• Code as a Liberal Art Hero

    Code as a Liberal Art

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  • Program Contact

    Program Director, Code as a Liberal Art
    Rory Solomon

    Assistant Professor, Code as a Liberal Art
    [email protected]

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  • Lang’s Code as a Liberal Art minor enables you to develop skills in code and computational thinking as tools for critical and creative inquiry and for better understanding how computational systems impact different aspects of society. Through discipline-specific projects, you gain coding skills to enhance your literacy in computational logic and to further your own creative practice. You explore algorithmic thinking and consider questions of access, equity, and social justice in relation to technological systems.

    • Study Options Minor

    Big data and algorithmic processes structure almost all aspects of contemporary life. Students minoring in Code as a Liberal Art critique the effects of these processes. Through hands-on experience, you learn foundational skills in code and use computation as a tool to enhance your liberal arts education — to better analyze, communicate, create and learn. You are introduced to the theory and practice of computational thinking, and learn to code to help answer research questions and to express yourself creatively.

    In additional to practical coding skills, the minor provides you with a broader understanding of the historical and social factors that have led to the increasing presence of computational systems in our lives. You think critically about the ways humans interact with computation, including understanding its limits from philosophical, logical, mathematical, and public policy perspectives. Learn more about this program, find events, and explore resources at codeatlang.

    Minor requirements

    Connecting to New York City

    While it offers the atmosphere and intimacy of a small college, Eugene Lang College is part of The New School, a major progressive university in New York City. The Code as a Liberal Art Minor introduces students to a variety of code-based researchers and practitioners through guest speakers and opportunities to participate in coding events around the city, including events sponsored by Data & Society, Processing Community Day NYC, and  Babycastles artist’s collective.

    Career Paths

    In Code as a Liberal Art courses you learn how to think critically about technology. You gain skills in code and computational thinking that prepare you for a wide range of careers including media production, software design/development, data journalism, advocacy, non-profit and community development work, as well as graduate study.

    If you are planning to go on to graduate study, consider applying to the accelerated BA/MA program, which enables you to earn graduate credits that will apply to both your Lang degree and a master’s degree at The New School.

    Outcomes at Lang

  • Featured Courses

    All students in the minor take Code as a Liberal Art, which provides an introduction to basic coding skills through a series of projects and examines how coding and computational thinking intersect with different disciplines and creative practices. Students can then choose between a number of rotating electives at Lang and Parsons. Recent courses include:

    • Learn how gender matters in the work we do by discussing the multiple ways in which gender organizes economic life and our perceptions of the value of different kinds of paid and unpaid labor.

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    • Uncover the interaction between sound, art, and technology in the recent past. Examine the practices and innovations that led to the most current ideas about sound art and music technology, and develop contemporary analytical methods for exploring and creating music.

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    • UENV 3750

      Green Roof Ecology

      Build the knowledge base for designing improved functionality, beauty, and ecological and environmental features that benefit both human and non-human species, while advancing knowledge to improve city investments in building out green roofs in the city.

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    • Among the topics you will explore in this course are clinical encounters, citizenship and the pharmaceuticalization of health, racialized medicine and pain management, the commodification of bodies through organ transplantation, structural violence and social suffering.

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    • LPHI 2046

      Philosophy of Race

      Discover materialist theories that examine the place of race and racism in social systems of expropriation and exploitation–especially capitalism, slavery, colonialism, and neo-imperialism.

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    • This second-level coding class explores concepts of big data, algorithm credibility and accountability, and computer mediated social interaction through a hands-on experience building a world of autonomous ‘intelligent’ agents.

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    • LPOL 2015

      Constitutional Law

      After examining the drafting and ratification of the Constitution in the late 1780s, this course uses a close reading of significant Supreme Court decisions to examine the Constitution’s major doctrines and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of those doctrines.

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    • Examine different theories and empirical evidence, learning how narrow identity can affect living standard and economic development, and move individuals and communities to see violence as a tool to resolve their differences.

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    • Learn American history through the perspectives of African Americans who recorded their observations and expressed their opinions in autobiographical narratives, speeches, articles, poetry, and literature.

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    • LPSY 3133

      Emotions

      Uncover the nature of human emotion in terms of its physiological underpinnings, variations associated with gender, culture and psychopathology, and the role emotion plays in interpersonal interactions, personality, cognition, decision-making, and human development across the lifespan.

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    • Experience a wide variety of music, dance, and theater performances and art exhibits in New York City as well as on-campus presentations by guest artists.

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    • Read, discuss, and respond in writing to a multiplicity of queer texts, from foundational works of queer theory to contemporary fiction, essays and poetry.

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    • Study ways to perform meaningfully, powerfully and truthfully during this hybrid studio-seminar course that functions as a movement-based, multimedia, living art workshop.

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    • This course explores a wide range of music technologies from historical, philosophical, and practical hands-on perspectives with the goal of inspiring students’ critical and creative understanding of music. Music technologies are broadly defined as any tools for playing music (whether for composing,...

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    • UENV 3750

      Green Roof Ecology

      This course links urban ecology and urban design through a civic engagement project with partners building, designing, and managing green roofs in NYC. Green roofs are examples of green infrastructure, often seen by policy makers and community members as a way to increase biodiversity in cities, mit...

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    • Required text: A K Sen (2002, Penguin) Identity and Violence This is multidisciplinary course exploring the links between identity and violence from two different perspectives. The first part examines some key empirical studies that view identity as inborn characteristic of persons and its conseque...

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    • LPSY 3133

      Emotions

      This course explores the relevance and complexity of emotions from both a psychological, experiential, and neuroscience perspective. Emotions are at the center of human experience, a fundamental part of communication and evolution that underpin every aspect of our subjective and social worlds. In bo...

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    • In this course students attend a variety of music, dance, and theater performances, gallery exhibits, and public art installations in New York City as well as presentations by guest artists. Students choose 7 events/exhibits from the course menu and share their reviews in an online forum. Lang Colle...

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    • WRITING THE ESSAY I: THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES. This first-year writing seminar examines the theory and practice of creative nonfiction, focusing on the memoir and the personal essay. Students will learn how to translate personal experience into effective pieces of writing. We will study the tec...

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  • Learn from and work with faculty mentors from a variety of disciplines who are academic scholars and creative practitioners.

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Submit your application

Undergraduates

To apply to any of our undergraduate programs (except the Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs) complete and submit the Common App online.

Undergraduate Adult Learners

To apply to any of our Bachelor's Program for Adults and Transfer Students and Parsons Associate of Applied Science programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

Graduates

To apply to any of our Master's, Doctoral, Professional Studies Diploma, and Graduate Certificate programs, complete and submit the New School Online Application.

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