Author: Dwight Macdonald
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 159017447X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
A New York Review Books Original An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of America’s susceptibility to well-meaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not. He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds. Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free. This new selection of Macdonald’s finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer. In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever.
Masscult and Midcult
Author: Dwight Macdonald
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 159017447X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
A New York Review Books Original An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of America’s susceptibility to well-meaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not. He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds. Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free. This new selection of Macdonald’s finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer. In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever.
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 159017447X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
A New York Review Books Original An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of America’s susceptibility to well-meaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not. He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds. Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free. This new selection of Macdonald’s finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer. In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever.
Against The American Grain
Author: Dwight Macdonald
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
Dwight MacDonald and the Politics Circle
Author: Gregory D. Sumner
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801430206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
Sumner finds the clearest expression of Macdonald's creative power and of the political thinking that would eventually bridge the "Old Left" and the "New".
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801430206
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
Sumner finds the clearest expression of Macdonald's creative power and of the political thinking that would eventually bridge the "Old Left" and the "New".
The End of the Soul
Author: Jennifer Hecht
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231502389
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
On October 19, 1876 a group of leading French citizens, both men and women included, joined together to form an unusual group, The Society of Mutual Autopsy, with the aim of proving that souls do not exist. The idea was that, after death, they would dissect one another and (hopefully) show a direct relationship between brain shapes and sizes and the character, abilities and intelligence of individuals. This strange scientific pact, and indeed what we have come to think of as anthropology, which the group's members helped to develop, had its genesis in aggressive, evangelical atheism. With this group as its focus, The End of the Soul is a study of science and atheism in France in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It shows that anthropology grew in the context of an impassioned struggle between the forces of tradition, especially the Catholic faith, and those of a more freethinking modernism, and moreover that it became for many a secular religion. Among the adherents of this new faith discussed here are the novelist Emile Zola, the great statesman Leon Gambetta, the American birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes embodied the triumph of ratiocination over credulity. Boldly argued, full of colorful characters and often bizarre battles over science and faith, this book represents a major contribution to the history of science and European intellectual history.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231502389
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
On October 19, 1876 a group of leading French citizens, both men and women included, joined together to form an unusual group, The Society of Mutual Autopsy, with the aim of proving that souls do not exist. The idea was that, after death, they would dissect one another and (hopefully) show a direct relationship between brain shapes and sizes and the character, abilities and intelligence of individuals. This strange scientific pact, and indeed what we have come to think of as anthropology, which the group's members helped to develop, had its genesis in aggressive, evangelical atheism. With this group as its focus, The End of the Soul is a study of science and atheism in France in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It shows that anthropology grew in the context of an impassioned struggle between the forces of tradition, especially the Catholic faith, and those of a more freethinking modernism, and moreover that it became for many a secular religion. Among the adherents of this new faith discussed here are the novelist Emile Zola, the great statesman Leon Gambetta, the American birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, and Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes embodied the triumph of ratiocination over credulity. Boldly argued, full of colorful characters and often bizarre battles over science and faith, this book represents a major contribution to the history of science and European intellectual history.
Masscult and Midcult
Author: Dwight MacDonald
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781258106133
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 80
Book Description
An Inquiry Into American Popular Culture And The Role Of The Middlebrows In The Distortion Of Cultural Values.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781258106133
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 80
Book Description
An Inquiry Into American Popular Culture And The Role Of The Middlebrows In The Distortion Of Cultural Values.
Loitering
Author: Charles D'Ambrosio
Publisher: Tin House Books
ISBN: 1935639870
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
New York Times Notable Books Winner of the Washing State Book Prize Finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
Publisher: Tin House Books
ISBN: 1935639870
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
New York Times Notable Books Winner of the Washing State Book Prize Finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
Culture Crash
Author: Scott Timberg
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300210655
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Change is no stranger to us in the twenty-first century. We must constantly adjust to an evolving world, to transformation and innovation. But for many thousands of creative artists, a torrent of recent changes has made it all but impossible to earn a living. A persistent economic recession, social shifts, and technological change have combined to put our artists—from graphic designers to indie-rock musicians, from architects to booksellers—out of work. This important book looks deeply and broadly into the roots of the crisis of the creative class in America and tells us why it matters. Scott Timberg considers the human cost as well as the unintended consequences of shuttered record stores, decimated newspapers, music piracy, and a general attitude of indifference. He identifies social tensions and contradictions—most concerning the artist’s place in society—that have plunged the creative class into a fight for survival. Timberg shows how America’s now-collapsing middlebrow culture—a culture once derided by intellectuals like Dwight Macdonald—appears, from today’s vantage point, to have been at least a Silver Age. Timberg’s reporting is essential reading for anyone who works in the world of culture, knows someone who does, or cares about the work creative artists produce.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300210655
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
Change is no stranger to us in the twenty-first century. We must constantly adjust to an evolving world, to transformation and innovation. But for many thousands of creative artists, a torrent of recent changes has made it all but impossible to earn a living. A persistent economic recession, social shifts, and technological change have combined to put our artists—from graphic designers to indie-rock musicians, from architects to booksellers—out of work. This important book looks deeply and broadly into the roots of the crisis of the creative class in America and tells us why it matters. Scott Timberg considers the human cost as well as the unintended consequences of shuttered record stores, decimated newspapers, music piracy, and a general attitude of indifference. He identifies social tensions and contradictions—most concerning the artist’s place in society—that have plunged the creative class into a fight for survival. Timberg shows how America’s now-collapsing middlebrow culture—a culture once derided by intellectuals like Dwight Macdonald—appears, from today’s vantage point, to have been at least a Silver Age. Timberg’s reporting is essential reading for anyone who works in the world of culture, knows someone who does, or cares about the work creative artists produce.
Discriminations
Author: Dwight Macdonald
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780670274376
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780670274376
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 466
Book Description
Writing for The New Yorker
Author: Green Fiona Green
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748682511
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 231
Book Description
Original critical essays on an iconic American periodical, providing new insights into twentieth-century literary cultureThis collection of newly commissioned critical essays reads across and between New Yorker departments, from sports writing to short stories, cartoons to reporters at large, poetry to annals of business. Attending to the relations between these kinds of writing and the magazine's visual and material constituents, the collection examines the distinctive ways in which imaginative writing has inhabited the 'prime real estate' of this enormously influential periodical. In bringing together a range of sharply angled analyses of particular authors, styles, columns, and pages, this book offers multiple perspectives on American writing and periodical culture at specific moments in twentieth-century history.Key Features: Eleven new perspectives on major American writers, including Roth, Cheever, Plath, and Updike, in relation to their first publication contextsReconsiders modern and contemporary American writing and periodical culture, focusing critical attention on commercially successful 'smart' magazinesDraws on new research in The New Yorker's manuscript and digital archivesA distinctive combination of close critical reading and cultural analysis
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748682511
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 231
Book Description
Original critical essays on an iconic American periodical, providing new insights into twentieth-century literary cultureThis collection of newly commissioned critical essays reads across and between New Yorker departments, from sports writing to short stories, cartoons to reporters at large, poetry to annals of business. Attending to the relations between these kinds of writing and the magazine's visual and material constituents, the collection examines the distinctive ways in which imaginative writing has inhabited the 'prime real estate' of this enormously influential periodical. In bringing together a range of sharply angled analyses of particular authors, styles, columns, and pages, this book offers multiple perspectives on American writing and periodical culture at specific moments in twentieth-century history.Key Features: Eleven new perspectives on major American writers, including Roth, Cheever, Plath, and Updike, in relation to their first publication contextsReconsiders modern and contemporary American writing and periodical culture, focusing critical attention on commercially successful 'smart' magazinesDraws on new research in The New Yorker's manuscript and digital archivesA distinctive combination of close critical reading and cultural analysis
The Fun Stuff
Author: James Wood
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374709068
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Following The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self, and How Fiction Works—books that established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation—The Fun Stuff confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of the contemporary novel. In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches—that range over such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy, Leon Tolstoy, Edmund Wilson, and Mikhail Lermontov—Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel. He effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally in-depth analysis of the most important authors writing today, including Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, Aleksandar Hemon, and Michel Houellebecq. Included in The Fun Stuff are the title essay on Keith Moon and the lost joys of drumming—which was a finalist for last year's National Magazine Awards—as well as Wood's essay on George Orwell, which Christopher Hitchens selected for the Best American Essays 2010. The Fun Stuff is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about contemporary literature.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374709068
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Following The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self, and How Fiction Works—books that established James Wood as the leading critic of his generation—The Fun Stuff confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of the contemporary novel. In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches—that range over such crucial writers as Thomas Hardy, Leon Tolstoy, Edmund Wilson, and Mikhail Lermontov—Wood offers a panoramic look at the modern novel. He effortlessly connects his encyclopedic, passionate understanding of the literary canon with an equally in-depth analysis of the most important authors writing today, including Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, Aleksandar Hemon, and Michel Houellebecq. Included in The Fun Stuff are the title essay on Keith Moon and the lost joys of drumming—which was a finalist for last year's National Magazine Awards—as well as Wood's essay on George Orwell, which Christopher Hitchens selected for the Best American Essays 2010. The Fun Stuff is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about contemporary literature.