NYU SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES CENTER FOR PUBLISHING & APPLIED LIBERAL ARTS CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAMS (PALA/CE)

Continuing Education Programs in Publishing, the Humanities, Arts, Producing, Design, Writing, and Translation.

Anne Maguire

Journaling and the Value of Writing Our Way Through a Tumultuous 2020

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“I discovered what all writers know: most of the time you write not to set down what you think, but to figure out what you have to say.”

Janice Nimura, biographer and historian

 

In this short video, “The value of writing our way through a tumultuous 2020,” Nimura shares her perspective on the value of journaling.

Have you ever wanted to try journaling or establish a consistent journaling practice? Journals simultaneously mark the present and become traces of the past. In the new CALA course Journaling: Writing Today for Tomorrow students will be given regular journaling assignments and read and respond to excerpts from writers renowned for their journaling including David Sedaris, Anne Frank, Sylvia Plath, Nelson Mandela, and Carrie Fisher.

As Nimura states, “The rhetoric of powerful people can persist for millennia, but that kind of writing is a polished mask for an audience. Journals, on the other hand, are scribbled in private and full of naked feelings. They preserve the voices we don’t usually hear…”

Make keeping a journal one of your new year’s resolutions for 2021 and join us in Journaling: Writing Today for Tomorrow.

Registration for the course is now open.

Leonard Cortana’s “Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die” Wins Award – Meet the Filmmaker on December 9

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Marielle Franco, International Women’s Day, March 2017
 
Congratulations to Leonard Cortana on receiving an award for his short film, Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die, at the Gary Black Film Festival in the “Powerful Women: Lifelong Legacies” category. Cortana’s short is about the Afro-Brazilian Councilwoman and activist, Marielle Franco, who was assassinated, with her driver, in March 2018 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The murders remain unsolved. As a city council member, Franco represented her favela constituents by fighting against gender violence, police violence, and for reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Cortana’s short film documents activists and artists use of the annual Carnival to call for justice for Marielle Franco. Cortana asks, how does the city become a site of resistance and memorialization for Marielle Franco’s legacy during the crucial timing of the first anniversary of her murder?
 
On Wednesday, December 9 at 6 PM you are invited to NYU’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies special online film program titled 1000 Days That Have Shaken Brazil – Marielle Franco, Cinema and Memory. This event features a conversation with filmmakers Ethel Oliveira, Julia Mariano, and Leonard Cortana based on their films Sementes: Mulheres Pretas no Poder (2020) and Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die (2019).

To RSVP click https://bit.ly/3omxMz6

Films will be available for a week from Dec 4 to Dec 11 to those who register. This event will be held in English and Portuguese with live interpretation available.

Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die Team: L to R, Pilar Rodriguez, Éthel Oliveira, Leonard Cortana

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Join CALA this coming Spring for our Racial Literacy and Anti-Racism Practices Series with Leonard Cortana

 

You can find a link to all of the above spring 2021 courses at the end of Leonard Cortana’s faculty biography here: Spring 2021 Courses

Free Event This Friday November 6 at 2 PM: Theater of War

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This may be a welcome distraction after the election hullabaloo!
 
 
Brought to you by Theater of War Productions (UK) and Bravehound (UK).
 
“Theater of War,” a Zoom performance of Sophocles’ plays followed by a conversation about public health. 
 
This project aims to promote open discussion about the obstacles in the lives of service members, veterans, and their families — using readings of Greek plays to entice feelings of compassion and empathy to fuel conversation. 
 
Following the reading, four community panelists will kick off the discussion that will be open to the audience. All you have to do is raise your virtual hand to be an active participant! 
 
 
Performers include renowned TV & film stars:  Damian Lewis,  Lesley Sharp,  Nyasha Hatendi, and Jason Isaacs.  
 

This unique event takes place Friday, November 6 at 2 pm EST. Click here to reserve your spot

 
 

Making Online Learning More Three-Dimensional

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“It’s the spacelessness that gets you. You’ve been staring at the screen for months since the virus hit. Your students were flat, or seemed to be, just as you appear to them. But Fall, you tell yourself, will be different. You’re acquainted with Zoom now. You’ve read a few articles on ‘best practice’ in online teaching: More asynchronous activities. More time in breakout rooms during class. More use of tech as tech. You sign on and summon your best teacher-of-the-year manner. You hope that what you do will remain three-dimensional even as your students appear as tiny thumbnails, the listening heads or black boxes to which you appeal for attention. The reality, though, is that your own flatness is as apparent to your students as theirs is to you.” 

Photo by Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty

Do NOT fret! The shift to online learning and teaching has left many stumbling to create a cohesive learning environment; one that enriches both the students and the teacher despite the digital void that exists between. In this essay recently published in Psyche, William Germano and Kit Nicholls challenge the idea that learning and teaching in a 1-D classroom will create flat responses from students, and instead offer the notion to close the distance between not only students and teachers, but between students and the course material.

“Roundness is accepting the active work we all do when we’re really learning. In its paradox and complexity, roundness even includes flatness, or at least an awareness of how flatness works.” Instead of trying to strive for perfection, it is important to embrace the change, awkwardness and the bumpiness of Zoom learning/teaching. Continue reading the article here at Psyche
 
NYUSPS is here to help. Check out our Fall 2020 Teaching Resources here: Virtual Teaching Community

Preserving New York’s Historic Neighborhoods: Janta House, Queens

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CALA faculty member, Kelly Carroll, spent her summer conducting outreach for national support to save the home of Aleksander and Walentyna Janta, two Polish war heroes. Walentyna translated Jan Karski’s reports of the holocaust for the Allies and was present at some of the Nuremberg trials. If the home is not protected by landmark status the plan is to demolish it for an apartment building. 

LEFT: WALENTYNA JANTA-POŁCZYŃSKA, THEN WALENTYNA STOCKER, IN THE OFFICE OF THE POLISH GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE IN 1945. RIGHT: ALEKSANDER JANTA-POŁCZYŃSKI IN 1944. IMAGES VIA LANDMARK PRESERVATION COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION
LEFT: WALENTYNA JANTA-POŁCZYŃSKA, THEN WALENTYNA STOCKER, IN THE OFFICE OF THE POLISH GOVERNMENT-IN-EXILE IN 1945. RIGHT: ALEKSANDER JANTA-POŁCZYŃSKI IN 1944. IMAGES VIA LANDMARK PRESERVATION COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION

The Queens Eagle recently covered this initiative and interviewed Carroll: “This house was known as the nucleus of the Polish emige elite and the couple hosted esteemed Polish authors such as Czesław Miłosz, Jerzy Giedroyc, and Marek Hłasko. Jan Karski also paid visits to this home,” wrote Kelly Carroll, the director of advocacy and community outreach at HDC, in a letter of support.

Carroll pointed out that the home, built alongside four other similar houses in 1911, has only one recorded alteration in its 109-year history.

“The house’s value as a physical touchstone to the story of these people’s lives far outweighs its negligible alterations,” Carroll wrote. “We urge you to designate this home of these heroes so that their stories will not soon be extinguished.” Read full article from QueensEagle

 

We love our city! You can get lots of information about CALA’s Certificate in Historic Preservation here: Historic Preservation Studies

This fall, staring on September 21, Kelly Carroll is teaching Behind The Scenes in New York: Preserving a City of Historic Neighborhoods

Visit Upstate New York and Take an Artist’s Studio Tour with Kay Kenny

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Despite COVID-19 you can take a tour of Kay Kenny’s Artist Studio in Saugerties, New York, thanks to Michael Nelson’s short video.

And again, despite COVID-19 you can also take a photography course with Kenny this fall. Enjoy your visit!

Kay Kenny from Michael Nelson on Vimeo.

Starting on September 30th and running for five weeks – Photography: The Basics

For details and to register click ARTA1-CE9101 Photography: The Basics

Links in the Time of Corona and Black Lives Matter (August 10th)

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We have been MIA due to technical difficulties but we’re back, for now. Enjoy the Links and have a great week!

Making Art During Lockdown:

My friend, Tom Gilroy, wrote and directed this short movie, during COVID-19. Enjoy the horror….

#WaynesvilleStrong from Luke Thorpe on Vimeo.

Tom Gilroy’s WaynesvilleStrong exists outside the mostly navel-gazing genre of “quarantine cinema,” as it takes from and creates a precise moment in time, but as a work is timeless in what it has to say about the U.S., its government, and “the American Way.” A work of fiction made in May of 2020, a number of its imagined scenarios have already come true. We can only hope it isn’t confused for a documentary in the future. Impeccably directed, with a single-take performance by Nick Sandow that is as funny as it is harrowing, this deceptively simple film is a timely and classic work. —- Jim McKay, director, En El Septimo Dia

Storytelling: (Visual Essay from The Pudding)

The Physical Traits that Define Men and Women in Literature
By Erin Davis, Illustrations by Liana Spotso

Illustration by Liana Spotso

When Erin’s book club pick involved a 35-page interlude about a highly attractive fairy, complete with minute, eye-rolling detail, she started to pay more attention to the stereotyped descriptions of both men and women’s bodies in the books she was reading. She said “I want to read books that explore the full humanity of their characters, not stories that reduce both men and women to weak stereotypes of their gender.” Join Erin and illustrator Liana on an illustrated deep dive into the ways characters’ bodies are described in 2,000 books.

Black Voices in Fiction and Nonfiction:

Courtesy The Center for Fiction

Click here for titles – Amplifying Black Voices

And for children:

Click here – Black Lives Matter Books for Kids

Twin Love and Music:

These brothers (twins) Tim and Fred Williams from Gary, Indiana have gone viral recording their responses as they listen to songs and singers for the first time – sweet, joyful, funny, and some great music!

You can follow them on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCopm4iCRGWS6PkLB8uDe-Wg

Information Sessions for Fall 2020 Courses

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Join us for our two remaining information sessions for an introduction to our online course offerings for the fall 2020 semester.

Next session is on Thursday, August 6 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
Final session is on Tuesday, August 25 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM

To join either please RSVP at tinyurl.com/calazoomfall   

Fall courses are open for registration. To enroll online please go to: https://www.sps.nyu.edu/professional-pathways.html

To enroll by phone please call 212 998 7150.

To view our catalog now, please go to tinyurl.com/calafall2020 #continuingeducation #lifelonglearning #liberalarts

Late Links in the Time of Corona and Black Lives Matter

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NYU has been having technical issues publishing our blog posts. Apologies for the Late Link and out-of-date events listed. This is essentially a test to see if you receive the email notice. Thank you!

Kate Walter

WRITING: 

By KATE WALTER, CALA Writing Faculty

“After I came out in 1975, I escaped from my conservative Catholic upbringing in New Jersey and moved to the East Village to be a dyke. Since then, I always mark the start of summer with Pride.

But this year the big NYC Pride March was canceled, for the first time since 1970. Over the decades, I was thrilled to march and protest and cheer with friends and lovers. In 45 years, I have only missed this event twice.

I can trace my queer evolution from the different contingents I joined to march with over the decades. In the ’70s, I stepped out with the feisty Lesbian Feminist Liberation.

In the ’80s, I marched with my partner as part of the Gay Teachers Association, where we met at a meeting.

In the ’90s, I went with the Gay Writers and was the group marshall.

During the moment of silence, I thought of Joe, my college boyfriend who died of AIDS” 

Continue to read The Village Sun article here Gay Pride in Isolation

Photograph by Elle Perez
Photograph by Elle Perez

Interview by Lucas Iberico Lozada with writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio in Guernica Magazine: “DREAMer memoirs have their purpose. But that’s not what I set out to write.”

Cornejo Villavicencio has been writing professionally since she was a teenager, reviewing jazz albums for a monthly magazine in New York City. Then, during her senior year at Harvard, she wrote an essay for The Daily Beast on what the site wanted to call her “dirty little secret”: Cornejo Villavicencio, who was born in Ecuador, was undocumented, and she had no idea what she was going to do after her graduation in May 2011. Read full interview here Guernica

DOCUMENTARY:

The title of Ava DuVernay’s extraordinary and galvanizing documentary 13TH refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The progression from that second qualifying clause to the horrors of mass criminalization and the sprawling American prison industry is laid out by DuVernay with bracing lucidity. Streaming on Netflix. 

Disclosure (2020) Netflix

According to a study from GLAAD, over 80% of Americans don’t personally know someone who’s transgender. That means most people learn about trans people from the ways they’re depicted in movies and TV. From executive producer Laverne Cox and director Sam Feder comes Disclosure, a documentary that chronicles over 100 years of trans representation on screen, from silent film to Dog Day Afternoon, The 40-Year-Old Virgin to Pose.

THEATER: June 23 at 5 PM Live 

Oppenheimer Award-winning playwright and poet Cornelius Eady and renowned actors Joe Morton and Sally Murphy (right), reunite to discuss Eady’s play BRUTAL IMAGINATION, which premiered at The Vineyard in 2002 and remains a potent examination of racial injustice in America.

BRUTAL IMAGINATION is based on Eady’s poem cycle exploring the notorious 1994 incident in which Susan Smith, a white woman from South Carolina, claimed that an African American man had kidnapped her children. The FBI searched for the man until Smith confessed the truth: she had invented the man and had drowned the children. BRUTAL IMAGINATION brings this invented man to life and tells the story from his perspective. For YouTube and Facebook links click VineyardTheaterLive

DANCE: SOLEDAD BARRIO & NOCHE FLAMENCA

Streaming through Friday, June 26 at 7 pm. Displaying the spellbinding talent of Soledad Barrio, Noche Flamenca returns to The Joyce with a JoyceStream presentation of Intimo, a series of intimate duets which explore the possibilities and limitations of human relationship created by the company’s Artistic Director Martín Santangelo.

Featuring live music, the performance opens with La Ronde inspired by the Max Ophuls film, and includes solos from Juan Ogalla and Soledad Barrio, who will perform her signature piece, the Solea. In Intimo, the troupe continues to push the boundaries of the traditional flamenco format, drawing from the realm of dance theater, while still retaining the integrity of the raw and rapturous art form.

Links in the Time of Corona and Black Lives Matter (June 16)

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June 15, 2020: Legally working….the United States Supreme Court Rules that Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer workers are a protected class, at last. Sylvester time!

Art: Time and The New Yorker covers this week:

Artist Titus Kaphar’s painting “Analogous Colors” (2020) on the cover of TIME magazine (courtesy of TIME)
Artist Titus Kaphar’s painting “Analogous Colors” (2020) on the cover of TIME magazine (courtesy of TIME)
"Say Their Names" by Kadir Nelson
“Say Their Names” by Kadir Nelson

Performance: Juneteenth Celebration at The Greene Space on Friday, June 19 at 7 PM

“This year, we celebrate Juneteenth by highlighting beautiful, urgent and thought-provoking performances and conversations in The Greene Space by Black Americans. We’re revisiting important talks — touching on art and art-making, American history, 21st-century schooling and racial integration, police abuse and much more — and bringing you incredible moments through song, dance and theatre, all curated by our Black staff. Click  Juneteenth NYC Juneteenth March

Featuring: musician Mr. Reed, actor Wendell Pierce, tap dance legend Savion Glover, author Isabel Wilkerson, solitary survivor and organizer Mark Hopkins, writer and activist Sonia Sanchez, founder of Raheem AI Brandon Anderson, reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, ballerina Misty Copeland, Ethel’s Club founder Naj Austin, The Honey Bees Double Dutch Team, author Kiley Reid, jazz and experimental singer Melanie Charles, comedian Ike Ufomadu, composer Damien Sneed, philosopher and public intellectual Cornel West, climate change activist Vic Barrett, rapper Yoh, the Morehouse College Glee Club and Wynton Marsalis & Members of Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.”

What is Juneteenth? From the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture: “Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. Though it has long been celebrated among the African American community, it is a history that has been marginalized and still remains largely unknown to the wider public. The legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of deep hope and urgent organizing in uncertain times. This Museum is a community space where that spirit can continue to live on – where histories like this one can surface, and new stories with equal urgency can be told.” 

Kids: La MaMa Kids “A Thing Called…” Thursday June 18 at 4PM (EDT)Puppet Artist Nehprii Amenii will lead children and families in an interactive storytelling session on a thing called Racism …and a thing called the Human Being.

This session will ask our children to help us to imagine…some new things. Materials Needed: Paper and Markers or Crayons

Click Here to register for this interactive storytelling session on ZOOM. You will receive a link before the session to participate on Zoom. Families on Zoom can interact with Nehprii in real time. Space is limited.

Documentary Screening free from PBS until July 4 – The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

“In the turbulent 1960s, change was coming to America and the fault lines could no longer be ignored — cities were burning, Vietnam was exploding, and disputes raged over equality and civil rights. A new revolutionary culture was emerging and it sought to drastically transform the system. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would, for a short time, put itself at the vanguard of that change.  The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is the first feature-length documentary to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails.” Click Independent Lens

Dance by Northwest Tap Connection to Hell You Talmbout (2015) by Janelle Monáe

Video Art to enthrall you (and your children!) akin to a Rube Goldberg machine. The Way Things Go (German: Der Lauf der Dinge) is a 1987 art film by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It documents a long causal chain assembled of everyday objects.

Reveal – now that I’m completely protected in my job by law – first lesbian artist crush! Joan Armatrading Love and Affection, 1976