INTRODUCTION
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leged to hear from a truly luminous group of scientists, critics, artists,
and essayists whom Edith has asked to take the temperature of our
country, to read the pulse of our culture, and to venture a prognosis. We
shall hear, I am virtually certain, some lively disagreement, but I am
equa ll y certain that we sha ll hear, as well, some very important insights.
To the participants, you have our gratitude; to our other visitors, you
are equally welcome here. Thank you, and I hope this is a conference
that li ves up to the star billing. I look forward to it.
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you, Jon, for your nice introduction. I also want
to thank the rest of Boston University, especially the people who helped
set this up; Brenda Pike and James Neal, who work in the office; and
our Advisory Board, especially Joanna and Dan Rose and Richard
Grimm.
A few weeks ago, I spoke to a friend who, in the course of our con–
versation, said somewhat provocatively, "How can you run a confer–
ence on 'our country'? After all , you're a cosmopolitan." I still can't
figure out whether this was praise or putdown in today's usage. Accord–
ing to the
OED,
a cosmopolitan is free from national limitations. In
other words, he is not provincial. Of course, that is what the founding
editors of
Partisan Review
aimed for, before they had ever set foot
above New York's 14th Street. In the 1930S and 1940s, they were kids
who didn't want to be confined to the thinking of their country. They
were looking to Europe, and especially to England and France. They
were partial to modernism and to Marxism. And they eschewed the nar–
rowness and provincialism of the Americans they met, and their anti–
intellectualism-to which they reacted with anti-Americanism.
By 1952, however,
Partisan Review
already had had a good run, and
the editors had been abroad . Now they wondered about the direction of
their country. By then, World War II had been won, but communism,
the Korean and Cold Wars were in fu ll swing. America no longer could
remain isolated. Artists and writers were visiting Europe, and the Mar–
shall Plan was beginning to show signs of success.
The magazine had introduced French thinking a few years earlier, but
it had become clear by then that the foremost and most influential
French intellectual, Sartre, was soft on communism, and did not seem
to know that Moscow's politicos had a stranglehold on Communist Par–
ties around the world. He was more worried that America's shoddy
merchandise and low-level movies wou ld invade and overtake France's
art and cinema-a concern that has not disappeared. But William
Phillips and Philip Rahv, who too were partial to French cultural pro-
