Campus

Accommodations

Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) Fellows have the option of being housed in the shared residences at Kerrey Hall in the University Center. With wonderful views of the city and easy access to the ICSI seminars, each suite is equipped with a full bathroom, a kitchen with a full size refrigerator, cabinets, cooktop and microwave, a telephone, and a dining table and chairs. The bedrooms are fully furnished and have individual room temperature controls and cable TV jacks. The entire building is set up for Wi-Fi internet access. The residence has an abundance of amenities and large common spaces, including a main TV lounge, study room, a laundry room, and a gym. For more information on housing and the application process, click here.

The New School for Social Research

The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate school with a distinctive intellectual tradition that thrives on public debate and cultivates academic rigor. It has always had the characteristic of being both intimate and worldly, as evidenced by passionate discussions in courses and corridors; engagement with the political and cultural life of New York City; and participation in popular and academic institutions around the world.

The University recently marked the 80th anniversary of the University in Exile, which was the foundation of The New School for Social Research. The University in Exile was founded in 1933 as a home for a small group of distinguished German scholars fleeing Nazism. Their goal was to continue and expand their intellectual engagement, to mentor future generations of scholars, and to pursue academic research and publication. Yet, the roots of the NSSR can be traced further back, to 1919, with the founding of The New School, a forward-looking institution started by progressive and pragmatist educators who pursued a “new” audience and a “new” model for higher education. Today’s New School for Social Research is a remarkable product of the original New School and the University in Exile. We embrace both political scientist Charles Beard’s 1919 insistence on “an impartial and open-minded consideration of present difficulties” and Hannah Arendt’s 1971 plea that scholars avoid standard ideas “which have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality.”

Our faculty is united by a sense of the importance of boldly questioning conventional thinking and expanding the boundaries of social thought, as evidenced by recent faculty books and public interventions, including Federico Finchelstein’s The Dirty War, Janet Roitman’s Anti-Crisis, Dmitri Nikulin’s Comedy, Seriously, Ann Stoler’s Imperial Debris, and Simon Critchley’s New York Times column, among others. The vibrant intellectual energy of the NSSR is also evident in several recently launched interdisciplinary programs, including the Center for Capitalism Studies; the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography and Social Thought (GIDEST); and the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI).

The New School