Office of Admission
Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts
79 Fifth Avenue, 5th floor
New York, NY 10003
Phone: 212.229.5150 or
800.292.3040
Fax: 212.229.5355
lang@newschool.edu
Program Contact
Val Vinokur
Program Director, Jewish Culture
Associate Professor, Literary Studies
vinokurv@newschool.edu
Study classic Jewish texts, both sacred (the Hebrew Bible and Talmud) and secular, and examine Jewish history from biblical times to the present. The Jewish Culture minor considers Jews and Judaism as rich case studies for questioning the meaning and origin of concepts like nation, state, religion, ethnicity, exile, and diaspora.
Drawing on courses from across the university, Lang takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject of Jewish Culture. The program builds on The New School's historic role as a haven for leading European Jewish intellectuals in the 1930s and 1940s. Some of them (Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, for example) have become major figures in modern Jewish culture. Like them, we see the study of Jewish culture not as a means of affirming identity but as a way of understanding the world at large.
Individual Jewish Culture courses can be taken as electives to supplement any major or incorporated into the self-designed Liberal Arts major. Those majoring in Liberal Arts can explore Jewish Culture as a guided area of study; all others may elect to minor in Jewish Culture. Those majoring in Liberal Arts may also complete an optional senior capstone project guided by a Jewish Culture advisor.
While it offers the atmosphere and intimacy of a small college, Eugene Lang College is part of The New School, a major progressive university in New York City. Jewish Culture students access the city's rich local Jewish life and institutions, including courses and field trips related to the historic Museum at Eldridge Street and to the Second Cemetery of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in North America. Students can enrich their studies and pursue internships at organizations such as YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and Museum of Jewish Heritage.
The interdisciplinary minor in Jewish Culture provides an academic foundation for career paths including nonprofit agencies, NGOs, and writing, and for graduate study in fields such as religion, international relations, law, history, literature, social work, social science, and education. Consult our 4-Year Lang Career Pathways Map (PDF) for helpful steps and resources to link your academic journey to your future plans.
From history professor Oz Frankel's introduction: "[This issue explores] historical and contemporary abolitionism as an ideology, political sensibility and disposition, form of analysis and critique, world-making imagination, policy prescription, and daily practice."
"Finchelstein, who is one of the world's leading experts on both fascism and populism, is essential reading for the times in which we live." —Times Literary Supplement
Larrimore, an associate professor of religious studies, and students in his class Theorizing Religion are building on the exhibition Fashion—Faith: Rituals and Dialogues, on display in the Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery. Illustration by Yoon-Jong Chang.
The New School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.