Spring 2020 (Graduate): The Graduate Center, City University of New York*

*Course taught (in person and then online) as part of my postdoctoral appointment at the Graduate Center, CUNY

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”      

            ― Tom Wolfe

      “I miss New York. Take me home.”

            ― Carrie Bradshaw

A “power city,” “world city,” even an “alpha city,” New York is at once a center of the world, the world in a city, and home to millions from elsewhere. This somewhat paradoxical narrative of New York has its own unique history that rests upon, among other things, patterns of national and international migration during the twentieth century and a shift of geopolitical power from Europe to North America after 1945. This course traces New York’s role in the development of an “internationalist” world order during the middle of the twentieth century, and via the institutions, artists, and writers that enabled and intercepted this process. Each seminar highlights a different institution or institutional case study—from the United Nations to the Rockefeller Foundation, and from the Museum of Modern Art and Andy Warhol’s Factory to Stonewall Inn. These interdisciplinary case studies provide an anchor for a broader internationalist narrative of New York and varied sites of artistic, literary, and cultural production between the 1930s and the 1970s. Along with artistic and literary narratives of New York, we will consider the archive as a site of narration. Students will have the opportunity to collect new and untold histories of New York through original archival research projects that we will evaluate both individually and as a group.

By the end of the course students will have:

– Gained knowledge of the history of “internationalism” and New York’s role within that history.

– Gained chronological knowledge of some of the key movements in U.S. modern art history, from realism through abstraction, pop, and postmodern art.

– Gained knowledge on some of the major historical and cultural events taking place within New York during the middle of the twentieth century.

– Developed critical and practical skills in accessing archival resources and evaluating them in a responsible and interdisciplinary way.