Episode Details

On our season premiere of CUNY Laureates, we profile another three Guggenheim Fellows who graduated from the City University of New York.

Daniel Bell (Guggenheim Fellow, 1972) attended City College in the late 1930s, alongside a generation of graduates who would go on to become some of the most influential social critics of the 20th century. Collectively known as the New York Intellectuals, these writers came to represent a wide range of political thought in the ensuing decades. Daniel’s work took him across this spectrum, beginning with the left-wing publications The New Leader and Commentary, followed by a job at Fortune Magazine, and eventually as co-editor of The Public Interest, a neoconservative magazine he founded with fellow City College graduate Irving Kristol. Daniel eventually settled on a multi-dimensional view of society, with his assertion that economics, politics, and culture present distinct challenges that require distinct philosophies. He is known for his books The End of Ideology, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. Alongside his writing career, Daniel taught sociology at Columbia University and Harvard University until his retirement from academia in 1990.

Lehman College graduate Blondell Cummings (Guggenheim Fellow, 1999) was a pioneering choreographer who transformed the way dance could be experienced through movement, storytelling, and video. Cummings captured intimate stories, everyday gestures, and powerful human experiences, creating choreography that challenged traditional forms and connected deeply with audiences. Her celebrated work, Chicken Soup, designated a masterpiece by the National Endowment for the Arts, exemplifies her remarkable ability to transform everyday life and personal memory into compelling dance.

Lewis Lockwood (Guggenheim Fellow, 1977) graduated from Queens College where he studied under the influential musicologist Edward Lowinsky. Lockwood played the cello, but his education at Queens College led him in the direction of musicology, which led him to further studies at Princeton, where he studied the Italian Renaissance under other famous music scholars. But after a while, he drifted back to the music of Beethoven, which he had played as a youth, and from there his focus remained squarely on the iconic composer. His 2003 book, Beethoven: The Music and the Life, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography.

00:00 – Intro
00:53 – Daniel Bell
10:56 – Blondell Cummings
19:22 – Lewis Lockwood

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