Our Country and Our Culture: A Symposium
Mailer's first contribution to Partisan Review — a symposium contribution in which he declares himself "in almost total disagreement with the assumptions of this symposium" on the new relationship between American writers and mass democratic culture, arguing instead for "the efficacy of alienation and opposition to current society."
“Our Country and Our Culture: A Symposium.” Partisan Review 19 (May–June 1952), 298–301.
Symposium contribution. Twenty-five American writers wrestle with four questions on the “new” and more positive relationship between American writers and intellectuals and mass democratic culture. Mailer declares straightaway that he is “in almost total disagreement with the assumptions of this symposium,” and goes on to argue for “the efficacy of alienation and opposition to current society, rather than … a strapping participation in the vigors of American life.” Among those joining Mailer in his (first) contribution to Partisan Review are: Louise Bogan, Leslie Fiedler, Irving Howe, Margaret Mead, C. Wright Mills, William Phillips, Philip Rahv, David Riesman, and Lionel Trilling.
Rpt: America and the Intellectuals: A Symposium (PR Series, Number Four), New York: Partisan Review, May 1953, softcover; Advertisements for Myself (59.13).
Partisan Review context
This is Mailer’s first Partisan Review piece. He will return to the magazine several times across the 1950s and beyond — most notably with “Advertisements for Myself on the Way Out” (58.4) and the “Scenes from ‘The Deer Park’” (59.11). By the time of the 1957 Waldorf-adjacent period and “The White Negro,” PR will be one of the journals against which Mailer most sharply defines his own position.
Related pages
- 1952 | Partisan Review
- The Meaning of 'Western Defense' | Advertisements for Myself
- Advertisements for Myself on the Way Out (58.4) | Scenes from 'The Deer Park' (59.11)