Culture Wars Redux: The stormy early reception of The Cambridge History of the American Novel

3 October 2011

The first review of The Cambridge History of the American Novel appeared in The Wall Street Journal. It was an extravagant attack by the conservative commentator Joseph Epstein, who described it as the work of “barbarians.” (You can read it here.)

The barbarians remain grateful for the attention. We’ve used the opportunity to respond at length. First to the mattresses was my coeditor Ben Reiss, who wrote this piece in Slate. The following week, my own essay appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Read these all together and then I dare you to tell me that the culture wars are over.

Entering Ukranian popular culture

5 September 2011

My essay on baseball and American innocence has been translated into Ukranian here.

Manchester Guardian sponsors a live chat based on one of my columns

23 August 2011

The chat took place on July 1, actually, but the best bits, as they call them, were just published. If you’re interested, you can find the whole transcript here.