Today, the world is facing significant crises. With billions of people at risk, we face a multitude of critical questions. The biological risks of the current pandemic are likely a first wave, setting in motion multiple systemic challenges and transformations: economic, social, political, cultural, technological and ecological. We are in the midst of re-alignments and re-articulations of every aspect of our lives. There are people, communities, and institutions across all disciplines and across the globe that are increasingly confronted by the need for new models of asking the extraordinarily complex questions of our time.

“New York City, a 5000 Year History” begins with the idea that New York City can be understood as a microcosm of world cultures, a living ecosystem of cultural diversity in a state of continuous transformation. With as many as 800 spoken languages, New York City is arguably the most linguistically diverse city on earth, containing a multitude of human, spatial, temporal, material, systemic and structural elements interacting in multiple time frames. This creates a living laboratory to explore and develop new questions that address the challenges of our increasingly complex world.

With examples from over 5,000 years of art, architecture, engineering, science, technology, biology, finance, industry, politics, poetry, film, music, theater, religion and literature, the course is a close examination of New York City and the nature of transformation. With guest speakers from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, much of the discussions will focus on turning points or hinges in these histories. These include: the invention of the elevator, train, telegraph and water infrastructures, the invention of modern incorporations and modern banking, the Atlantic Slave Trade, Jim Crow, redlining, and mass incarceration, the carbon economy and the climate crises, the transformations of Yoruba polytheism in music, literature and the visual arts, the birth of the Greek theatre and the emergence of photography and film, the advent of ‘the Nuclear’ and the rise of GRIN technologies (Genetics, Robotics, Information technology and Nanotechnology). From the Cave Drawings to the dawn of Blockchain, the conversations will explore many forms of knowledge, agency, action and transformation that create and move though New York City.

Over its 160-year life, The Cooper Union has given voice to urgent questions, making critical contributions to countless transformations and social movements. Today, the need for social movements, for civic engagement, and exploratory works of empathy and ethics are as urgent as they have ever been. The very tangible potential to transform the lives of the most vulnerable creates an urgent call for spaces of communication and reciprocity where people can develop new understandings, perceptions and practices that respond to the scope of our challenges. “New York City, a 5000 Year History” covers a large arc of content, asks questions of our city, our disciplines and our humanity, and searches for new modes of creating the transformations that embody our best hopes and aspirations.