SLPAD 8 - literary landscape

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, I think Thomas Acquinas' scored another convert all those centuries
later as Mortimer Adler
could not get over Acquinas's perceived genius.....(if I remember this
correctly but maybe not)

PS And I once started Dahlberg's *Bottom Dogs* but I do not
remember finishing it and don't know why.
One can say it is all about the preterite during the depression.....


On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 4:08 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yes! Mortimer Adler!
>
> Great Books promulgated nationally, incl in Pittsburgh, where young Andy
> Warhol & Mark Kohut, et al, were benignly Influenced? University of
> Michigan also, where I enjoyed 2 wonderful “Great Books” courses.
>
> Mortimer Adler Shallow Dive (a type of thing which he himself wouldn’t
> have done, having refused to take a required swimming test, for which
> refusal he was denied a bachelor’s degree. But he hung on & got a doctorate
> anyway, finally receiving an honorary BA from Columbia in 1983)
>
> - lived from 1902 to 2001
> - the scholars in Chicago philosophy dept wouldn’t hire him, but their Law
> School hired him to teach philosophy of law
> - scored bestsellers, incl  _How to Read a Book_
> - converted from Judaism to Episcopalian in 1984
> - and to Catholicism in 1999
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 4:46 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> ….Mortimer Adler was one of the founders of the whole Great Books
>> Program, I believe and working
>> at the Great Books operation was something the young Saul Bellow did. The
>> program reached the whole nation, even
>> Pittsburgh.
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 2:31 AM Michael Bailey <
>> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Chicago School of lit-crit (thank goodness it’s not their Economics,
>>> which
>>> leaves a bad taste to some extent) - Richard McKeon is the name I
>>> remember…
>>>
>>> https://literariness.org/2016/03/18/chicago-school-neo-aristotelians/amp/
>>>
>>> & wasn’t there also some magisterial & well-liked Chicago pundit who made
>>> lists of great books?
>>>
>>>
>>> Chicago Review - official organ of Humanities Dept at U Chic - founded
>>> 1946
>>> & published only student & faculty work till 1953.
>>>
>>> The big shake-up to which Mr Pynchon refers took place in 1959, around a
>>> controversial plan for an issue to contain 30 pages from William
>>> Burroughs’s _Naked Lunch_, as well as a Kerouac piece,
>>>
>>> and something by William Dahlberg, 1900-1977, a rather thrillingly
>>> accomplished face in the Lost Generation writer cohort, who lost an eye
>>> in
>>> WWI, wrote anti-Nazi stuff for The NY Times *from Germany* in the 1930s,
>>> taught at Boston University & Black Mountain, studied hard - which
>>> furthered changes in his writing style - wrote from Denmark, espoused &
>>> furthered social justice, married 3 times, spent the 60s in Dublin,
>>> attracted a Guggenheim in 1976, & passed away in Santa Barbara. (Mental
>>> note to respect, and maybe look for his autobiography)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The imposition of censorship inspired all but one of the editorial staff
>>> to
>>> quit & found their own magazine, “Big Table”
>>>
>>> Some details
>>> https://www.chicagoreview.org/big-table-web-feature/
>>>
>>> A little more about “Big Table”
>>> https://fromasecretlocation.com/big-table/
>>>
>>> Jack Kerouac told them what to name it.
>>>
>>> It lasted 5 issues, then published books.
>>>
>>>
>>> Then there’s adjective-free mention of Norman Mailer’s essay, “The White
>>> Negro” in a list of “centrifugal lures” away from establishment thinking:
>>>
>>> “… Against the undeniable power of tradition, we were attracted by such
>>> centrifugal lures as Norman Mailer’s essay “The White Negro,”
>>>
>>> And a succinct but rave review for Jack Kerouac’s _On the Road_
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>