Combining work in intellectual history and cultural studies, the committee serves the intellectual needs of both traditional and nontraditional students. Special attention is paid to the main currents in Western thought-from Plato and Aristotle to Nietzsche and beyond-as well as the application of cutting-edge theorizing to popular culture and modern art.

The curriculum developed by the Committee on Liberal Studies offers graduate training in intellectual history, cultural studies, and the art of fine writing, bringing together students of social thought, philosophy, the arts, and current affairs who wish to work on the quality of their prose while simultaneously learning to master new modes of serious inquiry, both academic and journalistic. Among the program's faculty are distinguished writers as well as accomplished scholars. Special attention is paid to the main currents in Western thought-and also to the cutting edge of modern critical and multicultural theorizing. Our students learn about Plato, Kant, and Marx; Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Goethe-but also about Milan Kundera and Toni Morrison, and Philip Glass, the structures of mass culture, and the logic of modern politics and the modern marketplace.

The program is designed to serve the diverse intellectual needs of both traditional and nontraditional students. Some students wish to enrich their education through our MA in liberal studies, others plan to seek a career in writing or journalism, while still others are proceeding toward a PhD in some discipline in the humanities or social sciences, either at The New School for Social Research or elsewhere.