Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 12:41:07 -0400 (EDT)
From: Grover Furr <FURRG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: CHE on 'Radical Novel Reconsidered' series and working class majority
To: mlg-ics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This is in today's CHE on-line newsletter, and concerns the series
that Alan contacted us about two weeks or so ago.
- Grover Furr
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_Academe Today_
From the issue dated June 23, 2000
HOT TYPE
Scholars Decry Imminent Demise of Series That Revived
Out-of-Print Radical Novels; 2 Books Call Attention to America's
Working-Class Majority
By JEFF SHARLET and D.W. MILLER
SAVING POLONSKY: So Abraham Polonsky was no Henry James -- does
that mean his work should disappear?
In 1951, the late, blacklisted filmmaker published a little-known
novel, The World Above. Long out of print, it was revived by a
University of Illinois Press series, The Radical Novel Reconsidered.
But now, Paul Buhle, an American-studies scholar at Brown University,
worries that the series' imminent demise will leave the legacies of
writers such as Polonsky, Grace Lumpkin, Anzia Yezierska, and others
who were more influenced by regionalism and political concerns than
the aesthetics of James untended and wrongly forgotten. "Used to be,
intellectuals said radical novels weren't worth the paper they were
written on," says Mr. Buhle. "But that's just a cold-war conceit."
Apparently, a post-cold-war one as well, laments Willis G.
Regier, director of the press. Some of the first books in the series
(which made its debut in 1995, after a proposal from Alan Wald, a
University of Michigan English scholar) sold well, but more-recent
releases have racked up sales not far beyond what Calvin Trillin once
called "the high two figures."
Mr. Wald, who could not be reached for comment, recently posted a
message to e-mail lists pleading with radical scholars to adopt the
books for their courses. But Mr. Regier says interest in radical
novels of the past reached a high point in 1989. Since then, he says,
literature scholars have been more interested in ethnicity than in
class -- perhaps even to the exclusion of class politics, he adds,
noting that many of the novels in the series represent black and
immigrant lives as well as communist or socialist politics. The
failure of the series may be just a matter of crossed signals, he
says. "The best ideas just don't find the right moment."
But the moment is now, says Mr. Buhle. Since last year's protests
in Seattle, he says, "my students' interest in all subjects radical
has perked up a lot. The kids need books like these. It's a problem of
rediscovery, not disinterest."
If only there were something like TNT for the the radical novel,
he says, speaking of Ted Turner's cable network. "They keep all those
old movies by communist screenwriters alive."
Perhaps Mr. Turner would care to adopt a novel or two for the
fall?
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Copyright © 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education