I’ve been reading U.S. newspaper coverage during the year 1960 of the so-called “German economic miracle”—recovery led by huge American investments & made possible by political “rehabiliation.” Most news articles are glowing. Everyone is happy. This one covers the 20% of Germans who are unhappy about the prosperity, or not...
Late 1959. Science Digest summarizes a psychological study done on “beatniks” in San Francisco. It’s another way in which dissent gets pathologized at a time like that (late ’50s—a time of post-McCarthy thaw, a time in which a variety of heretical political positions could be once again taken). Here’s the...
Thanks to George Drury and Lois Baum, PennSound has recently added a stunningly good cache of audio recordings from the “Word of Mouth” series, originally aired on WFMT at Loyola University, Chicago. Among these recordings is a conversation among Langston Hughes, John Sellers, James Cotton and Otis Spann, moderated by...
Al Filreis is Kelly Professor, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center
for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, and Publisher of Jacket2—all at the University of Pennsylvania. Among his books are Secretaries of the Moon,
Wallace Stevens & the Actual World, Modernism from Left to Right, and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-60. He is currently writing a book on the art & avant-garde of 1960. He has taught a massive open online course, "ModPo," to 165,000 participants in 192 countries since 2012.
Founder/Faculty Director, Kelly Writers House—intro video ][ events calendar
Convener/teacher, “ModPo.” an open online course on modern & contemporary U.S. poetry—overview of the course ][ intro video
Publisher of Jacket2 magazine—my Jacket2 commentary series ][ "First Readings"
Producer/host, PoemTalk podcast series—co-sponsored by Kelly Writers House & the Poetry Foundation
Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing—Critical Writing ][ Creative Writing ][ RealArts internships ][ Fellow in Poetics & Poetic Practice
Co-founder & co-director of PennSound—50,000 files ][ 12 million downloads annually
Teacher & host, "Kelly Writers House Fellows"—since 1999 ][ Susan Sontag, John Ashbery, Jamaica Kincaid, Laurie Anderson, Adrienne Rich, Joan Didion, John Edgar Wideman & more
Teacher, "Representations of the Holocaust"—a course on survivor testimony ][ my holocaust site
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