The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Selected Essays on Marxist Traditions in Cultural Commitment - Softcover

Wald, Alan M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0391039431 ISBN 13: 9780391039438

Publisher: Humanities Press International Inc, 1996

Synopsis

This is a book that will engage students and scholars of U.S. literature and radicalism, as well as political activists in the labor, antiracist, peace, and socialist movements. It brings together many of Alan M. Wald's most influential and original essays of the last decade on Marxist writers and intellectuals. A richly provocative inquiry into the antinomies of cultural radicalism, the collection is distinguished by Wald's characteristic blend of original, meticulous research with lucid, incisive theory.
These essays center on Wald's efforts to critically assess what remains recuperable in the traditions of "committed" radical cultural workers. The selections include biographical sketches of twentieth-century activist writers, artists, and intellectuals; the analysis of radical fiction, poetry, and works of criticism; the critique of various Marxist theories of cultural policy and practice; a review of contemporary debates about racism and culture; and several searching explorations of the ambiguities and challenges of left-wing political commitment in our time.

About this title

Review

"Alan Wald ranks among the most important intellectual historians of the literary and cultural left in the United States . . . Wald's prose is perfectly free from jargon . . . a fine counterpoint to the fashionable lament that lucid left writing is a thing of the past."

--In These Times
"Wald addresses a wider audience in this honest, timely, and wide-ranging collection . . . should engage anyone interested in cultural studies, American intellectual history, or social and political change."

--American Literature

Synopsis

This collection of Wald's most influential essays of the last decade, originally published in a range of scholarly, popular and political journals (and not, therefore, easily obtainable), constitute a provocative enquiry into the antimonies of cultural radicalism.

Edition details

• Publisher: Humanities Press International Inc
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0391039431
• ISBN 13: 9780391039438
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272