Mirene Arsanios

Writing Associate

Mirene Arsanios holds an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College, and an MFA in Writing from the Milton Avery Graduate School for the Arts at Bard College. She has contributed essays and short stories to e-flux journal, Vida, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Rumpus, among others. She is the founding editor of Makhzin, an online English/ Arabic bilingual magazine for innovative writing. Mirene has taught creative writing at the American University of Beirut and currently teaches at Pratt Institute. On Friday nights you can find her at the Poetry Project where she coordinates the Friday Night reading series with Rachel Valinsky.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.