{"id":173497,"date":"2025-09-03T09:05:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T13:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=173497"},"modified":"2025-09-02T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T16:00:12","slug":"a-new-york-city-college-offers-class-that-teaches-students-how-to-steal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=173497","title":{"rendered":"A New York City College offers class that teaches students how to steal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cresa Pugh teaches a course titled, “How to Steal.” (The New School for Social Research)<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Manhattan’s New School is a four-year private university; tuition alone is $60,240. This University’s College of Liberal arts offers a course on “How to Steal<\/a>“, taught by Professor Cresa Pugh<\/a>. This class is worth four credit hours and includes field trips. It focuses on politics, ethics, and the aesthetics of theft.<\/p>\n

From New York Post:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At the New School in Manhattan, a four-year private university where the $60,240 tuition doesn’t cover housing, students at the university’s Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts can learn “How to Steal.”<\/p>\n

HOW TO STEAL<\/strong><\/p>\n

This field-based seminar explores the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of theft in a world where accumulation is sacred, dispossession is routine, and the line between private property and public good is drawn in blood. Students will critically examine what it means to steal–from whom, for whom, and why–through site visits and fieldwork in places where capital is hoarded and value is contested: corporate storefronts, grocery chains, museums, libraries, banks, and cultural institutions. We will ask: Is it possible to steal back what was already stolen? What does theft look like under capitalism, colonialism, and in everyday life? When is theft survival, protest, or care–and when is it violence, appropriation, or harm? Readings will span critical theory, political economy, abolitionist thought, and radical histories of expropriation and redistribution. Students will produce field journals, collective mappings, and speculative strategies for redistributing wealth, knowledge, and beauty. This is not a course in petty crime–it is a study in moral ambiguity, radical ethics, and imaginative justice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Noting the sociology seminar is not about “petty crime,” the course catalog explains it is an exploration of “the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of theft in a world where accumulation is sacred, dispossession is routine, and the line between private property and public good is drawn in blood.”<\/p>\n

It includes field trips to “places where capital is hoarded and value is contested” — like museums, banks and even grocery stores.<\/p>\n

I guess it’s fitting in New York, where shoplifting loot worth less than $1,000 is a mere misdemeanor. Locals don’t even bat an eye anymore at the sight of someone walking out of CVS with whatever they want.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Additional Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Schlott, R. (2025, September 2). NYC college students learning ‘How to Steal’ — as class teaches ‘line between private property and public good is drawn in blood’. New York Post<\/em>. Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manhattan’s New School is a four-year private university; tuition alone is $60,240. This University’s College of … A New York City College offers class that teaches students how to steal<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[693,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dei","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}