Journalism is not just about reporting on individual “news events.” More and more, it’s about getting a handle on the complicated reality that frames those events — the ever-shifting patterns of culture that reveal how we live and what we make of our lives. As the mainstream media expand their cultural coverage and alternative publications and websites proliferate, there has never been more need — or opportunity — for the aspiring cultural writer.
In 1995, cultural critic Ellen Willis responded to the rapid growth of this field by launching a concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism within the department’s M.A. program. CRC is unique: the only graduate journalism program in the country specifically designed to prepare the next generation of cultural reporters and critics.
The arts and popular culture; the immense variety of social groups, from gay families to Pakistani cabdrivers to computer geeks; the explosion of social controversies, from the Terry Schiavo case to the controversy over rape at Duke University; the rise of religious fundamentalism; the changing nature of political violence: all this is fodder for the cultural journalist. Cultural journalism is for writers with an itch to understand connections — between news event and context, present and past, art and society, public and private. Since the events of September 11, the need for such explorations has only intensified.
The CRC program is unique, too, in its emphasis on criticism. We are inspired not by the turgid academic criticism that is taught at some universities, but by the Partisan Review/New Yorker tradition: that is, thoughtful, provocative criticism that addresses a wide, non-specialized audience and that can intervene in a broader cultural conversation. The writers we study include Mary McCarthy, Edmund Wilson, James Agee, Susan Sontag, Greil Marcus, and Pauline Kael.
If you are drawn to the big picture — if you suspect that neither conventional journalism training nor academic specialization is right for you — CRC may be what you’re looking for. Our curriculum emphasizes the integration of journalistic skills with a distinctive individual writer’s voice.
We are available to meet with prospective students to discuss the CRC concentration from early September through April. Please email cultural.program@nyu.edu to schedule a meeting well in advance, as we are not available for appointments every day of the week.
