never going back to my old school

The aforementioned James Panero, Associate Editor of The New Criterion, will be giving a talk at Brown University entitled, um, "Why I Left Brown". One assumes the reasons go beyond being offered an editorial position at The New Criterion. I know that some people I highly respect don't care for the magazine, but for me it was an important part of my aesthetic education and still publishes material that I value, even as I strongly disagree with its political stance. I expect a certain amount of anti-"liberal academic" talk, but I think James is too smart a guy to be limited to that schtick. For those interested, he'll be speaking on Tuesday, November 9, at 8 PM in room 102 of Wilson, right on the Main Green (check the map if you aren't familar with the campus.)

Comments

[T. Kievalar]

I don't know why Mr. Panero left Brown U. either but he probably regrets it now that that distinguished U. has just been bequeathed $100,000,000.00 (that's a hundred million US dollars) by a liquor salesman. Just think what 'The New Criterion' could do with even a tiny fraction of that loot! Why, they could and probably would set up offices at the redoubtable Fitzgeralds in a flash.

Like you, Modern Kicks, I consider 'The New Criterion' to have been and to be "an important part of my aesthetic education", but it is much more than that. As an apolitical person (Kerry and Bush to me are two sides of the same coin), TNC's political stance is of neutral interest to me. But its critiques of modern culture, the academy and literature are items to be savored and applauded. Nowhere else can one find such penetrating and, when necessary, devastating viewpoints. Its recent essays on Mr. Laughing Gas (Mr. Lapham of Harpers) and Derrida (Mr. Derision) are two cases in point.

I find that critics of TNC always fail to see the humor with which its commentaries are written. Not that TNC can help it; after all, so much of modern culture and its preposterous suppositions can only be approached and viewed with humor.

It also appears to me that a tinge of jealously also "informs" TNC's critics. Even Mr. Lapham in his absurd Harpers essay nostalgically implied that he 'could' have been TNC's editor. It almost sounded like he was pining away that he had given up that opportunity.

TNC simply has been and remains the best serious magazine on the cultural landscape in the nation, bar none.

Sincerely,

T. Kievalar

[Miguel Sánchez]

All that sweet liquor money is going to undergraduate stuff. It's not going to have any real impact on graduate education at Brown, from what I can tell.

I'm not really inclined to argue about it, but I'd say that I tend to appreciate different aspects of the magazine: the top-notch poetry section, Karen Wilkin's writing on art, the Gallery Chronicle, and, generally speaking, the articles on artists with which the writers' are in sympathy.

It has been so long since I've bothered to look at an issue of Harper's that I didn't realize anyone took it seriously anymore.