CPD Director Contributes to Book on the Arts as Essential

CPD Director Jay Wang is contributing author for the new book, Are the Arts Essential? (NYU Press, February 2022), a collection of essays by 25 artists, scholars, professionals and funders who respond to the title question. The contributions highlight themes such as the power of human connection, issues of justice and fairness, how the arts bridge divides and offer hope, the impact and opportunities of technology and more.

In the chapter "The Arts and Global Relations," Wang suggests that amid a changing and uncertain globalized world that "works two ways at once—it pulls people together, and it drives them apart," the arts may offer a moderating force. Wang writes that the arts and artists express the “underlying humanity” across polarities, support cross-cultural conversations and stimulate empathy—factors behind what may be an urgent calling for the contemporary arts terrain. 

Contributors to Are the Arts Essential? include:

• K. Anthony Appiah, Professor of Law and Philosophy, NYU 
• Carol Becker, Dean of the School of the Arts, Columbia University 
• Karol Berger, Osgood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts, Emeritus, Stanford University 
• Jeffrey Brown, Senior Correspondent, PBS NewsHour 
• Mary Schmidt Campbell, President, Spelman College 
• Angela Cox, Vice President, Rasmuson Foundation
• Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater 
• Fred Hersch, jazz pianist and composer 
• Edward Hirsch, Visiting Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, NYU and President of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
• Karen L. Ishizuka, Chief Curator, Japanese American National Museum 
• Tania León, composer and conductor; Distinguished Professor Emerita, City University of New York
• Mary Miss, artist and Founder of City as Living Laboratory 
• Zeyba Rahman, Senior Program Officer, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art 
• Hussein Rashid, founder, Islamicate L3C consulting 
• Jesse Rosen, President and CEO, League of American Orchestras 
• Richard Sennett, Chairman of Theatrum Mundi; Visiting Professor at MIT
• Alice Sheppard, choreographer and dancer
• Catharine R. Stimpson, Dean Emerita, NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science 
• Elizabeth Streb, founder, Streb Extreme Action 
• Steven Tepper, Dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University 
• Cristal Chanelle Truscott, Associate Professor, Northwestern University 
• Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation 
• Jay Wang, Director, USC Center on Public Diplomacy 
• Daniel Weiss, President and CEO, Metropolitan Museum of Art 
• Mariet Westermann, Vice Chancellor, NYU Abu Dhabi
• Deborah Willis, Chair of the Department of Photography and University Professor, NYU Tisch 
• Ellen Winner, Professor Emerita of Psychology, Boston College and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education  

 
Purchase a copy of Are the Arts Essential? from the NYU Press website here (enter promo code NYUARTS30 to save 30%).