EASYREEDER

A Drama In Time: The New School Century

A Drama in Time is a beautifully designed large-format illustrative book. The narrative, authored by New School creative writing professor John Reed, weaves together the many histories of one of America’s most progressive universities. Founded by political dissidents in 1919, the school has become a byword for academic freedom and progressive thought. Now encompassing five schools, including Parsons School of Design, Mannes and Eugene Lang College, The New School is a center for notable designers, writers, musicians, artists and political activists. 

The presentation of A Drama in Time is reflective of the change-making, status-quo pushing attitude of the school: dynamic and unexpected while remaining elegant. The stories characterize The New School, and give readers a command of The New School legacy and vision and place in culture. Each story contains a mix of a title, body copy, photos with captions, pull-out quotes by New Schoolers, and highlights from The New School archive.

Founded by dissident scholars, academics and activists, The New School has been an incarnation of the New York, American and global spirit of radical iconoclasm since 1919. The New School century arcs with the twentieth century: fascism in Europe to Fluxus in the West Village; renegade artists to L’École Libre des Hautes Études; Margaret Mead, John Cage and Hannah Arendt to the Parsons School of Design; the Dramatic Workshop to jazz, film, and photojournalism to sustainable systems; the Mannes School of Music to Students for a Democratic Society, clashing with police on Fifth Avenue in 1969. The telling of A Drama in Time is as immediate and swift as it is enduring, with events spanning the decades, quotes from a diverse array of New Schoolers, and dynamic archival visuals to tableau the journey, A Drama in Time is a vibrant, pulsing-with-passion testimonial to The New School century.

Published by PROFILE BOOKS. 

—Published to weave together the untold stories of the legacy of The New School.

—Illustrated with over 400 images from The New School archive.

LitPub: An Interview with John Reed, author of A Drama in Time: The New School Century

(08/06/2024)

Kristina Marie Darling: Your newest book, A Drama in Time: The New School Century, just launched from Profile Books Ltd. What are three things you’d like readers to know before they delve into the work itself?

John Reed: Well, I’d like people to know about The New School and its history, and coming to the book with a very basic outline of The New School is something I’d hope for. There’s nothing like writing a book about a submarine and having someone ask you, “but what’s a submarine?”

I’d also love for people to know that it’s a reference book, with many pictures, and that it was designed to read through or to just peck at, reading now and then and going back to for information. That would make me really happy, knowing the book lived that kind of life on people’s shelves.

The last thing, hmm. I’d love for people to know that there are many mysteries to solve here. 

KMD: In addition to your achievements in nonfiction, you are an accomplished poet and novelist. Why is it important for writers to allow themselves to move fluidly between genres? What can nonfiction writers learn from poets? And from their colleagues working in fiction? …

Ongoing Research about The New School