¡Bemsha SWING!: Baby Boom

6 jun 2011

Baby Boom

When I look to people 10-15 years older than me (65), there are certain political attitudes and gestures left over from the 60s. Going the other direction, even in liberal academia, the political passions and motivations are not there to the same extent. People are more liberal than leftist if they are 15 years younger than me (35) I sit somewhat uncomfortably between these two groups, since I was born in the last year of the baby boom.

Now obviously could be wrong about this. It is only my subjective interpretation of my experience, and a generalization. Certainly the tenured radicals are not the majority of this age group, but their presence does make a difference. There are younger leftists, of course, but I don't think it's quite the same thing for them. The fire just doesn't burn as hot.

2 comentarios:

Professor Zero dijo...: Someone on academic senate older than me, a historian with leftist research, wanted to spend a lot of time in a senate meeting talking about how we should sit in on the budget cuts.

This was voted down - in my view correctly, but for reasons I disagree with. He was disappointed and looked like he felt beaten up.

I approached the guy after the meeting and said look, you're right in principle and I have organizing experience. I'll help you get something done if you'd like, but you've got to realize it's going to take at least an hour every week and we'll all have to step up to the plate every time.

Him [sic]: I just wanted to get that Senate meeting fired up.

So his was a mere gesture. Yet I appreciate him more than I do the young, the individualist and the fearful who say: "Well, I think I have a friend in the big house, so I'll be all right if the budget cuts come."; 2:08 p. m.
Professor Zero dijo...: More: I am starting to feel old in this regard, grandmotherly even.

Evidence set A: there are two layers of conservatives younger than me: the students (Republicans) and the assistant professors (Clinton/Obama Democrats).

Evidence set B: the old timers have identified me as one of those who also remembers the things they do, namely the world as it once was.; 9:15 p. m.

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Blurbs & Reviews

"Jonathan Mayhew’s new work belongs to a certain class of surprising books: those so obviously necessary once they appear that it apparently required a stroke of genius to come up with the idea for them."

--Daniel Katz

"Jonathan Mayhew's Lorca is less the distinctive Spanish poet, whose murder in 1936 marked the beginning of the Civil War, than he is an American invention. From the 1940s to the end of the century, our poets have invoked Lorca-in translation, of course-as a Romantic, exotic, radical, and, in many cases, gay icon-the poet of mystery and the duende. The Lorca myth, Mayhew argues persuasively, has enriched American lyric, but it has also been an obstacle to a more adequately grounded understanding of Spanish poetry in the 20th century. Apocryphal Lorca is revisionist criticism at its most acute."

-Marjorie Perloff

"Enhanced by copious notes and an excellent bibliography, this book offers a perceptive, intriguing assessment of the Garcia Lorca created by the postwar generation of American poets." (Choice )

"Mayhew is a critic who is at the top of his game; he combines a breadth of knowlege of the field with acute analysis."

--John C. Wilcox, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"Let me just cut through all the usual, boring book review preliminaries and say the following thing: Jonathan Mayhew has, in Apocryphal Lorca, written an amazing book. "

--Brandon Holmquest, Calque

"The great merit of Mayhew's study is his sustained effort to document and interrogate Lorca's reception, unique among American encounters with foreign literatures in its nature and extent."

--Lawrence Venuti, TLS.

"Se trata de Jonathan Mayhew y su extraordinario estudio Apocryphal Lorca. Translation, Parody, Kitsch. Esta obra se ocupa no de García Lorca sino de cómo los escritores estadounidenses han reinventado a Lorca, desde Spicer y Rothenberg hasta O’Hara y Koch. Asimismo, es una discusión de la Deep Image —¡cuánto hay que desmenuzar de ese capítulo!— y la manera en que la poética norteamericana se ha apropiado de lo lorqueano (o lorcaesco) y del concepto de lo 'otro' que éste representa. Éste es un libro repleto de sutilezas, de tesis, apuntes, datos."

--Heriberto Yépez

"Apocryphal Lorca, sin embargo, es mucho más que un estudio de las vidas posteriores de Lorca en la poesía americana entre principios de los años 50 y 70. También ofrece un acercamiento histórico a la traducción de su obra, descubriendo reseñas de prensa significativas y discurriendo acerca de reconocimientos críticos. El texto es elegante y fresco; el análisis amplio e históricamente específico."

--María Delgado, Revista de Literatura

¡Bemsha SWING!

6 jun 2011

Baby Boom

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