1. The Bronx Night Market

The perfect weekend plans: good people, good vibes, and even better food. The Bronx Night Market is back, just steps from our Rose Hill campus! Come through for a day of celebrating the Bronx and all its delicious eats.

Every last Saturday of the month; 1 Fordham Plaza, the Bronx

2. Dance Party at Bryant Park

Dancing is great for your mental and physical health, and there’s no better place to get moving than Bryant Park this spring. Free dance parties are back, and this year’s lineup features Afrofusion, Motown, bachata, and more! 

Every Wednesday and Thursday, through May 15; Meet at 6 p.m. at the Bryant Park fountain, Manhattan

3. Macy’s Flower Show

April showers bring May flowers, and the Macy’s Flower Show is in full bloom. Wander through stunning floral displays and step into a colorful, immersive world of springtime magic. 

Through May 18, Macy’s Store, Herald Square, Manhattan

4. FAD Market

’Tis the season for outdoor shopping. FAD Market is popping up all over NYC, offering the best in fashion, art, and design. Come vibe with local artists, discover cool finds, and soak up the creative energy. You never know what you’ll stumble across!

Multiple dates throughout the summer; multiple pop-up locations around the city

5. High Line Tour: From Freight to Flowers

Learn all about the High Line’s history, design, and landscape on a free tour led by High Line Docents. Tickets are first come, first served, so be sure to arrive about 15 minutes early to claim your spot. 

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays through August, various times; meet on the High Line at the top of the Gansevoort Street stairs, Manhattan 

Here are five things worth checking out this month—only in NYC.

1. Cherry Blossom Trees in Central Park

How lucky are we to have stunning cherry blossom trees just steps from our Lincoln Center campus? Central Park’s blooms are a springtime must-see. Grab your friends, bring a picnic blanket, and soak in all the beauty of the season.

All throughout April. The best places to view cherry blossom trees in Central Park are around the Reservoir, Cherry Hill, Pilgrim Hill, the Great Lawn, Cedar Hill, and the area just south of Cedar Hill between 74th and 77th streets. 

2. Yankees Game

The crack of the bat, the smell of Cracker Jacks, the energy of the crowd—it’s irresistible. Nothing screams the start of spring like a good old baseball game. With our Rose Hill campus situated in the Bronx, catching a Yankees game is basically a rite of passage at Fordham. Go cheer on the Yankees—or grab tickets when your hometown team is here! 

Multiple dates throughout April, Yankee Stadium, Bronx 

3. JAPAN Fes

Now that the weather is warming up, there’s nothing better than a food festival. Japan Fes, the world’s largest Japanese food fest, is back—so come hungry and celebrate Japanese culture with plenty of delicious food, sweets, and good vibes.

Various dates throughout April, various locations around Manhattan

4. Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival

A tradition dating back to the 1800s, this whimsical parade is all about over-the-top bonnets, bold spring fashion, and classic New York flair. Whether you’re rocking your own hat or just there to people-watch, it’s a must-see.

Sunday, April 20, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The parade will move north on Fifth Avenue, from 49th Street to 57th Street, Manhattan 

5. Broadway Celebrates Earth Day 

Only in New York City can you celebrate Earth Day with performances from Broadway stars. Check out this free outdoor concert featuring cast members from Kinky Boots, Suffs, Moulin Rouge!, and more—plus eco-friendly activities and giveaways. It’s Broadway meets sustainability, NYC style.

Saturday, April 26, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m., Times Square’s Pedestrian Plaza, Manhattan  

The Urban Anthropologist Who Makes Public Art 

Aseel Sawalha, Ph.D., is on sabbatical this semester, putting the finishing touches on a book about creative refugees from Syria and Iraq who have transformed the culture of Amman, Jordan. But when she returns in the fall, she will have completed another major work: her first-ever public art sculpture. Using her signature medium—discarded academic textbooks whose pages she rolls and crimps into sculptural forms—she is building a 13-foot-tall tower of cascading books, supported and protected by metal, that will be installed in Riverside Park at West 145th Street as part of a program with New York City’s parks department and the Art Students League. 

“My idea was to use books for the sculpture and let it deteriorate and disintegrate in the park because books come from trees,” said Sawalha. The public art program required a more permanent structure, which led her to add an entirely new medium—metal—to her project. “I started taking welding, and now I’m in love with metal art. It was not on my map at all.” 

This April, her book art will also be part of a show in Montclair, N.J., gallery called The Space, featuring other Arab-American artists. “Art is a place of healing for me,” said Sawalha. It is also influenced by her childhood in Palestine, where she grew up watching her mother embroider and women roll grape leaves, two practices that have manifested themselves in her work. “I don’t do political art. But my background comes into my art,” she said.

The Scientist Who Draws from Science Fiction 

“All artists have a conduit inside them, to let what is inside flow to the outside,” said Daniel Kohn, Ph.D., a biochemistry lecturer at Fordham and self-described “scientist who loves color.” Though he went to art school to tap into this conduit fully, he decided at the time that he “didn’t quite have enough to say.” But that compulsion to draw and paint never disappeared. “I love chemistry and being a student of the natural universe. And I love painting just as much and I can’t drop it—it would be like cutting off an arm.”

The slightly askew world of science fiction is a major influence for him, and you can see its traces in his oil paintings, which often include text or numbers presented upside down or human figures melding with creature forms. “Science fiction changes the world in one minor aspect that gives a rotation on the world that we’re familiar with—in a sense, I’m looking for that kind of thing in my art.”

The Sociology Professor Who Learned to Improvise

On the fifth floor of Lowenstein, a grand piano sits unplayed in the early mornings—except when sociology professor Jeanne Flavin, Ph.D., sneaks in a few minutes before class to practice her jazz chords.

“It is just such a source of delight and so different from what I usually spend my time thinking about,” said Flavin, who also plays a keyboard in her office.

She returned to the instrument she played as a teenager after picking up the guitar in 2003, when she was glued to news coverage of the Iraq War. “I had always wanted to learn how to play guitar, so I told myself, I could only watch television if I was practicing my scales and learning the fretboard and chords.”

Exploring a new instrument encouraged Flavin to revisit the piano using the improvisational style that the guitar taught her. Along with that freedom to experiment came a new appreciation for learning. 

“It reminds me of what we’re constantly asking of students, especially their first year of college—‘Hey, let’s throw a whole field at you that you’ve never been exposed to! Please show up and trust that you’re going to learn something that will be useful and meaningful to you and stay with it, even when it’s hard.'”

The Provost Who Was Called Back to Painting

Though Dennis Jacobs, Ph.D., provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, was a chemistry and physics double major in college, music and art have always found a way back into his life, particularly in the last 20 years. He’s circled back to painting on the weekends or evenings at home, sometimes completing as many as three or four paintings a month.

“I do think there’s a lot of bridging between science and the arts, and many people who are drawn to the sciences have also, I think, an artistic side of their brain.”

He likens the inspiration he gets for a painting to the cravings of an accomplished cook. “I could imagine someone who has a taste in their mouth going out and making that particular food. That same thing happens in my art,” he said. “I’ll always have some sense in my mind of the direction I’m heading, and once that is in my mind, I can’t get it out, so I have to express myself in that way.” 

His style veers from abstract paintings that evoke his dreams or spiritual beliefs to landscape paintings of his travels to stunning locales like Iceland. Many hang in his office and the President’s office.

The Executive Secretary Turned Art Student

For Linda Negron, art is a family affair. The executive secretary in the Graduate School of Education took painting and photography classes at Fordham alongside her children, who studied here as undergrads when she was completing her bachelor’s degree in psychology. 

With her daughter, she took a painting class at Rose Hill. “Painting turned out to be a great stress reliever for me,” she said. “A blank canvas lets me put down my ideas, my dreams—whatever I feel.”

In the photography class she took with her son at Lincoln Center, she learned to develop black-and-white film in a darkroom and mix her own chemicals. Now, she uses her iPhone to photograph the city and street art that reminds her of growing up in the Bronx during the heyday of graffiti. “I love capturing how neighborhoods change over time.”

The Storyteller Who Loves to Perform

On a good week, you can find Francesco “Franco” Giacomarra rehearsing for a musical, writing his own theater productions, and composing songs for an upcoming show, all after his work as a writer in University Marketing and Communications. “It’s what makes me happy,” he said of his multiple pursuits. “It’s the only thing that makes me feel settled.” 

The multitalented Fordham alumnus—he was a Class of 2019 theater major with a concentration in playwrighting—considers himself a writer above all. But performing is also a major passion.  

“I love the collaboration with other people, and with live performance, I love the energy exchange with the audience.” (You may have even spotted him on the big screen—he appears as an extra in the opening scenes of In the Heights.)

His love of science fiction and fantasy helped inform the musical that he co-wrote and starred in, Planet W, about a couple forced to save Earth after an alien abduction. Following its one-night run at Arsnova last summer, Giacomarra and his co-creators are currently meeting with producers in the hopes of staging it again soon.

Being immersed in storytelling by day for the University feeds his ability to invent stories, too. “I love talking to people and learning their stories—I find it really energizing.” 

Students enrolled in the Ailey/Fordham BFA program did the same in an annual benefit dance concert on March 3.

“Ms. Jamison’s presence lives on through her strength and tenacity documented in every photograph lining our halls and through each person who has had a connection with Ailey,” said Layla Barber, a junior in the Ailey/Fordham program at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, at a pre-performance reception.

“She tirelessly continued Mr. Ailey’s vision that dance is for everyone.”

Barber is a recipient of the Denise Jefferson Memorial Scholarship, funded by proceeds from the annual benefit concert and presented to an Ailey/Fordham BFA junior and senior each year. She spoke to guests before the event’s dance program, where she performed the first dance of the evening. 

She marveled at the fact that in 2026, she’ll earn dual bachelor’s degrees in dance and environmental science.

“Because of this program, I’ve been able to perform at legendary venues inside and outside of New York City, all while being able to study methods to correct the environmental damage our Earth is facing,” she said.

Reuniting with the Best of the Best

The evening brought together several successful Ailey/Fordham alumni, including Jaryd Farcon, a 2020 graduate now dancing with the New Jack Cole Dancers. He said the evening was a must-atttend.

“The Ailey/Fordham program is one of the best in the world. There’s nothing like it,” said Farcon, whose sister, Jhailyn, is currently enrolled in the BFA program and dancing on Broadway.

“When you just see a dancer walk into a space, maybe at another audition, you can just tell they’re an Ailey dancer because they’re so wonderful, they adapt to any type of dance, and they really stand out.”

Maya Addie, a 2021 graduate and leader of the BFA alumni affinity chapter who currently dances with the Rockettes, agreed.

“I remember myself as a freshman performing in this benefit concert, and it was really special. So to come back and be able to support the dancers when you know this is only the beginning for them is really cool,” she said.

Continuing a Tradition of Excellence

Fordham President Tania Tetlow connected the students’ dedication and passion to the legacy that Jamison created during five decades as a dancer and artistic director at the Ailey company.

She called the language of dance that Jamison passed on to students a “more powerful form of communicating than language itself.”

“That work has never been more critical than it is today for building empathy for the human experience,” she said. 

“Ailey teaches our students these skills, and an unbelievable level of discipline and endurance and a willingness to expect nothing less than excellence from themselves.”

Melanie Person, director of the Ailey/Fordham BFA program, said all seven of the dances performed that evening were chosen because they were ones that celebrated Jamison’s legacy.

“It was a tremendous loss for us in the dance world when we learned of her passing in November, but her spirit looms large, and her presence is felt in this building,” Person said.

“She loved the students so much. She’d watch classes and offer a few words of advice to them. She’d participate in our orientation. So this is just the school’s way of celebrating her tonight and probably the rest of eternity.”

Here are our recommendations for five things to do in March in NYC.

1. Free Friday Nights and Second Sundays at the Whitney 

Free admission at the Whitney Museum of American Art is the perfect way to kick off or end the weekend. You’ll have access to current exhibits, music, artist-led programs, artmaking activities, and more. Admission is free but make sure to register beforehand to save your spot!

Every Friday, 5 – 10 p.m. and second Sunday of the month 10:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St., New York, NY

2. The Knockouts Women’s Comedy Festival

March is Women’s History Month, a time to honor the impact of women in every field—including comedy. The Knockouts Women’s Comedy Festival returns for its second year, showcasing the talents of female and nonbinary comedians in Manhattan and Brooklyn. If you’re a student, use code STUDENT5 for $5 tickets to panels on March 8 and 9. Grab your friends and get ready for a night full of laughs! 

Through March 9; Various locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn

3. Garden Highlights Walk at Wave Hill

As we welcome warmer days ahead, a scenic walk through nature is the perfect mood booster. Visit beautiful Wave Hill and immerse yourself in its tranquil beauty and take in insights about the grounds from a knowledgeable guide.

Every Sunday in March, 1 – 2 p.m.; Wave Hill, Bronx

4. Holi Celebration at the Seaport 

Holi is a celebration of joy, renewal, and the triumph of light over darkness. Head to the Seaport to celebrate with lively dancing, music, storytelling, delicious food, and a burst of color as we welcome the arrival of spring. 

Saturday, March 15, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.; The Seaport, Manhattan

5. St. Patrick’s Day Parade

It’s not only a New York City tradition, it’s a Fordham tradition! Head to Fifth Avenue to cheer on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade participants, and you might even spot some proud Fordham Rams marching. Soak in the energy, the music, and the sea of green as the city comes alive to celebrate Irish heritage.

Monday, March 17, 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; Fifth Avenue, Manhattan

Kramer has written widely about the importance of sound for appreciating history, art, literature, and current events. Why this approach? Because thinkers dating from Aristotle have treated sight as the most important of the five senses, leading sound to be a little, well, overlooked.

“When you begin to concentrate on sound, all kinds of things come up that traditionally would never have come up,” he said.

In his most recent book, Experiencing Sound: The Sensation of Being, he continues his focus on the humanistic side of sound studies, a field that emerged in recent decades because of advances in sound technology. The overall message is that sound is “the medium by which we measure the sense of being alive,” he said.

The book comprises 66 short essays about “all of the remarkable ways in which sound has affected human lives … and also affected the way in which people feel about being alive,” he said. His hope, he said, is “for people to start listening to the world as hard as they look at it.”

Some encapsulated essays from Experiencing Sound:

The Wind on Mars

In 2018, a NASA Mars lander detected something no earthling had ever heard: the Martian wind. It conveyed that Mars was a world in a way the quiet, windless moon is not. “The sense of a world cannot be established only by what we can see, as we can see the lunar landscape,” Kramer writes. “A planet can be seen, pure and simple. But a world can be seen only if it can be heard.”

The Talking Dead

A voice recording conveys life and presence in a way that the visual (i.e., someone’s portrait) does not, as exemplified in 1890, when the voice of the deceased poet Robert Browning was played at an event commemorating him, creating the air of an “extraordinary séance,” one journalist noted. His grieving sister viewed it as a kind of sacrilege, Kramer writes—for her, “it was too alive for comfort.”

Annals of Slavery

In her 1861 memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs describes hiding in an attic’s crawlspace for seven years to avoid being sexually abused by her enslaver. For Jacobs, the street sounds she could hear from the crawlspace were a thread that linked her to life, Kramer writes—until she was able to escape to the North, “what freedom she had was carried on the sound of voices in the street.”

The Contralto Mystique

The author William Styron, in his 1990 memoir Darkness Visible, is dissuaded from attempting suicide when he hears a soaring contralto singer in a movie. It stirred family memories and had a power that was “literally maternal,” Kramer writes, because it reminded Styron of the voice of his late mother singing the same music.

Prisons of Silence

The human need for sound was apparent to Charles Dickens, who wrote “the dull repose and quiet that prevails, is awful” after visiting America’s first penitentiary, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where all prisoners were held in solitary confinement in enforced silence. And in a 20th-century Russian gulag, the enforced silence was described as physically stifling by prisoner Eugenia Ginzburg: “I would have given anything to have heard just one sound.”

Minding the Senses

“[K]nowledge comes as much through the ear as through the eye,” Kramer writes. Henry David Thoreau knew this, apparently, with his descriptions of murmuring wind, creaking footsteps in the snow, vibrations in the ear, and the jingling of ice on trees. Even so, today someone returning from a walk will be asked “What did you see?” rather than “What did you hear?” “This,” writes Kramer, “needs to change.”

A sophomore at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, Magazine spent last fall interning with Fordham’s Office of Sustainability. His work included collecting data that the University will use to establish a framework to measure its sustainability performance.

He said his work not only helped him learn how to encourage sustainable practices, it also gave him the chance to make Fordham more sustainable. 

“Part of being in a community of people that you come to know, and you come to care about, is also wanting to see it improve,” he said. 

“So a lot of my perspective going into this internship has been ‘What ways can I improve the Fordham of tomorrow?’”

This Is My Community

Magazine’s interest in sustainability and climate issues also circles back to another community: his hometown of East Flatbush, Brooklyn. He lives there with his family and commutes to the Lincoln Center campus. 

According to government statistics, the neighborhood’s lack of cooling infrastructure makes its citizens more vulnerable to climate-change-related heat waves than anywhere else in NYC, making the issue of sustainability very personal to him. 

Along with several siblings, he’s part of his family’s first generation to attend college. The ability to major in environmental studies is what drew him to Fordham.

“When the neighborhood has any sort of disaster that can be enhanced by climate change, we feel it very hard,” he said.

“I live here. These are my neighbors, this is my community. I don’t want to see East Flatbush turn to charcoal in 2030 or 2050.”

Peeking Under the Hood 

Magazine had participated in climate justice-related activities in high school, so when he learned about the Office of Sustainability’s internship program, he jumped at the chance to join the program along with 25 other undergraduate students.

Along with several other interns, he was asked to help the office gather data to fill out a framework known as STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System). It was developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and is colloquially known as AASHE STARS. Institutions can earn AASHE ratings based on everything from sustainability-related courses to water usage.

There are 372 colleges and universities with AASHE STARS ratings ranging from bronze to platinum. Fordham will soon submit the data necessary to gain a rating as well. 

For AASHE STARS, Magazine gathered data related to the University’s investments. Activists have long advocated that institutions that embrace climate change mitigation policies should reconsider supporting the fossil fuel industry through their endowments; at Fordham, President Tania Tetlow announced that Fordham’s Board of Trustees had created an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, comprising students, faculty, administrators, and alumni, to discuss issues around ethical investments.

Magazine compared the experience to peeking under the hood of a car to see how the engine works. 

“This was my first instance of being able to work in policy from inside the house instead of outside of it,” he said, noting that it deepened his understanding of the ways a large institution functions.

Improving the Fordham of Tomorrow

Gathering data and synthesizing it into a form that can be submitted for AASHE STAR consideration was somewhat tedious, but Magazine said it was worth it.

His takeaway is that Fordham is moving in the right direction when it comes to sustainability. In addition to embracing renewable energy and working with local communities to help them deal with climate change, establishing benchmarks such as an AASHE STAR rating moves the University toward a greener future.

“Even though things move slowly, they’re going to keep moving. They’re not going to stop,” he said. 

“That it is something that we can work on, and we’ll reach the point where we get to that destination.”

“There was nothing risky, and I was disappointed,” said Timothy Malefyt, clinical professor of marketing at the Gabelli School of Business.

“The Super Bowl is the place to talk about issues and really make a statement, and you just didn’t see that,” he said. “It used to be a launching place. Advertising can be such a powerful medium for social change.”

Instead, this year the ads mostly avoided controversy, sticking to humor and nostalgia. And the viewers seemed to like that.

The fan favorite was Budweiser’s nostalgic ad featuring a young horse that saves the day, which topped the USA Today Ad Meter. Malefyt described it as “a hero’s journey, Little Engine that Could-type story” that gets back to basics and avoids any pressing issues.

The ads were a far cry from a 2014 Coke commercial promoting diversity or even Apple’s 1984 ad that introduced the Macintosh personal computer, he said. Budweiser perhaps played it safe with its ads, two years after facing backlash from a Bud Light campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

This year, the commercial coming closest to making a real statement, he said, was the Nike ad emphasizing female success in a male-dominated world. The spot features WNBA stars Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, and Sabrina Ionescu, along with other elite female athletes, with a voiceover by rapper Doechii, who delivers the final line: “Whatever you do, you can’t win. So Win.”

It made Malefyt think of Kamala Harris, without being outright political.

Nike has been absent from the Super Bowl for almost three decades. “Nike is losing market share, so they need a big win themselves,” said Malefyt.

He found the most powerful ads to be from pharmaceutical companies: Novartis with a bold ad about breast cancer screening and Pfizer with a little boy beating cancer. “The drug ads were provocative … powerful. But maybe people are inured now to ads that say something.”

Humorous spots came from Doritos, featuring aliens; Pringles and Little Caesars with flying hair, mustaches, and eyebrows; and Mountain Dew with singing seals, including Seal, the singer. In its “Built Different” campaign, Duracell featured a battery reboot for Tom Brady, showing him suffering an on-air power failure and needing the help of a Duracell scientist.

Celebrities were in abundance, which Malefyt called a “safe bet.”

But why play it so safe?

Malefyt pointed out that most of the commercials were in production last fall, in the heart of a contentious presidential election season. “So of course they were very careful to stay away from anything political at all.”

1. Winter Dance at the Bryant Park Lodge

Pull up with your partner or a friend, or just vibe solo—either way, it’s time to head to the dance floor and get lost in the music. From bachata to Latin mix, get ready to learn new steps from NYC’s top dance instructors and dance the night away. It’s the perfect way to add some fun festivities to your Valentine’s week. 

Wednesday, Feb. 12 and 19, 6 – 8 p.m.; Bryant Park, Manhattan

2. Harlem Chamber Players 17th Annual Black History Month Celebration

Celebrate Black History Month with an unforgettable night of music! Join the Harlem Chamber Players for a powerful performance featuring cellist-composer Akua Dixon, soprano Candice Hoyes, and other incredible artists.

Thursday, Feb. 13, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.; 515 Malcolm X Blvd., Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manhattan

3.  Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Festival 

2025 marks the Year of the Snake, a time of transformation, wisdom, and personal growth. What better way to welcome the Lunar New Year than with a dazzling parade, good food, and nonstop celebrations in Chinatown? 

Sunday, Feb. 16, 1 p.m.; Bayard Street between Mulberry and Mott streets, Manhattan

4. NYC Parks Winter Carnival

Spend a fun-filled day at the Winter Carnival with games, winter sports, and more. Grab your family and friends, bundle up, and join the festivities—there’s something for everyone to enjoy!

Friday, Feb. 21, 12 – 3 p.m.; Morrison Avenue and Lafayette Avenue, Bronx

5.  Fordham’s Sculpture Walk 

Did you hear? There’s a sculpture oasis in Midtown. This exhibit brings 11 pieces by world-renowned artists to Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus, including Bjørn Skaarup’s Hippo Ballerina and Jim Rennert’s Inner Dialogue and Timing. These temporary installations complement the 10 sculptures on permanent display, like Chris Vilardi’s statue of St. Ignatius and Harry M. Stierwalt Jr.’s Ram.

Through spring 2025, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. – 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Lincoln Center Campus, Manhattan

Take a look at some of his most prized possessions in this month’s installment of our What’s on My Desk series, where we highlight interesting objects displayed by professors in their offices. 

A Seattle Sports Fan and Cat Dad

Ott, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, describes himself as a “lifelong Seattle sports fan.” Tucked away in his office bookshelf is a Funko Pop of former Seattle Seahawks player Steve Largent, a gift from his two children. 

Ott also has a small figurine of a cat, an homage to his three actual cats: Philip, Lucy, and Frankie. “I’m a big cat person. In fact, I fostered five kittens that were feral cats this past summer,” he said. “We adopted out four of them and kept one—Frankie, short for Frances.” 

‘I Told You I Would Ruin Music for You’

Ott has a collection of coffee mugs, including an Iron Maiden mug. “As a kid, I was super into hard rock and heavy metal music because I have two older brothers, and that’s what they were listening to.”

Next to it is a graduation gift from former students—a one-of-a-kind mug. “On one side is a score from a piano sonata by Mozart that we often analyzed in our music theory class. On the other side is a quote that I apparently said during class: ‘I told you I would ruin music for you and I hope that I have.’ I told my students this piece would haunt their dreams because we’d talk about it so much,” Ott said. “But I followed up that quote with, ‘I’m not really ruining music for you. You’re now able to listen on a deeper level and understand how the piece is not only structured, but how many pieces are structured in a similar way. Now, you can listen for the ways in which each piece is unique.’” 

A Breaking Bad Spin-Off

On a bulletin board, next to art drawn by Ott’s children when they were little, is a satirical poster of award-winning TV series Breaking Bad. “There’s a technical term in music theory called ‘breaking species.’ This method helps composers avoid writing difficult passages. My former student at Juilliard’s pre-college program thought it would be funny to create a Breaking Bad mashup, so they replaced the main character Walter White with me and the music theorist who came up with this subject in the 18th century,” Ott explained.

‘Hi Dada, I’m Auditioning for Fordham!’ 

When they were young, Ott’s two children left behind post-it notes in his office. His eldest child is now a first-year college student, but Ott still keeps their Post-its on his computer screen. “I often brought my kids with me to work [when babysitting didn’t work out],” said Ott. “They even drew a picture of my wife, who is also a musician.”

The Birthplace of New Songs

Ott composes music at a desk between his office keyboard and electric piano. First, he starts composing by hand with a pencil and blank sheet music. Then he types notes into the keyboard, which translates his composition into digital sheet music on his computer screen, while playing the actual music out loud on his electric piano. 

Unfortunately, Ott does not have soundproof walls. “I’m lucky that on the other side is not somebody’s full-time office,” he said. “Also, I can connect headphones to my electric piano.” 

Soundproofing isn’t a problem in the new music suite several floors below his office. “We have five really great rooms where our students can practice, rehearse, and explore,” he said. 

His own office is a place where he does the same thing—enjoying the sound of music. 

“When I teach, I’m teaching students how to listen deeply and sharing my love of listening with them. Even composing is an act of listening. I’m listening to music that is unfamiliar to me, and trying to capture it. What I’m putting on a page is a transcription of something that I’m hearing,” Ott said. “[Listening] is the source of everything I do.” 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

That’s the topic of a recent book by Richard Teverson, Ph.D., assistant professor of art history, who puts a spotlight on something that tends to be overlooked in histories of conquering powers: the hopes and dreams of the conquered.

Studying such “past futures” is growing more popular in the humanities and social sciences, said Teverson, author of Visions of the Future in Roman Frontier Kingdoms 100 BCE–100 CE, published in September by Routledge. “You can’t get a full picture of a decision that someone makes in the past,” he said, “unless you have a sense of what they thought could happen.”

Teverson gained this sense by examining public art created during the empire’s expansion. He got the idea for the book from his students—when they wrote in a midterm exam about the imagined futures reflected in the Arch of Constantine in Rome, he decided to apply this idea at the former empire’s edge and beyond it, to structures created by people who later came under Roman rule.

Nations or groups being taken over deserve to have their aspirations understood rather than being told to simply “get on board” with their new ruler’s vision, he said. 

“Even people who you might think are on the losing side of history have a future that they’re envisaging and, especially if it’s no longer feasible in some way, are engaged in a really complicated idea about how to fit their aspirations to reality,” he said.

Protecting Rights Through Art

In 14 BCE, as Alpine tribes were falling to Roman conquest, the local ruler Cottius made a deal with the Romans to absorb his kingdom into the empire and remain as magistrate.

To proclaim the new order, he commissioned an archway that, Teverson argues, was designed with the future in mind: As opposed to the Romans’ usual depictions of peacemaking, which might show a vanquished barbarian kissing the hand of a Roman general, the arch contains a relief of Cottius shaking hands with the Roman emperor Augustus.

It also shows tribes receiving citizenship tablets—a way of codifying certain rights and privileges in case they were later challenged, Teverson argues. “This seems, to me, pretty direct in its aspirations and its concern for documenting a ritual of political transfer,” he said.

‘A Divinely Ordained Future’

Another example comes from Kommagene, in modern-day Turkey, a kingdom conquered by Rome in 17 CE. Before that, as wars involving Rome and other powers clouded the kingdom’s future, its ruler, Antiochos I, built a hilltop complex containing icons and images meant to convey a glorious destiny for the kingdom.

That was also his goal, Teverson argues, when the king took the unusual step of including an engraving of his own horoscope so that worshippers would compare it with the night sky and be reminded, “‘Oh, we are working in a kingdom that has a divinely ordained future,’” he said.

Crafting ‘the Futures They Need to Survive’

Through this and other stories of artistic expression, Teverson illustrates how people “craft the futures they need to survive” in the face of uncertainty about what’s coming. It’s an idea that resonates from ancient Rome to today’s marginalized communities who may have a picture of their own future in mind—but face strong headwinds in making it a reality, he said. 

An example might be city planners envisioning a future for a neighborhood—like Harlem, where Teverson lives—without consulting with the residents, he said. “If you want to understand the problems of Harlem, you need to, in some ways, ask yourself, well, what does Harlem think its future is going to be?” 

While writing the book, he was thinking of the looming problem of climate change and the questions that future generations might ask about the future we’re trying to shape today.

“Maybe even in my daughter’s lifetime,” he said, “they’re going to look back and [say], what were you planning in 2024?”