NYU SCHOOL OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES CENTER FOR PUBLISHING, WRITING, AND MEDIA CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAMS (pwmce)

Continuing Education Programs in Publishing, Writing, and Media

Monet Takeda

CALA Student Léonie Rosenstiel Publishes New Book, Protecting Mama

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Congratulations to CALA Continuing Education student Léonie Rosenstiel on publishing her latest book! Protecting Mama: Surviving the Legal Guardianship Swamp focuses on Rosenstiel and her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, and their struggle with a court-appointed guardian and the legal system. Rosenstiel was able to publish her book after years of living under a court-mandated gag order. In an interview with CALA, Rosenstiel detailed the process of telling her story and her goals in doing so. 

Can you tell us about your background and who you are?

I was born in New York City—during a blizzard—and spent most of my growing years in a New York City suburb. I attended the Professional Children’s School and Juilliard Pre-College Division (I was a violinist), Barnard, Columbia, The New Seminary, and the Tri-State College of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture. I earned an MPH from Walden University and a PhD in musicology from Columbia. Over time, I’ve performed in, taught, and coached musical groups. 

My first book was about the composer Lili Boulanger. I then wrote a biography of her older sister, Nadia, and edited a music textbook. From writing about music, I went on to work in my husband’s literary agency in New York City. We started a small publishing company and issued seven editions of Literary Agents of North America. Ultimately my mother, husband, and I decided to move to Albuquerque, where most of the action in Protecting Mama takes place.

What is Protecting Mama about?

The book describes the trauma created for all of us after my mother, a retired college professor, started showing signs of dementia. Human vultures seemed to descend from everywhere, attempting to steer her this way and that and take things from her. Ultimately, Mama ended up under the legal control of a court-appointed commercial guardian. After that, my family and I endured years of legal and personal struggles with the court system and with Mama’s guardian. 

It took me five years beyond Mama’s passing to regain my First Amendment right to speak. Permanent gag orders and “non-disparagement agreements” are a frequent feature of the commercial guardianship world. Protecting Mama reveals the commercial guardians’ playbook to public view and offers some suggestions about how other people might avoid or use my experiences to solve problems in their own lives.

What do you hope readers will take away from reading Protecting Mama?

I hope people will realize that the current situation in elder care is beyond terrifying. People who barely know a person will tell everyone they are following that person’s wishes. They claim to know what’s better for an elder than people who have known them for half a century. The court proceedings are secret; dishonest statements abound. There is hope, but it’s going to take an enormous amount of work by people of goodwill in many different fields to solve this.

How did you first learn about CALA?

I received an email that advertised the program. At the time, I was in a situation that approached house arrest due to a very restrictive court-imposed gag order. I knew that I would eventually write the book as I’d promised Mama, but I didn’t dare write it then because the gag order forbade me to write either about my mother or about the entire subject of elder care/guardianship. Taking writing courses kept me writing while avoiding subjects the court had forbidden me to touch. 

How have CALA courses supported your work?

This goes to the whole notion of “deepening one’s craft.” I took those courses to make sure I kept practicing writing. And then I stayed on to take more courses even after the gag order was lifted. I’m grateful for the online classes. They saved my sanity during the time the gag order was in effect.

What else are you working on right now/looking forward to working on in the future?

Calumet Editions has already accepted a second book from me. This volume explains how family lies and secrets—some of them kept over generations—helped to create a situation in which my mother ended up prey to the commercial guardianship system. This second book, which is really a prequel to Protecting Mama, is slated for publication in 2023. I have created an online course, summit and coaching program for U.S. residents, and am now finishing a website to unite all these services with a legal database to help people who need more information to support in their decision-making for and with their elders..

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Thank you to Léonie Rosenstiel for speaking with CALA about her latest work. For more about her and her story, check out this interview video with Jack Canfield, or this podcast episode about Protecting Mama.

Registration for CALA’s Spring 2022 writing courses is now open.

CALA Afrofuturism Course Complements Carnegie Hall’s Citywide Festival

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Explore the aesthetic, historical, and cultural significance of Afrofuturism this spring with a CALA course and a citywide celebration of the genre. Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that combines music, visual art, science fiction and technology, to observe alternate realities and a liberated future through the perspective of Black cultures. Though the genre has a long history, it has recently become an important part of mainstream American popular culture and intellectual debate through the 2018 premiere of the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther. 

Led by instructor Smaran Dayal, our CALA course will consider what sets Afrofuturistic works apart from other American science fiction as well as the roots of its popularity and power in the 21st century. The reading list includes many essential works of the genre, including Black Panther, Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us, Spike Lee’s See You Yesterday, Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country TV series, and short stories by literary giants Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany. 

The course is a timely complement to Carnegie Hall’s 2022 citywide festival on Afrofuturism created by the Weill Music Institute. Starting in February, Carnegie Hall and other leading cultural institutions across the city will present multidisciplinary programming including jazz, funk, R&B, Afrobeat, and hip-hop performances, as well as film screenings, exhibitions, and talks. Pair this festival with our course for a complete, immersive celebration.

Classes will be held on Zoom from 1:00PM to 2:40PM on Mondays, March 28th to April 25th. Click here to enroll now!

CALA Faculty Marcus Reeves Publishes New Book, Bronze Shields 

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Congratulations to CALA writing instructor Marcus Reeves on publishing his latest book! Bronze Shields: A Black Police Organization’s Fight for Equality and Justice in Newark, NJ is an oral history of an African American police organization formed in 1959 to counter the racist policies and actions Black officers faced when applying to and joining the Newark Police Department. 

Reeves, who will be teaching his popular Interviews and Profiles course in Fall 2021, is an accomplished journalist and author who has written about hip hop, Black culture and politics for over two decades. In a recent interview, he told us more about his background, Bronze Shields and its inspiration, and what he’s working on next. 

Q: Tell us about your background in writing and journalism and how you got started.

A: I started my career as a journalist as a freelance writer for the hip hop magazine The Source. This was in the early ’90s, a few months after I graduated from Rutgers. My first assignment was covering a popular dance in Newark, NJ called the Lock-it-up or the Stolen Car dance. The dance imitated stealing a car. At the time, Newark was labeled the “stolen car capital” of America. At first I was troubled by such a dance. Then I remembered when I was a teen we all used to do a dance called Uprocking, which mimicked fighting in order to deter fighting. Remembering that made me want to do the assignment. So I pitched the story to Matty C, an editor at The Source (Matty is responsible for discovering the iconic rapper Notorious BIG), and he loved it. That story was widely read and launched my career. It led to me writing for the Amsterdam News, Vibe magazine, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, and a host of other publications. 

That Lock-it-up story inspired me to become an author because it was cited in Black Noise, the first academic book on hip hop. Seeing my work reach academia that way put it in my mind to become an author. I then published my first book, Somebody Scream: Rap Music’s Rise to Prominence in the Aftershock of Black Power in 2008.  

Q: Tell us about Bronze Shields and what inspired you to write about this specific story.

A: Bronze Shields is an oral history of an African American police organization which formed in 1959 to fight the rampant racism Blacks were met with when joining the Newark Police Department (NPD). This wasn’t surprising in the ’50s and ’60s as Newark maintained a rigidly enforced racial hierarchy, with Blacks at the bottom. A group of Black cops, led by an officer named Floyd Bostic Jr., formed a group called the Bronze Shields to push back. At first their goal, like a lot of Black police associations before them, was to combat on-the-job racism and discrimination. One of their first breakthroughs was meeting with then-new Newark mayor Hugh Addonizio in 1962, voicing their complaints, and getting the NPD to begin integrating the agency and promoting Black officers who weren’t allowed to move beyond the position of patrolman. 

Over the next sixty years, the organization was able to help change the demographics of the NPD and its leadership. The Bronze Shields also worked to provide community services to Newark’s mostly Black and Latinx residents in order to bridge the gap and build a better relationship between the police and these residents. The narrative in the book is intertwined with key moments in Newark’s history, such as white flight, the ’67 riots, the election of the city’s first Black mayor, the hiring of Newark’s first women police captain and police director, and the election of Cory Booker.

I came to this project when a former president of the Bronze Shields approached me and asked if I would write a book of the organization’s history. The organization had been trying to write this history for over a decade but never completed a manuscript. Once I decided to take on the book, I decided to do it as an oral history and let the Bronze Shields and the people they have worked with tell the story themselves. This allows readers to instantly immerse themselves in the journey and lives of these officers. I was able to draw on the ideas and reflections contained in the original manuscript and particularly the work of James Du Bose to tell the story.

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from reading Bronze Shields?

A: Along with learning about this groundbreaking organization and its impact on the history of New Jersey’s largest city, I would like to shine a light on both the battles Black police have faced–and still face–within their departments, and the work Black officers are doing to improve relations between their police department and their city’s Black citizens. At a time when America is constantly reminded of racial tensions with abusive police, I want people to see an example of police office’s working to build an alliance with its Black and Latinx community and having a real impact. I would like Bronze Shields to be an inspiration to other police officers and their departments to do the same thing.   

Q: What else are you working on right now?

A: I am currently working on another book on hip hop history that takes readers well into the 21st century and tells the story of hip hop’s move toward the center of Americana. 

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Thank you to Marcus Reeves for speaking with CALA about his latest work. Bronze Shields is available for purchase on Amazon. Marcus will be teaching Entertainment Journalism in Spring 2022, with registration opening on November 1. 

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month at CALA

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It’s Hispanic Heritage Month! We at CALA greatly value our rich Latinx, Latino/a, and Hispanic communities, represented at the leadership level, on our faculty, and in our diverse student body.

Credit: The COM Library

Hispanic Heritage Month recognizes the achievements and contributions of Hispanic Americans who have inspired others to achieve success. Beginning in 1968, Americans have observed National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15 by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of Americans whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with the Latinx Project at NYU, which explores and promotes Latinx art, culture and scholarship through creative and interdisciplinary programs. Events include artist chats, panel discussions, and ¡Oye! Cuéntame un Cuento, an exhibition featuring four Latinx illustrators exploring biographical comics through the lens of Adversity, Community, and Oral Tradition. The exhibition is available both virtually and in-person, bringing spotlight to the Latinx lived experience.

Or, celebrate with New Yorkers across the city! Experience Katherine Miranda at the Glyndor Gallery and their story as a non-binary Latinx person in the Bronx, dance to Arturo O’Farrill + the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra at their virtual concert, attend the 77th NYC Columbus Day Parade on October 11th, and so much more.

CALA Launches New Certificate in Multimedia and Podcasting

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Everyone has a story, but not everyone has the skills to tell theirs. CALA’s new Certificate in Multimedia and Podcasting aims to provide an introduction to the necessary skills, both creative and technical, to expand students’ view of the many career paths available to them working as independent content creators, freelancers, or in-house experts.

As we become more globally connected, more people have the opportunity to tell stories through digital and social media. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, demand for people with expertise in media and communication is increasing, and employment occupations are projected to grow 14% from 2020 to 2030, faster than the average for all occupations. Job opportunities range from the creative aspects of storytelling, the technical aspects of post-production, to the more business-oriented aspects of the industry.

The certificate prepares students to produce, edit, and post compelling human stories using a range of visual and audio digital content that can be applied across professions. “Students will walk away with a good handle on the editorial process and how to properly get their ideas out and into the world,” says Jeanne Lucar, instructor for the Post-Production Overview course. “They’ll have a tangible product and will be able to take their projects to the next level as well as be able to work across different media.”

Students enrolled in the Certificate in Multimedia and Podcasting take five required courses before choosing an advanced workshop elective in their chosen track of either Multimedia or Podcasting. One course, Multimedia Storytelling, is “first, a course about good stories,” says Hany Hawasly, the instructor. “Students learn over 8 weeks what makes a good story, how to identify one, and how to develop it into a compelling multimedia presentation that speaks to a selected audience. It allows professional students from a range of professional backgrounds and creative aspirations to craft stories using a fusion of writing, photographs, voices, and moving images.” The Certificate in Multimedia and Podcasting is offered fully online and can be completed in as little as a year and a half.

Courses for the Certificate in Multimedia and Podcasting begin in Fall 2021 and are now open for registration. To learn more and sign up, click here.

CALA Faculty Leonard Cortana’s SPS Racial Literacy & Anti-Racism Practices Series Receives Innovation & Anti-Racism Micro Grant from NYU Office of Global Inclusion

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CALA faculty member Leonard Cortana and NYU SPS’s successful Racial Literacy and Anti-Racism Practices series has received an Innovation and Anti-Racism Micro Grant from the NYU Office of Global Inclusion (OGI). 

During Spring 2021, Cortana developed a series of four workshops: Understanding Race in a Global Context; Microaggressions and Racial Stress: Reducing Harmful Interactions; An Introduction to Intersectionality: Positioning and Situating Identities; and The Fight Against Black Voter Suppression. The grant from OGI will support Cortana in expanding this series and offering a number of brand new workshops in Spring 2022. 

In the well-attended workshops this past spring, he engaged with working professionals as well as administrators, faculty, and students at NYU and other universities around concerns about racial harm in the workplace and the concerns of international students. The series also featured faculty guests Dr. Durell Cooper, a notable cultural strategist specializing in systems change, and Dr. Mutale Nkonde, a distinguished scholar and CEO of AI for the People (AFP), a non-profit communications agency. Given NYU’s international presence, the emphasis on understanding race through a transnational perspective was particularly praised and opened debates about the lack of research and understanding of racial discourses outside the U.S.

Cortana’s Racial Literacy and Anti-Racism Practices Series will be offered again in Fall 2021, and three new workshops with a focus on technology and the internet will be offered in Spring 2022. The first of these new workshops will address digital identities, digital racism and fighting hate speech online as well as current scholarship on the racial harm of algorithmic practices. The second workshop will look at the spread of misinformation and how to tackle it with historically marginalized/racialized communities. Finally, the last workshop will address questions of representation/decolonization in the arts and best practices for expanding more inclusive racial imagery to launch successful activist campaigns online. 

The Fall 2021 Racial Literacy and Anti-Racism Practices Series is now open for registration as part of NYU SPS’ continuing education program. Students may enroll in one or more of the four individual workshops. To learn more and sign up, click here.

In a recent interview, Cortana told us more about his inspiration for the series, what makes it unique,  and what he’s working on next. 

What inspired you to create the series? 

Speaking about racial equality has always been a complex issue. The current pandemic, the aftermaths of George Floyd’s assassination and the global wave of protests which followed, had a significant impact. I have seen for the first time people who have always refused to tackle issues around race, asking questions and sharing texts about Black activism on their social networks. This crave for reading texts and gaining concepts is paramount for critical race scholars like me who are willing to educate and engage in these conversations. 

In my research, I investigate the legacy of assassinated anti-racist activists with a transnational perspective, focusing on the US, Brazil, France, and South Africa. I look at the ways racial discourses have always circulated through continents adapting to political and cultural contexts. Studying in the US feels like, sometimes, living on an island-continent where challenges around racial equality experienced elsewhere are very little known. In this series, I want to offer my expertise to make students reflect on race from a global perspective in order to challenge our own biases. This is very valuable in an environment like NYU which has antennas all over the world and hosts a large international student community. 

What skills and tools can students expect to walk away with? 

We will look into several concepts and texts so that students can leave the courses with specific tools that they will be able to deepen on their own. In our everyday life, concepts like microaggressions, intersectionality, and passing have often become buzzwords but they deserve a more precise examination through case studies and real-life situations (workplace, school, personal encounters) to be discussed in small groups. As I work with films and media, I also use visuals to help students decolonize their own visual imagery and help them think which medium/language will be more useful to work with in their local communities.

During Spring 2021, I really appreciated the participants’ willingness to share in our main discussions but also in breakout groups. I think it is important to dive into our own experiences to precisely situate our identities in order to understand how they fluctuate in different situations. Racial identities like gender and body-abilities can only be thought of in relation to each other and in movement. They are never fixed, which is why we look at different situations, switch roles, and develop empathy toward stories that are less familiar to us. In this way, we address how to develop storytelling skills while tackling racial discourses.

Finally, I also spend time applying mindfulness to racial stress. The best way to learn is to assume that we all make mistakes and we will all experience racial stress. The environment of this class is filled with joy and also humor since it is the only way to embrace this work.

What else are you working on right now? 

In addition to completing my dissertation at the NYU Cinema Studies Department, I am also an affiliate researcher at the Berkman Klein Center – Internet and Society at Harvard Law. I am examining digital identities applied to activism; the development of online film festivals and their consequences on digital exclusion; and online misinformation and the development of deepfakes (a type of artificial intelligence used to create convincing images, audio and video hoaxes). I tackled a bit of this work in the Racial Literacy and Anti-Racism Practices series and participants expressed a strong interest in learning more about how new technologies and the internet have impacted our information ecosystem. I am really excited to receive the Office of Global Inclusion Innovation and Anti-Racism Micro Grant to develop a series on the impact of internet environments on racial equality for Spring 2022. This is urgent to constantly link offline and online environments even more during the pandemic.

My short documentary Marielle’s Legacy Will Not Die on the activist movement spreading the legacy of Marielle Franco, an Afro-Brazilian Councilwoman assassinated in 2018, keeps on circulating and will be screened in the Fall in the US, Belgium, England, Italy, Congo-Brazzaville, and Romania. When the film is selected, I do my best to find local activists who can translate Franco’s legacy in their own context and participate with me on Q&As.

Finally, I am supporting the social campaign to re-open the cold case of South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September, murdered in 1988 in Paris. Enver Samuel made the film Murder in Paris and along with her relatives launched an online petition. I am organizing events at several universities including one at NYU this Fall where we will screen the film and create conversations about this period of history in order to celebrate the world’s unsung heroes,  particularly women fighters.

New Writing Workshop Series on Articles and Essays Coming This Fall

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The pandemic has been a time of reflection for many, taking stock of our own lives as well as our place in history. Here at CALA, we have seen robust enrollment in our courses on personal essays and op-eds over the past few semesters. This fall, popular CALA instructor Estelle Erasmus will lead The Writer’s Craft Workshop Series: Articles and Essays for those interested in developing reported articles and personal essays and pitching them for publication. “I am excited to work on a group and one-on-one basis with students on their writing, developing ideas, and teaching the editing tips and tricks I’ve accumulated after over 25 years working in publishing as both a magazine editor, journalist, essayist, teacher and writing coach,” says Erasmus.

These affordable workshops of one session each are designed to be accessible to both experienced and novice writers. “I’m excited to take another class with Estelle,” says Juli Fraga, a successful freelancer. “It gives structure and thinking time and a way to stay fresh and keep myself accountable in this industry.”

Erasmus will lead students through four workshop sessions, open for registration as individual courses. The first of these, Writing Your Life, will focus on the process of finding and developing ideas drawn from personal experience. The next two sessions, Writing a Strong Introduction to an Article or Essay and Writing a Strong Ending to an Article or Essay, will provide students with tips and methods to use in order to create more engaging pieces of writing. In the final session, Editing Articles and Essays to Submit for Publication, Erasmus will give students an editor’s view of the process of readying essays and articles for submission based on her years of industry experience. In each session, students will be invited to apply what they have learned and workshop ideas with their peers and the instructor.

Estelle Erasmus is an award-winning journalist and writing coach with a knack for helping her students place their work for publication. She writes the “All About the Pitch” column for Writer’s Digest Magazine, has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Salon, WIRED, The Independent, Parents, GH, Vox Family Circle Magazine, Your Teen for Parents, Vox and more, and has been editor-in-chief of five national consumer publications. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Each workshop in the Writer’s Craft series will run from 7:00 – 9:30pm on Tuesdays in October via Zoom. Click here to enroll now!

The Academy of Lifelong Learning Kicks Off Its Second Year

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The Academy of Lifelong Learning (ALL) is celebrating a successful first year and looking forward to a second year full of dynamic programming. ALL is a collaboration between the Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA), the Center for Global Affairs (CGA), and the English Language Institute (ELI), designed to support and engage a diverse community of students studying for personal enrichment. 

Welcoming students of all ages, ALL offers a wide range of daytime courses and other custom programming in current affairs, arts, languages, ESL, and the humanities. ALL launched its website last fall, offering students a virtual hub to explore course offerings across departments, communicate with peers, access resources, and learn about upcoming events. “We are proud of what we have been able to achieve thus far with ALL,” says Dr. Eve Mayer, Assistant Director, CALA. “The intellectual engagement and social connection that our courses offer have been particularly necessary during this year of isolation.” 

The unexpected pivot to remote programming in 2020, while challenging in many respects, allowed for a broader ALL community than would otherwise have been possible. “One of the benefits that virtual offerings have provided us is the ability to expand our audience beyond the tri-state area,” says Michelle D’Amico, Director of Continuing Education and Public Programs (CGA). “For global affairs in particular, there is important added value in this as it provides for more robust conversations that include perspectives from diverse geographic areas.”

A particular highlight of the first year was the success of the Academy of Lifelong Learning (ALL) Book Club, led by SPS scholars and academic directors. Readings were selected in conjunction with other NYU programs such as NYU Reads and included Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Exit West, and Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America. Book club participants joined author and United Nations NGO founder Roberta Seret for a special preview and discussion of the first book in her Transylvania Trilogy. “The Academy of Lifelong Learning Book Club brings together all members of the NYU community, including students and faculty as well as friends of the Academy of Lifelong Learning,” says Alicia Kubes, Associate Director, CALA. Participants especially enjoyed invaluable access to faculty members and meaningful connections within the ALL community. 

In the coming year, ALL will feature new instructors, courses, and public programs to engage its growing community. “We will continue to experiment to find ways of reaching new students and community members through courses and events,” says Dr. Mayer. “Our goal is to develop programming that is accessible and inclusive.” The ALL Book Club kicks off the year on October 12th, with a discussion of the Fall 2021 NYU Reads selection Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The author will give a separate virtual talk to the NYU community in September (date TBA). Sign up here to join this virtual discussion and join the Academy of Lifelong Learning private group on Facebook for status updates.

Interested in learning more about the Academy of Lifelong Learning and our courses for Fall 2021? Register to join us for our virtual Info Session on Tuesday, August 31st at 12 PM EST, or check out our website here!

Have questions, feedback or ideas? Please contact us at sps.all@nyu.edu.