NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study

Big news for NYU! 🎬

With 14 Oscar nominations, Gallatin alumni Timothée Chalamet and Isabella Rossellini (BA '12) are among the honorees. We are cheering everyone on!

Read more at https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2025/january/nyu-receives-14-nominations-for-the-2025-oscars.html 🏆

NYU Receives 14 Nominations for the 2025 Oscars Ten alumni and one adjunct faculty representing four schools were honored in performance, producing, and design categories

My Gallatin Story: Dengkai Xiao (BA '27)

💜 What is your concentration?
My studies center on Multimedia Communication and East Asian Popular Culture, complemented by a minor in film. I’m particularly interested in examining the power dynamics of popular culture and various forms of media to understand how they influence individuals, national power structures, and societal mindsets.

💜 What inspired you to choose NYU Florence for your Study Away experience?
NYU Florence wasn’t at the top of my list at first. I dreamed of Paris—a city brimming with French poetry and cinema that shaped part of me when I grew up. [But] a friend urged me to step beyond the comfort of my carefully laid plans. She said, “Try something out of your imagination—beyond what you’ve already envisioned.” That thought made me change the ranking of my study away sites. I spent an extraordinary semester at NYU Florence, which changed how I perceive both the world and my place in it. Over those few months, I met fun friends, and invaluable insights from professors who challenged my every assumption and found wonder in every trip in Europe. Even now, I carry the memory of that transformative time, and this part became a part of my identity.

💜 What courses did you take, and how did they connect to the local culture?
I took five classes in total: Social Media Strategy, Photography and Imaging, History of Italian Fashion, Elementary Italian City Lab, and Photojournalism. History of Italian Fashion allowed me to delve into the evolution of Italian design through visits to significant sites like Villa La Pietra and perfume museums. Elementary Italian City Lab, a special hands-on course, encouraged me to step beyond the classroom and engage directly with local life. The Photojournalism course culminated in a transformative two-day field trip to Naples and Scampia, where we were tasked with capturing the spirit of these communities through photography.

💜 What’s your most unforgettable memory from your time in Florence?
Every day in Florence felt like a small adventure. Mornings began with the scent of fresh pastries as I walked to Villa La Pietra, passing a lively garden where locals laughed, played, and basked in the sun. The campus was enchanting, surrounded by sprawling gardens where I’d steal quiet moments between classes, reading under trees. Afternoons were spent exploring: tasting pastries at hidden bakeries, wandering cobblestone streets near Duomo, or sipping espresso while planning weekend trips. Weekends and breaks were filled with trips across Europe. From Milan’s vibrant streets and Norway’s breathtaking fjords to Paris’s art-filled charm and Barcelona’s colorful energy, every destination added a new layer to our journey.

Professor Jacob Remes provided important insights in a recent Guardian article on the challenges of disaster relief and the role of social networks in shaping access to aid. His commentary highlights the disparities in support that emerge in the aftermath of tragedies like the Altadena wildfires.

Read more at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/17/la-fires-gofundme-mandy-moore 🔗

GoFundMe, Mandy Moore and the unfairness of disaster relief: ‘If you were poor before, you should stay poor’ Aid was historically seen as a way to ‘restore the status quo’. Now the actor’s bid for help amid the LA fires raises a question: who deserves to crowdfund?

Introducing the Mad Studies Reader 🧠

Join us for a panel moderated by Neil Gong, brings together the three editors of the recently released Mad Studies Reader, Jazmine Russell, Alisha Ali, and Bradley Lewis, to celebrate and nurture this emergent work and the community it fosters 💬

Date: Monday, January 27
Time: 6:00–7:30 p.m.
Location: Zoom
RSVP via https://gallatin.nyu.edu/utilities/events/2025/01/introducing-the-mad-studies-reader.html ✏️

“Mad Studies” is an emerging interdisciplinary collaboration for transforming how we approach mental health and wellbeing. Mad studies centers the perspective of lived experience and it brings together activists, artists, concerned clinicians, and critical disability scholars. It uses these differing perspectives to liberate us from rigid categories, from single vision framings, and from the sanist prejudice. Mad studies, at its heart, realigns who gets to contribute to the conversation, research, and practice around mental difference.

madstudies

LA Wildfires: How You Can Help 💜

Many in the NYU community are looking for ways to support those affected by the Los Angeles wildfires. You can head to https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-08/how-to-help-victims-of-pacific-palisades-eaton-and-hurst-fires for a list of resources compiled by the Los Angeles Times where you can donate or volunteer to make a difference.

To our LA Community: Gallatin is here for you, and we are holding your family and our Los Angeles community in our thoughts.

Meet Hallie Franks, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor, who recently published her book "Ancient Sculpture and Twentieth-Century American Womanhood."

💜 Tell us about your teaching and research interests.

As an art historian who studies the ancient world, I am interested in how images and monuments shape and communicate relationships between people. My research has focused in particular on the construction of gender and social and political power. At Gallatin, my classes include "Do Colors Have Histories?" and "Persuasion!". "Aphrodite," which influenced the current book, is one of my favorite courses to teach, and it will be offered Fall '25!

💜 Congratulations on the publication of your book Can you share a surprising discovery you encountered while researching for this book?

Thank you! I think that the most surprising discovery I made is the topic of the book itself. I had started researching the ways in which early bodybuilders like Eugen Sandow used ancient sculpture as physical models. This has been fairly well explored by scholars already. What I discovered as I dove into early 20th century media on exercise and fitness is that women were actively included in these discussions and that sculptures of ancient Greek goddesses — usually Venus, sometimes Artemis — were key ways of visualizing modern ideal female physicality in this period. That discovery turned into the whole book!

💜 What key takeaways do you hope readers gain from your book?

One of the main arguments in this book is that modernity uses antiquity for its own ends. I explore this by focusing on the ways that ancient sculptures of Venus have been presented as models of "ideal beauty" and as embodying values like purity, discipline, and morality... the modern insistence on reading these values into ancient sculpture serves a really important purpose: it suggests that those values — values that have been important to constructions of modern ideal femininity — are universal and "natural" and have always been inherent to ideal womanhood.

While the book looks primarily at body discourses of the 19th and early 20th century, this phenomenon is still all around us. My Introduction opens with Kim Kardashian's KKW Body fragrance, released in 2018. The bottle is sculpted in the shape of her body and treated to look like an ancient sculpture. We might think that Kardashian is not interested in presenting herself as "pure," but she certainly is interested in claiming aspirational, ideal beauty. Presenting her body as an ancient sculpture visually makes that argument.

Congratulations Professor Ernest A. Bryant III on receiving a fellowship award from the Lunder Institute for American Art!

Meet Our 2025–26 Fellows - Lunder Institute Awarded to scholars, researchers, and artists whose work aligns with The Lunder Institute’s mission of expanding the boundaries of American Art, fellowships foster experimentation, research, and production at all stages of practice by providing space, time, and resources to incubate leading work i...

Starting in Spring 2026, NYU Gallatin and Singapore Management University's College of Integrative Studies (CIS) undergraduate students will have the chance to study away for a semester in Singapore or New York City, respectively. The Gallatin-SMU Exchange Program is an exciting opportunity for students that has emerged from a new, collaborative partnership between the two schools.

For both Gallatin and CIS students, the chance to spend a semester studying away at either SMU or NYU provides an opportunity to broaden their cultural horizons, gain a truly global perspective, and apply their academic experience beyond the confines of a classroom, in the greater world.

Head to https://gallatin.nyu.edu/news/2025/01/nyu-gallatin-announces-new-exchange-program.html to learn more about this exciting opportunity to spend a semester in Singapore 🇸🇬

Meet Renny Thomas, Gallatin's Taki Visiting Global Professor for the Spring 2025 semester, whose work delves into the fascinating intersections of science, religion, and culture. With a focus on how diverse knowledge systems shape our world, Professor Thomas brings a unique and thoughtful perspective to the classroom.

In an insightful interview with Gallatin Global, he shares his journey, academic inspirations, and reflections on fostering meaningful dialogue across disciplines.

Head to https://bit.ly/49oyaWz to read the full interview and learn more about his work 📝

Check out this podcast episode of "100 Years of 100 Things," where Dean Victoria Rosner talk about the post-World War I development of modernism (and post-modernism) across the arts and beyond 📻

100 Years of 100 Things: Modernism | The Brian Lehrer Show | WNYC The post-World War I development of modernism (and post-modernism) across the arts and beyond.

Meet Jakiyah Bradley (BA ’20), Research and Operations Associate at NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

💜 What was your concentration?

Urban Policy and Social Change. I was intrigued by public policy in cities and how historically marginalized individuals have created and continue to create social movements to address their needs.

💜 What is your favorite Gallatin memory?

Spending a summer in Berlin, Germany as a Gallatin Global Fellow in Urban Practice was my favorite Gallatin memory! I worked at a community-based education and empowerment project for Black, African, and African diasporic people in Germany and also conducted independent research at the intersection of public policy and urban toponymy. The fellowship is hosted by the Urban Democracy Lab, and having a project like that housed within Gallatin was an incomparable resource during my studies.

💜 What have you been up to since graduation?

NYU deepened my curiosity about films, so in my spare time, I'm usually watching movies so I can be a true cinephile. During my 9-5, I'm a social science researcher at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and I primarily create public education materials about civil rights for Black people in the U.S. I recently wrote a piece about the true promise of Brown v. Board and another about how textbooks in U.S. schools can erase the truth and legacy of racism.

Tune in to The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio, this Wednesday, January 8 from 11:10 - 11:45 a.m. to hear Dean Victoria Rosner talk about modernism and post-modernism across disciplines and cultures in the program "100 Years of 100 Things."

The Brian Lehrer Show | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News Brian Lehrer leads the conversation about what matters most now in local and national politics, our own communities and our lives.

Dario Anya (BA ‘26) sat down with to talk about the behind-the-scenes of his Gallatin journey and what it’s like to be part of the Latinx community at NYU.

💜 What aspect of NYU’s values or culture resonated with you the most when you applied?

NYU is a mosaic of innovation, tenacity, and endless opportunities… I wanted to be part of a community of builders, thinkers, and innovators. I wanted to make a difference in my community and country through education and technology via my company, . That desire drew me to NYU, our mosaic of ideas, and our eagerness to change the standard.

​​💜 Would you describe a moment when you felt particularly proud or supported as part of the Latinx community at NYU?

Personally, my proudest moments as a Latino at NYU are my mentees. Each year, I meet ambitious, talented, and committed Latino students. They are willing to challenge the barriers they or others face. Regardless of any disadvantages or obstacles, they dare to persevere and preserve. They truly embody our university’s values and vision. They are like my brothers and sisters. I stand by them in support and solidarity, eager to help them succeed and expand opportunities for our community at NYU and beyond.

Read the full interview at https://meet.nyu.edu/life/current-students/get-to-know-the-latinx-community-at-nyu
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“Sinking Upwards, Heaven to the Ground” brings together multidisciplinary artists whose work grapples with the themes of struggle and liberation, archive and memory, invisibility, improvisational creation, and art making as a way to make sense and confront violence and displacement.

It will be on view until Friday, January 17, so don’t miss your chance to see this incredible show curated by the class “Collective Curating,” led by Professor Keith Miller.

📷 Photos from the opening night by Elena Olivio

“‘Code Words’ is a comic about secret languages, and also about the concept of origin: the origin of language, obviously, but specifically the nostalgia for that origin, and the nostalgia we hold for our childhood…

I tried to represent that in this piece, which was partly also about an ‘adult’ difficulty with language. I find it really hard at times to talk to other people, even people I’m close with. Making a wordless or almost wordless comic was a way to carve out a space away from language.” - Olivia Macagba (BA ‘26)

Olivia originally created “Code Words” in Corinne Butta’s Fall 2024 Confluence tutorial. Read more at https://confluence.gallatin.nyu.edu/sections/portfolio/code-words 🔗

We are proud to announce that not 1, not 2, but 5 of our recent alums made it to the Forbes 30 under 30 list! Let’s give a round of applause to:

💜 Justin Chae (BA ‘22), Cofounder and CEO of Meridian Strategies, a New York public affairs firm
💜 Ma Qing (BA ‘19), CMO of Firstcard, a credit card company that helps immigrants build credit
💜 Akili King (BA ‘17), Senior Beauty Editor at Essence
💜 Devin Lewtan (BA ‘20), Cofounders of Mad Realities, which creates original, social-first shows
💜 Aija Mayrock (BA ‘19), Bestselling Author & Poet

You make us so proud alums!