Public Programs
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The New School is a place where education has always been interwoven with public life. Since our founding, our university has served as a meeting place where influential people and ideas intersect, where issues are debated the moment they surface, and where leaders break new ground on a diverse set of topics.
Each year, The New School hosts more than 1,000 public events with some of the most famous and engaged people, organizations, and institutions around the world. These events range from interviews to readings, performances to screenings, connecting what students learn in the classroom with what’s happening in the world.
New School public programs and events, both in person and online, offer viewers a chance to ask questions, discover new ideas, make connections, and find a community of people ready to engage. Unmatched in quality and quantity, public programs are a hallmark of the New School experience.
I saw a public program with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart my freshman year—it was great! I learned that you really have to be thoughtful about what you want to do as an artist."
—Rafah Mahmud, BFA Dramatic Arts, School of Drama
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To learn about upcoming events, visit our Events Calendar or sign up for our monthly newsletters.
View past events on our YouTube channel.
Events

Roger Kellaway, John Goldsby & Terry Clarke Autumn Reunion Concert
Join us for a special evening of jazz as we welcome the esteemed trio of Roger Kellaway, John Goldsby, and Terry Clarke to The New School.The program is dedicated to jazz and will include historical and newer compositions by Roger Kellaway and John Goldsby. Kellaway, Goldsby, and Clarke will also reprise a number of selections from their Live at Tokyo album, recorded 40 years ago.Kicking off the month of October, this special Autumn Reunion brings together three musicians with a shared history and decades of experience. It’s an evening of music and connection you won’t want to miss.The concert is being produced by Samuel Turvey, a founder of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival and its producer from 1993 to 2002. New School faculty member and alto saxophone player David Glasser is serving as the Assistant Producer. Pam Shaw and Victor Talbot are serving as the Creative Producers for this event.About Roger Kellaway: Roger is a Grammy Award winner and Academy Award nominated Pianist/Composer and has written in the fields of jazz, classical, and pop, also composing and scoring for films and television. He has worked with everyone from Ellington to Elvis, Joni Mitchell to Barbara Streisand, and Quincy Jones to Yo-Yo Ma. Roger’s commissions range from a ballet for George Ballachine and the New York Ballet to his most prized television credit, “Remembering You,” the closing theme for the groundbreaking “All in the Family” television series. In addition to leading many jazz recordings and accomplishments, he has appeared and recorded with Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, Oliver Nelson, Ben Webster, Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer. Roger resides in Los Angeles.About John Goldsby:John is bass player and musician of extraordinary talents including his accomplishments in jazz education. He has led numerous successful recording sessions of his own and has performed with many legends including Scott Hamilton, Jay McShann, Barney Kessel, Michael Brecker, Mel Lewis, and John Lewis. During his 30-year tenure with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Big Band (WDR Big Band) he performed and recorded with McCoy Tyner, John Scofield, Joshua Redman, Ambrose Akinmusire, Roy Hargrove, Knower, Nduduzo Makhathini, and many others. John’s current album—Big Band Bass—features Bob Mintzer and WDR Big Band. The Jazz Bass Book is Mr. Goldsby’s classic work documenting jazz bass players and their techniques from a historical perspective. John resides in Germany, near Cologne.About Terry Clarke:Terry is a Canadian jazz drummer who worked in the mid 60’s with the legendary saxophonist, John Handy III and is featured on the recording, Live at The Monterey Jazz Festival. Clarke then joined the GRAMMY-winning group, “The Fifth Dimension”, and appears with the group in the OSCAR WINNING Summer of Soul documentary. He later relocated to Toronto and played with luminaries such as Frank Rossolino, Lenny Breau, jazz guitar legend Jim Hall and piano icon Oscar Peterson. During this period Clarke played for 25 years with the GRAMMY and JUNO-winning jazz big-band, “Rob McConnell and the Boss Brass”. Clarke later worked in New York City with The Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, Helen Merrill, Toots Theilmans, Red Mitchell and Roger Kellaway. Clarke is the only living drummer to be a Member of the Order of Canada (Canada’s highest civilian honour). His recording, It’s About Time, was the winner of “The Best Traditional Jazz Recording” at the 2010 JUNO Awards (Canadian GRAMMY).

The Social Security Retirement Earnings Test: Should it stay or go?
Join us for the September session of the Reimagining the Economics of Aging Seminar Series, a monthly virtual forum hosted by the Wealth Equity Lab at The New School. This series brings together scholars and practitioners to deepen conversations on aging, retirement, and late-life economic security, with a focus on works in progress and active discussion. On October 7th, we will host Dr. Jason Fichtner, Senior Policy Fellow at the Center for Social Development and Executive Director of the Retirement Income Institute, Alliance for Lifetime Income. who will discuss the Social Security Retirement Earnings Test (RET).The RET was originally included in Social Security based on the straightforward social insurance concept that to receive a retirement benefit, a person must have experienced a loss in income due to retirement and no longer working. Unfortunately, the RET rules are widely misunderstood by beneficiaries today, and it discourages work in an era when earnings are an increasingly important component of old-age economic security. The RET is enormously complicated and most older workers are unaware of it -- at least until it affects them. Even when workers have heard of it, most misperceive it as a tax and think withheld benefits do not get returned. Repealing the RET could help improve the financial security of older Americans by allowing them to continue working without having some of their Social Security benefits withheld. On the other hand, repealing the RET could lead more people to claim benefits before their full retirement age and, thus, receiving a reduced monthly Social Security benefit that could worsen their financial security in older ages. Public policy decisions require an understanding of the economic and social opportunity costs and tradeoffs. Should the RET stay or should it go?

Capitalism and its Critics: the Big Questions Return
IMPORTANT: The event location has changed, and it will now take place at Amphitheater Room A407, Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall, 66 West 12th StreetIn this talk, John Cassidy (The New Yorker) will discuss his book Capitalism and Its Critics, recently released in paperback, and its relevance to today’s political and economic climate. Drawing on thinkers including E.P. Thompson, Karl Marx, Henry George, Karl Polanyi, Michał Kalecki, and Paul Sweezy, Cassidy will explore the revival of political economy and the return of fundamental questions about capitalism, its institutions, and its alternatives. The talk will be followed by a Q&A and discussion.

71st Flaherty Film Seminar NYC Pod
Join us for three days of incredible film and discussion as part of the Flaherty Film Seminar NYC Pod! The Flaherty Film Seminar is an internationally recognized forum for collective inquiry into the form and function of non-fiction cinema, fostering field-building dialogue, encouraging the exchange of cinematic ideas across generations and cultures, and promoting the expansion of the limits of cinema itself. The 71st Flaherty Film Seminar will be taking place this year in Marlboro, Vermont with films and discussions programmed from October 8 through October 10th. Our NYC Pod will take place simultaneously on the campus of The New School alongside several global Pods. After co-hosting the 70th anniversary Flaherty Seminar here last summer (along with Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film), The New School’s MA Media Studies is excited to be hosting this year’s NYC Pod. The seminar schedule is rigorous, with up to 3 screenings with discussions each day, punctuated by coffee and meal breaks. The NYC Pod is free and open to the public but space is limited, registration is required, and an honest effort to engage with the entire 3-day program is expected. Register at the link (to left) for the entire seminar (see schedule below).NYC Pod Schedule:DAY 1 - Thursday, Oct 8, 2026Starr Foundation Hall University Center, UL10263 Fifth Avenue 6:00 - 9:30 PM - Program 1 + discussion DAY 2 - Friday , Oct 9, 2026Starr Foundation Hall University Center, UL10263 Fifth Avenue12:00 - 1:30 PM - Program 21:30 - 2:00 PM - Coffee break 2:00 - 3:30 PM - Program 33:30 - 6:00 PM - Program 2+3 Discussion6:00 - 7:00 PM - Dinner break7:00 - 9:30 PM - Program 4 + discussion DAY 3 - Saturday , Oct 10, 2026Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, room N101Sheila C. Johnson Design Center66 Fifth Avenue 1:00 - 2:30 PM - Program 5 + discussion 2:30 - 4:00 PM - Break4:00 - 6:30 PM - Program 6 or 7 + discussionWhat to expect at the Flaherty Seminar: Gestures of RefusalThe Seminar is an exploratory experience that emulates the concept of non-preconception. To this end, the organizers do not announce the Seminar program beforehand. Beyond the programmers and production team, no one knows what they will be watching until the lights go down. Film notes and trigger warnings will be made available upon request to participants before each screening begins. The Seminar is programmed as a continuum wherein individual screening programs relate to, riff off of, and expand upon one another.About this year’s Seminar theme:Programmed by The Flaherty team, the 71st Flaherty Seminar will delve into images that resist disintegration: works that excavate what empire and erasure have buried beneath systems, structures, and the surfaces of images themselves. Through fragmentation, recollection, and archival intervention, this year’s program will explore how memory is constructed, displaced, or reclaimed.

Designing for Performance
Great performances depend on great rooms. The sightlines, the sound, and the space between audience and performer all change the story we experience.Join the School of Drama and Parsons Constructed Environments for an evening with Andy Hayles, co-founder and managing partner of Charcoalblue, the firm behind celebrated performance spaces like the Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center and St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. Hayles and Eric Magloire, Charcoalblue's Acoustics Design Principal, will take us behind the scenes of the firm's projects and how a venue comes to life. Hayles will then join Deans Jermaine Hill and Cotter Christian in conversation about how spaces built for storytelling become storytellers themselves.Whether you design buildings, objects, fashion, or experiences, or you make work for the stage in theatre, music, or dance, come see where design and performance meet, and bring your questions for the Q&A with Hayles and Magloire. Check out the Constructed Environments Linktree for all of our Public Programs!

Book Launch: Declaration/Emancipation Illustrated by R. Sikoryak
Cartoonist R. Sikoryak will discuss his new graphic novel, Declaration/Emancipation Illustrated. This unique title features the unabridged text of the Declaration of Independence, alongside the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address in a double-sided book, rendered in the bright, bold, and iconic styles of over 100 different American comics, cartoons, and graphic novels from over a century. In a profusely illustrated talk, R. Sikoryak will show the development of his graphic novel: how it grew out of his previous book Constitution Illustrated and his Unquotable Trump comics; how he researched American history; and how he reinterpreted 100 years of American cartoons. We’ll also consider the ways the Declaration of Independence has been reinterpreted since 1776, how it directly inspired Lincoln, and how we’re still arguing about it today. The talk will be followed by a Q & A and discussion.Biography: Cartoonist R. Sikoryak is the author of Constitution Illustrated, Masterpiece Comics, Terms and Conditions, and The Unquotable Trump (Drawn and Quarterly). His comics and illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, The Onion, MAD, and more. He’s done storyboards and character designs for Augenblick Studios on various animated projects. Sikoryak teaches in the Illustration Program at Parsons School of Design and presents his live comics performance series, Carousel, around the United States and Canada.

