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Expository Writing (EXPOS-UA)

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EXPOS-UA 1 Writing the Essay

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The advanced college essay: education and the professions.

Students in the Steinhardt School of Education and the School of Nursing are required to take this course. The course builds on Writing the Essay (EXPOS-UA 1) and provides advanced instruction in analyzing and interpreting written texts from a variety of academic disciplines, using written texts as evidence, developing ideas, and writing persuasive essays. It stresses analysis, inductive reasoning, reflection, revision, and collaborative learning. The course is tailored for students in the Schools of Education and Nursing so that readings and essay writing focus on issues that are pertinent to those disciplines.

Writing The Essay:

This foundational writing course is required for CAS, Nursing, Social Work, Steinhardt and Tandon incoming undergraduates. "Writing the Essay'' provides instruction and practice in critical reading, creative and logical thinking, and clear, persuasive writing. Students learn to analyze and interpret written texts, to use texts as evidence, to develop ideas, and to write exploratory and argumentative essays. Exploration, inquiry, reflection, analysis, revision, and collaborative learning are emphasized.

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Creative Approaches to Writing the College Application Essay

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Writing a compelling college application essay is a significant challenge for many students. This course employs a variety of experiences, prompts, and writing exercises to help you write essays that are narratively compelling, audience directed, persuasive, and unique to each writer. Learn strategies for overcoming writer’s block, identifying audience needs, and solving problems that will serve you not only as you draft your essays, but also as you transition to college. By the end of the workshop, you will have written a complete draft of a college application essay.

• High school students in grades 9–12
• High school students interested in perfecting their college application essay

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• A complete draft of a college application essay
• Strategies for overcoming writer’s block, identifying audience needs, and solving problems

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As a college prep program, the NYU SPS High School Academy offers a range of professional and college geared courses. Explore topics and get a feel for majors or careers you may be considering all while preparing for the college admissions and college application process.

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All courses are $850. Please note: No financial aid, scholarships, or discounts are available for Weekend Workshops.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 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. )

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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Writing Competition

Climate and sustainability opinion essay competition.

As part of 2040 Now, NYU’s Expository Writing Program hosted a writing competition in which undergraduate students of New York metro area colleges and universities shared their climate stories and advocated for the changes demanded by the climate crisis.

Competition Winners

• As Climate Ailments Worsen, We Need to Change Our Approach to Health
• Train Derailment Underscores Preventative Urgency
• Sustainability in Tech: The Missing Link

Climate Op-Ed Competition

Writing Competition winners, Maya Humston, Tommy Kashino, and Tacia Mazimpaka posing with Abby Rabinowitz

Maya Humston reading an excerpt of her essay at the 2040 Now closing reception.

Tommy Kashino reading an excerpt of his essay at the 2040 Now closing reception.

Honorable Mentions:

• Elijah VanderMolen -  COP 28’s Big Oil President – Not Dystopian, but a Monumental Opportunity
• Tacia Mazimpaka -  For Once, Do Right by the Motherland
• Bincheng Mao -  My U.N. experience unveiled an overlooked climate game-changer

The Competition

Write an opinion essay in which you make a short, persuasive, evidence-based argument related to the climate crisis and the challenges of sustainability. The essay should be timely and newsworthy. It should be clear to the reader, explicitly or implicitly, why you are the one person to make this argument given your story, your passion for what you’re researching or learning, or your plans for the future. Your opinion essay should bring a new idea and new voice to the conversation.

This prompt is intentionally open-ended, but you may choose a further focus within one of the following areas:

• Climate justice and activism
• Climate policy
• Climate technology
• A vision for New York City in 2040
• My climate story

The op-ed competition will award three (3) winners and recognize an additional three (3) honorable mentions. All finalists will be invited to and recognized at an awards ceremony. Prizes are:

• Three cash prizes ($1,500, $1,000, $750). 
• Conversations with editors of leading publications (TBA)

Honorable Mentions: $75

Entries will be judged by professors from NYU's EWP. Top entries will be shared with editors from leading national publications that run feature opinion and editorial sections.

Judging Criteria

Entries will be first vetted to ensure they meet formal requirements (word count, citation, original work). Entries that do not meet these requirements will not be considered for a prize. Entries that meet these requirements will be scored on the following criteria:

• Originality and urgency: The essay brings something new to the conversation in climate change and sustainability; the argument is timely and newsworthy.
• Voice and motive: The essay is written in a compelling voice; we understand why the writer is writing the essay; we understand they have good reasons for doing so.
• Evidence-based claims: The essay makes claims grounded in well-sourced evidence and logical analysis.
• Structure: The essay has a well-defined beginning, middle, and end, with effective transitions between sections, paragraphs, and sentences.
• Writing style: The essay follows genre conventions of the op-ed, short paragraphs, and sentences that are clear, concise, correct, and free of jargon.

What is an Op-Ed? Why write one?

Writers across and beyond academia write opinion essays (aka op-eds, editorials) to make urgent public arguments. The best examples of op-eds are clear, concise, persuasive, evidence-based, and, above all, written in the writer’s distinctive voice. In a good op-ed, the writer anticipates readers and avoids jargon. Sometimes, opinion essays are professional in tone and written in the third-person. Sometimes, opinion essays are informal and draw intensely on the writer’s personal stories. They often, but do not always, conclude with a call to action or thought, asking the reader to do or think something new.

The goal of an opinion essay, per long-time former New York Times opinion editor David Shipley, is for the writer to bring a new idea and fresh perspective to a publication’s audience. (You can read his essay here ). Through syndication and social media, opinion essays have the potential to be read far beyond their original publication. And so you, as a writer, have the potential for your voice and ideas to reach the world.

I've never written an Opinion Essay. What do I do?

Register for a free workshop on March 23 from 5:00-6:00pm, conducted over Zoom, with NYU writing professors on how to write an op-ed. 

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How to Write the “Why NYU” Essay

This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Moriah Adeghe in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info. 

What’s Covered:

• How Essays Set You Apart

Writing About NYU’s Campus

• Writing About NYU’s Different Colleges
• Writing About NYU’s Areas of Study

New York University (NYU) asks its applicants to reply to its “Why NYU” supplemental essay . The prompt states:

“We would like to know more about your interest in NYU. What motivated you to apply to NYU? Why have you 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 words)”

In this article, we discuss how best to respond to this prompt and provide examples of successful essays. For more writing tips and tricks for this prompt, check out our post on how to write a stellar “why this college” essay .

How Essays Set You Apart  

The admissions officers at NYU have to filter through many applicants with similar grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities. Reading essay responses is how the admissions officers learn about your personality and see whether you would be a good fit at NYU. Developing a unique supplemental essay that showcases your personality and values will give admissions officers a chance to get to know you beyond your grades and test scores. As with many essays, the “why NYU” essay differentiates you from other applicants with the same level of qualifications . 

NYU admissions want to see that you actually care about attending their school and that you are not just applying for superficial reasons. You want to convince NYU that you are passionate about the school. The best way to do this is by submitting a highly personal and specific essay response that shows that you’ve done your research and can envision yourself as an NYU student. 

This prompt has a 400-word limit, so instead of writing 400 words about the location and prestige of NYU, you want to dive into the specifics. The length of this essay and the questions in the prompt enable you to go into extensive detail. Admissions officers don’t want to read a general description of the campus; they’re looking for your specific interest in particular areas of the campus and the program that you’re applying to. Make sure to respond in a manner that is specific to you and to NYU. A great tip to keep in mind while you’re writing is this: if you can replace NYU with Columbia or another school in your essay, you haven’t made your essay specific enough. 

There are three buckets that you can write about in your “why NYU” essay: the campus, college, and area of study. Each of these buckets can get broken down into smaller areas. For example, you can write about the New York City, Abu Dhabi, or Shanghai campus for the campus bucket. A weak response to this bucket would be saying that you wanted to attend the NYU Abu Dhabi campus because you visited the area once and want to live in the city. This is a general answer with no specific information about what you will get out of and be a part of by going to NYU. The admissions officers at NYU know exactly what makes their school unique, but they want to read this from your perspective, so be as specific as possible. 

A stronger response would be talking about how you want to study at the Shanghai campus to major in global China studies because it aligns with your interests in working in international marketing. There’s no better place to pursue this major than on a campus located in the heart of a major Chinese city. You can talk about how the Shanghai location would grant you the opportunity to see the topics discussed in the classroom firsthand.

This type of response immediately demonstrates that the student has done their research and is genuinely interested in the program that they’re writing about. This example clearly outlines their trajectory at NYU in a way that is clear to the admissions officers and shows that NYU is their first choice.

Writing About NYU’s Different Colleges 

Like many other schools, NYU is divided into several schools and colleges. The biggest one is the College of Arts and Sciences, which is a general liberal arts college, so you don’t want to spend too much of your essay talking about it. Instead, focus on your area of study or specific extracurricular interests at one of the campuses. 

However, if you are planning to apply to one of NYU’s smaller colleges, you should spend the bulk of your essay writing about the college that you chose. You want to do this because it will automatically set you apart from the other applicants. You will have more specific programs and classes to write about than applicants applying to the larger colleges.

Writing About NYU’s Areas of Study  

Within each school or college of NYU, there are multiple different programs and majors to write about. For this topic, pick the major or program that appeals to you, and write about why you want to be part of it. The unique thing about this essay is that since there is a 400-word limit, which is long for most supplemental essays, you can dive into your motivations a bit more while writing about the area of study that you want to pursue at NYU. 

By going into your background, you can connect your past experiences to your future goals at NYU. This will allow you to differentiate yourself from other applicants by showing your personality and bringing out more of your authentic self.

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Published December 08, 2023

NYU Admissions Counselors Tackle the 2023-24 Supplemental Essay

Staff Writer

NYU Supplemental Essay (Jimmy's Version)

“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 heumann, disability rights activist and 2022 nyu commencement address speaker.

Humanity is a web within which we are all intrinsically tied. Realizing one’s own agency is the key to better community. Realizing that we as humans can leverage that agency together is the key to a better world.

Even the tiniest drops of water can create a new path over time. The power of persistence has motivated me my entire life. Each individual voice, relationship, and community is a work of art, and that art is a powerful medium of change. The world we experience today needs that art, the persistence that comes with it, and passion that inspires it. The fact that almost 8 billion of us around the globe are writing a story together, whether we want to or not, is a harmony of existence. As humans on this planet, we have the ability to steer that pen on paper.

Through my community engagement, extracurricular leadership, and academic exploration, I have already learned an incredible amount towards how I want to show up in this world. I’ve learned that when people come together over a cause, there is no hurdle too high. I’ve learned that diversity is essential, and diversity of thought results in innovative ideas and solutions. I’ve learned that sustainable design principles can build healthier, happier environments.

From a pool of individuals’ solutions comes the collective future of our dreams. I would love nothing more than to roll up my sleeves and learn amongst the greatest minds of my generation as a student at NYU. 

NYU Supplemental Essay (Ayham's Version)

“you have the right to want things and to want things to change.” sanna marin, former pm of finland and 2023 nyu commencement address speaker.

I grew up in a household that valued tradition wholeheartedly and held a profound connection to following our beliefs, customs, and legacy till the day we leave this world. I loved my traditions and customs, but I also loved change: learning, growing, prospering, and reimagining tradition. Yet, at times, these two values clashed, unfortunately, and I was faced with the dilemma of “what is right?” I remember staring at my computer screen, looking at my academic record, and being happy with my grades and position at my school. I made my mother proud, and that’s all that mattered… But was it?

Part of me, deeply hidden inside, was unsatisfied. I was good at what I did, but I wasn’t happy. I wanted to be in a more open, diverse, and inclusive environment. I wanted to feel more challenged –  I wanted change. I remembered my traditions and beliefs, but I also wanted to remember myself, my wants for change, and I wanted to better myself. These two parts of my identity don’t always have to clash. So, I catered to the next step of my life, applying to college, to situate myself in spaces where I can experience the growth I want to see for myself. The challenges I want to endure. I am applying to NYU because I do have the right to want things, and I want to experience my new self in the global education NYU has to offer.

NYU Supplemental Essay (Bridget's Version)

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

“Everybody wave goodbye to Juice Box!” So screams Will Ferrell in the 2005 cinematic masterpiece Kicking and Screaming . Admittedly, this is a weird quote for a college essay, but hear me out. Every Friday night growing up, my family would choose a movie to watch. Most often, we would choose Kicking and Screaming , a comedy about a crazy soccer coach.

Every week, we’d sit in the same places and settle in to watch the same movies in rotation. And every week, regardless of how many times she’d seen it, my younger sister laughed hysterically when Will Ferrell screamed at the “juice box boy.”

How could she think it was so funny? I didn’t. And after all, she was basically a mini-me – or so I thought. When you’re 13, it seems like your siblings are non-player characters; you live in the same house and occasionally chat about chores, but you never think about them as real people with independent thoughts. Or, at least I didn’t. My sister’s laughter led me to realize that, even though we lived in the same house, I didn’t actually know all that much about my siblings. Since then, I’ve made an active effort to learn more about the people around me. In college, I strive to extend this sense of curiosity about people into the rest of my life, too. I believe that everyone has a unique perspective to share. By learning about other people, I can learn more about the wider world around me.

Your Guide to the NYU Supplemental Essay

Looking for advice on the 2023 NYU supplemental essay question? NYU Admissions Counselor Katie Hindman has advice and tips for applicants.

Announcing the 2023-2024 Common Application for NYU

Planning to apply to NYU during the 2023-2024 academic year? Here's what you need to know about recent changes to NYU's Common Application.

Why I’m an Admissions Ambassador at NYU

Becoming an Admissions Ambassadors was one of the best decisions I made.

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Washington Square News

NYU Law drops to No. 9 in U.S. News rankings

NYU’s School of Law was ranked ninth in the country by U.S. News & World Report, down two positions from last year. This year marks the second time the law school — as well as most of the other top 14 schools in the country — stopped providing data for the rankings due to concerns that U.S. News’ methodology might discourage students from pursuing public interest law careers. 

In this year’s general rankings, which now use publicly available data for schools that don’t provide their own, NYU Law tied with law schools at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Additionally, the law school took the No. 1 spot in the international law, tax law and criminal law rankings.

U.S. News ranks law schools on a 100-point system, which includes scores for post-graduation employment, bar exam passing rate, assessments from peer schools and legal professionals, selectivity, and faculty and library resources. NYU scored 95 points in the 2024 rankings, five points behind Stanford University and Yale University, which tied for No. 1 on the list.

Each year, surveyed law schools have the choice to report their data to U.S. News to be used in the rankings. When NYU pulled out of the rankings in 2022, it chose to stop directly providing U.S. News with data. For law schools that do not provide their own data, U.S. News uses information that the American Bar Association requires schools to publish each year, the 2024 methodology report states. In the 2024 rankings, 144 out of almost 200 schools responded to the survey. 

Starting last year, U.S. News removed student debt, employment at graduation and financial resources from its rankings formula, factors that the American Bar Association does not require to be publicly reported. U.S. News still publishes this information for schools with available data, it's just not counted in their score.

“The majority of institutions that reported statistical data to U.S. News were able to have profile pages that feature richer, more detailed and more current standardized information on their program characteristics for prospective students compared with law schools that did not make this data available,” the methodology report reads.

For NYU Law, categories including student debt, employment at graduation, percent of entering students who submitted LSAT versus GRE exams, library information, housing and public interest scholarships — none of which are counted toward a school’s rank — were all left blank on the U.S. News website this year. Since the law school did not submit its own data, it was not able to provide assessments of peer universities for use in the rankings, but was still assessed by participating schools.

U.S. News did not make significant methodology changes for this year, but said that “changes in their data, as well as how their data compared with the data reported by the other law schools” were the primary reason why many schools’ rank changed this year. U.S. News did make methodology changes for the 2023 rankings, putting more emphasis on post-graduation outcomes and bar passing rates rather than test scores, undergraduate grade point average and assessments.

In 2022, many top law schools across the country raised concerns that the rankings’ employment and student debt metrics punished schools for providing support to students interested in public service careers. At the time, NYU Law dean Troy McKenzie said students participating in the school’s public interest fellowships were counted as “only marginally employed” in the rankings, negatively impacting the law school’s post-graduate employment scores. McKenzie also said that a loan relief program the school provides to graduates in public interest careers was not considered in its ranking. 

At the time, U.S. News had said that it focused on students interested in working outside of public interest law because most students “are looking for jobs in the open market.”

A spokesperson for NYU Law declined to comment.

Contact Carmo Moniz at [email protected] . 

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Guest Essay

Is This the End of Academic Freedom?

By Paula Chakravartty and Vasuki Nesiah

Dr. Chakravartty is a professor of media, communication and culture at New York University, where Dr. Nesiah is a professor of practice in human rights and international law.

​At New York University, the spring semester began with a poetry reading. Students and faculty gathered in the atrium of Bobst Library. At that time, about 26,000 Palestinians had already been killed in Israel’s horrific war on Gaza; the reading was a collective act of bearing witness.

The last poem read aloud was titled “If I Must Die.” It was written, hauntingly, by a Palestinian poet and academic named Refaat Alareer who was killed weeks earlier by an Israeli airstrike. The poem ends: “If I must die, let it bring hope — let it be a tale.”

Soon after those lines were recited, the university administration shut the reading down . Afterward, we learned that students and faculty members were called into disciplinary meetings for participating in this apparently “disruptive” act; written warnings were issued.

We have both taught at N.Y.U. for over a decade and believe we are in a moment of unparalleled repression. Over the past six months, since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, we have seen the university administration fail to adequately protect dissent on campus, actively squelching it instead. We believe what we are witnessing in response to student, staff and faculty opposition to the war violates the very foundations of academic freedom.

While N.Y.U. says that it remains committed to free expression on campus and that its rules about and approach to protest activity haven’t changed, students and faculty members in solidarity with the Palestinian people have found the campus environment alarmingly constrained.

About a week after Hamas’s attacks in October, the Grand Staircase in the Kimmel student center, a storied site of student protests , closed indefinitely; it has yet to reopen fully. A graduate student employee was reprimanded for putting up fliers in support of Palestinians on the student’s office door and ultimately took them down; that person is not the only N.Y.U. student to face some form of disciplinary consequence for pro-Palestinian speech or action. A resolution calling for the university to reaffirm protection of pro-Palestinian speech and civic activity on campus, passed by the elected Student Government Assembly in December, has apparently been stuck in a procedural black hole since.

The New York Police Department has become a pervasive presence on campus, with over 6,000 hours of officer presence added after the war broke out. Hundreds of faculty members have signed onto an open letter condemning the university’s “culture of fear about campus speech and activism.”

Such draconian interventions are direct threats to academic freedom.

At universities across the country, any criticism of Israel’s policies, expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, organized calls for a cease-fire or even pedagogy on the recent history of the land have all emerged as perilous speech. In a letter to university presidents in November, the A.C.L.U. expressed concern about “impermissible chilling of free speech and association on campus” in relation to pro-Palestinian student groups and views; since then, the atmosphere at colleges has become downright McCarthyite .

The donors, trustees, administrators and third parties who oppose pro-Palestinian speech seem to equate any criticism of the State of Israel — an occupying power under international law and one accused of committing war crimes — with antisemitism. To them, the norms of free speech are inherently problematic, and a broad definition of antisemitism is a tool for censorship . Outside funding has poured into horrifying doxxing and harassment campaigns. Pro-Israel surveillance groups like Canary Mission and CAMERA relentlessly target individuals and groups deemed antisemitic or critical of Israel. Ominous threats follow faculty and students for just expressing their opinions or living out their values.

To be clear, we abhor all expressions of antisemitism and wholeheartedly reject any role for antisemitism on our campuses. Equally, we believe that conflating criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitism is dangerous. Equating the criticism of any nation with inherent racism endangers basic democratic freedoms on and off campus. As the A.C.L.U. wrote in its November statement, a university “cannot fulfill its mission as a forum for vigorous debate” if it polices the views of faculty members and students, however much any of us may disagree with them or find them offensive.

In a wave of crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech nationwide, students have had scholarships revoked, job offers pulled and student groups suspended. At Columbia, protesters have reported being sprayed by what they said was skunk, a chemical weapon used by the Israeli military; at Northwestern, two Black students faced criminal charges , later dropped, for publishing a pro-Palestinian newspaper parody; at Cornell, students were arrested during a peaceful protest . In a shocking episode of violence last fall, three Palestinian students , two of them wearing kaffiyehs, were shot while walking near the University of Vermont.

Many more cases of student repression on campuses are unfolding.

Academic freedom, as defined by the American Association of University Professors in the mid-20th century , provides protection for the pursuit of knowledge by faculty members, whose job is to educate, learn and research both inside and outside the academy. Not only does this resonate with the Constitution’s free speech protections ; international human rights law also affirms the centrality of academic freedom to the right to education and the institutional autonomy of educational institutions.

Across the United States, attacks on free speech are on the rise . In recent years, right-wing groups opposed to the teaching of critical race theory have tried to undermine these principles through measures including restrictions on the discussion of history and structural racism in curriculums, heightened scrutiny of lectures and courses that are seen to promote dissent and disciplinary procedures against academics who work on these topics.

What people may not realize is that speech critical of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies has long been censored, posing persistent challenges to those of us who uphold academic freedom. Well before Oct. 7, speech and action at N.Y.U. in support of Palestinians faced intense and undue scrutiny.

Our students are heeding Refaat Alareer’s call to bear witness. They are speaking out — writing statements, organizing protests and responding to a plausible threat of genocide with idealism and conviction. As faculty members, we believe that college should be a time when students are encouraged to ask big questions about justice and the future of humanity and to pursue answers however disquieting to the powerful.

Universities must be places where students have access to specialized knowledge that shapes contemporary debates, where faculty members are encouraged to be public intellectuals, even when, or perhaps especially when, they are expressing dissenting opinions speaking truth to power. Classrooms must allow for contextual learning, where rapidly mutating current events are put into a longer historical timeline.

This is a high-stakes moment. A century ago, attacks on open discussion of European antisemitism, the criminalization of dissent and the denial of Jewish histories of oppression and dispossession helped create the conditions for the Holocaust. One crucial “never again” lesson from that period is that the thought police can be dangerous. They can render vulnerable communities targets of oppression. They can convince the world that some lives are not as valuable as others, justifying mass slaughter.

It is no wonder that students across the country are protesting an unpopular and brutal war that, besides Israel, only the United States is capable of stopping. It is extraordinary that the very institutions that ought to safeguard their exercise of free speech are instead escalating surveillance and policing, working on ever more restrictive student conduct rules and essentially risking the death of academic freedom.

From the Vietnam War to apartheid South Africa, universities have been important places for open discussion and disagreement about government policies, the historical record, structural racism and settler colonialism. They have also long served as sites of protest. If the university cannot serve as an arena for such freedoms, the possibilities of democratic life inside and outside the university gates are not only impoverished but under threat of extinction.

Paula Chakravartty is a professor of media, communication and culture at New York University, where Vasuki Nesiah is a professor of practice in human rights and international law. Both are members of the executive committee of the N.Y.U. chapter of the American Association of University Professors and members of N.Y.U.’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Fall 2024 Courses

Notice to students: We welcome students from other departments and programs to enroll in our classes when space allows. Some of our courses are open to both graduate and undergraduate students, and other courses are graduate only. Please be sure to register for the appropriate course based on your level of studies (ASPP – GT is graduate and ASPP – UT is undergraduate). Non-Tisch students should check with their advisers regarding course allocation.

Methods and Criticism I: Seminar in Cultural Activism

Professor Pato Hebert ASPP-GT 2002-001 OPEN ONLY TO ARTS POLITICS STUDENTS – NO EXCEPTIONS Mondays 10:30am - 2:30pm 4 points

Methods & Criticism I supports you to identify and strengthen the methodologies operating in your practice while developing a critical framework for diverse modes of creative and political action. Weekly presentations and discussions will allow for robust engagement with one another’s work, which may include but not be limited to artmaking, scholarship, activism, curation and pedagogy. Over several weeks, we’ll also do slow, careful readings of two primary texts: Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, and Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Kimmerer will guide us in considering the power of place and the more than human. What vitalities might be cultivated by holding multiple worldviews and ways of being? Butler will help us to consider how fiction – and the novel in particular – offers a space for considering what lessons lie in coalition and the multi-generational. How does science fiction envision new worlds and forms of collectivity amidst dystopian futures? Operating beyond more conventional notions of activism, agitprop or the contemporary, how might such texts help us to reimagine the political and creative dimensions of our practices? Additionally, how might critical readings and contextualization of these works impel us into new possibilities for thinking more critically about the terms and forms of our own work?

Our goal will then be to apply these lessons to the professional pauses and pivots that unfold for you over the course of this one-year program. How is this current historical moment calling you to reflect, shift or lead? What are the frameworks, methodologies, tools, connections and experiences you need in order to evolve and sustain your practice? In addition to our critique sessions, analytical readings and discussions, we’ll also conduct weekly writing reflections, complete individual final essays articulating your relationship to arts politics, and undertake a group exercise to map resources, challenges, synergies and pathways. This course helps to prepare students for the research, creativity, collaboration and convening that will continue in the core Methods and Criticism II course in the Spring Semester, and across your chosen elective courses.

Creative Response: Performance Matters

Professor Karen Finley

ASPP-UT 1028-001 (juniors, seniors only)

ASPP-GT 2028-001

Monday 3:30pm - 7:05pm

This is a dynamic, generative class where you will be able to engage in creative production. We are creating and making. We will reflect on performance art, installation, hybrid media, site-specific, text and experimental practice. Creatives or curators that work in related areas are invited to expand their practice such as film, visual art, photography, creative writing, music, technology or if you just need to explore new ground! The professor is a multi- disciplinary artist who is active in the field. This is a workshop atmosphere and the professor strives to have an educational space for trying things out and discovering together. This class will look deeper into varying aspects of the theory of performance: concept, generating content, research and staging. We will consider the strategies of subversion of form, of interruption from normative expectations.

We will consider everyday experience, randomness, abstraction and performance as a space for social change. We will create rituals, consider sacred space, and healing as possibility. We will observe, review and appreciate lists, timing, gathering and collecting.  Performing, embodiment, communicating the body: gender, race and identity.  Recovery, restoration and healing is made possible. Appreciating in-progress, process, or how do we give and receive feedback. Humor and absurdity is appreciated.

We will have a workshop on how we translate our performance into performance writing. We will look at performance scores such as with Fluxus. The visual and prop aspect of performing:  such as objects, accessories, the archive, design and costume. Listening, finding voice, silence and giving and taking commands, and deviation from dominant forms of entertainment and product.  Hopefully with deeper understanding, we will seek to challenge and stimulate our own creative content to produce innovative, thought-provoking  performance.  Students will present their own work either individually or in groups, write about the theory and content of their production and have assigned readings to supplement the assignments and their areas of concentration. There will be guest artists, and we will attend performances and art events. Finley will update the description closer to the course with field trips. In past classes we have attended Skirball, La Mama, The New Museum, The Grey Gallery, The Guggenheim and The Museum of Modern Art. We will also visit the archives at NYU.

Graduate Colloquium

ASPP – GT 2003 OPEN ONLY TO ARTS POLITICS STUDENTS – NO EXCEPTIONS

Tuesdays, 11am - 1:45pm

2-3.5 points

This class is a core course required for all Arts Politics students. In our class we will engage in conversation while getting to know each other as a cohort. We will have field trips and guest visits with leaders in the field. We will meet with alumni on their research, practice and hear from faculty. There will be generative engagement and space for fielding questions, incubation of process, activating content and meaning, considering arts activism, and community collaboration.  

Since we have had a year of the pandemic, we will engage in-person at site visits in New York City as a classroom. Some events that will be planned are a tour of Stonewall Monument with Stonewall National Parks volunteers, visit the recent Maya Lin outdoor environmental installation “Ghost Trees.”We will engage in participatory walks – such as rethinking memorials – with the Columbus Monument, and retracing the remains, removal and landmarks of Seneca Village with alumni Kimiyo Bremer. Artists in the field will speak about their work such as John Sims with reclaiming and burying the Confederate flag. We will also be in the here and now, with current events and spontaneous responsive activism. And be mindful of the past year – of events, loss, trauma and regeneration, recuperation, restoration and commemoration.

We will work individually but also engage in projects in cooperation and collaboration. We will consider celebration as a space for engagement and activism and we will challenge our comfort zones to consider inspiration, reimagining and possibility. As part of our process, we will delineate the increments of identifying prompts to deepen and awaken our practice. There will be readings and research alongside each unit, a presentation and final reflection essay.

War: Aesthetic Approaches/Theoretical Retreats (Theory)

Professor Luis Rincon Alba

ASPP-UT 1006-001 (Undergraduate section - juniors, seniors with permission)

ASPP-GT 2006-001 Tuesdays, 4:45 - 8:10pm 4 points

In her book “The Unwomanly Face of War,” journalist and Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievich questions the grandiose and male-centered manners historians have approached war. Alexievich’s response to the omissions committed by such an attitude considers the senses in conjunction with the memories of women whose stories have been neglected, erased, and suppressed for being a menace to the status of this very grandiosity. In this class, we will follow a similar approach and interrogate the forms in which artists from war-affected regions and populations recuperate and redeem the traces, memories, lessons, and scars left by armed conflicts. In conjunction with this, we will critically read philosophical, historical, and other texts from the humanistic tradition to understand how war overflows, challenges, and redefine the theoretical understanding of violence, brutality, race, gender, sex, and the human. The class will also pay attention to how war and its traces remain in audio-visual archives, theater plays, choreographies, music, literature, and performance art. 

Some of the authors and artists we will pay attention to include Doris Salcedo, Claudia Rankine, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Teresa Margolles, Svetlana Alexievich, Eiko & Koma, Nidia Góngora, An-My Lê, Joe Arroyo, Walter Benjamin, Francisco Goya, Ariella Azoulay, Robert Mosse, Arthur Jafa, Ariella Azoulay, John Akomfrah, and Raoul Peck.

Issues in Arts Politics

Professor Ella Shohat ASPP-GT 2001 (MA Arts Politics Students Only) Wednesdays, 10:30am - 2:05pm 4 points

This course expands the methodological, theoretical, and discursive possibilities of situating culture and the arts in relation to the political, tracking this relationship in a transnational world. By privileging analytics from anticolonial and critical race theory, transnational feminism, queer studies and disability discourse, we reimagine the issues of arts and politics in relation to questions of power and survival. Rather than perpetuating a dominant discourse of art merely being resistant to the state, we will expand other narratives and analytics that seek to complicate not only the political, but also the aesthetic. Through tracking shifts in visual art in relation to performance, social practice, and the intermedial, we will also find grounding in concepts from political economy. This course intends to introduce key analytics in critical theory to help students theorize and historicize their own practices and approaches.

Postcolonial Displacement: Memoir and Memory

Professor Ella Shohat

ASPP-UT 1049-001 (juniors, seniors only with permission)

ASPP-GT 2049-001 Graduate section

Wednesday 3:30 - 7:05pm

With the growing numbers of immigrants/refugees in cities such as London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, belonging no longer corresponds to one geography, simplistically imagined as “over there.” This seminar will study questions of displacement as represented, mediated and narrated in a wide variety of texts. It will focus especially on memoirs, whether in written or audiovisual form, which confront exclusionary and essentialist discourses with a rich cultural production that foregrounds a complex understanding of such issues as “home,” “homeland,” “exile,” “hybridity” and “minorities.” How are identity and history performed in these colonial, post­colonial and diasporic contexts? What is the status and significance of the oral, the visual and the performed within the context of memory? We will examine different narrative forms of memory­making, analyzing how post/colonial authors and media­makers perform “home,” “homeland,” “diaspora,” and “exile.” How does memory become a filter for constructing contemporary discourses of belonging, especially in the context of post­independence and transnational dislocations? We will also address questions of genre, and the socio­political ramifications of certain modes of writing and performances of memory that create new hybrid genres such as the

poetic documentary and experimental autobiography. We will analyze works where a fractured temporality is reassembled to form a usable past where the body serves as an icon of migratory meanings. We will also examine contemporary cyber diasporic practices, problematizing such issues as “nostalgia” and “return” in the context of new communication technologies.

Race and Speculation (Theory)

Professor Shanté Smalls

Thursdays 10:30am - 2:05pm

Graduate Students Only

This course takes seriously the work that science fiction and speculative works do in relation to constructions of gender and sexuality, race, and imaginary worlds and temporalities. This course considers how dystopian science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative categories render race and gender in the afterlife of structured society. Are race and gender metrics that register after civilization has been destroyed or radically altered? We consider such questions as: Who gets to lead in dystopian society? Who gets to have family and kinship and how are those portrayed? How is gender racialized and race gendered in post-apocalyptic worlds? And finally, can dystopic future renderings aid in undoing long-standing structural oppressions?

The class will focus on a series of objects and performances across genre, including, graphic novels, literary novels, and visual culture (film, tv, art)

Possible sites of inquiry: NYC Comic Con Festival, Midtown Comics, Forbidden Planet Comics; authors: NK Jemison, Octavia E. Butler, Marjorie Liu; Samuel Delany; films: Train to Busan (2016), The Girl With All the Gifts (2016), Pumzi (2009)

Music, Race, and Ethnicity

ASPP-UT 1006-002(Undergraduate section - juniors, seniors  with permission)

ASPP-GT 2006-002 Thursdays, 3:15 - 6:50pm 4 points

This class explores the modes through which music has expanded understandings of race and ethnicity and how it has shaped the critical understanding of performance and the performative. It pays close attention to the participation of the colonial in the formation of the contemporary political and aesthetic landscape while also defining the forces that shape culture and art on a global scale. The class maintains the tension among multiple elements such as race and ethnicity but also class, gender, and sexuality to offer an intersectional perspective of the political role that ancestral and contemporary musical performance played in anti-racist activism. 

We will also practice simple but meaningful musical exercises aimed at giving students tools to listen in detail while also understanding how a sense of orientation and alignment resides at the heart of Black and Indigenous musical performance. Students will develop skills to write about musical performance in the broadest sense of the term. However, they will also have chances to seek, explore, and question for ethical and political modes to include music

in their own artistic practice. The class is structured in a way that allows students to gain tools to engage in detailed listening. Subsequently, these tools will foreground their capacity to richly and productively describe musical performance in their writing. No musical practice or previous knowledge is required.

Art and the Public Sphere: Other Architectures

Professor Laura Harris

ASPP-GT 2054-001 (graduate students only)

Thursdays, 3:15 - 6:50pm 4 points

What is a public sphere and how is it activated and delineated? By and for whom? And how is private domestic life structured? And what forms of social life cannot be accommodated in either? We will consider the way such social spaces are articulated by, among other things: physical architecture and infrastructure; media and communication

technologies; the economic instruments of colonial and racial capitalism; state policies and policing; and cis-heteropatriarchal and ableist moralisms. We will look at the ongoing reorganization of these spaces (through, for example, land appropriation, domicide, “slum” clearance, redlining, predatory loans, moral panics, rezoning, sacrifice zones, and the risks and restrictions accompanying the recent pandemic).

At the same time, we will look at alternative formations, some found in different building traditions, some created by artists or imagined by poets, and some defined through irregular forms of movement and/or gathering that the planners did not plan for.

Authors and artists studied may include Jürgen Habermas, Kristin Ross, Leon Battista Alberti, Angela Mitroupolous, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Paula Chakrabarty, Veronica Gago and Luci Cavallero, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Kengo Kuma, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, AbdouMaliq Simone, Michel de Certeau, Maria Lugones, Sara Ahmed, Fernand Deligny, Claudio Medeiros and Victor Galdino, Hélio Oiticica, Gordon Matta-Clark, Lygia Clark, Park MacArthur and Constantina Zavitsanos, Erica Gressman, Italo Calvino, Renee Gladman, Natalie Diaz and Zoe Leonard.

Contact the Department: Emily Bronson Administrative Director, Department of Art and Public Policy Tisch School of the Arts, New York University 715 Broadway, 12th floor New York, NY 10012 Phone: 212-992-8248 Email:  [email protected]

On The Site

Artwork by Mary Vaux Walcott, Smithsonian American Art Museum Collections, on Wikimedia Commons

The Universal Whole: A Conversation With Can Xue and Annelise Finegan Wasmoen

April 9, 2024 | Balasubramanian, Aruna | Humanities , Interviews , Literature , Margellos World Republic of Letters Series , Philosophy

In Love in the New Millennium , celebrated experimental writer Can Xue tells the story of a group of women who inhabit a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flower beds and conspiracies abound.

In the wake of the paperback publication, Can Xue and translator Annelise Finegan Wasmoen talk about the marriage of Eastern and Western countries, the challenges of translating the grammatical particularities of Chinese, and the legacy of the book in raising fundamental questions of human nature.

Can Xue, you describe your surreal fictional environments as highly rational conjurings, while readers call them surreal. When you write, how do you approach the balance between reason and psychological drift?

CX: First of all I should explain my definition of this philosophical term reason . At the moment, I am writing a book on philosophy that takes as its core my unique definition and usage of this word. Far different than the philosophical distinctions of Kant, Hegel, Husserl and so on, I differentiate reason into theoretical reason and practical reason, and further posit the highest setting of epistemology as contradictory epistemology . The rationalists of Western philosophy have not truly differentiated this singular dimension of practical reason. They are monists of theoretical reason. Their cosmology is also unlike my theory in not putting forward a theory of contradiction. How, then, do I define practical reason? I think this is a function of the human body as well as what I formulate as the highest function—the function of Nature’s (the universe’s) material being, precisely and symmetrically corresponding to the theoretical reason put forward by Western rationalists.

 Therefore my philosophy is also a practical philosophy, namely, in operating creatively through physical functions (for example, the expression of emotional material in literature) to construct an ideal and material Nature. I have discovered through the practice of literature a native self-awareness possessed by myself and possessed—or that should be possessed in the future—by the Chinese people. Chinese people have a spontaneous tendency to see Nature as the self. We excel in practice (making things), but are deficient in theoretical summation and self-awareness, so we have not produced a high degree of self-awareness about our physical functioning even over several thousands of years. In this respect I seem to be a pioneer. When I wrote my first literary work at the age of thirty, I discovered that I have a kind of aptitude that is different than other authors: I just need to sit down and write to live immediately inside of my own Nature. I am one member within Nature; I am also the entirety of Nature. Next, I only need to squeeze my emotion and concentrate my discernment in order to break out into an obscure direction. That “breaking out” is full of challenges and joys as well as the full release of bodily desire. I have never considered a work’s structure and do not plan it out overall, but instead write down whatever I am thinking, writing where it goes and that is all. If my writing is interrupted, when I return to writing afterward I can continue again with what is next, joined together seamlessly.

The works that I write down all have the tight logic of emotional structure, but are also without the vestiges of intentionality, because I am “making things.” This kind of work has no blueprint. It takes shape through the operation of the limbs and the sensory organs on emotional material. The major force behind this practice is constructive impulse. A single literary work is the entirety of perfect rationality; all of my works together form a garland. This is my usage of practical reason . I have adored Western culture from when I was young, earnestly studying its literature and philosophy to lay a good foundation. I wield Western culture as a tool to awaken the sleeping native self-awareness within me, opening the path of my creativity. I call my creativity the expression of practical reason (and also practical intellect and perception). My practical reason is synonymous with the structure of my psyche. The characteristics of the two are creativity and constructiveness, and also humanity’s ancient instincts revived in the process of both Chinese and Western culture fusing inseparably and becoming each other’s mutual essence. The force behind the psychological structure of my creativity comes from practical perceptual intuition, intellectual intuition, and rational intuition. The unique approach of my creativity functions through intuition and the construction of intuitive graphics. In parallel to theoretical reason, this kind of active reason also functions as a parable. It is the mother of all of the inventions of natural science and the humanities. What it creates are the things that our Nature does not yet have, but should.

From remote, ancient times humanity began to make tools, plant crops, domesticate animals, and use primitive language to express feelings. These ancient functions of the trunk and its limbs (in short, the body) and people’s thinking and speculative functions together constitute the essential function of our being human. In my opinion, human nature is a contradiction, and all things within Nature are contradictions; I believe that I have a unique approach to deal with these contradictions. The Chinese are the most practical people, yet their extended time historically without communication with the world brought about a lack of self-awareness when it comes to this function, which has hindered the development of our own practical function. My works are breaking through that block, being the effort to establish a more comprehensive view of the universe and of philosophy.

In the Acknowledgements of Love in the New Millennium , you write “I think of this book as the fruit born of the love between Eastern and Western cultures, its images pushing forward a wholly new type of human self and mechanism of freedom.” Can Xue, can you elaborate on the characteristics of this new human self and freedom? Annelise, was there a particular translation in the book that exemplified the love between Eastern and Western cultures?

CX: I have believed for a long time that an ideal human self would possess the strengths of East and West. For myself individually, I am mainly taking the Chinese ethnicity to be Eastern, although of course there are other distinctions. Those parts of Western culture that I am passionate about are what my ethnicity lacks. For example, with respect to encouraging spiritual matters; for example, the capacity to reason; for example, the impulse to task risks or to create; and so on. This novel is the achievement of my study of Western culture. However, in reaching the new millennium, I have felt deeply that Western spiritual culture alone can no longer adapt to the demands of the world’s developments. I also discovered that Western culture had encountered a bottleneck in its own development.

The new millennium requires a blended culture, one that is stronger, richer, and has more knowingness and vitality. The pursuit of this blending has been abundantly revealed in my novel. I think that Chinese culture (or the Chinese culture of the future) can in this way supplement what Western culture lacks. The keyword to Love in the New Millennium is communication. This communication in the novel is the communication of love between men and women, but it is actually also the communication of all of humankind. I feel that, in the new millennium, humanity’s communication has become a major issue of life or death importance. Even though many Western novels also broach this subject, I think that the contradictory dialectic of communication is unique with a Chinese person like Can Xue. This is the contribution of an author after being enlightened to the world, along with my model of pursuing freedom that is different than the crowd. Westerners emphasize spiritual pursuits, and in expressing the relationship between people they emphasize communication that is conceptual; Chinese people emphasize materiality (or embodied functions), and what is expressed through human relationships is physical communication. These two kinds of communication combined together structure a contradictory human nature, both sides equally important, without the existence of a question of which is higher or lower. We Chinese people have an adage, “use the heart to compare hearts,” which says to consider the other as yourself. In this way there is communication between bodies and not solely communication of the spirit. Even if the other is an “enemy,” one should still imagine them as oneself and have physical exchange with them in practice.

Further, this practical communication extends to the natural world, that “Great Self,” such that animals, plants, the land, the sky, and so on become the objects of our communication. The communication of high art often fails, but even so, artists should not change their original intentions and instead carry on this kind of communication to the end, like the woman singer in Love in the New Millennium . Within my philosophical distinctions, freedom can only be produced by two kinds of communication, of the body and of the spirit, besides which there is no other way. That is to say that the exchange between bodies (the interaction of practical operations and emotional material) cannot be lacking. If you seek the sublimation and freedom of the human self, you must invest yourself in the practice of communication between the human and the things of nature, seeing other people (including enemies) and also things within nature as yourself, and maintaining these relationships. Regarding this kind of relationship, the depictions in my novel become more revealing through utopian idealism. Each achievement of communication is a model of freedom. For people who have never had physical communication with other people, their freedom is blocked in a deep sense. Human character and models of freedom in the new millennium are constructive. It is every artist’s duty to take definite action in striving to invest oneself in the work of communication.

The reality of the situation is that many Chinese people lack theoretical reason in communication with other people and only speak of superficial levels of communication in the physical sense (worldly-wise, unprincipled and overflowing with emotions, feudal and backward). Without a fundamental standard, or without the wisdom of ongoing contact, they cannot establish dynamic, progressive, healthy relationships between people. Many Westerners on the other hand are indifferent to emotion with regard to human relationships, never knowing the situation of the other party, or knowing what they are thinking, and insisting on abstract, rigid principles. When they encounter contradictions, if it isn’t investing themselves completely into seeking the way to resolve it, then it’s being slipshod, using one’s own views (theoretical principles) as the standard to cut through the knot and ruin the relationship. If these two great ancient cultures can absorb each other’s benefits and mutually take each other as their essence, the extent of humanity’s freedom will surely be greatly expanded.

AFW: When I think back on translating Can Xue’s brilliant Love in the New Millennium , some of the global currents recur to me, such as what the character Dr. Liu thinks of in Chapter 6 as “the world’s great interconnectedness […] this kind of interconnectedness [that] took place every minute and every second, similar to the working of the wind […] ‘No matter how the world develops, interconnection is always necessary’.” Meanwhile, cultural signifiers from both Eastern and Western culture pattern themselves throughout the novel: La Traviata , pachinko parlors, Chinese medicinal herbs.

For one thing, the novel doesn’t depict so much the concept of the male and female sexes in Chinese reality as a merging of the concepts in Chinese and Western cultures. The most typical example is Long Sixiang, along with Dr. Liu and Xiao Yuan, who all yearn for ‘true love,’ but also have a rational side. For another, Dr. Liu uses the methods of Western medicine to apply Chinese herbal medicine (scientifically), while taking a Chinese approach to treating pain—often regarding illness as a contradiction that should not be resolved, and using pain relief methods to treat illness—which develops the logical contradiction.

I think that these two points illustrate the author’s ideal worldview.

The novel and, by extension, the translation, is also very much about forms of communication which allow the response to be unexpected, in the way authors and translators communicate with readers, rather than preempted. Characters in Love in the New Millennium do not act or respond affectively in ways that are foreseeable, whether narratively or psychologically: they may have confidence “out of all proportion,” they discover themselves as other selves in each other’s eyes, they are constantly on the move and “circle again, for a different perspective.” Sometimes characters laugh in response to comprehension: “They glanced at each other and both laughed out loud until tears flowed from their eyes, and the two, both strangely embarrassed, turned their faces away to look in different directions.” This type of communication models various forms and aspects of cross-cultural engagement, especially textual forms. As language animals we use assumptions about meaning to organize our understanding, and in most fiction context helps to disambiguate lexical meaning. In Can Xue’s fiction, there may be little internal evidence as to whether a significant word or a suggestive passage points in one direction or another, so the translation needs to leave these choices open, these unknowns, unpredictable. In my favorite line from the novel, one of the women points out: “Your not understanding is understanding!”

Can Xue, you have often stated that your fundamental subject matter is universal human nature, while readers have interpreted reality in Love in the New Millennium as inherently female. How do you explore the relationship between gender, reality, and human nature across your work?

CX: If the novel Love in the New Millennium were interpreted as the author setting out to write a “fundamental” novel from an “inherently” female point of view, this would doubtless minimize the significance of this kind of novel greatly. I am an author with an extremely strong sense of universal wholes, and my Nature as a whole can be endlessly divided. This means that communication is everywhere in my writing, communication that takes place in every aspect of human nature. I explore in my fiction the most rational model of the development of human nature. Therefore, when I depict the psychology of female characters, I am actually also writing about the male sex, and the converse is true. For example, some readers in my country have felt that in the new novel that will soon be published in your country, The Enchanting Lives of Others , the male characters are particularly vivid and have depth. As is widely known, the main character of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is a woman, yet in my reading of this work I can sense from beginning to end that this role is Tolstoy’s own ideal form of self-expression. It is good for female perspectives to be put forward in today’s society, but only with the awakening of all women, and their obtaining liberation, can this be truly brought about.

In addition, to do this, male perspectives must develop synchronously. We need to bring up large numbers of new men who have new thoughts and can defeat traditional points of view. Seen from the situation of countries around the globe, this has not been done enough, which is also a reason that feminism is worth advocating. My recent novels depict quite a few of the ideal form of male characters, and I believe that they also are myself. Several of the male characters in Love in the New Millennium —for example, Wei Bo, Doctor Liu, the antique dealer, etc.—all have a tendency toward becoming ideal. Doctor Liu especially has an appealing maleness, as a kind of allegorical character who belongs to the world of a future utopia. Meanwhile Xiao Yuan and the female singer are the personification of enchantment. Perhaps this kind of writing is what Western intellectuals often describe as “androgyny.” There is naturally a large distance between reality and fiction, which is also the reason why we need fiction. When we learn what is best through the communication of works of literature, we will consciously seek out the perfection of the human self in ordinary life.

Given the grammatical and linguistic particularities of the Chinese language, were there challenges in conveying the literary subtleties of Love in the New Millennium in such a direct language as English?

AFW: This is a difficult question, because I think of English as being so multivalent rather than direct, making it a matter of exchanging one kind of ambiguity for another. One of the key particularities in translating from Chinese into English is that Chinese branches mostly left and English mostly right, so a translator needs to dismantle and reconstruct the sentence order. For Love in the New Millennium , though, as readers have pointed out, I sometimes leave elements of the Chinese syntax in place to provide the reader with the same sequence of elements as they appear in Can Xue’s text, when it seems impactful to do so. In this way, in a larger sense, my hope is that English will eventually be influenced by Chinese on a linguistic level as well as a literary one. This of course goes back to your question about love between Eastern and Western cultures. 

It is often said that translation is the closest form of reading. That is especially true of emotional trajectory, because the arcs traversed are inevitable, already written and unavoidable. As Can Xue just noted, a work like Love in the New Millennium has the “tight logic of emotional structure,” and I have been privileged to go on emotional journeys with these characters and with the author, since Can Xue sees these characters—Cuilan and Weibo and A Si and Long Sixiang and all the rest—as extensions of a capacious self. Importantly, translation is a joyful, or at least consistently intriguing process. There is something joyous in the transference of words, phrases, sentences, works across languages, and with Love in the New Millennium there is the added dimension of the author’s drawing from across cultures to create a world of intrigue, secret histories, and hidden passageways.

Love in the New Millennium was originally published in English in 2018. How do you think the work’s significance has changed or stayed the same over time, and what is its legacy?

CX: I think that the influence of this novel will continue to grow along with its successive translations into different countries around the globe. This is because in the novel I raise the most fundamental questions about human nature and about our Nature (the universe). Most importantly, I put forward these questions from a Chinese author’s particular perspective, which is something that hadn’t yet happened in previous world literature. What model should we as humanity use to live within Nature? Why are our hungry and thirsty bodies always isolated from our spirits? What secret passageway is there between the two of them? What form should communication between people take to better release the body’s desires and attain the realm of freedom? Is purely conceptual freedom possible? Among all manner of worldly people, what kind of love can be called beautiful love? Do we as modern people still have other ways to make ourselves transcend the self, aside from religious feeling? These questions are all raised from the author’s life experience.

I believe that their answers must resort to action and cannot only be accessed through contemplation. We are dissatisfied with the world we live in, we want to transform this world, so, we should first transform our own approach to life. In this novel I offer some “Chinese prescriptions” to supply readers with alternatives. These are prescriptions found by a long-suffering patient during the long process of an illness. These prescriptions are in fact the product of Eastern culture and Western culture combining inseparably into one. My hope is that for readers this novel can inspire the spirit and the flesh and excite the creativity to invest themselves body and mind in constructing a world that belongs to us.

Can Xue  is the pseudonym of celebrated experimental writer Deng Xiaohua, born in 1953 in the city of Changsha. She is the author of  Love in the New Millennium ,  I Live in the Slums , and  Five Spice Street , among other books. Annelise Finegan Wasmoen  is academic director and clinical associate professor of translation at NYU School of Professional Studies. 

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