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NYU LA’s Program Director Nina Sadowsky Launches New Book

Posted on , modified on by Chelsea Robles
 

“The book was fueled by my rage about a post-truth society, in which facts are no longer facts, science is under attack, and behaving with honesty and integrity seems downright quaint,” said Nina Sadowsky — author, film producer, and program director of NYU Los Angeles — about the inspiration for her latest book, Convince Me. 

Examining a man’s death, Convince Me reveals the deeply-held secrets that are intrinsic to the psychosis of an unrepentant pathological liar. An author of psychological thrillers, Sadowsky noted that she uses writing to process her own “fears and furies about the world.” It was the current political context that sparked her interest in exploring “what makes a sociopath in the age of untruth?”

She explained that once she began pondering the construction of sociopathy and proliferation of untruth, “the plot for the book came into my head like an arrow, right down to the final twist!  Trust me, this is unusual; my normal process involves plodding along like a mule, as I outline, revise, and revise yet again and again. But with Convince Me, I felt clear with purpose and feverish with the need to write. And I did so, in explosive bursts whenever I could scratch out even a few minutes. It felt like I pulled that arrow right out of my forehead and into my computer one inch at a time. I realized that through the writing I was exorcising my rage.”

Preparing to write Convince Me involved extensive research. Sadowsky explained that “research is always one of the best parts of writing a book, because I get to take a deep dive into new arenas.” To develop the background knowledge for particular aspects of the storyline, Sadowsky examined “Virtual Reality technologies and their implications for both gaming and medicine, as that tech is important to the plot.” Creating the main character’s psychological profile required extensive study of a range of mental illnesses. Probing the symptoms and outward expressions of psychological disturbances enabled her to flesh out the “narcissistic pathological liar whose funeral opens the book. Which is not a spoiler! As soon as I created the character of Justin Childs I knew I wanted to kill him before the story began so he would be unable to deflect or defend himself as the truth about him is exposed.”

Launching Convince Me during a pandemic required Sadowsky to adapt the way she would typically publicize a new book. “Normally a book launch includes talks at bookstores (I launched The Empty Bed at the NYU bookstore in New York last February) and speaking at libraries or conferences.” While the live events she had planned in connection with Convince Me were cancelled due to COVID-19, she worked with her publisher to quickly pivot to online platforms. 

“I’m doing virtual events hosted out of New York, Rhode Island, San Diego and Indiannapolis. I’m appearing on podcasts and writing articles for appropriate publications (all of which is the norm, but all of which also takes on special significance now). When the Killer Nashville conference was cancelled I recorded a special video for Nashville’s Parnassus Books, the city’s preeminent Indie bookstore. Social media has played a big role in all book sales since it came on the scene and that is truer than ever now. Book people are fierce! They love books and they love to promote them on social channels; the blogger community is key. The release of a book is much like everything else these days; we have our assumptions about how things work upended and then we try to be flexible and adapt.”

As an educator, Sadowsky said that she hopes her work will spark discussion. “I recognize that there is often not one absolute truth in any situation as perspective is always a factor, but there is absolute value in honesty, integrity, and respect for facts.”  

Find Convince Me here. And learn more by reading the Book Club Kit which includes questions that readers may ask themselves about their own relationship to lying and liars (as well as recipes, cocktails, and Sadowsky’s Top Ten Songs about Liars and Lying Spotify Playlist). 

 
 
 
 
 

Adapting the African City

Posted on , modified on by Chelsea Robles
 

“What students are doing now ⁠— asking the subjects themselves to take part in creating a documentary ⁠— is their contribution to how the genre has been evolving since its inception in the early 1920s,” explains filmmaker Yahaya Alpha Suberu, a lecturer at NYU Accra. Instead of having films take the stance of a passive observer, “documentaries are now engaging the subjects, they are filming their own voices, and the collaborative process has changed between subject and documenter,” says Suberu.

In “Documenting the African City,” a course that has been offered at NYU Accra since its establishment 15 years ago, students learn how to tell stories using the language of film. The class is open to all students, regardless of their discipline — a background in film is not required — and helps students discover more about the city during the process of shooting short pieces, recording sound, and editing their work. “The topics of their documentaries,” said Suberu, “are as varied as NYU’s diversity. Music, religion, race, politics, transportation, education, gender, sexuality, streetism, commerce, health, dance, tradition, the list goes on and on.” 

“Usually by mid-semester students have all the basic skills for pre-production, production, and post-production to finish five-minute individual or group projects. By the end of the semester they would have honed their skills and produced a longer documentary which is about ten minutes in duration.” The longer documentaries are screened outdoors in Accra to an audience from NYU Accra and the surrounding community.

My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. Yahaya Alpha Suberu

However, this spring presented a set of unique challenges, as NYU Accra, like the rest of NYU’s campuses and academic centers, was forced to suspend in-person operations due to the COVID-19 virus, and the cohort found themselves in a range of unexpected locations. “Some were in quarantine in their home countries, some at a place that was a ‘stopover’ or a place that was not home,” said Suberu. In response, the entire structure of the course had to be reshaped and the course’s focal point on Accra also had to adapt given that most of the cohort was no longer in Africa.

How exactly did Suberu adapt his instruction for a course that is typically very hands on, particularly in the locational aspect of the documentaries and the use of NYU Accra’s on-site film equipment and editing suite? And how did he support the continuity of a course that requires a high level of focused creativity in the midst of the chaos and stress? 

As he adapted how classes were conducted, spent time identifying short-format films that addressed the needs of the syllabus, and worked with students to expand their story themes beyond the city limits of Accra, Suberu found himself spending more time identifying resources and engaging with students online than in-person. “Even though class is over, I’m still doing research and communicating by email — when you end class, you are still on the screen, spending more time there than one usually would in more familiar circumstances. And along with the move from campus to computer, there has been a shift in how we think about time in terms of teaching and student engagement.”

“My students have adapted in their learning process as much as I have in my pedagogy. They have had to quickly learn to shoot and record sound using their smartphones, and they also learned to engage their subjects by making them a part of the documentary process. For instance, one student wanted to interview an individual in Accra, so the subject filmed herself and sent the footage to the student. Another documented the journey of a friend from NYU New York who travelled back home to China, and self-recorded the experience of being in quarantine.” 

Interestingly, the class produced films that have taken a timely look at different angles of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Suberu. “One student’s dad works in virology and he was able to tie his dad’s work into a story that was driven by his interest in biological warfare. Along similar lines, another student investigated how her mom is taking care of herself as a front-line medical worker.” 

The final projects from the course will be screened online on May 15th to a public audience. Open to 300 participants via Zoom, Suberu says “it will be quite fascinating to see how many viewers tune in from all over the world.”

 
 
 
 
 

Caesarea Maritama: Exploring Ancient Coastal Ruins

Posted on , modified on by Chelsea Robles
Caesarea-coastal-scene-3
Ruins of Caesarea

A new program at NYU Tel Aviv will allow students the rare opportunity to explore a focal point of regional and local archaeological attention. Founded by King Herod in the first century BCE on the site of a Phoenician and Greek trade post, the site, Caesarea Maritima, is positioned between Tel Aviv and Haifa (about 35 miles north of Tel Aviv). Situated in what was designated a national park in 2011, the site is comprised of ancient harbor ruins, and the complex has revealed a vast array of material culture manifestations, including architectural elements, ceramics, inscriptions, jewelry, and bones.

The program, which enrolled its inaugural cohort this fall, was developed through a collaboration between  NYU, NYU Tel Aviv, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Tel Aviv University, with funding provided by the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, for the purpose of supporting the study of Caesarea from a broad international scholarly perspective. “The NYUTA Program in Archeology trains students in various theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of the archaeological discipline, using Caesarea as a case study,” said Benjamin Hary, site director of NYU Tel Aviv and professor at the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. “As part of their studies, students in the program take two courses in Archeology: Ancient Israel: History and Archeology and a Seminar in Archeological Methods.” 

Caesarea allows students to study the “geographical, economic and socio-political facets in antiquity, far beyond the scope of the mere material culture manifestations..." Benjamin Hary

The program’s students come from all three of NYU’s degree-granting “portal” campuses, and represent a range of disciplines, said Hary. “One student, from New York, is an anthropology major, but then we have a psychology major from Abu Dhabi, who is especially interested in the Hebrew Bible and in early Christianity.”

Students are able to gain a deep understanding of urban life at Caesarea through examination of physical artifacts and the rich corpus of available research “illuminating numerous aspects of the site and its inhabitants” said Hary. Ultimately, Hary said, Caesarea allows students to study the “geographical, economic and socio-political facets in antiquity, far beyond the scope of the mere material culture manifestations – the site is a laboratory for exercising several archaeological methods.”

Multi-modal in nature, the program,“combines frontal lectures with tours of major sites of the Roman period, including Jerusalem and Beit Shean in Israel and Jarash in Jordan,” explained Dr. Yifat Thareani, the Academic Principal Investigator of the Foundation’s grant and Lecturer with NYU Tel Aviv.  “In the framework of this seminar,” she said, “the students gain insight from local and international experts in aspects of the Roman Period, such as imperial control strategies, urban layout, trade, local elites and minorities, ethnic identity, cultural ecology from NYU, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Tel Aviv University. Meetings with local specialists in ancient pottery, archaeozoology, inscriptions and more, enable an understanding of just how specific pieces of material culture and archaeological remains are processed, reconstructed, and analyzed.”

Students will present their findings from their semester exploring Caesarea at two international conferences. Thareani said “one will be held in Caesarea in 2020 and be open to the Israeli public and international academics from Europe and the United States, as well as locally renowned academics. The other will be held in New York in 2021, most likely in the form of workshops and public lectures.”