New School oral history program
Online Access
Available digital items: https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/collections/NS070101.
Summary
The New School oral history program, initiated in 2012, consists of recorded sound interviews conducted by Archives and Special Collections staff and faculty partners to document aspects of university history that may not exist in other recorded formats. Interviewees consist of current and retired New School alumni, administrators, faculty, and staff. Topics cover different academic departments and disciplines, university offices, and affiliated institutes.
As of May 2020, there are twenty-six interviews in this collection. Recordings are all in English.
Dates
- 2012 - 2023
Creator
- Aubry, John (Narrator, Person)
- Bernstein, Richard J. (Interviewee, Person)
- Boyle, Deirdre (Interviewee, Person)
- Calderaro, George (Narrator, Person)
- Cohen, Michael A., 1944- (Interviewee, Person)
- Davis, Celeste Lacy (Interviewee, Person)
- Dickey, Elizabeth Dunbar, 1946- (Interviewee, Person)
- Edwards, Maurice, 1922- (Narrator, Person)
- Fanton, Jonathan F., 1943- (Interviewee, Person)
- Foulkes, Julia L. (Interviewer, Person)
- Friedman, Bruce (Interviewee, Person)
- Ghilarducci, Teresa (Interviewee, Person)
- Havemeyer, William (Narrator, Person)
- Hendershott, Carmen (Interviewer, Person)
- Hirst, William (Narrator, Person)
- Larrimore, Mark J. (Mark Joseph), 1966- (Interviewer, Person)
- Mack, Arien (Narrator, Person)
- Marshall, Timothy (Narrator, Person)
- Mattern, Shannon (Narrator, Person)
- Mueller, Martin (Interviewee, Person)
- New School (New York, N.Y.). New School Archives and Special Collections (Publisher, Organization)
- Robinson, Roberto (Narrator, Person)
- Robinson-Sweet, Anna (Interviewer, Person)
- Rocciolo, Silvia (Interviewer, Person)
- Ross, Elizabeth (Interviewee, Person)
- Salas, Sonia (Interviewee, Person)
- Scheir, Wendy (Interviewer, Person)
- Snitow, Ann Barr, 1943- (Narrator, Person)
- Taylor, John (Interviewee, Person)
- Watkin, Henry (Interviewee, Person)
- Williams, Tracyann (Narrator, Person)
- Worley, David (Interviewee, Person)
- Zelleke, Almaz (Narrator, Person)
- Zolberg, Vera L. (Interviewee, Person)
Extent
26.19 Gigabytes (63 digital audio files; 49:25:23 duration; 36 transcripts)
Language of Materials
English
Scope and Content of Collection
The New School oral history program, begun in the summer of 2012, records the reminiscences of members of the New School community, including longtime faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni, with the goal of documenting New School history through personal accounts. Initiated by The New School Archives and Special Collections, librarian Carmen Hendershott selected and interviewed the earliest interviewees. While originally conceived as a limited project, it grew into an ongoing program, with other Archives and Special Collections staff members and faculty partners conducting interviews.
The New School oral history program aims to fill in the often-incomplete written institutional records of The New School with histories of positions (e.g., deanships), departments (e.g., Media Studies), divisions (e.g., the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music), institutes and centers (e.g., the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies), and memorable persons (e.g., Clara Mayer).
The interviews were originally recorded as digital audio files (Wave) and transferred to MP3 files for access purposes. The original Broadcast Wave files are maintained by The New School Archives and Special Collections as preservation files.
Additionally, The New School Archives and Special Collections financed the professional transcription of all interviews. Archives staff members then edited the transcripts for clarity and to identify personal names and organizations that the transcriber could not identify. With the exception of the Arien Mack interview, neither recordings nor transcripts have been edited for content.
Access Restrictions
Collection is open for research use. Please contact archivist@newschool.edu for appointment. Digital transcripts (PDF file format) for each interview are also available for research use.
Use Restrictions
To publish all or part of any recording or transcription from this collection, permission must be obtained in writing from the New School Archives and Special Collections. Please contact: archivist@newschool.edu.
Biographical Note
Interviewer Biographies
- Julia Foulkes
- Julia Foulkes is a professor of history at the Schools of Public Engagement, a division of The New School. Foulkes’ scholarship investigates interdisciplinary questions about the arts, urban studies, and history. Her books include A Place for Us: West Side Story and New York (2016), To the City: Urban Photographs of the New Deal (2011), and Modern Bodies: Dance and American Modernism from Martha Graham to Alvin Ailey (2002). With fellow New School Professor Mark Larrimore, Foulkes teaches a University Liberal Arts course on New School history and co-edits a vertical of the web journal Public Seminar dedicated to New School history. Professor Foulkes has been a lead faculty member of the Humanities Action Lab, an international hub where the humanities and design generate innovative curricula and public engagement on urgent social issues.
- Carmen Hendershott
- Carmen Hendershott is a librarian at The New School. She has worked at The New School Libraries and Archives since August 31, 1970 in a variety of capacities, including cataloging, reference, interlibrary loan, and collection development. Prior to joining The New School, Hendershott was a serials librarian at Pace University in New York City and a library clerk at the University of Pittsburgh and the State Library of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. She also served as a volunteer librarian for the Gypsy Lore Society from 1979 until 2012. Her degrees include a MLS from the University of Pittsburgh (1964, cum laude), an MA in philosophy from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (1972), MAs in anthropology and sociology from the New School (1977 and 1979, respectively), a PhD in anthropology from the New School in 1989, and a certificate in archival management from Queens College, City University of New York in 2012. She has been a book reviewer for Choice: A Magazine for College Libraries since 1990 and a columnist for the Gypsy Lore Society Newsletter since 2005.
- Mark Larrimore
- Mark Larrimore holds a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from Worcester College, Oxford University and a PhD (1994) in religion from Princeton University. Larrimore is a faculty member in religious studies at Eugene Lang College, a division of The New School, and has served as program director for religious studies. He has also co-taught with Professor Julia Foulkes a University Liberal Arts course on New School history. In 2005, Larrimore received the Distinguished Teaching Award from The New School. He is the author of The Book of Job: A Biography (Princeton, 2013) and the editor of The Problem of Evil: A Reader (Blackwell, 2001). He has served as co-editor with Sara Eigen on The German Invention of Race (State University of New York, 2006) and with Kathleen T. Talvacchia and Michael F. Pettinger on Queer Christianities: Lived Religion in Transgressive Forms (New York University, 2015).
- Anna Robinson-Sweet
- Anna Robinson-Sweet (b. 1988) is an archivist at The New School Archives and Special Collections. Prior to joining The New School Archives in 2018, Robinson-Sweet worked at the Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Robinson-Sweet has also worked as a community and union organizer, and continues to be an activist in the prison and police abolition movement. She holds an MLIS from Simmons University and a BA in art from Yale University.
- Silvia Rocciolo
- Silvia Rocciolo is director and senior curator of The New School Art Collection. Rocciolo has been at The New School since 2005. Previously she served as a specialist in American art at Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg; was an art advisor curating modern American and European works of art for private and corporate collections with Guggenheim Asher Associates; and served as director of VonLintel and Nusser Gallery, a Munich-based gallery for mid-career and emerging artists.
- Wendy Scheir
- Wendy Scheir came to The New School in 2008 to direct the Kellen Design Archives for Parsons School of Design. In 2012, while continuing to lead the Kellen Design Archives, Scheir established the first ever university archives at The New School. Prior to starting at The New School, Scheir worked for the New York Public Library, where she was project archivist on a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to process the records of the New York World's Fair Corporation, 1939-1940. She holds a BA in English Literature, an MFA in Film, and an MA in History and Archives, all from New York University.
Organization and Arrangement
Interviews are arranged alphabetically by the name of interviewee.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
All interviews were conducted by either staff of the New School Archives and Special Collections or New School faculty members using equipment provided by the Archives, and files were accessioned immediately upon download.
Existence and Location of Copies
Original Wave recordings have been converted to MP3 files for patron access. The New School Archives and Special Collections also commissioned transcripts and offers them as PDF files.
- College administrators -- United States. (Subject) (Places) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Educators (Occupation) Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Interviews (Type of Material) Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Katznelson, Ira
- Kerrey, Robert, 1943-
- Labor unions -- Organizing (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- New School (New York, N.Y.)
- New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
- New School for Social Research (New York, N.Y. : 1919-1997). Graduate Faculty
- Oral histories (document genres) (Type of Material) Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Transcripts (Type of Material) Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Universities and colleges -- Curricula (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Universities and colleges -- United States -- Administration (Subject) (Places) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Universities and colleges -- United States -- Admission (Subject) (Places) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Van Zandt, David E., 1953-
- Title
- Guide to the New School oral history program
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- New School Archives and Special Collections Staff
- Date
- September 13, 2016
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Collection guide in English.
Revision Statements
- May 12, 2020: New School Archives staff added six new interviews to collection inventory and updated collection-level notes accordingly.
- May 28, 2024: New School Archives staff added one new interview to collection inventory and updated collection-level notes accordingly.