N.Y.U. to Offer Classes on Occupy Wall Street

Protesters living inside the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park in October.

Occupy Wall Street is becoming a teachable moment for New York City college students.
New York University plans to offer two classes next semester on the protest movement, whose participants frequently marched and rallied around the school’s Greenwich Village campus this fall.
The for-credit undergraduate class, offered through the university’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, examines economy and culture. The class has a rotating focus, and for the coming semester, it will be called “Why Occupy Wall Street? The History and Politics of Debt and Finance.”
“The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations are catching on across the United states, linking to popular discontent with economic inequality and financial greed and malfeasance around the globe,” says a flyer for the course distributed by its professor, Lisa Duggan. “This course is designed to provide a background for these momentous events.”
According to the flyer–which depicts a raised, clenched fist holding a pencil, a play on the movement’s symbol–Duggan plans to bring in guest speakers from Occupy Wall Street to “offer the broad view of the meaning and impact of the movement.”
Also next semester, another professor is teaching a graduate-level seminar on the demonstration.

Posted in: Society,USA