Examples

Good Example:

“The first time I hosted a cultural dinner at my high school, I had no idea what to expect. My parents, who immigrated from Mexico, brought homemade tamales, while my friend Jin’s parents contributed Korean bulgogi. As we set up the buffet, I noticed that students who usually kept to their own groups were mingling, curious about each other’s food and traditions. Conversations quickly blossomed, with students exchanging stories about their families, holiday traditions, and the meanings behind the dishes they brought. For the first time, I saw walls come down as we bonded over shared meals and experiences.

Inspired by this success, I expanded the event into a quarterly gathering, incorporating cultural performances, storytelling sessions, and even cooking demonstrations. Over time, these dinners became a cornerstone of our school’s efforts to promote inclusivity and understanding, bridging divides that had previously seemed insurmountable. Witnessing the friendships that formed and the stereotypes that were dismantled, I realized the profound impact that simple acts of connection can have.

At NYU, I’m excited to join the International Student Council and to continue building bridges through shared experiences. I hope to start a monthly “Cultural Connections” dinner, where students can explore each other’s backgrounds over a meal. I also plan to collaborate with the Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation to organize events that celebrate the rich tapestry of cultures on campus, ensuring that everyone feels seen, heard, and valued in our community.”

Why this is a good example: This response provides a specific, vivid story that illustrates the student’s role as a bridge builder. There’s clear personal growth, and a plan to continue this work in college. In particular, the idea of the cultural dinner shows that the student doesn’t want to just pitch into existing projects at NYU–they want to start their own, to make the school even more inclusive.

Bad Example:

“I’ve always believed in the importance of bringing people together, especially in environments where differences can lead to misunderstandings. In my sophomore year, I noticed that students from different backgrounds often stuck to their own groups during lunch. I decided to encourage more interaction by starting a lunchtime club where anyone could join and talk about various topics, from hobbies to current events. Although the turnout was lower than I had hoped, I felt proud of my efforts to create a space where people could connect.

At NYU, I plan to join clubs that promote diversity and inclusion, and I hope to contribute to a more connected campus. I am eager to participate in activities that bring students from different backgrounds together, whether through cultural events, discussion groups, or volunteer work. I believe that by fostering understanding and collaboration, we can build a more unified community that appreciates the unique perspectives everyone brings.”

Why this is a bad example: This response falls short in a few key areas. The student provides a general description of their efforts to build bridges, but lacks concrete details that demonstrate impact or personal growth. In short, the essay tells rather than shows, which makes it less impactful than the first example. 

The essay also misses an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned or how these experiences will influence the student’s future actions. A partial attempt is made, but the language is vague, as phrases like “promote diversity and inclusion” and “foster understanding and collaboration” could apply to any school, and thus do not showcase a deep connection to NYU, the way references to school-specific opportunities would, or the student’s unique role as a bridge builder. 

By selecting an anecdote that is personal and detailed, and that directly connects to the future you’re imagining for yourself at NYU, you’ll be well on your way to crafting a compelling essay that shows NYU how you’ve been a bridge builder in your own life, as well as how the university’s resources align perfectly with your plans to continue building bridges during your time in college.

In under 250 words, please share how you have demonstrated your commitment to the legacy of Dr. King’s ideals of “Beloved Community” as evidenced through academic achievement, research or service. (250 words)

Do your research.

Before you even start thinking about a response to this prompt, you should research Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his work, and his message, and the notion of the “Beloved Community.” Because this program is known to be selective, you’ll want to show the admissions officers that you truly understand the program’s mission and spirit.

The primary goal of the program is: 

“to develop scholars who strive to realize Dr. King’s ‘Beloved Community’ and who embody ‘a love-centered way of thinking, speaking, acting, and engaging that leads to personal, cultural and societal transformation’ (The King Center). ” 

By doing your research first, you can strategically choose experiences that show that you’re the kind of student who will take full advantage of this program, rather than accidentally selecting anecdotes which may be strong on their own, but don’t reflect the program’s values.

While you should definitely do your own research on this topic, for a rough overview the “Beloved Community” is a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love for all, free from poverty, hunger, and hate. You’ll need to provide specific examples of how you’ve embodied these ideals in your academic life, research, or service efforts.

Brainstorming Questions

The prompt provides three domains in which you may have demonstrated your commitment to the ideas of the “Beloved Community.” Let’s take a look at each one, and think about some things you may have done in each:

• Academic Achievement: Have you taken courses or completed projects that address social justice, equality, or community building? Did you participate in discussions, presentations, or papers that promoted these ideals?
• Research: Have you conducted research on issues like racial equality, social justice, or community service? How did your findings contribute to promoting Dr. King’s vision?
• Service: What volunteer work or community service have you done that aligns with the ideals of the “Beloved Community”? How did your actions directly contribute to fostering a more just and loving society?

There are a few things you should include in your response to make it strong.

• Specific Examples: Use concrete examples to demonstrate your commitment. Rather than just saying “I’ve done research on social justice,” explain what the project was and why you chose to get involved.
• Connection to Dr. King’s Ideals: Clearly link your actions to Dr. King’s vision of the “Beloved Community.” Explain clearly how your work promotes justice, equality, and love–don’t leave anything up to inference.
• Impact: Highlight the impact of your work. How did your actions contribute to a positive change in your community or field of study?

Notice that each point can seamlessly lead into the next to establish a good narrative flow. Begin with anecdotes, examples, and details about the experiences you’ve had. After describing these experiences, connect them to the ideals of Dr. King’s “Beloved Community.” Finally, highlight how your personal impact within the broader experience demonstrates your own commitment to these ideals.

• Student A: A student who took an advanced sociology course and chose to focus his capstone project on the effects of systemic racism in education. He analyzed how inequities in school funding perpetuate the achievement gap, and ended up presenting his results to a local school board while advocating for reforms that align with Dr. King’s ideals of equal opportunity.
• Student B: A student passionate about biology who joined a community health initiative in her neighborhood which provides free health screenings and education about preventive care. She can explain how this work helped address healthcare disparities by directly supporting the health and well-being of underserved populations, in line with Dr. King’s vision for a more equitable society.
• Student C: A student who organized a series of community dialogues between local police officers and students after tensions arose in their town. They could discuss how these conversations aimed to foster mutual understanding and reduce conflict, and thus embodied Dr. King’s principles of nonviolence, reconciliation, and community building.
• Vague Responses: Don’t just say that you care about social justice. Instead, provide detailed examples that concretely illustrate your values.
• Generalizing: Avoid broad statements about equality or justice. Your focus should be on how you’ve personally contributed to these causes.
• Ignoring the Prompt: This prompt isn’t just about social justice in general, so make sure you have a clear, direct connection to Dr. King’s vision of the “Beloved Community.”

“For a final history paper in high school, I explored the legacy of redlining in urban communities. My research revealed how discriminatory housing practices have perpetuated economic inequality, limiting opportunities for minority communities.

Inspired by Dr. King’s vision of a “Beloved Community,” I turned my studying into action by volunteering with a nonprofit that assists first-time homebuyers in historically marginalized neighborhoods. My role involved guiding families through the complexities of securing a mortgage, understanding property taxes, and maintaining financial stability. I also collaborated with the organization to develop workshops that educate prospective homeowners about their rights and resources, empowering them to overcome systemic barriers.

By helping these families achieve homeownership, I aimed to break the cycle of poverty that redlining had enforced for generations. One particularly meaningful experience was seeing a single mother of two receive the keys to her first home, as I knew that this would create a more stable and hopeful future for her children. This work deepened my understanding of economic injustice and reinforced my commitment to fostering a society where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. I believe that by empowering individuals with the tools they need to succeed, I am contributing to the realization of Dr. King’s dream of a just and equitable community.”

Why this is a good example: This response has a specific, detailed description of how the student’s academic work ties into their service efforts. It clearly connects to Dr. King’s ideals of addressing economic injustice and promoting equality, and show that the student made a tangible impact on their community. There is also emotional depth, which makes the response even more compelling.

“I’ve always believed in the importance of equality and treating others with respect, which is why Dr. King’s ideals resonate with me. Throughout high school, I took my studies seriously because I know education is a powerful tool for change. I’ve also volunteered occasionally, helping out at food banks and participating in community clean-ups. I think it’s important to be a good person and do what you can to help others, whether it’s through academics or service. In the future, I hope to continue Dr. King’s legacy by being kind, respectful, and supportive of those around me, doing my part to make the world a better place.”

Why this is a bad example: This response is vague, without any specific examples of how the student has actively worked to advance Dr. King’s vision. It mentions general values like kindness and respect, but does not demonstrate a clear connection to the ideals of the “Beloved Community” in particular, or describe how the student made their community a more equitable place. 

If you identify vivid examples that demonstrate your commitment to Dr. King’s ideals and legacy, and how you’ve already started to make an impact, you’ll be well on your way to showing NYU why you’d be a great fit for this remarkable program.

Where to Get Your NYU Essay Edited For Free 

Do you want feedback on your NYU essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

Need feedback faster? Get a  free, nearly-instantaneous essay review  from Sage, our AI tutor and advisor. Sage will rate your essay, give you suggestions for improvement, and summarize what admissions officers would take away from your writing. Use these tools to improve your chances of acceptance to your dream school!

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General Education Requirements

Related links, on this page, nyu tandon humanities/social science (huss) electives.

NYU Tandon TCS HU/SS (humanities and social science) course offerings for Summer 2024 sessions I and II.    

NYU Tandon TCS HU/SS (humanities and social science) course offerings for Fall 2024 .                                                                                  

Graduation Requirement

24 credits of humanities and social sciences, as explained below:.

1. First-Year Writing Requirement (2 Courses, 8 credits)

Fall Semester: EXPOS-UA 1 (Writing the Essay) or EXPOS-UA 4 (International Writing Workshop I)

Spring semester: EXPOS-UA 22 (Advanced Writing for Engineers) or EXPOS-UA 9 (International Writing Workshop II)

These courses are offered by the NYU Tandon Expository Writing Program . 

2. Humanities and Social Science Elective Requirement (4 courses, 16 credits)

Students must complete 4 humanities or social science courses. These 4 courses can be within a single cluster or across multiple clusters. For optimal breadth of experience, TCS encourages students to take electives across clusters and/or across disciplines within a cluster. These 4 humanities and social science electives must satisfy the following:

• Most students will take STS-UY 2144: Ethics and Technology to fulfill this requirement, but other ethics courses may serve to fulfill this requirement , with the permission of a student’s major advisor and the TCS Ethics Program Director.
• STS-UY 2144 Ethics and Technology is considered and introductory, survey course and students can take it during their 1st or 2nd year.
• Please note that BTM majors must take STS-UY 2144 Ethics and Technology as it is a required course for the major.
• 1 must be a Tandon Advanced Seminar , identifiable by course number 4504 in one of the following areas STS-UY 4504; CAM-UY 4504, URB-UY 4504 or TCS-UY 4504. These courses are capped at 18 students with a focus on research and writing. Advanced Seminars require the completion of EXPOS 1 & 2 or an equivalent.
• 2 additional courses chosen from the humanities and social sciences (the TCS department has a full offering of humanities and social science courses).

Important Notes

• As of the Fall 2021 semester, the Advanced Seminar course replaced the Writing Intensive requirement. If you've already completed a writing intensive course, you do not have to take the Advanced Seminar. If the writing intensive course you took was a level 2000 course, you still need to complete a level 3000 humanities course, as listed above. 
• Although we strongly encourage students to take their Advanced Seminar at Tandon, there are approved Advanced Seminars at other NYU Schools
• The TCS department abbreviates level 2000 to level 2, level 3000 to level 3, and level 4000 to level 4

Cluster Overview

The TCS Department offers elective courses that fulfill Tandon's undergraduate requirement for courses in humanities and social sciences — part of the undergraduate core curriculum. These courses explore the relations among science, technology, and society from three general approaches and modes of inquiry:

Culture, Arts and Media (CAM)

The CAM cluster explores how cultural practices and artifacts in a wide range of media reflect, influence, and interact with developments in science and technology. Courses are based on philosophy, media studies, music, literary studies, art history, rhetoric, and anthropology. 

Science, Technology and Society (STS)

STS cluster courses explore the interrelationships among science, technology, culture, and society. STS unites and investigates a myriad of disciplines, including history, philosophy, rhetoric, literary studies, and sociology. The questions posed are: How do science and technology shape society? How do social processes frame scientific and technological enterprises? What is the relationship between the content of scientific and technological knowledge and the social and intellectual context in which it is created? 

Society, Environment and Globalization (SEG)

Courses in the SEG cluster address the way the critical areas of society, environment, and globalization are interlinked and how they affect the experience of modern life. Coming from the complementary perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, SEG courses provide students with a broad and multicultural perspective on how environmental issues and global exchange in this “flat world” are changing society, here and across the world. 

TCS Elective Offerings

The following courses are offered by the department on a regular basis. However, each course is not offered every semester. 

Special Note About Course Descriptions : You can find the full description on the  NYU Bulletin .

SEG Electives from Other Departments

FIN-UY 2003 Economic Foundations of Finance

Cluster 1: CAM

CAM-UY 2304 Disability & Theater

CAM-UY 2204 Disability Studies 

CAM-UY 3004 Special Topics in CAM This is a topics course and topics will vary by semester. Some examples are: Science, Technology and Literature; Identity and Technology in Adolescent Literature.

CAM-UY 4504 Advanced Seminar in CAM This is a topics course and topics will vary by semester. Some examples are: Science Fiction Workshop; Reading and Writing Poetry; and Climate Fiction and the City.

EN-UY 2124 The Short Story

Cluster 2: STS

STS-UY 1004 Science, Technology, and Society

STS-UY 2144 Ethics and Technology

STS-UY 2274 Space and Spacetime

STS-UY 2294 Quantum Mechanics and Information

STS-UY 2364 History of Aviation and Aviation Technology

STS-UY 2374 The Ship

STS-UY 2634 Psychology of the Internet

STS-UY 2644 Creativity and Innovation

STS 3004 Seminar in Science and Technology Studies

STS-UY 3204 Science and Difference

STS-UY 4504 Advanced Seminar in STS This is a special topics course and topics will vary by semester. Some examples are: AI & Society; Cyborgs and Cybernetics; Transnational Technology; and Queer Studies in Technoscience.

Cluster 3: SEG

HI-UY 2514 Introduction to New York City History

HI-UY 3034 History of New York's Urban Infrastructure

PS-UY 2724 Human Factors in Engineering Design

URB-UY 2024 Design of Cities

URB-UY 2034 Humans in the Urban Environment

URB-UY 2044 Methods for Studying Urban Environments

URB-UY 2054 Introduction to Urban Policy

URB-UY 2064 Introduction to Urban Planning

URB-UY 2224 Natural Environment of New York City

URB-UY 2234 Natural Environmental Catastrophes and Cities

URB-UY 3214 Cities in Developing Countries

URB-UY 3834 Special Topics in SUE This is a special topics course and topics will vary by semester. Some examples are Green Roofs: Design and Use; Sustainable Transportation; and Planning for Democracy, Resiliency, and the Public Good.

URB-UY 4504 Advanced Seminar in Urban Studies  This is a special topics course and topics will vary by semester. Some examples are Food-Energy-Water Nexus; The Value of Urban Design; and Urban Waterfront Development.

Courses Outside of NYU Tandon

Humanities and social science courses at other schools within nyu.

Tandon students have the opportunity to complete some of their humanities requirements at other schools within NYU. The TCS Department maintains an ongoing list of approved NYU courses that satisfy the humanities requirement.

The advanced seminar requirement should be fulfilled with a Tandon course (indicated with 4504).

Credits from NYUs School of Professional Studies (SPS) are not accepted at Tandon.

List of approved HUSS courses at other NYU Schools  -Use the arrows at the bottom of the excel to see all the courses categorized by NYU school/global campus. Please note, you must be signed in with your NYU email/NET ID to access the list.

Form to evaluate NYU course for HUSS credit  - Please use this form to submit NYU courses that are  not on the list above. Please submit one course at a time and include the syllabus. We will then respond letting you know if the course is approved or not . If it is approved, we will also add it to the full list of approved HUSS courses (linked above). 

Please email [email protected] with any questions.

Humanities and Social Science Courses Outside of NYU

If you are considering taking a course outside of NYU for the humanities/social science elective (HUSS), please email the course syllabus to [email protected] along with the Permission to Complete Courses Outside of NYU form . Find the form on the Registration Forms page

We will respond letting you know if the course is approved as a HUSS elective and will fill in the appropriate fields on the form for the HUSS course. The student is then responsible for including why they are requesting to take a course outside of NYU on the back of the form and submitting it to their academic advisor for their signature. Further instructions on final submittal of the form are located on the top section of the form. 

Please note this does not pertain to official NYU study away sites.

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How to write the NYU essays

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A top-tier university with a vibrant school culture, NYU is known for its stellar academics, its open-mindedness, and its opportune location in one of the United States' most famous and diverse cities.

Join Moriah as she covers how to write the NYU essay for all applicants, as well as the specific Cinema Studies major supplement and the MLK Scholars program supplement.

She’ll also be available to answer all of your questions about applying to this prestigious university.

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How to Write Your Best College Essay

Published November 06, 2023

Your Guide to Applying to NYU

Yasmin Hung

Class of 2024

I know from experience that frankly, the college application process can feel scary and overwhelming. And sometimes getting started is the hardest step. Hopefully this guide helps you tackle the Common Application as you apply to NYU.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of applying to NYU, check out this comprehensive article on what to keep in mind if you’re applying during the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.

And once you know that NYU is the school for you, you’ll need to decide a few things before applying. Not to worry, I’ll walk you through it!

When you’ll apply

NYU has three application deadlines: Early Decision I, Early Decision II, and Regular Decision. (Not sure which decision window is right for you? Check out this article from a former student ambassador to learn more. )

Early Decision application deadlines, as its name suggests, are earlier than other deadlines. The only difference between ED I and ED II are the application deadlines and decision dates. However, if you apply Early Decision and are offered admission to NYU, the University expects you to honor your commitment and withdraw your applications to other schools. There are exceptions to this, but you should be 100% sure NYU is the school for you if you apply Early Decision.

Personally, I needed the freedom and time to decide which school was the best fit for me. I didn’t know if I wanted to go to school in the UK or the US as a British citizen living in Taiwan. So, I’m happy that I decided to do Regular Decision when I was applying to NYU.

Where you’ll apply

While the choice of when you’ll apply to your school(s) of interest is common among other American universities, choosing a campus location is very specific to applying to NYU. Each campus features unique clubs, opportunities, majors, and programs!

You will be asked to rank your preferences of NYU Abu Dhabi , New York City , and NYU Shanghai . You can rank them or if you’re set on a specific campus, you can just select the one you want. New York City made sense to me because it was the biggest campus and I wanted the flexibility of different colleges and majors.

I was tempted to apply to NYU Shanghai, but there were more challenges applying there because of my Taiwanese nationality. An important thing to remember: Don’t select a campus if you’re not passionate about going there. Only rank the campuses you’re genuinely interested in!

What you’ll study

When do I decide my major? Can I apply undecided? Does that impact whether or not I get accepted? These are questions we are often asked during prospective student tours.

Firstly, this depends on which location you’re applying to—each campus has majors unique to its location.

For example, NYU Abu Dhabi has a major specific to its location called Business, Organizations and Society. Conversely, NYU Shanghai has majors like Interactive Media and Business as well as Global China Studies. You should keep in mind the majors available at whichever campus(es) as you decide to apply to.

For NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai, you don’t have to declare a major when you apply. If you have an area you’re interested in, you can note that on the Common App.

New York City is slightly different since there are multiple colleges spanning a range of fields. When you apply you will select a specific school. Depending on the school you select, you will have to declare your major on the Common App. However, with some schools you can matriculate as an undeclared student. So don’t fret! If you feel undecided , there are options for you in New York City!

If you need more time to decide, consider applying to the College of Arts and Science or School of Liberal Studies . You won’t be expected to choose a major until your second year. Additionally, if you know you’re interested in a field within engineering, the Tandon School of Engineering allows first-year students to matriculate without declaring a major. Choosing a major can be a really daunting task, luckily we have an article on how to narrow your options .

Breaking Down the Common App

For the Common App essay, I thought I needed some life-changing event to write about, which is a huge misconception. After looking back and talking to a lot of my friends who also were admitted into NYU, this is just not true. Little things we’ve come into contact with in our life end up becoming such an identifying factor of who we are as a person. Harness this and write about it! One of my closest friends wrote about persimmons (yes, the fruit!).

TL;DR: There really isn’t a certain topic you should write about . But make sure when you’re done writing to get feedback from your teacher, parents, friends, siblings . There’s nothing worse than submitting an amazing essay with a spelling mistake in the first sentence. If you want to talk about the impact of a natural disaster or COVID-19 on your studies, there’s a special (optional!) section for that as well.

NYU’s supplemental essay:

NYU’s changed its supplemental essay prompts over the past few years, but this essay is still completely optional. Whether you write the essay is completely up to you and your circumstances, but just know that NYU won’t punish you for not submitting one. This article will give you a full rundown of this year’s prompt and how you can tackle it.

Activities:

The biggest misconception for me was that I thought I needed award-winning activities to get into NYU. If you have attended a bunch of competitions, that’s great and you should include these accomplishments in your application. But maybe you spent a lot of time making YouTube videos in high school–and that’s fine to put down in this section too. I feel like schools genuinely want to know who  you are outside of classes. Remember, it’s okay to not fill up all ten spots!

Once you’ve decided on the activities, how you write about them also matters. Personally, I participated in Model United Nations all four years of high school. However, if you know anything about Model UN, it is that no one “wins.” I initially had a hard time quantifying my achievements, so I spent time finding the best descriptors that captured my participation.

Test scores:

NYU is test optional for this application cycle. What does that mean ? I remember when I was applying, NYU was test flexible. I felt that it was too good to be true!

If you have the same feelings I had check out this article to clear up your misconceptions.

Letters of recommendation:

At least for me, I dreaded asking for letters of recommendation. I was confused who I should ask for a letter. Also, I wasn’t sure how far in advance I should ask my recommenders. There are many things you can do to ensure these letters work to your advantage and that the process is as seamless as possible (like asking early!).

For this application cycle, NYU only requires one letter of recommendation from anyone who is an a position of authority (it could be a teacher, an athletics coach, your music teacher, etc), but you are welcome to submit up to three recommendations to support your application. Read an NYU admissions counselor’s advice on getting the most out of your recommendation here. 

Additional information:

Nestled in the writing section is the “Additional Information Section.” This isn’t a place for you to cram whatever you couldn’t fit in your application. But this is definitely a space that should be utilized in certain situations . While I didn’t use it, I had friends in the international baccalaureate program who detailed their extended essay topic (a core component of the program). So, it really can be utilized skillfully to add any leftover pieces you feel are integral to your academic identity.

Things to keep in mind if...

You’re applying to a creative major.

I didn’t apply for a creative major, but for those looking into NYU’s drama , film , or music programs, don’t forget about the creative component of the application .

You’re an international student

As an international student myself, I know how it is to apply to NYU if neither of my parents went to college in the United States. The American college application process was a big mystery for my family. Bear in mind that there may be a couple of extra steps when applying, especially if English is not your first language. So make sure you confirm whether you need to submit an English proficiency test .

The best advice I can give international applicants is to embrace your identity when completing the application, whether that’s through your essay or your activities section. Personally, growing up in Taiwan and speaking Chinese has been such a huge part of my identity. So my application was actually based on a Chinese phrase! I feel like I definitely found a way to make my international identity an advantage, and you can too.

You’re submitting financial aid materials

Another part of your application will be figuring out how to finance your education. It can be confusing process, so make sure you and your parents confirm you’ve submitted all the necessary materials to be considered for financial aid at NYU. Don’t forget there are always options for external scholarships, so think about those too! If you have any further questions about financial aid, the people who are truly experts are in NYU’s Office fo Financial Aid .

Hopefully, your application goes smoothly, but sometimes you might find problems with your application. Don’t worry I got you covered here too. You can always read about updating your application after submission , lagging checklists , sending in documents , and submitting prerequisites.

And once you hit submit? Celebrate !

After I submitted my application, I felt a huge weight off my shoulders. Go out with your friends, eat a nice dinner with your family, or take a nap with your cat (my pick). If NYU happens to visit your high school, take this opportunity to get to know us more! You can ask our admissions rep any lingering questions.

Yasmin Hung (she/her/hers) is a rising senior pursuing Psychology in CAS with a minor in public health. She is interested in research regarding inclusive healthcare, particularly in women’s and reproductive health. As an international student, originally from Taiwan, she moved many times growing up. NYU’s diverse student body and global campus experiences are what drew her to this university. When she isn’t working as an admissions ambassador or studying for her next psychology exam, she enjoys cooking for her friends, meticulously organizing niche Spotify playlists, and trying out new Chinese food restaurants around NYC.

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Apply to NYU Shanghai the right way! We have two admissions processes: one for Chinese citizens, one for international students (plus special considerations for those with Chinese heritage). Read to discover which is right for you!

Are you seeking one-on-one college counseling and/or essay support? Limited spots are now available. Click here to learn more.

NYU Supplemental Essays 2024-25 — Prompt and Advice

August 23, 2024

In the 2023-24 admissions cycle, NYU received nearly 120,000 applications. That was a record-breaking figure for the university, as was the all-time low acceptance rate of 8%. To put these numbers in proper context, consider for a moment that in 1991, NYU had an acceptance rate of 65%. At the start of the Obama presidency, NYU still only received 37,000 total applications. These numbers lead us to the topic of this blog, the NYU supplemental essay.

(Want to learn more about How to Get Into NYU? Visit our blog entitled:  How to Get Into NYU  for all of the most recent admissions data as well as tips for gaining acceptance.)

Clearly, standing out as an applicant to NYU was a heck of a lot easier a generation or even a mere decade ago. For the Class of 2027, the median SAT score for an admitted applicant was 1540, meaning that even a standardized test score in the 99th percentile won’t do much to separate you from the hordes of equally credentialed applicants.

Although it only has one prompt, NYU’s essay still affords applicants an opportunity to illustrate what makes them uniquely qualified for admission. Below is NYU’s supplemental essay for the 2024-25 admissions cycle. We then follow with College Transitions’ advice on how to craft a winning composition.

2024-2025 NYU Supplemental Essay

This is a new prompt for the 2024-25 admissions cycle. It’s optional, but we highly encourage anyone who would like to be a serious contender (which, if you’re taking the time to apply, hopefully you are) to answer it.

In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay (250 words):

·   What personal experiences or challenges have shaped you as a bridge builder?

·   How have you been a bridge builder in your school, community, or personal life?

·   What specific actions have you taken to build bridges between diverse groups, ideas, or cultures?

·   How do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond?

NYU Supplemental Essay (Continued)

This prompt—and its questions—are focused yet open-ended, offering you the power to decide what aspect of being a bridge builder—past, present, and/or future—you would like to address. As such, take a look at the guiding questions and note which ones resonate with you. Does the term “bridge builder” remind you of an experience you’ve had, a challenge you’ve overcome, or a belief you hold? Perhaps it calls to mind an aspect of your background or perspective. Or, it could speak to a particular social or political cause that you’ve advocated for, a group discussion you’ve contributed to, or a club you founded. Alternatively, in college, what do you want to do ? What type of change do you want to affect? How so?

The strongest responses will look to the future while also incorporating past personal experiences or influences. For example, perhaps, earlier this year, you went out of your comfort zone to speak up at a school board meeting about your school district’s book ban policy, ultimately meeting & agreeing to continue working with a group of fellow students who also opposed the policy. Finally, you can then incorporate how you plan to seek out specific related experiences or resources at NYU.

How important is the NYU supplemental essay?

NYU deems four elements as “very important” in evaluating a candidate. These are: the rigor of your secondary school record, class rank, GPA, standardized test scores, and talent/ability. The NYU supplemental essay is considered to be “important” alongside letters of recommendation, extracurricular activities, and character/personal qualities.

Want personalized assistance?

In conclusion, if you are interested in working with one of College Transitions’ experienced and knowledgeable essay coaches as you craft your NYU essay, we encourage you to  get a quote  today.

Looking for more writing resources? Consider checking out the following:

• Common App Essay Prompts
• 10 Instructive Common App Essay Examples
• College Application Essay Topics to Avoid
• How to Quickly Format Your Common App Essay
• Should I Complete Optional College Essays?
• How to Brainstorm a College Essay
• 25 Inspiring College Essay Topics
• “Why This College?” Essay Examples
• How to Write the Community Essay
• College Essay

Dave Bergman

Dave has over a decade of professional experience that includes work as a teacher, high school administrator, college professor, and independent educational consultant. He is a co-author of the books The Enlightened College Applicant (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Colleges Worth Your Money (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

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Command Education Guide

How to write the new york university essays, updated for 2024-2025, question 1 .

In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay:

• What personal experiences or challenges have shaped you as a bridge builder?
• How have you been a bridge builder in your school, community, or personal life?
• What specific actions have you taken to build bridges between diverse groups, ideas, or cultures?
• How do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond?

Explanation:

In college, you will meet people from all walks of life, and many will have cultural backgrounds, beliefs, values and ethics that differ from your own. Gaining exposure to those who are different from you is one of the best ways to learn about other parts of the world and grow as an individual. As a “global institution,” NYU admits students from all of the world to their main campus, aiming to create a learning environment that exposes students to international perspectives and strongly encourages students to become global citizens of the world through study abroad programming.

When reading the prompt, notice that the first three questions all point you in the same direction: can you provide a tangible example of a time when you built a bridge across differences or write about a life experience that makes you a bridge builder? Perhaps you were raised in a bicultural household, have lived in more than one country, or have discovered another culture through the process of learning a new language. Maybe you organized a club or event at your school or within your community aimed at bringing people together despite their many differences.

No matter the experience that makes you a “bridge builder,” be sure to begin your essay by writing about it with specificity and eloquence. First, identify the difference you bridge, then explain how you went about bridging said difference and end with self-reflection indicating the ways in which this event or experience allowed you and others to learn from each other. Use this as an opportunity to demonstrate your openness and curiosity about other people, places, and cultures. Your goal should be to demonstrate how your values align with those of NYU.

The second part of your essay should indicate the ways in which you hope to continue your “bridge building” endeavors as a member of the NYU community. Is there a specific club you would like to join or an event you would like to attend or even host once on campus? You could also write about a specific research or study abroad experience that would enhance your understanding of other people, ideas, or culture and enable you to foster bridge-building of your own on campus.

“Where are the cleaning supplies?”

I paused. “What do you mean?

“For clean up block… at the end of the day.”

Clean up block was one of the first Japanese traditions Akira shared with me when we first met. I’ve since learned that teachers make house calls to students’ houses, and that many Japanese individuals refrain from public displays of affection. These discoveries spawned further questions: Did students in other countries clean up after themselves too? How did they greet their friends? Elders?

Akira’s arrival into my life triggered a curiosity about other peoples and places, and their values and traditions. Most importantly, it led me to found my school’s Dinner Party Club. One Friday evening a month, students from my school meet in our school kitchen to try our hand at cooking a traditional meal and watch a classic movie from a new country. If one of our members has ties to the country, they lead the charge, choosing the recipe and the film, and sharing more about their culture over dinner.

When my school asked me to be Akira’s peer mentor when she moved to our district, I assumed I’d make a new friend, but I did not anticipate the extent to which this new friendship would broaden my understanding of the world. At NYU, I look forward to building bridges between other cultures and peoples in informal “Dinner Parties,” and learning about international relations bridges (or lack thereof) in the classroom, both in NYC and abroad.

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New York University (NYU) 2024-25 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Early Decision: Nov 1

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 5

New York University (NYU) 2024-25 Application Essay Explanations

The Requirements: 1 essay of 250 words

Supplemental Essay Type(s) : Community , Diversity

In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay: 

What personal experiences or challenges have shaped you as a bridge builder , how have you been a bridge builder in your school, community, or personal life , what specific actions have you taken to build bridges between diverse groups, ideas, or cultures , how do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond.

NYU aims to admit students who will be active participants in and contributors to a dynamic and inclusive campus culture, so all of these prompts focus on the idea of community in a different way. The first one asks you to describe your background and what has made you into a person who can bring others together. The second asks you to describe concrete ways you have built bridges in your life so far. The third asks you to describe actions you’ve taken in a more expansive way; rather than in your personal life, focus on broader cultural or ideological bridges. The last prompt asks you to think about how you will foster collaboration once you’re admitted to NYU. Note that you can talk about any number of these questions in your final essay. Maybe you’ve volunteered at your church’s food pantry every other weekend since you were in middle school or canvassed for political candidates that you believe will generate positive change for generations to come. Whatever your example(s) may be, don’t be afraid to touch on what those experiences meant to you as well as the work you hope to do in the future (hopefully around NYU’s campus!).

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NYU: 2024-25 Supplemental Essays

• Post author By Siena Swift
• Post date September 13, 2024
• No Comments on NYU: 2024-25 Supplemental Essays

New York University , a private school founded in 1831, currently enrolls over 28,000 undergraduate students, including the largest number of international students at any American university. In addition to its flagship campus in New York City, NYU has degree-granting campuses in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai and encourages global education and engagement.

Admissions to all three NYU campuses is done via the Common Application. Prospective applicants can choose the Early Decision 1, Early Decision 2, or Regular Decision option for all three campuses. NYU made some significant changes to its application process for the upcoming cycle including a new optional supplemental essay prompt.

Here’s how Billy Sichel, NYU’s Assistant Vice President of Undergraduate Admissions, explains the new essay question: “Four years at NYU will propel you into a future you might not even be able to imagine yet, but take a minute (if you want – it really is optional!) to tell us about the ideas that have gotten you to this point, and those that might shape you into the person you’re about to become.”

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TTA Top Tip: While the NYU essay is optional, with an acceptance rate of just 8% for the Class of 2028, it’s vital to provide admissions officers with as much insight into your story as possible. Thousands of students apply to NYU every year, so a unique and thoughtful essay can really help you stand out from the crowd.

NYU: 2024-25 SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAYS

Optional: In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay (250 words max):

• What personal experiences or challenges have shaped you as a bridge builder?
• How have you been a bridge builder in your school, community, or personal life?
• What specific actions have you taken to build bridges between diverse groups, ideas, or cultures?
• How do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond?

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Top Tier Admissions is tracking the 2024-2025 supplemental essay prompts for all top schools here — we look forward to supporting you !

Interested in reading more about NYU?

• NYU Admissions Profile
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• NYU’s Acceptance Rate (2023)
• Global Campuses, Dual Degree and Joint Degree Programs: What You Need to Know

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Writing the Why NYU Essay

College Essays

If you're applying to New York University, you'll need to submit both the regular Common App materials as well as the NYU supplement, which includes a short essay. At its heart, the NYU essay prompt asks you to answer a single straightforward question: why do you want to go to NYU?

In this article, we'll fully analyze the "Why NYU?" essay prompt and what successful essays need to accomplish. We'll also go over potential topics to write about and look at the essay that got me into NYU's College of Arts and Science.

First, however, we'll begin with a quick discussion of why schools ask students to write "why this school?" essays

feature image credit: Sagie /Flickr

Why NYU Essay 2023 Update

NYU has discontinued the "Why NYU" for the 2022-2023 admissions cycle . That means there won't be an NYU-specific writing supplement provided as part of the Common Application process. 

However, students can submit an optional 250-word response as part of NYU's additional questions section. This response deals with students' perspectives on diversity. Here's the prompt for 2023-2024: 

We are looking for peacemakers, changemakers, global citizens, boundary breakers, creatives and innovators. Choose one quote from the following and let us know why it inspires you; or share a short quote and person not on our list who inspires you, and include why.

“We’re used to people telling us there are no solutions, and then creating our own. So we did what we do best. We reached out to each other, and to our allies, and we mobilized across communities to make change, to benefit and include everyone in society.” Judith Heuman, 2022 NYU Commencement Address

“I encourage your discomfort, that you must contribute, that you must make your voice heard. That is the essence of good citizenship.” Sherilynn Ifill, 2015 NYU Honorary Degree Recipient

“You have the right to want things and to want things to change.” Sanna Marin, Former Prime Minister of Finland, 2023 NYU Commencement Address “It’s hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair.” Taylor Swift, Change, Released 2008, 2022 NY Commencement Speaker

Share a short quote and person not on the list and why the quote inspires you.

What's the Point of "Why This School" Essays?

While the Common App essay gives students a chance to showcase something of who they are that might not be evident elsewhere in their application, the "why [school]?" essay allows students space to explicitly state why they are such a good match for the school.

Presumably, if you're applying to the school, your test scores, grades, course rigor and curriculum, extracurriculars, and volunteer experience all put you at least somewhat in line with other students at the school.

The "why this school?" essay is your opportunity to discuss not just why you could excel at the school, but why you are a good fit (and why you want to go there).

"Why this school" essays are also a useful way for schools to judge student interest in a school (which can indicate whether or not a student will attend if admitted). Based on students' "why this school?" essays, colleges can distinguish students who are specifically interested in attending that school from students who clearly applied just because of the school's location or ranking

Writing a strong "why [school]?" essay not only gives you another instance to showcase your writing and reasoning skills, but also tells the school that you care enough to invest time in researching what makes them special. It signifies that you have put in the time to realize whether or not you're a good fit. (And, it secondarily shows that having put in that time, you're more likely to attend if admitted than someone who just wrote some generic statements about why they want to attend college ).

For a more in-depth look at what schools hope to get out of your "Why [This School]?" essays, read this article .

Why NYU Essay Prompt, Analyzed

Here's the complete NYU supplement essay prompt for 2021:

We would like to know more about your interest in NYU. What motivated you to apply to NYU? Why you have applied or expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, and or area of study? If you have applied to more than one, please also tell us why you are interested in these additional areas of study or campuses. We want to understand - Why NYU? (400 word maximum)

Besides the standard "what motivated you to apply to [school]?" question that almost every "why this school" essay asks, the NYU prompt gives you one extra nudge for what to focus on in your essay.

Specifically, NYU wants you to talk about what's drawn you to "a particular campus, school, college, program, and/or area of study?" (or, if you're drawn to more than one, why you're drawn to each campus/school/college/program/area of study).

Keep in mind that you should be discussing all of this in the context of NYU . Obviously, if you're interested in NYU because of one of their 10 undergraduate schools, then that's particular to NYU, but the same goes for their campus locations, programs, and areas of study.

For instance, if you're passionate about studying theater, you wouldn't just write that you want to attend NYU because you love theater and NYU has a theater program and is in New York, a city that has theater; that description could apply to half a dozen schools. Instead, you'd go into the details of what attracts you about specific classes and professors at Tisch, or other opportunities that are unique to NYU (ability to do certain kinds of projects, the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration, etc).

This prompt also hints at a few different directions you can go with your "Why NYU" essay:

Why have you expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, or area of study? If you have applied to more than one, please also tell us why you are interested in these additional areas of study or campuses.

If you're already certain of what you want to study in college or have a " spike ", you'll want to go the "particular" route in your essay . This means mentioning specific classes, professors, programs, or how you see NYU supporting your future career/academic plans.

On the other hand, perhaps you're not at all sure what you want to study in college (AKA me in high school). In that case, you'll shape your essay more around how you believe going to NYU will allow you to explore many different avenues to find your passion .

Finally, if you already know that you want to spend time abroad during college in a place where NYU has a campus, you can emphasize your interest in continuing to receive an NYU-level academic education while living in another country .

Potential "Why NYU?" Essay Topics

Earlier, we briefly touched upon some topics that you might write about in your essay, including specific courses/teachers/programs and study abroad opportunities.

We're now going to take those broad topic categories and go into a little more depth for how to write about them in your "Why NYU?" essay.

Colleges/Programs

NYU has the following 10 undergraduate schools, colleges, and programs:

• College of Arts & Sciences
• Gallatin School of Individualized Study
• Liberal Studies
• Meyers College of Nursing
• School of Professional Studies
• Silver School of Social Work
• Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
• Stern School of Business
• Tandon School of Engineering
• Tisch School of the Arts

Because there are so many different undergraduate programs within NYU, it's a good idea to identify which program(s) you're applying to and why in your NYU supplement essay.

Since you'll need to decide on a program before applying to NYU anyway, you might as well use the time you spend reading about each college to figure out if there are any programs within particular colleges that call out to you.

For instance, if you're interested in the intersection of different fields (like psychology and computer science, or biology and philosophy/ethics) and are self-motivated to create your own program of study, you should talk about that in your application to the Gallatin School of Individualized Study. If you've spent the last 12 years devoting all your extra time in and out of school to theatre and want to attend a conservatory with opportunities to go see live theatre, then write about that in your application to Tisch.

Courses/Professors

NYU is a world-renowned university for a reason, and it's not just because of its immense real estate holdings; it has a wide variety of courses and professors renowned in their fields. If one of the main reasons you're drawn to NYU is for its academics, then this is a good topic to get into in your supplemental essay.

Flip through the online course catalogs and read about professors in departments you're interested in. Are there any classes you really want to take (that seem particular to NYU)? Or any professors you absolutely have to study with?

You don't need to go so far as to read the professors' research or anything like that (unless you're super excited by it!), but doing even a little research into the courses and professors you'd be learning from and mentioning it in your "Why NYU?" essay will go a long way toward showing the admissions officers that you're serious enough about NYU to check out its specifics.

Extracurricular Opportunities and School Traditions

If there's an extracurricular at NYU that you've been particularly involved in during high school (or are excited to start getting involved in at college), you can write about it, as long as you're clear about why it's something unique to NYU.

In a similar vein, you can also try reading through some of the campus-wide events offered throughout the year and see if there's anything special about them that speaks to you.

NYU Essay: Topics to Avoid

The "Why NYU" essay prompt makes it pretty clear that you should focus your 400 words around a specific college/program/area of study.

What you absolutely should avoid is gushing about NYU's location (whether you're applying to the New York campus or not).

Back when I applied to NYU, the "why NYU?" essay prompt was even more blunt about not centering your essay around New York City:

"Many students decide to apply to NYU because of our New York City location. Apart from the New York City location, please tell us why you feel NYU will be a good match for you."

If New Yorkers have heard it all and seen it all before, NYU admissions officers have certainly read any and all paeans you could care to write to New York City.

It's fine to write about how being in New York gives you access to opportunities relevant to your course at NYU (e.g. you can get amazing internship opportunities for journalism and theatre there that you wouldn't be able to get anywhere else). However, you need to be clear to center your essay around the program at NYU, with the New York location (and its opportunities) being an added bonus.

Unless you have a unique take on why NYU's location is so important to you (e.g. your grandparents used to live in a building that was demolished to make way for Bobst law library and you were brought up on vengeance that has since turned to adoration), stay away from NYU's location in your explanation of why you want to go there.

Brainstorming for the Why NYU Essay

Before you start to narrow in on what angle you'll take in your "Why NYU?" essay, you should first examine your reasons for applying to NYU. By "examine," we don't just mean "list your reasons"—we mean you need to go a few levels deeper into each surface reason that occurs to you.

For example, this is the list of reasons I had for applying to NYU (roughly in order of importance):

• My test scores and grades/course rigor make it likely I'll get in
• NYU has lots of good schools and programs
• It's easy enough to get from NYU to my family, transportation-wise

On the face of it, none of these reasons are very compelling. If I'd just gone on to write my "Why NYU?" essay (or in those days, essays) with those three bullet points, I doubt I would have been accepted.

Instead, I went deeper with each reason to see if there was anything there I could mine for the NYU supplement essay.

Surface Reason 1 : My test scores and grades/course rigor make it likely I'll get in.

• One level deeper : I'm applying to NYU as a safety school, because I'm pretty sure I'll get in there, even if I don't get in anywhere else, and I'd want to go there if I got in.
• Should I write about this in my "why NYU" essay? Definitely not. No school wants to hear that it's a safety (even if it's a safety you would be fine with attending because it's still a good school).

Surface Reason 2 : NYU has lots of good schools and programs.

• One level deeper : I'm extremely undecided about what I want to study—I know that I'm interested in English (Creative Writing), Math, Neuroscience, Chinese, and Music, but I might end up deciding to study something entirely different in college. It's important to me that I go somewhere that I'll have the opportunity to explore all of my interests (and develop more), which I can do at NYU.
• Should I write about this in my "Why NYU" essay? This reason is definitely promising, although I'll need to do more research into the particular programs and courses at NYU so I can namedrop (and in the process, double-check that I'm right about being able to study all these things there!).

Surface Reason 3 : It's easy enough to get from NYU to my family, transportation-wise.

• One level deeper : My parents want there to be good transportation options for me visiting home (or them visiting me). NYU's location (New York City) definitely makes that possible (there's easy access to planes, trains, buses, rental cars, fixed-gear bikes…).
• Should I write about this in my "Why NYU" essay? Probably not. The prompt asks me about why I've expressed interest in a particular campus, school, college, program, and/or area of study, not a geographic area. Plus, it's not like there aren't plenty of other New York schools. I maybe could throw in this reason if I'm running short on things to say, but as it is, it looks like my second reason is going to be the best bet for the "Why NYU?" essay.

Why NYU Essay Sample

Below, I've created a "Why NYU?" essay example that draws verbatim from what I used in my (successful) NYU application. (The essay requirements were slightly different then, with different word counts, so I had to expand a little upon what I originally wrote.)

I feel NYU would be a good match for me because of the number and kinds of programs it has. I am very interested in a variety of subjects, and NYU seems to encompass everything. In fact, I'm applying to the College of Arts and Sciences because I can’t specify my interests any more than that at this time. I have so many things that I want to learn that I can’t imagine limiting myself before I even enter college.

Take Chinese, for example. I'm learning Mandarin now (and have been for the last five years), but I would also like to learn Cantonese. There are not many other schools that offer Cantonese classes that can boast trips into Chinatown as part of the curriculum! Furthermore, I am excited by the possibility of studying abroad at NYU Shanghai. I'd not only be able to go to China for a semester for a year and immerse myself in the language and culture, but I'd be able to do so with the continuity of being on an NYU campus, even halfway across the world.

The music theory program in the College of Arts and Sciences also really interests me. I've picked up some theory here and there, but I haven't had all that much formal training. I'm also really intrigued by NYU's early music ensemble and the chance to explore different modes and tunings. At the other end of the spectrum, while I've written a few pieces on my own and taught myself a little bit about MIDI, I have not really had a chance to experiment very much with computer/electronic composition, and would really like to use those Steinhardt facilities that would be available to me at NYU to help remedy this.

Finally, I cannot stress enough how important reading and creative writing are to me. Because of how much the two feed into one another, I'm excited by NYU's Reading Series and the potential to be able to attend organized events for interacting with other writers outside the classroom.

The opportunity to expand my Chinese language abilities beyond Mandarin (and have the chance for practical application) is what first intrigued me; the chance to explore computer music and get my hands on NYU's facilities was the next breadcrumb; but the breadth and depth of the courses for writing lure me in even more, until I can resist no further.

This essay isn't necessarily the best piece of writing I've ever done. However, it still effectively conveys my desire to attend NYU because I mention a few key reasons I want to attend NYU:

• The variety of courses available . I began by stating that I'm undecided and part of what attracts me to NYU is the opportunity to get to do lots of different things. I then go on to discuss several different examples.
• Specific NYU opportunities . I looked up various courses, events, and opportunities offered by different departments and mentioned a couple of them specifically (the Reading Studies program for creative writing, Cantonese classes, studying abroad in China).
• While I did mention a New York City thing (going into Chinatown), it was linked with something that's relatively NYU-specific (the opportunity to study Cantonese as well as Mandarin).

Tips for the Why NYU Essay

To wrap up, we've summarized our top four tips for writing the "Why NYU?" essay.

#1: Look over the descriptions of the different schools/programs. This will help you figure out both which one you want to apply to as well as what makes those schools interesting for you to apply to.

#2: Read through the course catalog and look up professors in departments you're interested in. As the NYU Admission blog states , you don't have to go overboard in stating exactly what course you want to take with what professor at what time, but you should demonstrate that you're aware of what kinds of things you will be able to do and learn while at NYU

#3: Look into whether there are any extracurricular activities or NYU traditions that particularly appeal to you--and explain why they matter specifically to you.

#4: Avoid writing odes to New York City. If there are particular opportunities you're interested in that are only available in New York (e.g. internships at the American Museum of Natural History, research into immigration history at Ellis Island) you can mention it, but don't lean too heavily on the location.

#5: Remember that while you should make it clear why you want to attend NYU with your essay, you don't need to agonize for hours over it. Ultimately, other parts of your application (including your test scores and grades/course rigor, letters of recommendation, and personal statement) are more important factors to your acceptance than your NYU supplement essay is. You just need to show that you've done at least a little research into NYU and why you want to apply there in particular.

And if along the way you find that you don't really have a super good reason that's getting you excited to apply to NYU? It might be worth reconsidering whether or not you should apply there.

What's Next?

Have a bunch more college-specific supplement essays to write? Be sure to check out our overview of the "why this college" essay .

Looking for application tips for other selective schools? Read our complete guides to the University of California system and to the Georgetown application .

Should you apply early or regular decision to college? Find out the pros and cons of early decision in this article . ( And read up on the distinctions between early decision, early action, and the different kinds of each here. )

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Laura graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College with a BA in Music and Psychology, and earned a Master's degree in Composition from the Longy School of Music of Bard College. She scored 99 percentile scores on the SAT and GRE and loves advising students on how to excel in high school.

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She has written extensively about feminism, motherhood, and literature for a variety of publications. Before coming to NYU, she worked as an editor at Newsday , a general assignment reporter for the New York Post , and a freelance magazine writer. She received the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005. FYSEM-UA 384 Journalism of War, Revolution, Genocide, and Human Rights Fall 2022 Instructor: Susie Linfield Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics This seminar will focus on some of the extraordinary political events that made, and changed, the political (and moral) realities of the past century, and that created the world that we now inhabit. Throughout the term we will return to certain questions, including the changing nature of violence and the emergence of disputed concepts such as "crimes against humanity" and "human rights." We'll consider the ways in which "the face of war" in the 20th century (and early 21st) has changed—and the ways in which the journalism that described those wars also changed. We will start with the Russian Revolution and the Spanish Civil War and then study the journalism of, among other events, the Holocaust, the Iranian Revolution, the fall of Communism, the genocide in Rwanda, the war in Bosnia, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 9/11, and the Arab Spring. SUSIE LINFIELD is Associate Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and writes about the intersection of culture and politics for a wide array of publications. Recent essays have addressed Syrian torture photographs (the New York Times ), war photography ( Aperture and The Nation ), the Zionist Left in Israel (the Boston Review ), and an anti-Vietnam War classic ( Bookforum ). Professor Linfield’s book The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Linfield was the editor in chief of American Film , the deputy editor of the Village Voice , and the arts editor of the Washington Post ; she also spent six years as a critic for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She serves on the editorial boards of Dissent and Photography and Culture , and is a member of the New York Institute of the Humanities. Professor Linfield received her B.A. from Oberlin College, where she studied American History, and her M.A. in Journalism from NYU (minor: Documentary Film). From its founding in 1995 until 2014, Professor Linfield was instrumental in building NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program, first as Associate Director and then as Director.

FYSEM-UA 449 Wiseguys, Spies, and Private Eyes: Heroes and Villains in American Culture, Film, and Literature Fall 2022 Instructor: Eddy Friedfeld         Thursday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55 p.m-6:10 p.m. Theme: Genres of Writing This seminar explores the ways in which specific American archetypes and themes are perceived and articulated—from the rugged Old West individualist, to the persevering underdog who becomes a boxing champ, to the Cold War era superspy. We examine representations of heroes and villains in modern American popular culture and how the great films and novels of three particular genres, the detective, the gangster, and the spy, influenced our understanding of these archetypes. From the early influences of Hamlet and Macbeth to Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Mario Puzo’s (and Francis Ford Coppola’s) The Godfather , James Bond, and Batman, we look at the mythology and evolution of heroes and villains through popular and high culture icons, the genesis of the genres and how they developed over time, and how great directors, actors, and writers influenced audiences worldwide and were themselves influenced by culture and history. EDDY FRIEDFELD is a film and entertainment journalist and historian, as well as an attorney specializing in corporate restructuring. He is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with comedy legend Sid Caesar, and is working on a book on the history of comedy in America. He was the senior consultant for the PBS documentary Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America ; has appeared on Fox News, PBS, and WOR and Bloomberg Radio; has written and lectured extensively on entertainment and film; has produced and hosted tributes to Dick Van Dyke, Eric Idle, Dick Cavett, Alan King, Robert Altman, George Carlin, and Paul Newman, among others ; and has worked with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Billy Crystal. He received his BA from Columbia College and his JD from NYU Law School. He also teaches at Yale College and The Tisch School of the Arts. FYSEM-UA 456 Laboratories for Democracy: Making American Cities Better Fall 2022 Instructor: Eric Gioia Thursday, 4:55 p.m.–7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change This course examines the intersection of ideas, politics, and action. We study best practices from around the country (and the world), evaluate their effectiveness, and determine whether and how successful programs can be replicated. The seminar asks students to not only think critically about issues of public policy, but also to think anew about the role they play in shaping it. Cities, states, and municipalities serve as what Justice Brandeis called “little laboratories for democracy”—where ideas flourish and problems get solved. From fighting crime in the streets of New York City, to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, to making the power grid more efficient, to encouraging the arts and culture in urban environments, innovations in American cities have spread across the globe. Topics for student projects are drawn from current issues and problems facing decision-makers and elected officials in America today. ERIC GIOIA is an attorney with extensive experience in business, law, and government. He joined J.P. Morgan in January 2010 after serving for eight years on the New York City Council. Prior to serving on City Council, he practiced law at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, and served in the White House under President Bill Clinton. Professor Gioia holds a BA from New York University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. FYSEM-UA 474 What is College For? Fall 2022 Instructor: Trace Jordan   Monday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: First-Generation Cohort Note: conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30 p.m-4:45 p.m.). Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 598, After The End: Post-Apocalypse Novels in the 20th & 21st Centuries are strongly recommended for first-generation students. They provide an excellent opportunity to join a close-knit community of your peers who also identify as the first in their families to pursue higher education. Why did you decide to attend college? To broaden your intellectual horizons and become a more open-minded person? To gain specialized knowledge? To achieve a more successful and financially rewarding career? To make new friends? To become an engaged participant in a democratic society? To satisfy your parents’ plans for your future? Or perhaps some combination of these reasons that you are still figuring out? This seminar examines historical and contemporary discussions about the personal and social goals of higher education and studies issues that have the potential to profoundly transform the college experience in coming years. It also prompts students to be more reflective and purposeful about their own academic choices at NYU. We ask: what is the optimal balance between a “liberal arts” education, usually provided by a core curriculum, and the pursuit of specialized study within a major? How can professors and students cultivate deep learning instead of rote memorization? How is technology impacting education, and what further changes may occur in the future? TRACE JORDAN is Clinical Professor and Associate Director of the College Core Curriculum. His research interests and publications include the role of science education in a liberal arts curriculum, the use of computer simulations for teaching and learning chemistry, and the impact of interest and motivation on educational engagement and achievement. Professor Jordan is a two-time winner of the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. FYSEM-UA 476 Political Theater Fall 2022 Instructor: Eric Dickson       Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought This interdisciplinary seminar offers a survey of political theater from the ancient Greeks to the present. How have dramatic depictions of politics changed over time? In what ways have political plays been used to advance political agendas, both by the powerful and by dissidents and protest movements? To what extent can we understand political speeches and political campaigns as essentially theatrical productions? In a typical week, students will read one full-length play, accompanied by appropriate readings from political science or social psychology. Through these readings, writing assignments, and class discussion, we address the development of different dramatic techniques and forms throughout the history of theater; the co-evolving relationship between politically-themed spectacles and changing ideas about citizenship and political legitimacy; and the political psychology of speeches and campaign techniques. ERIC S. DICKSON is Associate Professor of Politics and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Psychology. His research interests include political communication, election campaigning, political leadership, and identities in politics. His work, which uses both game theory and social-scientific experiments, focuses on the interface between political strategy and political psychology. He is also an installation artist with an extensive background in theater. FYSEM-UA 484 Globalization and its Discontents Fall 2022 Instructor: Ulrich Baer Monday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.) and cohort conflicts with BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) For several decades, globalization promised a new way of interconnecting the world economically, politically, and culturally. This period was marked by optimism about the potential for globalization to achieve increased equality, stability, and prosperity for more people in the world. But there is a dark underside to globalization, which has prompted local resistance to the erasure of cultural specificity and calls for watchdog organizations and legal institutions that hold global actors accountable. Is there a structural problem inherent in any project that makes universal claims? Do all people, cultures, and countries share a commitment to the same basic rights and responsibilities—or do some strike a different balance between protecting individuals while maintaining the common good? This course examines issues and problems in the globalization of technology, economics, and culture today by studying key theoretical texts and via behind-the-scenes visits to New York City-based institutions with a global mission (including the United Nations, leading museums, charity organizations, cultural institutions, and corporations). ULRICH BAER, University Professor of Comparative Literature and German in FAS and Photography and Imaging in the Tisch School of the Arts, was awarded the College’s Golden Dozen Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998 and 2004. He hosts the podcast  Think About It , and is the author of  What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Equality, and Truth in the University ;  The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke ;  Remnants of Song: Trauma and the Experience of Modernity in Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan ;  Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma ;  110 Stories: New York Writes after September 11 ; and of new introductions to canonical books such as Frankenstein , Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, Mrs. Dalloway , and others.

FYSEM-UA 497 How We See Fall 2022 Instructor: Marisa Carrasco Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science Note: Conflicts with CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II (Tuesday/Thursday 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) Note: If you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course. Note: Students in this seminar will be automatically enrolled into a paired section of Writing the Essay: Science and Society in their first year. Do we see the world the way we do because we are the way we are or because the world is the way it is? This course looks at what we know about vision from multiple scientific perspectives: perceptual psychology tells us about the process of seeing and provides important insights into the workings of visual mechanisms; neuropsychology shows us what happens to perception when these mechanisms malfunction; and neuroscience tells us about processes at the level of cells and neural systems. At the same time, we discuss modes and techniques of scientific inquiry from these different perspectives. How do vision scientists learn? What kinds of experiments do they conduct? How has the development of new neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, for example) shaped the field? MARISA CARRASCO is Julius Silver Professor of Psychology and Neural Science and a Collegiate Professor, as well as a former Chairperson of the Department of Psychology. Born and raised in Mexico City, she received her licentiate in Psychology from the National University of Mexico and her PhD in Psychology (with an emphasis on cognition and perception) from Princeton University. She conducts research in cognitive neuroscience, exploring the relation between the psychological and neural mechanisms involved in visual perception and attention. Her papers have been published in the leading scientific journals in the field, and she has won numerous prestigious awards and fellowships throughout her career, such as a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, a Cattell Fellowship, an American Association of University Women Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. FYSEM-UA 503 In Search of Lost Time Fall 2022 Instructor: Marcelle Clements Tuesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: Literature through the Ages

Note: This intensive course requires a minimum of 350 pages of reading a week. We read Marcel Proust (in translation) as he should be read: hedonistically—with respect and admiration but also with delectation. At about 4,000 pages, In Search of Lost Time is one of literature’s most challenging and pleasurable reads, still unparalleled in how it combines finesse and wit with raw emotion, self-examination with social history and a scathing portrait of the French beau monde at the outset of modernity. Although Proust (1871–1922) is often cited as France’s greatest novelist, many readers never move past the first fifty pages of his work, reading the same gorgeous sentences again and again. However, as its architecture cannot be appreciated until it has been read once in its entirety, we move at a brisk pace through all six volumes. When we read the final volume, we begin to understand the extraordinarily intimate and imaginative relationship Proust sustains with his reader, and, most importantly, how the vast structure of In Search of Lost Time reveals the intertwining of life and art to create literature. In-class creative writing exercises and wide-ranging class discussion are designed to assist with the reading and to articulate an expressive, personal response. MARCELLE CLEMENTS is a novelist, essayist, and journalist. Her fourth and most recent book is a novel, Midsummer . She has written prizewinning essays and articles for numerous publications, including the New York Times , Esquire , Elle , and Rolling Stone .  Since 1999, she has taught a seminar each fall on Proust's In Search of Lost Time at NYU's College of Arts and Science, where she is a Collegiate Professor. Each spring, she leads an Advanced Fiction Workshop and an Advanced Non-Fiction Workshop in the Creative Writing Department. She is a recipient of NYU's Golden Dozen Teaching Award. FYSEM-UA 506 Game Theory and the Humanities Fall 2022 Instructor: Steven J. Brams Wednesday, 4:55 p.m.–7:25 p.m.     Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Philosophical and Political Thought Prerequisite: No mathematical background beyond high school mathematics is assumed, but a willingness to learn and apply sophisticated reasoning to analyze the interactions of players in games is essential. Game theory is a mathematical theory of strategy that has been applied to the analysis of conflict and cooperation in such fields as economics, political science, and biology. In this seminar, we discuss more unusual applications—to history, literature, philosophy, the Bible, theology, and law. We discuss Abraham’s decision to offer his son Isaac for sacrifice; the choices made by accused witches and their persecutors in medieval witch trials; Lady Macbeth's incitement of her husband to murder King Duncan in Shakespeare’s play; several strategic games played by presidents and their antagonists in domestic crises (e.g., the Civil War) and international crises (e.g., the Cuban missile crisis), and coping mechanisms used by characters in catch-22 games (including those in Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 ). STEVEN J. BRAMS is Professor of Politics at NYU. He is author, co-author, or co-editor of 19 books and about 300 articles. He has applied game theory and social-choice theory to voting and elections, bargaining and fairness, international relations, and the Bible, theology, and literature. He is a former president of the Peace Science Society (1990-91) and of the Public Choice Society (2004-2006). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1986), a Guggenheim Fellow (1986-87), and was a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation (1998-99). FYSEM-UA 546 Travel and Communication in Antiquity Fall 2022 Instructor: Raffaella Cribiore  Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m           Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures & Societies Note: Conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.)  This course explores traveling, communicating, and spreading news in antiquity. Unlike us moderns, the ancients did not travel for leisure, and the notion of travel as “routine” would have been foreign to them; their journeys had mythic and epic significance and took place under precarious conditions. Likewise, whereas today we are able to communicate with each other in many convenient ways, sending letters and messages in the Greek and Roman worlds was cumbersome and time-intensive. Nonetheless, people did get in touch with each other and exchange news. Indeed, one of the goals of the course is to question what might be called a “progressive model” of understanding communication(s) that automatically assumes the superiority of modern technology.

RAFFAELLA CRIBIORE is Professor of Classics and an authority on education in antiquity. Her publications include Writing, Teachers, and Students in Greco-Roman Egypt; Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, which won the Goodwin Prize in 2003; and Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC-AD 800 (with Roger Bagnall). Her most recent book, The School of Libanius in Late Antique Antioch, is a study of an elite school of rhetoric in Syria. FYSEM-UA 564 Modern Poetry: Craft and Revolution Fall 2022 Instructor: Matthew Rohrer Wednesday, 11:00am -1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Genres of Writing

Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 71 Introductory Experimental Physics I lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) This course thrusts students headlong into the dark cobwebby interiors of the modern poem. We’ll look closely at how modern poems became modern, examining several revolutions as we think about what poems are—beginning in England in 1798, coming to Walt Whitman’s and Emily Dickinson’s America in the 1850s, stopping in Harlem in the 1920s, and ending up in today’s online world. We’ll consider how modern poems are actually put together, considering such elemental concerns as image, voice, structure, etc. And we’ll also write our own poems, sometimes with these examples as our models. Students will leave this course with a deeper understanding of the lineage of the modern poem and what makes the modern poem go. And, thanks to the generous and critical attentions of the workshop, students will come to the same understanding of their own work.

MATTHEW ROHRER is Clinical Professor in the Creative Writing Program at NYU, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate students. He is the author of nine books of poetry, was a founder of Fence Magazine and Fence Books, and has participated in residencies and performances at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and the Henry Museum (Seattle). His poems have been widely anthologized, and he has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing . FYSEM-UA 695 Gestures, Movement, and Literature Fall 2022 Instructor: Lourdes Davila Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts Note: Conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.) Working in the space of articulation between dance, literature, and politics, this seminar examines movement(s) and dance as a key element with which to read transformative moments of history, culture, politics, and philosophy. How do philosophers use the body dancing as a metaphor for thought? How do we read the body dancing before Columbus’ arrival as the first archive of knowledge and resistance? How does the dancing body enter the stage of race relations in 19th century Cuba? What impact does US modern dance have in the political history of the nation and how is it that a Mexican, José Limón, stands as one of the leading figures in US modern dance? Why is it that political movements use the term “movement” to speak of a politics, and what impact does that have on the political histories of bodies? The course will include texts by Cirilo Villaverde, García Lorca, Luis Palés Matos, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Andrés Caicedo, Claudia Salazar and Mario Bellatin; the films of Almodóvar; and flamenco dance and the dances of José Limón, Martha Graham and Pina Bausch, Oscar Araiz and Alicia Díaz. The theoretical and philosophical bases will be provided by Nietzsche, Agamben, Ranciére, Marie Bardet, Lepecki, and Badiou, all of whom talk specifically about the art of movement, about movement and politics, or about movement and dance as metaphor for thought. The course understands as a premise that we can use the history of dance and movement as a way of understanding history and politics in Latin America.

LOURDES DÁVILA is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and a two-time Golden Dozen Teaching Award winner. Since the 1980s, she has written and published widely on Julio Cortázar’s writing. Her first book, The Image Arrives on a Verbal Shore, focuses on Cortázar’s use of visual language. She has published multiple articles on photography and literature and dance and literature, and is the editor of the essay collection La variable Bellatin. She has worked as a translator since the early eighties in the fields of art and literature. She is the managing editor of the undergraduate online journal Esferas, produced by Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She also worked as a professional dancer for 25 years and is now working on a book about the relationship between dance and literature. FYSEM-UA 728 How We Learn Fall 2022 Instructor: Anamaria Alexandrescu Thursday, 6:20 p.m.-8:55 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Theme: Issues in Cognitive and Neural Science Note: If you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course.

Note: Students in this seminar will be automatically enrolled into a paired section of Writing the Essay: Science and Society in their first year.

How do humans and other animals learn, and how do we study this in the laboratory? What is the neurobiological basis of learning and memory? What are the genetic and environmental factors that have shaped the learning process throughout evolution? What other cognitive processes influence learning, and how can we apply this knowledge to our own studies? In trying to address these questions, this seminar gives an overview of modern neuroscience and psychology research on learning and memory, and illustrates how cognitive science can be used to develop strategies for effective learning, while also discussing implications for societal issues, disorders, and artificial intelligence. ANAMARIA ALEXANDRESCU is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from NYU in 2020 for research examining the neurobiology of learning and memory; in particular, her graduate work focused on the molecular mechanisms that contribute to synaptic plasticity underlying long-term memory formation. Her current research interests are centered at the intersection between neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and education. FYSEM-UA 746 Poetry and War Fall 2022 Instructor: Liana Theodoratou Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Genres of Writing Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 71 Introductory Experimental Physics I lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) There can be no poetry that is not about destruction and survival, and this is especially the case in the poetry of war. We might even say that the poetry of war tells us what is true of all poetry: that it bears witness to the enigmatic relation between death and survival, loss and life, mourning and courage. The poetry of war often speaks of the death, if not the impossibility, of poetry. But what makes poetry poetry is its capacity to bear the traces of what it cannot say, to go on, in the face of this inability, to suggest its potential for speaking. What is at stake is the emergence and survival of a poetry that bears witness to what history has silenced, to all the vanished who, arising from the darkest nights of memory, haunt us, and encourage us to remember the deaths and losses for which we remain, still today, responsible. This is the lesson of twentieth-century poets who speak of war. Responding to the violence and trauma of war, to the deaths and suffering that result from wartime conflict, these poets seek to offer us a critical genealogy of war. They stage and enact their own troubled understanding of the capacities and incapacities of poetry in the face of disaster and catastrophe, even as they assert the necessity of remembering the uncertain traces and legacies of war, and of doing so without traducing or reducing the experience of war, without betraying the dead.

LIANA THEODORATOU is Clinical Professor in and Director of the Alexander S. Onassis Program in Hellenic Studies, and is also Director of the NYU in Athens Program. She is a recipient of the College’s Outstanding Teaching Award and of its Golden Dozen Award for Teaching Excellence. She has written widely on ancient and modern Greek poetry and has translated several works by, among others, Foucault, Althusser, and Derrida into modern Greek. She is currently completing a book on the politics of mourning in contemporary Greek poetry, entitled Mourning Becomes Greece. FYSEM-UA 752 Vikings and Celts: Ireland, Scandinavia and the North Sea World during the ‘Long Viking Age’ Fall 2022 Instructor: Sarah Waidler Wednesday, 2:00-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures and Societies Note: Cohort conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.) Northern Europe produced a number of long-form literary pieces during the Middle Ages, such as the Old English Beowulf, the early Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge and its associated tales, the Middle Welsh Mabinogion and the Old Norse sagas. This course will explore these tales and others and question the definition of this genre (or genres) of literature, examining connections between the different types of tales and what we can know about their composition. Students will investigate the connections between these tales and earlier examples of epic literature, such as Virgil’s The Aeneid, and examine what we know regarding the transmission of earlier forms of heroic tales from Late Antiquity and the ancient world to medieval Western Europe. Major themes such as violence, heroism and the role of women in these stories will be discussed throughout the course and students will be expected to engage with both questions presented by the individual examples of these forms of literature as well as to compare across cultural and literary boundaries. The reception of these tales in both the medieval and modern worlds will be discussed in the conclusion to the course. This class will give students a grounding in critical thinking and an appreciation of different approaches to literary texts and the environments in which they were created. By engaging with some of the foremost medieval literary productions of the European Middle Ages, this course will chart a journey through some of the greatest written achievements of the cultures of the Celts, Vikings and early English and question students’ understanding of literature as well as the cultural construction and portrayal of the heroic past. SARAH WAIDLER earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge, and was an O’Donovan Postdoctoral Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, in 2016–2018. She works on medieval Celtic literature and history and the cult of saints in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She is particularly interested in the overlap between the literature of saints and “secular” literature. Her work also explores the intellectual environment of learning and the interplay of ideas between Ireland, Wales, and the wider medieval world. FYSEM-UA 772 The Journey of Journalism Fall 2022 Instructor: Charles J. Glasser Jr. Wednesday, 11:00a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics This course is more than a survey of important journalism of the twentieth century. Through intensive reading and discussion, we will explore both how significant historical events affected journalism and how journalism helped shape those events. If journalism is truly “the first draft of history,” then looking at significant cultural and political moments through the eyes of contemporaneous journalism yields new insight on who we are as a nation—for better or worse. We examine such historical events and movements as the robber barons of the Gilded Age and their antagonists the Muckrakers; the early Anarchist and labor movements; the coverage of the World Wars and government censorship; the role of the press in the civil rights movement; and the golden age of investigative journalism. We will read and discuss the work of a wide range of media notables, including Ida Tarbell, Jacob Riis, H. L. Mencken, Walter Winchell, Edward R. Murrow, Sy Hirsch, Woodward and Bernstein, Tom Wolfe, Matt Taibbi, Amanda Bennett, Judith Miller, and Glenn Greenwald. CHARLES J. GLASSER JR. is Adjunct Professor of Media Law and Ethics at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is a former journalist and covered spot news and combat photojournalism in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the late 1970s and 80s. He spent several years as a copy editor at Time Inc. and then studied first amendment law at the New York University School of Law. After earning his JD he started his legal career at NBC News, and then moved on to several law firms representing Gannett, the New York Post , the Portland Press-Herald , and other regional and national newspapers and publishers. He served as the founding global media counsel of Bloomberg News for more than a dozen years and is the author of The International Libel and Privacy Handbook . In addition, he appears frequently as an expert on free speech and media law in a variety of news outlets and writes about media for Reuters, the Washington Examiner , and several not-for-profit free-speech organizations. He is also a regular contributor on media ethics for The Daily Caller. FYSEM-UA 800 I, the Author Fall 2022 Instructor: Chiara Marchelli Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Genres of Writing This course will focus on identity and the autobiographical experience as narrated by a selection of contemporary American and European authors, with a particular attention to Italian examples. Through the analysis of their work, it will focus on how authorship and the identity/presence of the author have evolved in contemporary times, and how this evolution reverberates beyond national borders. We will investigate what moves these authors, what aspects of their experience they choose to narrate and how they relate to their own subjectivity and the world. We will explore thematic differences and convergences, social and historical influences, the relationship between the self and society, the evolution of narrative languages and purposes. The selection of readings is representative of the emergence of a new literary genre that blends memoir, autofiction and fiction, and describes the changing intellectual, cultural and social landscape of a literature that can no longer be contained within its national boundaries, but is inspired by a quest for a new identity or new identities, ignited by and reflected in today’s globalized world. CHIARA MARCHELLI holds a degree in Oriental Languages from the University of Venice and an M.A. in Literary Translation from ISIT, Milan. In 2003, she published her first novel, Angeli e cani , which won the Premio Rapallo Carige Opera Prima. It was followed by a collection of short stories Sotto i tuoi occhi and three novels L’amore involontario , Le mie parole per te, and Le notti blu . Her latest novel, La memoria della cenere , was published in 2019 by NNE. She has taught contemporary literature, Italian, translation, and creative writing at New York University since 2004. FYSEM-UA 801 History of Italian Opera Fall 2022 Instructor: Roberto Scarcella Perino Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: Conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30pm-1:45pm)

The course covers the evolution of opera from Monteverdi to the early 20th century. The genres analyzed in this course are favola in musica, intermezzo, opera seria, opera buffa, grand opera, dramma lirico . Operatic production styles are considered with regard to the recordings used in the course; class discussion is meant to help students develop a critical approach to opera appreciation. No specific musical training is required. ROBERTO SCARCELLA PERINO is Composer in Residence at the NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, Assistant Clinical Professor in Italian Studies at NYU, and a Scholar in Residence at the American Institute for Verdi Studies. He has written five operas: Verdi, Merli e Cucú; A Caval Donato; Blackout; Furiosus; and A Sweet Silence in Cremona . FYSEM-UA 802 The Metaphysics of Race, Gender and Sex Fall 2022 Instructor: Laura Franklin-Hall Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m           Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality Note: Conflicts with CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) What is it to be a female or male animal ? Or to be a female or male human being ? What is it to be a woman? To be a man? Or to have some other gender? And how are all these questions connected? This course will explore answers to these and other questions about sex and gender from a philosophical perspective, drawing along the way on relevant research in biology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. We begin by considering how the sexes evolved across the living world, i.e., in both animals and plants. With this history in hand, we ask, given persisting disagreement about their nature, how the categories 'male' and 'female' should be understood and evaluated, both in humans and other living things. Next we explore the gender categories such as woman, man, boy and girl. How are American gender categories similar to or different from those found in other cultures? And how are gender categories generally related to, or distinct from, the sex categories previously investigated? Having considered a variety of philosophical approaches to gender--some tying gender directly to sex, others to social characteristics like oppression--we conclude by evaluating these options for ourselves. LAURA FRANKLIN-HALL, Associate Professor of Philosophy, trained both as a biologist and as a philosopher. Her research and teaching interests include the nature of scientific explanation, scientific modeling, and classification; the structure of evolutionary theory and the tree of life; and the relationship between evolution and our ethical commitments. She has published articles on the functioning of the hippocampus, microbial species, the “scientific method,” scientific explanation, and the nature of the sexes—male and female—across the animal world. She is presently working on a book project on the Philosophy of Pregnancy. It tackles metaphysical, ethical, and evolutionary questions surrounding pregnancy, both human and non-human. FYSEM-UA 900.001 The Epic Tradition Fall 2022 Instructor: Stephanie Crooks Tuesday, 4:55-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.  Theme: Past Cultures & Societies Note: Conflicts with CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) This course provides a wide-ranging introduction to the genre of epic. We will study several ancient examples of the literary form (including the Epic of Gilgamesh , the Ramayana , the Iliad , the Odyssey , and the Aeneid ), while considering the societies for which and by which they were created. Later in the semester, we will work to identify the conceits and themes that are characteristic to these examples of epic literature, and we will track what changes - if any - the genre undergoes in subsequent epochs and cultures. To that end, we will also read excerpts from Beowulf , the Chanson de Roland , and Paradise Lost , among others. Epic, we will find, deeply explores human nature – our desires and our flaws – while often posing difficult questions about national identity, imperialism, and conquest. What makes an individual a hero? How do heroes respond to the tasks that are imposed upon them? By whom are those tasks imposed, and, perhaps most important, why do tales of heroes continue to appeal to us today?  STEPHANIE CROOKS is an Adjunct Instructor in the College of Arts and Sciences with research interests in death, material culture, and landscape in Greek and Latin poetry. She has published on Vergil’s Eclogues and has an article on Catullus forthcoming in Classical Philology . She is currently preparing a manuscript on the image of the poet’s tomb in Latin elegy. 

FYSEM-UA 900.002 Cities and Countryside: Past and Present Fall 2022 Instructor: Mitra Panahipour Friday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Past Cultures & Societies Note: Conflicts with CHEM-UA 125 General Chemistry I, CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II and BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I.

This course explores cities and their surrounding hinterlands across different temporal and spatial scales to discuss how the city, as a distinctive form of social organization, became the dominant feature of landscapes. What is the urban-rural dynamic about, how can we compare urban and non-urban landscapes through time? This course provides students with the understanding and skills for addressing environmental, political, and socioeconomic histories and longer-term patterns of human-environment interactions, settlement, resettlement, and abandonment. It also develops necessary skills in spatial understanding. With an interdisciplinary approach - including hands-on training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and other geospatial analysis tools - we will look at archaeological and historical sources and practice computational methods to investigate the transformation of places in their wider natural and built contexts. We examine contemporary as well as historical landscapes from different regions, particularly the Near East, and  learn how understanding ancient landscapes can help us address current and future issues such as environmental and climatic change and issues of sustainability. The course combines lectures, weekly readings, class discussions, and some of the sessions will include in-class computer lab activities.

MITRA PANAHIPOUR is an Adjunct Professor at New York University’s College of Arts and Science. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, in 2019-2021. As an anthropological archaeologist, her research focuses on the dynamics of settlement, land use, and social organization across diverse microenvironmental zones in the Near/Middle East. She is particularly interested in interdisciplinary approaches and applies landscapes surveys, geospatial analysis, remote sensing, and environmental and ethnographic data in understanding the longer-term patterns of change. FYSEM-UA 900.003 Incarceration Nation: The Borders of Belonging Fall 2022 Instructor:Aisha Khan Monday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics In the world today there are ten countries that have the highest numbers of imprisoned populations. The US is first on that list, with almost 2.3 million people incarcerated. One in thirty-one people in the US is under some form of correctional supervision—from prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers to forensic hospitals and juvenile detention treatment facilities. By the early 2000’s, over 2,500 children in the US had been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Almost half of Americans have family members who have been incarcerated. The magnitude of these and other similarly staggering statistics reveals what many today see as an American crisis. In this course we will explore the phenomenon of mass incarceration in the US, looking into the ways that its manifestations and consequences have historically and culturally shaped American society. Our time frame will include the early 20th century, but we will emphasize the late 20th and early 21st centuries, which is the moment in the US when the “carceral state” and the “prison industrial complex” grew exponentially and also gained widespread scholarly, activist, and popular attention.  We will begin with important foundational work that analyzes the ideology and aims of imprisonment and mass incarceration. This work will frame our exploration of more recent research, as we focus on key themes that mark what is now known as carceral studies. These themes include the “wars” on drugs, crime, and terror; the role of race, profiling, and poverty; the definition and enforcement of citizenship and its borderlands; gender and kinship; the arts and artistic expression; “re-entry” and restorative community-building; and the merging of scholarship and activism. Documentary films, social media materials, and interdisciplinary texts will provide the basis for lectures, class discussions, and assignments.  AISHA KHAN is a cultural anthropologist in NYU’s Department of Anthropology. Her research areas focus on the Caribbean and its Asian and African diasporas. She has conducted ethnographic and archival research in Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Haiti. She is particularly interested in exploring the contradictions that may be generated by the Western concept of identity when it is simultaneously a foundation for social equality and an instrument through which social inequality is reinforced. She teaches courses on racial and religious hierarchies in the Americas, colonial and postcolonial societies, ethical questions that are connected to social activism, and Muslims in the Americas. FYSEM-UA 900.004 A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis Fall 2022 Instructor: Juliet Fleming Wednesday, 8:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Theme: Health and Society Note: Conflicts with BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry I (Monday/Wednesday, 8 a.m.-9:15 a.m.) “I refer to those appetites that are awakened in sleep, when the rest of the soul, the rational, gentle and dominant part, slumbers, but the beastly and savage part, replete with food and wine, gambols and, pushing sleep away, endeavors to sally forth and satisfy its own instincts. You are aware that in such case there is nothing it will not venture to undertake as being released from all sense of shame and reflection. It does not shrink from attempting in fancy unholy intercourse with a mother, or with anyone else, man, god or brute. It is ready for any foul deed of blood; it abstains from no food, and, in a word, falls short of no extreme of folly and shamelessness.”  Plato, Republic, Book IX Psychoanalysis is hard to classify: as a body of knowledge it does not fit smoothly into the criteria of science, social science, philosophy, literature, or art.  Freud, who was trained as a doctor, first used the term in 1896, to mean the scientific study of the mind and soul rather than of the brain. Freud was one of the great experimental thinkers: during a career that spanned 60 years he constantly evolved his thought and challenged his own conclusions.  But he never departed from the proposition that thoughts can exist in our minds, and guide our actions, of which we are unconscious.  As you can see by the quote from Plato, he was by no means the first to entertain this thought, or to speculate on the self-destructive tendencies that haunt us.  But he was the architect of a field, psychoanalysis, that now works to understand the procedures by which we distort or shut out intolerable thoughts, only to have them return to trouble us in new guises.  He showed how much communication passes below our conscious radar, or entirely outside language, and suggested ways of intercepting and hearing it.  In showing that we are always psychically divided, fractured within, and to some extent strangers to ourselves, he also demonstrated how interdependent people are: “In the individual’s mental life someone else is invariably involved, as a model, as an object, as a helper, as an opponent." In this seminar we will not be reading about psychoanalysis, and the many things that can be said against it, or in its defense. Rather, we will be reading to understand the logic of psychoanalytic writing, particularly that of Freud and his contemporaries, as this turned the thought of the early twentieth-century on its head.  So if you already believe Freud is wrong, or alternatively right on all counts -- or if you are not prepared to devote a semester to reading some difficult, specialized, primary texts -- this is not the seminar for you!   JULIET FLEMING is Professor in the Department of English, Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Palladium, and the recipient of a Golden Dozen Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a literary theorist and translator of Derrida who specializes as a theorist of writing, and has worked on such topics as graffiti, tattooing, collaging, and taxidermy.

FYSEM-UA 900.006 Erotics of Representation: Embodied Memory, Censorship, and the “Obscene” Fall 2022 Instructor: Zeb Tortorici Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality Please note: This course involves viewing graphic depictions of sex and the body alongside some texts labeled as “pornography,” which we will analyze as cultural and historical texts in a mature and scholarly way. If you find such imagery offensive, this might not be the best course for you. Note: Conflicts with CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) This seminar analyzes the erotics of representation through overlapping historical, cultural, and technological constructions of those bodies and desires that have come to be labeled (and both desired and loathed) as “erotic” or “obscene” in diverse temporal and geopolitical contexts. We will explore the many motives and impulses behind particular acts of censorship, thinking about how and why some textual, visual, and filmic “pornographic” representations are restricted, occluded, and even destroyed. Throughout the course, we will engage key theorists from the fields of critical race theory, queer studies, trans studies, gender & sexuality studies, archival theory, history, and cultural studies (among others) to explore—from the 1500s to the present—how the production of the erotic and the obscene are inherently linked to complex processes of colonization and racialization, while also locating sites and acts of resistance to such narratives. Pending availability, we engage with archivists, librarians, artists, and activists through institutions such as the NYU Fales Library & Special Collections; the New York Public Library; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; the Center for Puerto Rican Studies; the Lesbian Herstory Archives; and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, among others.  ZEB TORTORICI is an associate professor in Spanish and Portuguese at NYU, and is a historian by training. His research interests include gender, sexuality, and erotic religious devotion in colonial Latin America, and hist first book, Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain (2018), analyzed the "sins against nature" of sodomy, bestiality, and masturbation in colonial Mexico, Guatemala, and the Philippines. His current book and digital archiving project, Archiving the "Obscene," focuses on the production, distribution, preservation, and destruction of "pornography" in Latin America, from 1700 to 1955. This work regularly takes him to grassroots queer archives, flea markets, bookstores, and online auction houses in search of explicit visual and textual traces of those bodies and desires that are often underrepresented in institutional libraries and archives in Latin America (with key exceptions that our seminar will explore). Among his edited books are Sexuality and the Unnatural in Colonial Latin America (2016); Ethnopornography: Sexuality, Colonialism, and Archival Knowledge (2020); Baptism Through Incision: The Postmortem Cesarean Operation in the Spanish Empire (2020); and Turning Archival: The Life of the Historical in Queer Studies (2022). 

FYSEM-UA 900.007 Democracy in the Digital Age Fall 2022 Instructor: Tiberiu Dragu Friday, 8:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Technology and Society How will the use of digital technology by citizens, politicians, and governments affect core aspects of democracy and democratic representation? Will new technologies empower social movements, enabling them to demand human rights protections and even topple repressive regimes? Or will digital technologies bring newfound power to the state, facilitating mass surveillance and control? This seminar focuses on how the Internet and digital technologies shape political processes in democratic and non-democratic countries. The course will investigate how digital technologies affect political participation, electoral accountability, and political equality in established democracies. We will also explore how digital technologies impact the prospect of democratization and the future of human rights in non-democratic societies. TIBERIU DRAGU is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics. His research focuses on political institutions, particularly in relation to questions of how to structure and constrain government power in both democratic and non-democratic countries. He specializes in political economy and applications of game-theoretic models to studying how to curb political violence and state repression and how digital technologies affect political processes in both democratic and authoritarian countries. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and has been on the faculty at NYU since 2012, teaching an array of classes on political economy, rule of law, and technology and democracy.

FYSEM-UA 900.008 Are you mad yet? Why Haiti's fight for Black Freedom is both the Blueprint and a Cautionary Tale. Fall 2022 Instructor: Wynnie Lamour Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Identity and Society In August 1791, in the French colony known as Saint Domingue, a group of enslaved people came together for a rasanblaj, a gathering, to plan one of the most important Black revolutions of our time. Since then, the country that we know as Ayiti (Haiti) has time and time again suffered for its relentless commitment to Blackness and Black Freedom. This course is designed to help students explore their relationship to Blackness using Haiti and the language of Kreyòl Ayisyen (Haitian Creole) as case studies. Students will learn the critical role that Haiti has played in Latin America and the Caribbean and in a larger global context. Readings will include works by C. L. R. James, James Baldwin, Felix Morriseau-Leroy, Edwidge Danticat, Gina Ulysse, and other Black & Haitian visionaries. The course will be supplemented by guest lectures, visits to Haitian cultural institutions in New York City, and more. Students will also learn how to make use of NYU's archival resources in the field of Haitian Studies. WYNNIE LAMOUR-QUANSAH is the Founder and Managing Director of the Haitian Creole Language Institute of New York. She currently teaches Haitian Creole at NYU's Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies through the Indigenous and Diasporic Language Consortium. Wynnie is an Educator with a focus on Language & Communication. She has spent over the last 10 years teaching Haitian Creole in the New York City metro area to a wide array of language learners. Her experiences growing up in Brooklyn as a Haitian-American have provided her with a unique perspective as an educator, allowing her an ease that comes when one is equally comfortable in both cultures and languages. Wynnie has a BA in Linguistics from Cornell University and an MA in Urban Affairs from CUNY Queens College. Both degrees have allowed her the flexibility to blend effortlessly into many different sectors. Wynnie’s philosophy of teaching is rooted in the idea of “Mindfulness”, which promotes community and connectedness, while establishing a sense of pride and respect for both the Haitian language and culture. Most recently Wynnie’s work has included a translation of an excerpt of the Franketienne novel “Dezafi” published in “The Haiti Reader: History, Culture, and Politics” published by Duke University Press, 2020. FYSEM-UA 900.009 The State in History Fall 2022 Instructor: Peter Baldwin  Monday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures and Societies Note: Conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.) From before your birth until after your death, the state dominates your life.  Your birth was shepherded by state-certified medical personnel and promptly attended by official registration.  Your name may have been chosen in accord with its rules, and every other means of identification you must have is its.  Postmortem, your children will inherit the fruits of your efforts according to its rules.  Inbetween, you will spend scarcely a minute outside its orbit.  You will be prodded, poked, vaccinated, inspected, tested, certified, autopsied, and buried as it sees fit.  What you learn, how you are trained, by whom and where – it shapes all.  Today, the state is all-powerful, omnipresent, ubiquitous.  But it wasn’t always that way.  It emerged for the first time some five thousand years ago, in the Middle East, supplanting the tribes, clans, and chiefdoms that were humanity’s first attempts to organize ourselves.  It has grown fitfully ever since.  After the fall of the Roman empire, it collapsed in Europe and had to be rebuilt starting in the late middle ages.  The absolutist monarchies of the 17C then trumpeted the king’s power in all its glory.  Hegel thought the 19C state – routinized, bureaucratic, modern – was the pinnacle of its development.  The totalitarian dictatorships – fascist and communist – of the 20C unleashed more raw, savage state power than ever before, combining autocratic decision-making with modern technology.  Our own era has tried to curb the state – whether as neoliberalism from the right, or through an emphasis on civil rights from the left.  Nonetheless, the state is arguably more powerful than ever before.  A strong state can also be subtle.  Rather than rattling sabers and cages, the modern state insinuates itself into our psyches, reshapes our habits, and socializes us into the behavior contemporary society requires.  Like gravity, the state is everywhere, all-powerful – and often invisible.  It is the single largest, most ubiquitous, most powerful thing in history.  It knows all about you.  Shouldn’t you know about it? PETER BALDWIN is Global Distinguished Professor in the Center for European and Mediterranean History at NYU.  When he is not at NYU, he is a professor of history at UCLA.  His work takes a comparative approach to modern history, looking at several European nations as well as the US.  His most recent books have dealt with the first phase of the Covid pandemic, and with the evolution of crime and its control over the past 3000 years.  He has a forthcoming book on the open access debate – why academic knowledge should be freely available to everyone. FYSEM-UA 900.010 Betwixt and Between: Exploring Liminality in Individual and Collective Experience Fall 2022 Instructor: Amira Pierce Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Identity and Society Note: Conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 71 Introductory Experimental Physics I lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) "Liminality" is a concept from mid-20th century anthropology used to explain the “betwixt and between” state an individual experiences during a rite of passage. More recently, "liminality" has been taken up in discussions about intersectionality of identity, as well as collective consciousness (think gender fluidity, transnationality, pandemic studies, virtual worlds). How can exploring the contours of liminality serve us in helping us give shape and substance to intersections that may provide hope for our futures? In this class, we will read narratives that explore liminal states written by social scientists, activists, religious teachers, psychologists, and creative writers. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we will use critical texts (including philosophical, anthropological, and legal studies) as lenses to help us interpret and explore our class readings, conduct further research, and formulate ideas that give power to the in-between. In addition to academic writing, students will have the opportunity to share findings through oral presentations and multi-modal forms. AMIRA PIERCE got her MFA in Fiction from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011. Since 2013, she has been a professor at NYU’s Expository Writing Program, where she specializes in working with International students and their instructors. She spent Spring 2019 teaching at NYU-Shanghai as part of a departmental exchange, and summer 2019 took her to Spain, with the support of a grant from NYU's Global Research Initiative to work on a project called "Reading the Quran in Madrid," which has now become "Reading Quran in the Time of Covid-19." She is also at work on a novel about finding beauty through brokenness. She has served as a literacy volunteer and writing mentor with various organizations across New York City, and she is a founding member of Inner Fields Sangha. She lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn and was born in Beirut, Lebanon.  FYSEM-UA 900.017 Hysteria: Stories About Women, Medicine, and the Law Fall 2022 Instructor: Dara Regaignon Thursday, 2:00-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Literature through the Ages Note: Conflicts with BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) Originating from the Greek word for uterus (hystera), hysteria as a specific emotional-physiological disorder was for centuries credited to a woman’s “wandering womb.” Between 1700 and 1900, while the British Empire expanded across the globe, the disease was attached specifically to the bodies, minds, and experiences of elite white women. This diagnosis defined them as both fragile and precious—in need of medical care and legal protections that removed them from positions of authority. At the same time, it helped to code women of color—especially black women—as both strong and expendable (a coding whose implications continue to shape disparities today). In this seminar, we’ll investigate how hysteria was defined by medicine, psychology, and psychoanalysis starting in the eighteenth century as well as the legal implications of those definitions. We’ll juxtapose those medical and legal documents with fictional narratives that turn on questions of hysteria and female insanity, likely including Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw,” Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm, and E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India.  DARA ROSSMAN REGAIGNON is an associate professor in NYU’s Department of English. Her research focuses on the material, conceptual, and rhetorical structures that shape experience, and she’s particularly interested in the ways medical and fictional genres make cultural norms seem natural. Her most recent book focused on the nineteenth-century emergence of maternal anxiety as part of the development of the medical specialty of pediatrics; she’s currently working on race and class in nineteenth-century British feminist rhetoric. FYSEM-UA 900.018 Metal and Social Exchange in China Fall 2022 Instructor: Dongming Wu Monday/Wednesday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures & Societies This course will examine the history of metal exploitation and use in China. In this course, we will survey the archaeological, scientific, and textual evidence of mineral extraction, metal goods making, and metalwork construction in order to trace the development of metal production in China from the antiquity to the present. In addition to technological issues, this course will explore the social context of metal production by situating technology in an assemblage of political, economic, and cultural networks. We will also discuss how technological triumph has significantly transformed people’s lifeways, local society, landscape and environment, and state policy in pre-modern and modern China. The reading materials will all be in English. The objective of the course is to challenge the ideas about the autonomy of science and technology and encourage students to think about the relationship between technology, nature, society, and power. DONGMING WU is a visiting assistant professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU. He received his BA in Chinese Literature and MA in Comparative Literature from Sichuan University, and his PhD in Chinese History and Archaeology from Columbia University. His research interests include ancient economies, history of science and technology, and intellectual history. Dongming has participated in several archaeological projects in China and co-authored the archaeological report of the copper-smelting site Sujialong. Dongming is also interested and trained in Chinese paleography; he has published and translated book chapters and articles on bronze inscription and bamboo manuscript. FYSEM-UA 900.053 American Political Development: Historical and Cultural Roots of American Politics Fall 2022  Instructor: Maya Kornberg Tuesday, 6:20 p.m.-8:50 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics Note: Most students consider the workload for this course very heavy; please do not select this seminar unless you are willing and eager to perform at a high and demanding level. We are all affected by our nation’s political institutions. So where do they originate and how have our political institutions evolved? How was the growth of the American state over time influenced by the political institutions that already existed? How have race, gender, and other components of American society shaped institutional development? Are there patterns or cycles over time in American politics? How democratic is the United States? How has the American Congress developed, and how has this affected the current challenges witnessed today? These are all questions we will answer together in this course. Dr. MAYA KORNBERG leads research for the elections and government program of the NYU Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law. Her work focuses on legislative politics, information and misinformation in politics, and the impact of money in the legislative process. Her research supports the advocacy of the center. She has worked on democratic governance issues at non-profits, international development organizations, and think tanks. She is the author of the forthcoming book  Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in the Legislative Process  (Columbia University Press, 2023.) EXPOS-UA 1 (Fall) Writing the Essay: Science and Society Note: Students who take WTE: Science and Society must still take another course to fulfill the First-Year Seminar requirement, either during their first year or later in your CAS career. Reach out to your advisor for more information.

Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course.

Writing the Essay: Science and Society is the foundational writing course, which provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative thinking, and clear writing. The course stresses exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning.  Our section of Writing the Essay will focus on the role of science in the contemporary world. We will learn to read, think, and write critically as we investigate how science, medicine, and technology are used to evaluate, characterize, and politicize elements of human behavior and society—and how social institutions challenge and complicate our behavioral and social norms. We question common conceptions of science and society as separate spheres, as well as examining the many paradoxes therein: how science can be simultaneously progressive and destructive, connecting and isolating, liberating and oppressive. As we progress, you will find that writing is not only a method to communicate ideas but also a process that generates new ones. The ultimate goal: for you to write and communicate confidently, to rely on writing as one of the best tools for developing fresh perspectives and appreciating subtle complexities, and to develop your own unique and more complex understanding of science, medicine, and technology. 

EXPOS-UA 1.001 Fall 2022  Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.)  EXPOS-UA 1.002 Fall 2022 Monday and Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.)  EXPOS-UA 1.003 Fall 2022  Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.

EXPOS-UA 1.004 Fall 2022 Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Note: Conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 71 Introductory Experimental Physics I (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) and fall cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.)  EXPOS-UA 1.005 Fall 2022 Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m.

EXPOS-UA 1.006 Fall 2022 Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. EXPOS-UA 1.007 Fall 2022 Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 a.m.-9:15 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. EXPOS-UA 1.008 Fall 2022 Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m. -12:15 p.m. Note: Conflicts with CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II (Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:45 a.m.) and Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.)

FYSEM-UA 255 School and Society: NYU in the Sixties and Seventies Spring 2023 Instructor: Arthur Tannenbaum    Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m.     Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 71 Introductory Experimental Physics I lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) The 1960s and 1970s brought profound changes in American society, changes mirrored in the history of the nation, academe, and New York University. It was a time that witnessed the struggle for civil rights, assassinations, war abroad and riots at home, and a youth-led revolution in music, dress, and values. This course aims to develop an appreciation of those years by examining events and reactions to them as they affected campuses and students across America. Students prepare reports on different aspects of the era and work on group projects. In both cases, and in the spirit of the times, the topics are self-chosen with the approval of the group and the seminar leader.

ARTHUR TANNENBAUM is Associate Curator and Social Work Librarian in the Bobst Library, and has also taught in the English Department. First as a student and then as a faculty member, he has been at NYU for more than thirty years. In 1992 he received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Medal in recognition for his work with students. FYSEM-UA 379 Doctor’s Dilemma: Being Both Correct and Right Spring 2023 Instructor: Michael E. Makover Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: Health and Society Dr. Saul Farber, former Dean of the NYU School of Medicine, frequently cautioned that just because an action or conclusion was correct did not mean that it was right . Ethics, laws, and religious and cultural beliefs intersect in every medical encounter and healthcare issue, affecting patients’ options and care. The challenging issues to be studied and debated in this seminar include the following: Should doctors help terminal patients die to relieve intractable suffering? Should doctors participate in executions or in the interrogation of terrorists? Do we want to know so much about our genetic makeup that we are faced with terribly difficult consequences of that knowledge? Is “alternative medicine” a reasonable alternative? What makes a good doctor good? Who should pay for your healthcare? The course aims to teach students how to address such questions by learning to think like doctors and scientists, to apply logic tempered by human values and experience, to analyze information critically, and to present ideas effectively and honestly. MICHAEL E. MAKOVER is Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and Attending Physician at the NYU Medical Center. He is also the Chief Medical Officer for a major union. An internist and rheumatologist, he is the author of Mismanaged Care , as well as articles on healthcare quality, ethics, and economics, and is currently writing another book entitled 120 Years Young . He was an aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a spokesman for the American Cancer Society and the New York Heart Association. FYSEM-UA 389 Living Off the Laughter: Comedy in America Spring 2023 Instructor: Eddy Friedfeld   Thursday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m.       Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts Note: Cohort conflicts with fall CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) The history of comedy in America is the history of America. Comedians have provided a funhouse mirror as well as a perceptive lens for American society and culture. Silent film comedians, for example, were instrumental in establishing the movie industry, while the physical nature of vaudeville’s humor reflected the linguistic diversity of its immigrant audience. An overview of American comedy, this seminar will be history with a laugh track, taking the significant periods and players of modern America and analyzing them against their historic context and their legacy, using their humor as the platform. We will examine how their comedy was shaped by and responded to American society, and how they in turn influenced and shaped American life. The great comedians and moments from film, radio, and TV to be studied in this seminar include Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 40s, The Golden Age of Television, the Sitcom, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, Eddie Murphy, Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle, as well as new comedians and trends. We will also focus on how comedians and comedy built and builds bridges between gender, culture and racial and ethnic groups. Clips and segments from classic TV and movies will enrich our discussion of the evolution of comedy, its place in history, and its similarities in time. EDDY FRIEDFELD is a film and entertainment journalist and historian, as well as an attorney specializing in corporate restructuring. He is the co-author of Caesar’s Hours with comedy legend Sid Caesar, and is working on a book on the history of comedy in America. He was the senior consultant for the PBS documentary Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America ; has appeared on Fox News, PBS, and WOR and Bloomberg Radio; has written and lectured extensively on entertainment and film; has produced and hosted tributes to Dick Van Dyke, Eric Idle, Dick Cavett, Alan King, Robert Altman, George Carlin, and Paul Newman, among others ; and has worked with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Billy Crystal. He received his BA from Columbia College and his JD from NYU Law School. He also teaches at Yale College and The Tisch School of the Arts. FYSEM-UA 500 Work and Family in the New Economy  Spring 2023 Instructor: Kathleen Gerson Monday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics The rise of a globalized “new economy” has created jobs with more short-term flexibility but less long-term security. In a parallel way, the rise of more diverse options in intimate relationships has created similar uncertainties in the nature of commitments to partners and children. Taken together, these revolutionary shifts have left recent generations facing deepening conflicts between earning a living and caring for others. To explore the causes, contours, and longer-term consequences of these changes in economic and private life, this course will take a two-pronged approach. We first study cutting-edge research on these contemporary trends and, second, we draw on these readings as students develop and conduct original research projects on a relevant topic of their choice. KATHLEEN GERSON is Collegiate Professor of Sociology and a recognized authority on the intertwined revolutions in gender, work, and family life in the United States and globally. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other awards, and the author of numerous books, including The Unfinished Revolution, an award-winning study of how new generations have responded to growing up in changing families. She is currently completing a book on “the science and art of interviewing” and is at work on another book about the gender strategies now emerging to cope with the growing work-care conflicts facing today’s workers and parents.  FYSEM-UA 593 Rethinking Orientalism Spring 2023 Instructor: Asli Igsiz Monday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Scholars have argued that since the “fall” of Byzantine Constantinople to the Ottomans in the fifteenth century, Western European intellectuals have framed cultural difference in terms of the “East” and the “West.” Renaissance humanists, for example, resorted to ancient and medieval texts to create a religiously and culturally defined “other”—the “Ottoman Turks.” Their writings then spread across Europe and generated problematic conceptualizations of what the West ought to be, as different from the East. This is by no means an isolated case: in the nineteenth century, for example, we begin encountering systematic categorizations of peoples imbued with discourses of civilizations. Critic Edward Said identifies such problematic representations of the so-called East as “Orientalism” and offers a productive category to analyze how such representations have informed power relations and policies. This seminar will examine a wide variety of cultural representations pertaining to the modern Middle East that have contributed to the "East/West" divide conceptualized as Orientalism. We will explore politics of cultural representation in such fields as cinema, literature, visual culture, political economy, and humanitarianism. Some questions we will address: What are the politics of cultural representation over (at least) the last two centuries that have marked modern day politics? How do such representations lend themselves to problematic interpretations of East and West in general, and the Middle East in particular? What are the racial, historical, and cultural implications of these representations and the policies that they inform? ASLI IGSIZ is Associate Professor of Culture and Representation in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. Her teaching and research interests include cultural representation and cultural history, narratives of war and displacement, and dynamics of alterity in the late Ottoman and contemporary Turkish contexts. Her publications span a variety of issues that include the politics of memory, nation branding, alliances of civilizations, law, neoliberalism, and the Gezi Park Protests in Turkey. Her current book project,  Humanism in Ruins: Liberal Multiculturalism, Memory, and the 1923 Greek-Turkish Population Exchange in Contemporary Turkey , examines the implications of “liberal multiculturalism” and cultural memory as a mode of humanism in Turkey after the Cold War and the 1980 military coup.

FYSEM-UA 598 After The End: Post-Apocalypse Novels in the 20th & 21st Centuries Spring 2023 Instructor: David Hoover Thursday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m      Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: First-Generation Cohort. Note: FYSEM-UA 474, What is College For? and FYSEM-UA 598, After The End: Post-Apocalypse Novels in the 20th & 21st Centuries  are strongly recommended for first-generation students. They provide an excellent opportunity to join a close-knit community of your peers who also identify as the first in their families to pursue higher education.  Many authors have speculated about what would happen if (most) humans were destroyed. Authors have removed humans by natural disasters like floods, fires, earthquakes, and mysterious poisonous clouds or rays. They have imagined alien invasions, plagues, epidemics, agricultural collapses, and reproductive failure. More recently, humans themselves have become popular as causes of apocalypses because global thermonuclear war, lethal pollution, disastrous over-population, genetic engineering, and climate change have become realistic possible scenarios for the collapse of our species. This seminar will examine a variety of apocalypses from the 20th century with special attention to ones that have implications for the nature of humanity and human society. Most of the novels we will read treat an apocalypse as a kind of thought-experiment: what would happen if . . . ? Some focus more on the collapse of human institutions, culture, morality, and religion, others on the challenges the survivors face, and still others focus on the potential for the re-creation of human society or the creation of an alternative kind of society. DAVID L. HOOVER is Professor of English at New York University, where he has taught for thirty-five years in the areas of digital humanities, science fiction, Chaucer, history of the English language, and linguistic stylistics. His most recent publications include Digital Literary Studies: Corpus Approaches to Poetry, Prose, and Drama, with Jonathan Culpeper and Kieran O’Halloran; “Modes of Composition in Henry James: Dictation, Style, and What Maisie Knew,” in the Henry James Review; and “Text Analysis,” in Ken Price and Ray Siemens (eds.), Literary Studies in the Digital Age: An Evolving Anthology (the first digital-only publication of the MLA). The breadth of his interests are shown in his earlier books: Stylistics: Prospect & Retrospect (as editor), Language and Style in The Inheritors, and A New Theory of Old English Meter. He is currently writing a book on how modes of composition (handwriting, dictation, typing, word-processing) affect authorial style. FYSEM-UA 714 Crystallization in Life: Stories about Shells, Bones, and Kidney Stones Spring 2023 Instructor: Zhihua An Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m.  Theme: Molecules of Material and Living Systems Prerequisites: A score of 4 or 5 on the Chemistry Advanced Placement exam, and a score of 4 or 5 on either Calculus or Biology AP (or equivalent international credentials). This seminar introduces students to the world of biomineralization, the branch of chemistry that deals with crystal formation under the influence of biomolecules. Through readings, lectures, research projects, and assignments, students learn and study the fundamentals of crystal formation, crystal properties, and the structure of crystals surrounding us. We begin with solution chemistry, crystallization theory, and various aspects of the crystallization process in nature and then move on to the specific case studies of the title, with attention to biomolecules (proteins, lipids, etc.) and their roles in controlling the crystallization process. Understanding the biomineralization process in the formation of kidney stones can lead to preventative drug development, which illustrates a practical application of the field in biomedical science. In addition, studying the crystallization process in nature can lead to new bioinspired materials, such as optical fibers. ZHIHUA AN is Clinical Associate Professor of Chemistry at New York University. Prior to joining NYU, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Columbia University, and at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor An’s research interests are biomaterials self-assembly, biointerface functionalization and engineering, and pathological biomineralization. Her work has appeared in Science , Journal of the American Chemical Society , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , Cancer Letters , and more than ten other journals.

FYSEM-UA 722 Italy and North America: Contact, Conflict, and Exchange Spring 2023 Instructor: Rachel Love Thursday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I lecture (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) We consider how Italy’s diaspora has affected its conception of itself and examine five hundred years of North America as artistic inspiration, as cultural and political influence, and even as a source of existential anxiety. For example, how did European discovery of a “new” continent impact Renaissance authors like Ariosto and Tasso and destabilize the center of their known world? How did American literature like Hemingway and Steinbeck offer twentieth-century Italian writers new possibilities of literary expression and political resistance? We consider literature of immigration and travel in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Italians documented their journeys to North America (and New York City) in poetry and prose. We investigate how Fascism, war and recovery—as well as the physical presence of American soldiers on Italian soil—shifted the political and social stakes of this relationship. Finally, we explore American cultural influence throughout the increasingly globalized 20th century, as US models permeated Italian politics, film, television, music, and food, and pop singers teased teenagers who tried to “fa’ l’americano.” Throughout, we take advantage of our location in New York City to explore aspects of cultural exchange within our urban environment, including an excursion to the Italian American Museum and Little Italy. RACHEL E. LOVE earned her PhD from NYU in Italian Studies in May 2018. Her essays on 20th-century Italian politics and culture have appeared in the journals Popular Music , Modern Italy , and Interventions . Her current book project, Songbook for a Revolution: The Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano, Popular Culture, and the Left in 1960s Italy , analyzes the political use of folk music through the history of a leftist musical collective, the Nuovo Canzoniere Italiano (NCI). Her interdisciplinary research interests move between contemporary Italian history and literature, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and oral history. Most mornings, she can be found riding her bike across the Manhattan Bridge. FYSEM-UA 735 Food for Thought: Narrating the Food System Spring 2023 Instructor: Emily Stone Wednesday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.  Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.)  Culinary traditions and culinary innovations alike are forged at the intersection of culture, agriculture, politics, policy, geography, and ecology. In the 21st century--amid animated conversations about social justice, climate change, and global supply-chain disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic--we are increasingly aware of where our food comes from, and how our individual choices about what we eat connect us to our neighbors and the rest of the world. In short written responses to readings by Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Rachael Carson, Peter Singer, Dolores Huerta, Michael Pollan, Winona LaDuke, Adrian Miller, and Paloma Martinez-Cruz, as well as today's farm workers and restaurant workers, students will consider different approaches to writing about our food system—which they will then apply to writing their own narratives based on original research into the food system in New York City or beyond.

EMILY STONE is a Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. She was also once an undergraduate here (at the Gallatin School) before opening a small bookstore in Guatemala, working as a freelance writer in Australia, traveling to several other countries, writing a blog about chocolate, and ultimately earning graduate degrees in creative writing and food studies. Her work has appeared in AGNI, Fourth Genre, North American Review, and Tin House, and has been among the notable selections in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. Before returning to NYU, Emily taught writing and literature in English at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

FYSEM-UA 743 Archaeology of Ireland: Land of Saints and Scholars Spring 2023 Instructor: Pam J. Crabtree Monday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures and Societies Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.) Archaeology uses material culture, including artifacts and structures, in order to understand the daily lives of people in the past. Large-scale excavations carried out in the later twentieth and twenty-first centuries have shed new light on Irish history, from the island’s initial settlement at the end of the Ice Age through the nineteenth century. This course will explore how archaeology can be used to reconstruct Irish history. Particular emphasis will be placed on the Irish “Dreamtime,” the Iron Age and early medieval periods (ca. 600 BCE to 1100 CE). We will also examine the role that the Irish monastic tradition played in perpetuating and passing on to posterity many of the classic texts of Western civilization. PAM J. CRABTREE is an archaeologist and Professor in NYU’s Department of Anthropology, where she also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies. She is a field archaeologist who has worked on historic and prehistoric sites in Europe, the Near East, and eastern North America, and she is particularly interested in how archaeological data can be used to illustrate the daily lives of people who lived in the past. Her area of expertise is zooarchaeology, the study of animal bones as a way of reconstructing ancient hunting practices, animal husbandry patterns, and diets. Crabtree is currently the co-director of the excavations at Dún Ailinne, an Irish Iron Age site located in County Kildare. She teaches courses on prehistoric and medieval archaeology, archaeological methods, and agricultural origins. FYSEM-UA 771 The Art of Doing Nothing in Literature and Film Spring 2023 Instructor: Michael Krimper Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II lecture  (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.)  What would it take to stop working? To refuse work? Give it up? To do something else, besides productive activity and labor, or nothing at all? And how might doing nothing introduce radically different senses of freedom than what we’re used to? In this seminar, we’ll think about some of the ways that modern literature and film reflect on the art of doing nothing, frequently turning the city or its outskirts into a locus for personal and collective struggle, resistance, and transformation. Our aim will be to examine strategies for breaking free from the dominance of work, as illustrated by figures like the slacker, idler, cruiser, fugitive, drifter, ambler, streetwalker, and the so-called flâneur/flâneuse primarily but not exclusively within the urban topographies of New York, Paris, and London from the nineteenth century onward. We will pay special attention to the critical potentialities of unmanaged and wayward lives at the intersection of race, class, sexual orientation, and gender. Throughout we will read fiction and poetry by Baudelaire, Bataille, Beckett, Boyer, Breton, Calle, Delany, Jacobs, Kafka, Melville, Poe, and Woolf; and theoretical work by Barthes, Benjamin, Federici, Hartman, and Weeks. We will also view films by Tsai, Varda, and Chalfant/Silver (namely, the classic hiphop documentary Style Wars ). MICHAEL KRIMPER teaches in the Department of French, Gallatin, and Liberal Studies at New York University, where he received his PhD in Comparative Literature not so long ago. He specializes in francophone and anglophone literature from the nineteenth century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of aesthetics and politics in transatlantic modernisms. His current book project examines how work becomes a problem across a wide array of literature, art, and philosophy in postwar Europe and the Americas. His articles, reviews, and translations have been published New Literary History, SubStance, the Journal of Italian Philosophy, and Los Angeles Review of Books , among other venues. Before joining NYU, he worked as a music journalist in California. FYSEM-UA 780 The Sea in History Spring 2023 Instructor: Thomas Truxes Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.-6:00 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures and Societies Over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is water, most of it residing in the planet’s great seas and oceans. But how have those vast watery spaces, together with the world’s lakes and rivers, shaped the millennia? Have these bodies of water been connective tissues bringing peoples together or barriers pushing them apart? They have, of course, been both, providing highways for commerce and migration, life-sustaining fisheries, battlefields that determined the fate of civilizations, and powerful stimulants to the advancement of technology on a broad front. This seminar will explore the many—and often surprising—faces of the sea in history. It will, likewise, ask students to contemplate their own responsibility in preserving the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans that have shaped the destiny of mankind. THOMAS M. TRUXES is Clinical Professor of Irish Studies and History. He has written extensively on the Irish in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Atlantic economy and the overseas trade of British America. Recent books include an edited volume of essays, Ireland, France, and the Atlantic in a Time of War: Reflections on the Bordeaux–Dublin Letters, 1757 , and Defying Empire: Trading with the Enemy in Colonial New York , a finalist for the Francis Parkman Prize in American History. At NYU he teaches courses on early modern Irish history, piracy and seaborne terrorism, and the history of world trade. FYSEM-UA 783 DNA: From the Double Helix to Nanotechnology Spring 2023 Instructor: Yoel Ohayon Tuesday, 8:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 2 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Theme: Molecules of Material and Living Systems Note: If you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course. Note: Students in this seminar will be automatically enrolled into a paired section of Writing the Essay: Science and Society in their first year. DNA from the basics to some of today's sophisticated applications. We begin with the experiments that first identified DNA as the molecule of heredity and read The Double Helix by James Watson, which gives a lively (and biased) first-person account of the discovery of this crucial building block of life. The seminar then moves on to technical issues and considerations: how does DNA store genetic information, and how does a cell process this information using the genetic code? At the end of the seminar, we build on these foundations and learn about DNA nanotechnology and its many potential applications in science and healthcare. YOEL OHAYON is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at New York University. He received his B.A. in biochemistry from New York University (2000), his M.Phil. in chemistry from New York University (2008) and Ph.D. in chemistry from New York University (2010).  He joined the faculty of New York University in 2011. His research interests include DNA topology and self-assembled 3D DNA crystals.

FYSEM-UA 900.020 Merit, Competence, and Privilege in the Ancient and Modern World Spring 2023 Instructor: Mikael Papadimitriou Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Past Cultures & Societies What allows one person to get a position over other candidates? What criteria are used to establish an individual’s competence or worth? We examine how different societies, both ancient and modern, determined an individual’s merit. In particular, we look at the role of letters of recommendation in that process and the forces of privilege that drive them. Our goal is for you to think critically about how society determines who is worthy, as well as the different mechanisms that privilege certain groups. We start with the ancient Roman world. Although Romans created an extensive bureaucracy to administer their empire, they never developed any kind of systematic examination or even a universal set of criteria for evaluating the competence of candidates. We then move to Imperial China and to the 20th century, where systems of examination are used to evaluate merit; but these more objective systems, however, hide multiple biases, which privilege some groups over others based on race, gender, and socio-economic status, among other aspects of identity. MIKAEL PAPADIMITRIOU is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. from NYU in Classics. He researches social relations, power negotiations, and administrative structures within the Roman world. His book project, Measuring One's Worth: Letters of Recommendation and Appointments in the Roman Empire, is centered around the idea of merit and competence in Rome and explores the variety of biases held by appointing authorities within the Roman imperial administration. FYSEM-UA 900.021 Letters of the Law: Reading the Law in and as Literature Spring 2023 Instructor: Wendy Lotterman Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics We read representations of the law in literature and US Supreme Court opinions to clarify what Jacques Derrida calls the “mystical foundation of authority.” For instance, what authority does Andrew Cuomo summon when he tells protestors “The law is the law”? Or when King Creon tells Antigone “It is the law”? We ask how the breaking of the law reinforces its moral authority and look at instances in which that very authority breaks beneath the force of social movements and reinterpretations of the constitution. Borrowing from the fields of critical race studies and gender and sexuality studies, we denaturalize “legal fictions” as we examine themes such as personhood, intersectionality, property, privacy, and consent. Authors include Franz Kafka, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Saidiya Hartman, M. NourbeSe Philip, Giorgio Agamben, and Walter Benjamin. WENDY LOTTERMAN is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She received her Ph.D. from NYU’s Department of Comparative Literature in 2022. Her book project, Lyric Interference, argues that both American lyric and US liberalism inherit a model of possessive-individualism articulated by John Locke and reinforced by an enduring dependence on identity as a dominant model for understanding social difference, and explores how lyric publics rooted in minor epistemologies might posit an alternative to liberalism. She is also a poet. Her chapbook, Intense Holiday, was published by After Hours LTD in 2016, and her full-length debut, A Reaction to Someone Coming In, will be published by Futurepoem in fall 2022. At NYU, her research has been supported by the Patricia Dunn Lehrman Fellowship, the Dean’s Dissertation Writing Fellowship, and a fellowship at the Center for the Humanities. She has taught previously in the departments of English, French, and Comparative Literature. FYSEM-UA 900.023 Constructing Race in U.S. History Spring 2023 Instructor: Michael Salgarolo Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Identity and Society We study “race” as a political and intellectual project that has developed over the course of five hundred years of North American history. From early modern origins to contemporary iterations, we seek to understand the development of “race” as a product of racism: a set of social, political, and economic inequalities structured by notions of human difference. What are the intellectual origins of “race?” How is “race” used to categorize human bodies and allocate political power? How does racial ideology intersect with notions of gender, sexuality, and citizenship? How are ideas about different racial groups related to each other? Why does racism persist in an age of “color-blindness?” We investigate these questions through analysis of relevant scholarship and primary sources. MICHAEL SALGAROLO is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. in History from NYU in 2022. He is a historian of the modern United States, with a focus on race, migration, empire, and Asian American communities. His current book project examines relational race-making and transimperial histories through a study of Filipino communities in southern Louisiana. His research has been featured in articles in the Huffington Post and on CNN. He has given tours of New York City for organizations like Big Onion and the Black Gotham Experience and is a former stand-up comedian. FYSEM-UA 900.024 Race and Gender in Afro-Latin America Spring 2023 Instructor: Francisco Quinteiro Pires Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Issues in Law, Justice, and Economics Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I lecture (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) Focusing on Brazil, we explore a transnational circulation of ideas around the social construct of  race after the official end of slavery, and the presence of women in the different modes of racial construction of the nation, historically based on a masculinist and nationalistic perspective. According to the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, of the estimated 12.5 million Africans forcibly brought to the Americas, about 5 million arrived in Brazil. The country was the last in the region to abolish slavery and currently has the second largest population of African descendants, exceeded only by Nigeria. While authors from the region have formulated concepts such as miscigenação, transculturación, raza cósmica to address these complex questions, the more one tries to define these social constructs, the more they seem out of grasp. We also consider how the contrasting narratives of two neighboring countries—Brazil as a racial paradise and Argentina as a European, white nation in Latin America—have reinforced each other, and also ask what insights comparisons between racialization in Brazil and the “one-drop rule” in the United States reveal. Materials include novels, films, and theoretical texts by W.E.B. Du Bois, Gilberto Freyre, Machado de Assis, Frantz Fanon, Lélia Gonzalez, Carolina Maria de Jesus, Patricia Hill Collins. FRANCISCO QUINTEIRO PIRES is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures from NYU. His book project, The Violence of Miscegenation: A Critique of the Production of Senses, Spaces, and Identities in Afro-Luso-Brazilian Cinema, investigates the sensorial representation of racialized and gendered subjectivities in contemporary films from Brazil, Portugal, and Lusophone Africa. Also a journalist, his articles have been published in the Luso-Brazilian Review and Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies. FYSEM-UA 900.025 Folk Tale and Fairy Tale Spring 2023 Instructor: Christopher Wood Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Identity and Society In 1812 the German scholars Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first edition of their famous collection of fairy tales.  They aimed to recover the voices of simple people whose way of life was now imperiled by urbanization.  Read aloud by modern parents to their children, these stories became the shared substratum of modern culture:  Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood, and Hansel and Gretel.  Grimm’s tales are the pre-history of Walt Disney.  Such stories communicate, in encoded form, the hard and not-so-innocent realities of the adult world:  conflict within families and between social classes, the ambiguities of sexual desire, the threats of poverty and violence.  Dense and mysterious, laden with symbols, the stories invite endless re-reading.  This course will follow interpretive paths opened up by psychoanalysis, mythography, Marxism, sociology, anthropology, and feminism.   CHRISTOPHER WOOD is a professor in the German Department.  He is also an affiliate of the Department of Comparative Literature and the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU, and teaches regularly in the History of Art Department.  He has been at NYU since 2014, teaching courses on topics such as literary realism, popular and folk culture, Romanticism, and late medieval, Renaissance, and modern art.  He has previously offered a First-Year Seminar on the topic of Impressionist painting.

FYSEM-UA 900.026 Cognitive Film Theory Spring 2023 Instructor: Gianni Barchiesi Monday and Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Cognitive film theory approaches film-watching as a complex, multifaceted experience to be  studied by combining traditional paradigms from cinema studies with works and theories from cognitive psychology, perception studies, emotion studies, analytic philosophy, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscientific research. We explore selected works and trends in cognitive filmtheory to understand our relationship with cinema and moving images, and we map the possibilities and limitations offered by blending together research and knowledge from the humanities with tools and views from the so-called hard sciences. GIANNI BARCHIESI is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from NYU, and has taught both here and at CUNY Brooklyn College. His research addresses film theory through perception studies, detailing the applications and vantages offered by the actionist account of perception for the understanding of our experiences of moving images, and for an assessment of how we routinely and standardly differentiate among the media that embed such images. FYSEM-UA 900.027 The Edible World: Studying Food in the Humanities Spring 2023 Instructor: Julia Cheng Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.)  We study food and its contexts through a number of disciplines in the humanities, defamiliarizing and historicizing what is often an unquestioned aspect of everyday life. Taking critical approaches to our social and cultural realities, we examine food as more than a form of survival and nourishment, the ways it is embedded in political and economic systems, and serves as an index of our histories, geographies, values, and social statuses, as well as our national culture and global positionings. Beginning with scenes of Biblical feasting and Greek mythology, we note a historical relationship between food, meals, and philosophy. From sugar plantations to meatpacking plants to supermarkets, we examine food as a means of studying material history, tracking the expansion of empires and forces of globalization. We also focus on the symbolic and metaphoric functions of food associated with images of cooking, eating, and feasting in literary works. Readings are supplemented by films, documentaries, and visual art to help us to frame our discussion while expanding it toward contemporary food issues, such as sustainability, food security, and hunger.

JULIA CHENG is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. in English from NYU. A modernist by training, she studies cuisine, consumption, and commodities across literary fields, with an eye towards their associated body politics. She is particularly interested in connections between literature and the senses, as well as the politics of material and readerly consumption, and is at work on a book manuscript examining the entanglements between food and aesthetics in modernity. FYSEM-UA 900.028 (Re)Imagining Home in a World in Transit Spring 2023 Instructor: Andrei Guruianu Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Identity and Society In his 1997 essay “Nowhere Man”, Pico Iyer writes of what he calls global souls, or perpetual “transit loungers”: “We pass through countries as through revolving doors, resident aliens of the world, impermanent residents of nowhere. Nothing is strange to us, and nowhere is foreign. We are visitors even in our own homes.” Today we travel more than ever before, visiting places both new and familiar; we spend more time in airports and hotels, in our cars, buses or trains commuting to and from work than at any time in history. We seem always to be on the move, always “in between.” At the same time, Iyer’s end-of-20th-century romantic ideal of a rootless existence is in tension with the reality of a world experiencing record numbers of people moving between countries, testing borders, displaced by conflict, famine, and climate change. In this course we will discuss what it means, in the face of increased movement on a local and global scale, to reimagine ideas of home and place, belonging and transience. What are the impacts on culture and community, language, family, and our sense of self?  Weekly readings and discussions will consist of essays, articles, memoir, and film. Students should expect to read the equivalent of one book per week, write weekly reading response papers, and present on weekly topics. Major assignments will include a personal essay, a multi-source research-based essay, and a multimodal group project.  ANDREI GURUIANU is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program at NYU where he teaches Writing the Essay and Advanced College Essay. His critical and creative works explore such topics as memory and forgetting and the ability of place to shape personal and collective histories. His memoir, Metal and Plum (Mayapple Press, 2010), traces the history of his family’s immigration from Romanian to the United States in the early 90s. The book grapples with the trauma of dislocation and looks closely at the search for belonging and visibility through the lens of a third-culture kid. His latest book project, the collection of essays The Afterlife of Discarded Objects: Memory and Forgetting in a Culture of Waste (Parlor Press, Visual Rhetoric Series, 2019) is an attempt to explain and ultimately redeem our fascination with discarded material objects as a means to encapsulate and shape the socio-cultural imagination. FYSEM-UA 900.029 Mindful/Full Mind: How Our Consumption is Consuming Our Ability to be Present Spring 2023 Instructor: Megan Murtha Thursday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m.  Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Theme:  Health and Society Modern life is filled with distractions and habits that keep us from knowing and enjoying ourselves in the present moment. In this course, we will explore what being present really even means. From there, we will observe how being present can reveal the social and cultural forces at work against our ability to do so and we will notice what challenges and limitations result from being, or at least attempting to be, mindfully present. Students will be introduced to mindfulness practices—from its ancient origins to contemporary interpretations—through guided practice in the classroom and by visiting mindful movement centers in the city. Our reflective, observational work will be considered through the lenses of texts that bring our attention to the nature of contemporary technological distractions; the psychological and cultural habits of consumption that work to keep us from being in the present moment; ancient mindfulness practices; and neuroscience studies that offer insight into the physical effects practicing mindfulness has on the brain. Through reading and experiential learning, students will identify a personal challenge to their practice that they will work to explore and understand more deeply through meditation and research. MEGAN MURTHA (Clinical Associate Professor, Expository Writing Program) is a theater maker (playwright, director, composer, curator, performer) whose work has been performed at various NYC venues including The Tank, Dixon Place, The Bushwick Starr, and inside a 1999 Cadillac DeVille. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow, a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, a Vermont Studio Center Fellow, and a former Artist-in-Residence at Target Margin Theater. She has been a Visiting Artist at Bucknell University, St. Mary's College of Maryland, and St. Joseph’s College, where she led object theatre workshops, a medium she has been working in since 2014.  FYSEM-UA 900.030 The Aesthetics of Film: Audiovisual Thinking in the Movies and Visual Arts Spring 2023 Instructor: Doug Dibbern Monday and Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts This class will investigate how filmmakers articulate ideas and express emotions through audiovisual means differently than artists and intellectuals do in writing and other visual media. We will screen a movie together every week, and in class, we’ll primarily focus on the close analysis of film, studying the intellectual and expressive potential of cinematic techniques like editing, camera movement, narrative structure, set design, music, and sound effects, just to name a few. Our readings will come mostly from the field of cinema studies; we’ll study the writings of figures like the silent film directors Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, academic theorists of film style like David Bordwell, and scholars of third world cinema like the Ethiopian intellectual Teshome Gabriel. At the same time, in order to highlight the essential qualities of film as an art form, we’ll also pursue a secondary goal by contrasting movies with other visual media. Thus, in addition to movies, we’ll also study different modes of visual thinking by examining Cubist and Abstract Expressionist painters, the work of collage artists like Hanna Höch and Romare Bearden, and comic book artists like Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Our weekly screenings will cover a wide variety of national cinemas, from the silent cinema to the present day, in order grasp the breadth and depth of the medium, focusing on films by directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, and Yasujiro Ozu, among others DOUG DIBBERN’s second book, Cinema’s Doppelgängers, a work of speculative fiction in the guise of a scholarly history of film, was published in 2021. His first book, Hollywood Riots: Violent Crowds and Progressive Politics in American Film, won the 2016 Peter Rollins Prize. He’s also published scholarly essays on classical Hollywood filmmakers, film criticism for The Notebook at Mubi.com, and literary essays for journals like Chicago Quarterly Review and Hotel Amerika. He has a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University and currently teaches essay writing at the Tisch School of the Arts. FYSEM-UA 900.031 Historical Fictions Spring 2023 Instructor: Abigail Joseph Friday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Genres of Writing In this seminar we will look at the representation of history in literature, as well as in other genres like film, theater, and opera. When we read works of historical fiction, we are sometimes looking at painstakingly researched, accurate depictions of past events; sometimes, on the other hand, we are looking at imaginative reconstructions that may have little relationship to what "really" happened. Both approaches, though, can tell us a lot not only about the past itself, but about our relationship to it: how we learn about it; how we feel about it; what fantasies or fears we project onto it; what conflicts exist between different ways of understanding and narrating it. We will consider what the choices of authors and artists tell us not only about the historical periods in which they set their works, but about the concerns of their own times -- and about the relationship between past and present. We will pay particular attention to fictional accounts which try to excavate or imagine the experiences of people who have often been marginalized within history itself, including women, children, enslaved people, and LGTBQ people. In addition to practicing literary analysis, students will have the opportunity to try writing historical fiction of their own.  ABIGAIL JOSEPH is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program. She is the author of Exquisite Materials: Episodes in the Queer History of Victorian Style (Univ of Delaware, 2019), as well as a number of articles on 19th-century literature and fashion history. She is working on a historical novel about the designer Charles Robert Ashbee. FYSEM-UA 900.032 The Drama of New York  Spring 2023 Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Instructor: Ben Gassman Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) Featuring a diverse array of plays set and presented in New York City from across the 20th century and into these first decades of the 21st, this seminar will wrestle with the idealized notion of New York as the world’s foremost melting pot. We will read these plays alongside news and historical accounts of the momentous times represented, from First World War xenophobic violence in lower Manhattan to the disparate effects of the early AIDS crisis on different neighborhoods and populations, right up through the range of fight, freeze, and flee responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in contemporary, fast-gentrifying Bushwick, Brooklyn. Focusing on the relations between voice and place, and between structure, story, and city, we will investigate what the dramatic form can show us about the distribution of power and possibility in the ever-evolving city. We will also take a few short tours of the neighborhoods featured in the plays we read and attend a live production together.  BEN GASSMAN is a playwright whose work often dwells in, and on, outer borough New York City, juggling idioms, accents, and vernaculars to explore small interpersonal rifts resonant with larger societal conflicts, but also to illuminate unexpected bridges. His plays celebrate hybrid identities and revel in the impolite cosmopolitanism, and living, layered histories of the diverse and dynamic neighborhoods beyond the center. His NYC plays include Botte Di Ferro (2021), Independent Study (2018), 40s & Chestnuts (2017), The Downtown Loop (2013), and A Queens Style Hobo Story (2006). At NYU, Ben is a Clinical Associate Professor in Expository Writing and a Faculty Affiliate for Goddard Hall, who also regularly teaches in the Dramatic Literature division of the English Department. A lifelong Queens resident and NYC theatergoer, he is also a licensed and practicing New York City tour guide with a focus on intimate neighborhood walking tours in Queens and Brooklyn.   FYSEM-UA 900.033 Archives and Adaptations: The 1700s on the Screen Spring 2023 Instructor: Bridget McFarland Monday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts 2020 may also be remembered for the incomparable popularity of Bridgerton, a lavish romance that, through inclusive casting and spectacle, awakened new passion for the long eighteenth century. As fascinating as it was, Bridgerton is hardly the only show to excite interest in the art, literature, and history of the period. During the past thirty years, innovative filmmakers have adapted narratives set in the eighteenth century, demonstrating how the distant past continues to speak to our present realities.  To examine how the eighteenth century resonates in our present, the course pairs movies made in the last thirty years with art and literature made in the eighteenth century. The pairings will include Jane Campion’s Bright Star and the writing of John Keats, Amma Asante’s Belle and the history of the Zong massacre, Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and printed ephemera about Marie Antoinette, Amy Heckerling’s Clueless and Jane Austen’s novel Emma.  We’ll ask how these films interpret the past and what their interpretations tell us about the past as well as the present. In addition to analyzing the style, narratives, and visual imagery of the films, we’ll read, view, and interpret the art, literature, and history adapted by the films. Some of these texts will be discovered through our exploration of New York City’s archives, including Bobst’s Fales library, and the digital archives that make these texts more easily accessible.Through our adventures in the archives, we’ll ask how the preservation of these materials enhances our understanding of the films. How does our work with archival materials expand what we learned? Students can expect to visit a library and museum as part of the course.  BRIDGET MCFARLAND is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Expository Writing Program. Her current research examines pantomime and cultures of performance in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. She has published in academic journals, including Theatre History Studies.

FYSEM-UA 900.035 Researching and Writing the Secret History Spring 2023 Instructor: Tana Wojczuk Monday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Theme: Genres of Writing Radical transformations in the way we think about American history have changed not only how we write but who we write about, and prompt us to ask why these figures were written out of history. Through learning to write a "secret history" that profiles a forgotten (or misunderstood) historical figure you will learn essential research skills, how to think critically about archival silences, and how to shape your  research into a story others will want to hear.  Alongside our own work, we’ll read outstanding examples of world-changing secret histories that forever altered the way we think about ourselves. For example, a profile of Henrietta Lacks, a young black woman living in the 1950s whose cancer cells have been used (without her consent) to study human genetics, radiation, and whose HeLa cell line was instrumental in developing vaccines for polio and Covid-19. Other examples include a young freedom fighter, a queer 19th century actress who became America’s first celebrity, the hidden life of a beloved children's book author, and more.   TANA WOJCZUK  is a LAMBDA Literary Award-shortlisted author and a contributing editor at Guernica Magazine. Her biography, Lady Romeo: The Radical, Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America's First Celebrity (Avid Reader Press) was an Amazon Editor's Pick and one of Get Literary's most anticipated reads of 2020. Her work appears in many publications, including The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, Chicago Review of Books, North American Review, Tin House, The Believer, Vice, and Slate. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia University and is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program at NYU. FYSEM-UA 900.036 Photography and New York Spring 2023 Instructor: Peter Kayafas Tuessday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts Note: Cohort conflicts with CHEM-UA 126 General Chemistry II lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30am-10:45am) New York is one of the most photographed cities in the world. While in our media-drenched lives we may readily associate pictures of NYC with tourist trophies of city attractions, the mutually influential roles of our metropolis on the medium of photography and vice versa have produced an extraordinary and relevant history that is still present on our streets and in our cultural institutions, as well as in the broader social discourse around the subjects of justice, equity, and personal expression. This class will explore aspects of the overlapping histories of New York City and photography. Students will gain insights into how the medium changed the city and how the city changed the medium, with an emphasis on access to local institutions and historic resources. Lectures, readings, guest visits, and field trips will introduce students to the contemporary vitality and relevance of the layers of history that make up the very soul of this most dynamic place. In addition, students will actively engage with these resources as a way of building understanding and conviction around their place in New York City. PETER KAYAFAS is a celebrated photographer, publisher, and teacher who lives in New York City where he is Director of the Eakins Press Foundation. His photographs have been widely exhibited and are in the collections of Museum of Modern Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; New York Public Library; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago, among others. He has lectured on art and photography nationally, and taught photography at Pratt Institute for twenty years. There are five monographs of his work in print, including the recently published Coney Island Waterdance . He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. FYSEM-UA 900.037 Human Landscapes of the Ancient Aegean Spring 2023 Instructor: Dominic Pollard Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Past Cultures & Societies Humans everywhere shape – and are shaped by – their landscapes. This course will provide a wide-ranging introduction to the societies of the Bronze and Iron Age Aegean, and the ways archaeologists have approached the study of their physical, economic, and religious worlds. At the heart of this course will be the fundamental relationships between the communities in question and the landscapes they inhabited – the seas, the coasts, the lowlands, and the mountains. From ancient history to archaeobotany, we will consider the development of different theories and methodologies for studying such landscapes, and examine how archaeologists today approach questions of subsistence, mobility, and territoriality in the past. Equipped with this understanding, we will tackle the complex question of how the human landscapes of the Aegean evolved from the palace societies of the Bronze Age, through a period of collapse and fragmentation, to the emergence of the city-states of the Classical era. DOMINIC POLLARD is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. He completed his PhD at University College London, examining the social landscapes of Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Crete. His current project at NYU is a comparative study of the islands of Crete, Cyprus and Sardinia across this same chronological span. His work is particularly concerned with the relationships between human societies and the landscapes they inhabit, as well as the forms of mobility and interaction which connect communities across different regions. He has conducted fieldwork in England, Italy and Greece.   FYSEM-UA 900.040 The Dynamic Teacher: Unconventional Educators in American Culture Spring 2023 Instructor: Jackie Reitzes Monday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Fall cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 71 Introductory Experimental Physics I lecture (Monday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.) From Miss Jean Brodie to John Keating, we are fascinated by teachers who break the rules and the students who are activated by them. In reading novels, stories, and plays as well as watching films and TV episodes with big-personality teachers, we’ll ask ourselves the ways in which our education can shift shapes in unexpected ways-- how the influence of a powerful teacher can both create and erode our sense of self, redefine knowledge beyond the typical classroom, and question the limits of how radically we want our education to challenge the core of who we are. Through reading, writing, reflecting, posting, discussing, questioning, and researching, we’ll examine the complicated power dynamics that occur in the space between students and teachers. By investigating the methods of instruction and the implications of what gets passed down, we’ll chart the evolution that transpires as students come to define knowledge for themselves.  JACKIE REITZES is a Senior Language Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program. Her short fiction has been published in Epoch, The Nashville Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and The Madison Review. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in ESPN: The Magazine, The Huffington Post, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and elsewhere. She was a 2012 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, and she holds an MFA from Cornell University and a BA from the University of Michigan. She is currently at work on a short story collection.  FYSEM-UA 900.041 Listening and Composing With Bob Dylan Spring 2023 Instructor: El Glasberg Tuesday and Thursday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts In this class we will be listening to the music of Bob Dylan as it connects us to history, sound, musical and cultural traditions, to each other, and to ourselves, to the earth, and to the spiritual realm. Maybe you want to find out about his legend. What was all that 2016 Nobel Prize fuss about? What happened at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965? Did he really find Jesus? Is he a great author or a greater plagiarist? There’s so much material by Dylan himself: over 50 albums, thousands of songs, interviews, music videos, a memoir, liner notes, visual art, radio shows, and nearly 3,000 evenings (and counting) of the Never Ending Tour begun in 1989. We’ll familiarize ourselves with key albums and eras in his long career, of course. Yet the intent of this course is neither to introduce nor to exhaust Dylan as a topic (no one is a novice, nor will we become so-called experts). Rather, we’ll take up his most pointed question, aimed directly at his audience: “How does it feel?”: To be a member of a nation? To consume or produce popular music? To be (forever) young? Disenfranchised? A lover or a beloved?  As we listen and watch performances, films, documentaries, and interviews we will discuss questions of American musical genres and of authenticity: personal, cultural, and in performance. We will encounter American culture at its elemental oral roots and through routes across the Atlantic/Caribbean extending across the entire world. If this course swirls around Dylan, it is not to deify him. Rather, it is to place Dylan in a world that he has had such a large part in creating. That world, ultimately, is the one we are all in the midst of creating.  EL GLASBERG pecializes in places without people and people without place, teaching and writing on US culture in transit at American University in Beirut, Princeton University, Duke University, and California State University, Los Angeles before coming to NYU’s Expository Writing Program in 2011. Glasberg’s book, Antarctica As Cultural Critique: The Gendered Politics of Scientific Exploration and Climate Change was published in 2012 by Palgrave. Glasberg’s writing has appeared in The Journal of Popular Music Studies, Journal of Historical Geography and Women’s Studies Quarterly on Survival. FYSEM-UA 900.042 Immigration and the American Experience Spring 2023 Instructor: Robert S Huddleston Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues Note: Fall cohort conflicts with BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I lecture (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) Immigration has been one of the defining features of American society since its origins. It remains today one of the most hotly contested topics of cultural and political debate. Yet much about the immigrant experience—and the social, cultural, and economic forces that shape it—have remained outside the confines of that debate and the stereotypes informing it. Immigration touches on the things we cherish most, those which both unite and divide us: identity, ethnicity, memory, trauma, and belonging. In this seminar we will read and discuss a selection of works from among the wide-ranging, diverse, and rich literature of immigrant experience of the past few decades, including novels, essays, and memoirs by authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Richard Rodriguez, Cathy Park Hong, Colm Tóibín, Valeria Luiselli, Francesco Pacifico, and Teju Cole. These works center on key themes of family loyalty, identity, migration, and the struggle for social acceptance. ROBERT HUDDLESTON is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Expository Writing Program. He holds both a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Chicago and an MFA in creative writing from NYU. His writing has been featured in numerous journals including American Literary Review, Boston Review, Chicago Review, Colorado Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Narrative Magazine. He has previously taught the First-Year Seminars "Reading Jane Austen" and "The Pursuit of Happiness." FYSEM-UA 900.043 New York Intellectuals, Past and Present Spring 2023 Instructor: Eric Banks Monday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues

Note: Fall cohort conflicts with BIOL-UA 11 Principles of Biology I lecture (Monday/Wednesday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) The legacy of the New York Intellectuals, the self-styled coterie of thinkers whose writings on politics and art helped define the culture and style of mid-twentieth-century critical engagement in the city and beyond, has long been contested but has left an indelible mark on public culture since the group’s heyday. In this seminar, we will examine the particular contributions made by core and fringe members of the group and the specific role that New York City and its history played in its formation. How did their writings help to define the parameters of liberal and leftist thought in the middle decades of the century and to make New York central to artistic modernism? What was their impact on New York as a cultural center for publishing and intellectual ambition at the time and after? These questions and others will also lead us to examine the context of public intellectual culture in the city pre-existing and informing the New York Intellectuals’ involvement in public life as well as a host of public thinkers, from Susan Sontag to James Baldwin, who reimagined the role of the public intellectual in their wake and partly in response to their shortcomings. Finally, we will ask what remains of the notion of the public intellectual the group helped to author and how relevant it continues to be to critical practice and engagement in contemporary life. ERIC BANKS is director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at the NYPL. A former senior editor of Artforum, Banks was editor in chief of Bookforum from 2003–2008. From 2011 to 2013, he served as president of the National Book Critics Circle and was a two-term member of the NBCC board of directors. Banks’s writing has appeared in numerous national publications, including Bookforum, the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Aperture, Town and Country, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He has contributed essays to monographs on a number of artists, including Franz West, Christopher Wool, and Grant Wood. Additionally, he has edited numerous catalogs and collections of artists writings and is the consulting editor of the ongoing Robert Rauschenberg Catalogue Raisonné.

FYSEM-UA 823 How to Build a Big Fat Fluffy Brain Spring 2023 Instructor: Wendy Suzuki Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Theme: Molecules of Materials and Living Systems

Note: Fall cohort conflicts with Opportunity Programs Freshman Colloquium (Monday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.) The human brain is the most complex structure known to humankind. In this class we will discuss and implement together science-based approaches shown to maximize both the physiological and psychological strength of our brain.  We will be doing a series of experiments on ourselves, collecting data and observations with the goal of developing a strong individualized program to maximize your brain function during this critical first year at NYU.   WENDY SUZUKI is Dean of the College of Arts and Science, and a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science. She received her undergraduate degree in physiology and human anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from U.C. San Diego. Her major research interest is brain plasticity, and she is best known for her extensive work studying areas in the brain critical for our ability to form and retain new long-term memories. More recently her work has focused on understanding how aerobic exercise can be used to improve learning, memory and higher cognitive abilities in humans. Wendy is passionate about teaching, about exercise, and about supporting and mentoring up and coming scientists. FYSEM-UA 900.046 Counterculture in Italy, 1960s-1970s Spring 2023 Instructor: Matthew Zundel Monday, 8:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 3:30-4:45 p.m. Theme: Contemporary Social Issues From the emergence of new avant-garde activity in the wake of World War II, the student and worker protests up to and after 1968, to the emergence of feminist, trans and queer politics throughout the 1970s, Italy had a thriving counterculture in the latter half of the 20th century. Yet, as the term counterculture was used with increased frequency in that period, its meaning came to be questioned, as Italian intellectual Umberto Eco asked: “Does counterculture exist?” We address Eco’s question by analyzing the variety of cultural materials that came to be described as counterculture: literature, photography, cinema, performance, magazines, and manifestos, putting these materials in conversation with the historical and political concerns including the student and worker movements towards the end of the 1960s, the rise in terrorism from certain groups on the political left as a response to state-sanctioned violence, and the ascent of a new queer and feminist consciousness. While the geographical and temporal focus is we also incorporate a comparative research dimension, thus, providing students with the tools necessary to address question of counterculture and dissent more broadly. MATTHEW ZUNDEL is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Italian Studies from NYU. His research and teaching incorporate 20th century Italian culture, literature, and film, with questions from gender and sexuality, critical theory, queer theory, and aesthetics. His research and translations have appeared in gender/sexuality/italy, AG: About Gender, Soft Power, and Barricade: Journal of Antifascism and Translation. His dissertation, Perverse Dispositions: Sexual Dissidence in 1970s Italy, examines the formal dimension of performance, social theory, and literary fiction of the radical left in the 1970s, and demonstrates how some figures and collectives integrated perversion as a critical mode of resistance to normative prescriptions of gender and sexuality at a time when Italy was undergoing massive political and social upheaval. He is currently translating Italian queer philosopher Lorenzo Bernini's recent book, Il sessuale politico (The Sexual/Political). FYSEM-UA 900.047 Utopia: From Thomas More to Octavia Butler Spring 2023 Instructor: Tanya Schmidt Tuesday, 8:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.)  “Utopia” is an invented word, drawing on Greek roots, that puns on the tension between its two possible meanings of “no place” and “good place.” Through an imaginary world, a utopia claims to communicate significant truths about the real world. We examine how writers from antiquity (Plato, the Bible), the Renaissance (More, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cavendish, Milton), and in the 20th century (Le Guin, Jemisin, Butler) have imagined and illustrated utopias. As educational systems are often central to a utopian vision, we also consider the ways college is like and unlike a utopia. TANYA SCHMIDT is a College Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. She earned her Ph.D. in English from NYU, with a dissertation on Edmund Spenser and Margaret Cavendish. She has held fellowships at NYU’s Global Research Institute in Florence and at the Remarque Institute, and her scholarship has been supported by the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, and the Shakespeare Association of America, among others. Her work has appeared in Persuasions, and she has been named a recipient of the NYU College of Arts and Science’s Outstanding Teaching Award. FYSEM-UA 900.048 Utopia and the City Spring 2023 Instructor: Isaac Hand Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 12:30-1:45 p.m. Theme: The City: Longstanding Challenges and Dynamic Change Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.)  Philosophers and reformers have been drawn to the promise of the city as a vector for totalizing social, economic, and political change. Far from being pure fantasy, this corpus of utopian urbanism has often served as the foundation for wide-ranging social policy, whether in the form of public housing schemes (such as the Pruitt-Igoe Housing complex in St. Louis) or globalizing “New Towns” or “Garden Cities.” Through an interdisciplinary approach to the historical, aesthetic, and geographical breadth of utopian urban thought, we study the persistence of cities as media for top-down or bottom-up social re-imagining. Students become acquainted with utopian underpinnings embedded in the history of city planning and contemporary urban social movements and take field trips into their built environment to analyze the ways that urban infrastructure and planning continue to shape our shared social experience. ISAAC HAND is a Core Curriculum Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow. He earned his Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from NYU. Specializing in the intellectual history of municipalities and urbanism in the late Ottoman Empire and Early Turkish Republic, his research shows how, during a time period of single-party rule and the suppression of political opposition at a national level, Ottoman and Turkish cities were hotbeds of debate, dissent, and political imagination. His article “‘If the Municipality Cannot Do it!’ Negotiating the Boundary between State and Society in early Republican Turkish Cities” was recently published in the Journal of Urban History. FYSEM-UA 900.050 Medieval Short Stories Spring 2023 Instructor: Sarah Pearce Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Theme: Literature through the Ages Note: Cohort conflicts with fall PHYS-UA 91 Physics I lecture (Tuesday/Thursday, 12:30-1:45 p.m.)  This seminar is all about short stories, or “frametales,” from medieval Spain. We will read about wizards, matchmakers, people telling stories about animals, animals telling stories about people, racy love affairs, good kings, bad kings, knights in shining armor, women who can outsmart everyone around them, and miracles that help literary characters question or affirm their faith. Some of these stories have even been adapted into modern versions by well-known writers such as Salman Rushdie, Jorge Luis Borges, and Yasmine Seale; we will also explore some of these modern retellings, as well, and ask questions about what the Middle Ages can offer to modern readers. We will address big themes in the texts while also paying close attention to the language in which they are written and spend time talking about the evolution of the Spanish language and the various regional dialects that were used to write medieval stories. We will start off the semester reading stories that have been adapted from medieval Spanish into modern Spanish, but by the end of the semester, students will develop skills and confidence in reading older and other forms of the language. Students will also have the opportunity to practice writing regularly in a variety of different forms related to the stories we will read.

SARAH PEARCE is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, where her teaching and research focus on the intellectual history and literature of Jews, Christians and Muslims in medieval Spain. Her first book,  The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah ibn Tibbon’s Ethical Will , examines the ways in which Jewish intellectuals in thirteenth century Spain and France understood Arabic to be a language of cultural prestige. She is the recipient of the Michael Camille Memorial Essay Prize (2014) and the John K. Walsh article prize awarded by the MLA Forum on Medieval Iberia and La Corónica (2015). FYSEM-UA 900.052 The Archaeology of Food and Foodways in the Ancient World Spring 2023 Instructor: Lorenzo Castellano Friday, 4:55 p.m.-7:25 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Food represents an omnipresent central aspect of human life and experience, being ultimately a requisite for life itself. Nevertheless, food is also more than diet and subsistence: social relationships are built and maintained through foodways – i.e., through eating habits and culinary practices. In these terms, food and foodways intersect social phenomena, such as gender, ethnicity, status, and religious beliefs. This course provides a multidisciplinary and comparative discussion of food and foodways in the Ancient World. The course is organized in three main sections: (i) we will discuss the main theoretical approaches to the study of food and foodways, as well as the methods that we can deploy in order to access the evidence of food and food consumption in the archaeological record; (ii) having introduced the main anthropological and archaeological approaches to ancient food studies, in the second section of the course we will analyze the main topics currently central in the field – e.g., subsistence and diet, feasting, food security, power and politics, race and ethnicity, and gender. Each topic will be discussed by means of case studies originating from different regions and periods; (iii) the last section of the course is a regional survey of food and foodways. In three different classes we will concentrate respectively on food and cooking traditions in the prehistoric and historic periods in Eastern Asia, the Mediterranean Basin, and Central America.

LORENZO CASTELLANO is a Postdoctoral Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology and at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. He completed his PhD at NYU, studying the sociocultural history of agriculture in protohistoric and historic Anatolia. Prof. Castellano is an environmental archaeologist, specializing in the study of plant remains from archaeological sites. He has conducted fieldwork in Italy, Egypt, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.

FYSEM-UA 900.054 Computer Music: History, Theory, and Practice Spring 2023 Instructor: Elizabeth Hoffman Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Theme: Visual and Performing Arts

Electronic music is so omnipresent that it is easy to overlook the complexity of the genre, its intricate history, and its particular impact on our artistic and larger sonic environments. Its technical features inter-relate with other diverse fields including computer science, electrical engineering, cognition, and architectural acoustics; and its history is interwoven with changes in music transmission and access; recording technologies; vocal transmission, encoding, and simulation; and sound iconography. This course will survey fixed media music, including early electronic analog instruments; but we will focus on the digital transformation since the 1960s. How do computers make sound and music? What are the paradigmatic ways of approaching DAW design? Coding design for music? Use of FFT analysis? Use of Data? And, finally, how do computer music techniques enable some of the most intriguing mixing and mastering in a wide range of musical styles today? How does computer music participate in what Baudrillard has called simulacra, and a blurring of realistic and simulated behaviors of sound? ELIZABETH HOFFMAN is a composer of acoustic, electroacoustic, and computer music. She teaches composition, music theory, and computer music in the School of Arts and Science at NYU. Recognition for her electroacoustic music has come from the Bourges, Prix Ars, Pierre Schaeffer, and Sonic Circuits competitions; awards from the MacDowell Foundation, the NEA, and the Jerome Foundation.  FYSEM-UA 900.064 Climate Change and its Consequences: The Scientific Basis Spring 2023 Instructor: David Holland Tuesday, 8:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

This seminar introduces undergraduates to the concepts and methods of the science of climate change.  It covers a broad range of topics that students have likely encountered in the media, starting with the greenhouse effect and looking into its impact on phenomenon such as disappearing ice to rising sea levels to hurricanes to fires and droughts and more.   The seminar will delve into each of these consequences of a warming world using basic equations of physics which are explored through statistical and mathematical solution techniques.  Hands-on laboratory and computational experiments will supplement and reinforce the theoretical foundations of the various aspects of climate science. DAVID MICHAEL HOLLAND is a Professor of Mathematics and Environmental Science at New York University (NYU). His research focuses on using mathematics to understand mechanisms by which significant sea-level change could arise from the great ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica, over the coming decades in an ever warming world.  He applies advanced applied mathematical techniques to data collected in remote environments.  A veteran of more than a decade of Greenland and Antarctic field expeditions, Holland continues to spend summer seasons collecting vital information about the state of the oceans and glaciers in those regions.   EXPOS-UA 1  Writing the Essay: Science and Society

Note: Students who take WTE: Science and Society must still take another course to fulfill the First-Year Seminar requirement, either during their first year or later in your CAS career. Reach out to your advisor for more information. Note: if you were placed into EXPOS-UA 3 International Writing Workshop: Introduction, or EXPOS-UA 4 International Writing Workshop I, you will not be able to enroll in this course. Writing the Essay: Science and Society is the foundational writing course, which provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative thinking, and clear writing. The course stresses exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning.  Our section of Writing the Essay will focus on the role of science in the contemporary world. We will learn to read, think, and write critically as we investigate how science, medicine, and technology are used to evaluate, characterize, and politicize elements of human behavior and society—and how social institutions challenge and complicate our behavioral and social norms. We question common conceptions of science and society as separate spheres, as well as examining the many paradoxes therein: how science can be simultaneously progressive and destructive, connecting and isolating, liberating and oppressive. As we progress, you will find that writing is not only a method to communicate ideas but also a process that generates new ones. The ultimate goal: for you to write and communicate confidently, to rely on writing as one of the best tools for developing fresh perspectives and appreciating subtle complexities, and to develop your own unique and more complex understanding of science, medicine, and technology.  EXPOS-UA 1.001  Spring 2023 Monday and Wednesday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. EXPOS.UA 1.002 Spring 2023 Monday and Wednesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Friday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m.

EXPOS.UA 1.003 Spring 2023 Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00 p.m-3:15 p.m. EXPOS.UA 1.004 Spring 2023 Tuesday and Thursday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. EXPOS.UA 1.005  Spring 2023 Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. EXPOS.UA 1.006 Spring 2023 Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m. EXPOS.UA 1.007  Spring 2023 Tuesday and Thursday, 8:00 a.m.-9:15 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m. EXPOS.UA 1.008 Spring 2023 Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m. Required cohort meeting: Tuesday, 4:55 p.m.-6:10 p.m.