Join Lang Civic Engagement and Social Justice (CESJ) for 

Creating Capacity to Continue Forward: A Healing Space. 

This will be a movement-based event for processing and restoration. We are accessibility mindful and open to all. Zumba will be led by our CESJ Director, Anthony Wilder. And a yoga offering will be led by Linda Lopes. 

Linda Lopes (she/her) is a certified Yoga Instructor 500H, Guided Energy Healing Practitioner, and shares Sacred Drum medicine.

Linda discovered her practice over a decade ago through her mentor and Medicine Woman, who she refers to as the catalyst for change in her life. While searching for happiness, joy, love, and abundance, she soon realized that what she and most of us long for is always found within. She has spent over a decade healing, studying, and training under her Mentor and Medicine Woman to uncover the deep and tangled layers of ancestral, generational, and collective trauma to finally feel and experience the ability to rise, heal, awaken, and claim her gifts and live in her full power. She is committed to the path toward healing and liberation. It is through this journey that she comes to be of service to you and Mother Earth.

In her sessions, Linda strives to create an accessible practice that offers variations and options for participants to move with a sense of agency that focuses on and honors each person's needs. She uses inclusive language and teaches with a trauma-informed understanding.

Anthony Wilder (he/him) is the Director of the Office of Civic Engagement and Social Justice. Anthony was Director of the Center for Inclusion at Manhattanville College. In prior role, he developed innovative strategies to increase campus-wide involvement with diversity and inclusion programming, including the creation of a new DEI-based grant program to encourage students, staff, and faculty to investigate diversity, equity, inclusion, and retention issues within their area and/or communities.

Previously Anthony served as Program Coordinator at the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion at Northeastern University. He began his career working in residence life at Augsberg University. Anthony has presented at conferences on a wide range of topics including masculinity, race, and power, and identity and career development. Anthony holds a BA in Journalism and Music Performance from the University of Wisconsin Madison, and an MS in Counseling Psychology also from Madison. Anthony is an avid practitioner of African Dance.

Food will be provided!

This event is a great space for community building amongst TNS students and to learn about CESJ programs and events.

This is an in person gathering, so please feel free to wear a mask.
Be sure to RSVP to stay up to date on CESJ events!

Register Here

Join Lang Civic Engagement and Social Justice (CESJ) for our Fall 2023 Welcome Mixer and Community check-in. This event is a great space for community building among Lang community members, the CESJ staff, and to learn about CESJ programs and events. 

This is an in person gathering. Come for a few minutes or stay the whole time!

Food (pizza and empanadas!) will be provided at the Event Café at the University Center (UC). Open to all TNS community members!

The New School welcomes The Black Benjie Legacy Project for a multifaceted interactive event in the Lang courtyard, intending to shine light on an underrecognized narrative in Hip Hop history, here in the Culture’s 50th Anniversary year. Cornell “Black Benjie” Benjamin was the Ambassador for Peace for the Ghetto Brothers, a South Bronx gang, social organization, and band. Black Benjie was slain while trying to stop a gang conflict in 1971. Police, city officials, and gang members expected his murder to incite major violent retaliation throughout the Bronx BUT instead his death directly led to the historic "Hoe Avenue Peace Treaty." This peace meeting and truce amongst all the leaders of the Bronx gangs helped transform the volatile landscape of the Bronx and set the stage for the development of Hip-Hop.

The Black Benjie Legacy Project is a crew of middle schoolers from Bronx Community Charter School dedicated to keeping Black Benjie's legacy alive. They are touring NYC with their workshop, "Black Benjie Vive," that presents Black Benjie’s story, explores paths to peacemaking, and models cypher pedagogy.

Join us to discuss the pre-history of Hip Hop and lineage of restorative justice in a conversation guided by this powerful collective of youth. The event will open with DJ sets from TNS DJs, then the Black Benjie Vive workshop, followed by an open mic/jam session with the New School Hip Hop Collective.

Join Lang Civic Engagement and Social Justice (CESJ) for our Spring 2023 Mixer and Community check in. This event is a great space for community building among Lang/TNS community members, the CESJ staff, and to learn about CESJ programs and events. 

Come for a few minutes or stay the whole time!

Food, Snacks, and Refreshments will be provided at Wollman Hall. Open to all Lang students, staff, faculty, and TNS community.

https://event.newschool.edu/cesjspringmixer

Apart of the Activism and The Academy event. Join us April 19th for a film screening and discussion.

Fly in Power

Co-directed by Yin Q and Yoon Grace Ra, Fly in Power follows Charlotte, a Korean massage worker and core organizer of Red Canary Song (RCS): a social justice collective of Asian diasporic massage workers, sex workers and allies who basebuild through mutual aid. Through her story, we learn how the incarceration system is pitted against Asian migrant women and their survival. Other RCS members, including Khokhoi, a young body worker, and Prof Elena Shih, Brown University, share powerful insights that debunk the myths of sex trafficking.

Fly in Power is a glimpse into the intimate spaces that not only connect these workers, but is also a testament to the global advocacy of women's rights to work and thrive. This is the first film to center the narrative of an Asian massage worker in her own words, with her own agency of storytelling and editing. The intention of Fly in Power is to honor their practices of care, autonomy, and survival and to raise awareness of the oppressive systems that face us all.

*This film has been produced entirely by women, non-binary, trans and queers of the Asian diaspora-- more than half of the production team are former sex workers.

https://event.newschool.edu/activismtheacademy

What are possibilities for sustainable, radical, and alternative lives in future worlds?

Whilst corporations and the non-profit industrial complex monopolise imaginaries of possible and acceptable options for work and action, distorting visions and possibilities for imagining and enacting common and healthy futures, this series of explorations will examine how alternative paths for making a living and a life may open up through the meeting point of activism, organizing and the academy.

Bringing together activists and scholar-activists from around the city and beyond, we invite students and the New School community to join us for a two-day convening April 12th and 19th to exchange on these issues: What is the relation of the academy to activism? to organizing? What are the problems and possibilities in that relationship, and how must the university change? How can academics imagine and make a future as/out of activists or organizers?  What stands in the way? What kinds of work or modes of organizing work are imaginable or useful and what is the role of knowledge production? What is the role of the non-profit sector? is it always a part of the non-profit industrial complex? What are the opportunities/pathways and dangers for making future lives in activism/social change for majors in the social sciences and humanities?

Anti-Blackness has been ingrained in the fabric of the United States since its pre-colonial emergence dating back over 400 years ago. Rooted in this history is today’s violent surveillance of Black bodies, with particular scrutiny and vulnerability falling on women-folk and members of the LGBTQ community. Scholarship which has sought to theorize Black vulnerability and resistance to premature death has been met with denunciation and characterizations like “woke”, “dangerous” and “divisive”. This has led to an attempted erasure of history and outright attacks on both Critical Race Theory and AP African American Studies. We are facing a swift backlash of epic proportions and resurgence of American-branded apartheid - a literal fight for our lives.

In Blackness in America, we aim to contribute to a long history of intellectual resistance to these issues, beyond the purview of Black History Month. Join Lang CESJ’s Faculty Forum Series in collaboration with New School faculty Rich Blint, Nadia Williams, and Mia White for an honest conversation around the trajectory of Blackness in American society in relation to politics, academia, and social justice. Food will be provided. 

https://event.newschool.edu/blacknessinamerica

What are possibilities for sustainable, radical, and alternative lives in future worlds?

Whilst corporations and the non-profit industrial complex monopolise imaginaries of possible and acceptable options for work and action, distorting visions and possibilities for imagining and enacting common and healthy futures, this series of explorations will examine how alternative paths for making a living and a life may open up through the meeting point of activism, organizing and the academy.

Bringing together activists and scholar-activists from around the city and beyond, we invite students and the New School community to join us for a two-day convening April 12th and 19th  to an exchange on these issues: What is the relation of the academy to activism? to organizing? What are the problems and possibilities in that relationship, and how must the university change? How can academics imagine and make a future as/out of activists or organizers?  What stands in the way? What kinds of work or modes of organizing work are imaginable or useful and what is the role of knowledge production? What is the role of the non-profit sector? is it always a part of the non-profit industrial complex? What are the opportunities/pathways and dangers for making future lives in activism/social change for majors in the social sciences and humanities?

https://event.newschool.edu/activismandtheacademy2

Now more than ever, technology is rapidly and seamlessly integrated into our lives. Racism in technology has been explored by many scholars throughout the decades, adapting as new technologies emerge. Technology has allowed white supremacist settler colonial societies to contend with racism, in ways it has not before: lived environments, politics, and social interactions, both on and offline. Today we are accustomed to using tap to pay credit cards, 2-day Amazon shipping, and booking online video appointments. However, our awareness of the coded algorithms that help inform decisions about and within our cities is much less known. Social media serves as a powerful tool for activist resistance, voicing pressing issues, and calling communities into action. At the same time, governments and private industries utilize technology as a repressive force for surveillance, hyper capitalism, and extraction. 

As we interrogate technology as a tool for progress and social advancement, it is integral to question who these tools are inaccessible to and who they surveil. From facial recognition software to parole eligibility and mortgage loan algorithms, technology is experienced on an intersectional level. For historically excluded and racially marginalized people, technology means increased policing, hyper criminalization and cultural extraction. The overlapping issues within these large topics deserve credible information and discussion. 

Join us in conversation at “Racism by Design”, on Tuesday, March 28 at 6pm in person at The New School and virtually on Zoom. “Racism by Design” hopes to bring together expert scholars from The New School community and a curious audience in engaging conversation. The event features: Jennifer Rittner, Sareeta Amrute, and Jack Jin Gary Lee.

Uncomfortable dialogue is necessary to move towards unbiased systems, and it starts with honest and vulnerable community discussion!

https://event.newschool.edu/racismbydesign1

From thought-provoking Twitter threads to creatively written data-driven pieces, writing is an integral part of social justice work. Join us Wednesday, November 9th, 1pm to 2:30pm (EDT) for Writing and Social Justice. In this hybrid event, Bernard Ferguson (they/them), writer/poet/activist and Lang faculty member, and Breanna Georges (she/her), student activist and Freedom Scholar (fka Gural Scholars program), will discuss writing as social activism and a community building process. We will work through how to develop insightful narratives that push for change and empower communities marginalized by oppressive systems. Please RSVP to attend in-person at Dorothy Hirshon Suite, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street and virtually on Zoom. Food/lunch will be served for in-person attendees.

https://event.newschool.edu/writingsocialjustice

Within the last few years, the US Supreme Court and local and state legislatures have drastically changed the everyday lives of people in the United States. Local and midterm elections are not taken as seriously as presidential elections, but the former have a greater impact on the lives of communities made vulnerable in crises. The New School is a diverse place with students from all over the country and throughout the world. Understanding the inner workings of voting systems is vital as potential and future voters and current community members. 

Let’s talk about Why, How, and Where your voice matters in EVERY election cycle, and how you can positively impact your community.

You are invited to The Voting and Social Justice Conversation, Wed, October 26th 1-2:30 PM in Dorothy Hirshon Suite, Arnhold Hall, room I203, 55 West 13th Street and virtually on Zoom. Join us in-person or virtually for an afternoon conversation with our special guest speakers Shanelle Matthews, Trevon Mayers, and Alex Kramer about the voting process and how to support voting for change.

https://event.newschool.edu/votingsocialjustice

Join Lang Civic Engagement and Social Justice (CESJ) for our Fall 2022 Mixer and Community check-in. This event is a great space for community building among Lang community members, the CESJ staff, and to learn about CESJ programs and events. 

This is a hybrid gathering, in-person and on Zoom. RSVP will be required for all community members, and a Zoom link will be provided to virtual RSVPs. Come for a few minutes or stay the whole time!

Refreshments will be provided at Wollman Hall.  Open to all Lang students, staff, faculty, and TNS community.

https://event.newschool.edu/cesjfallmixer