Alan M. Wald
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807830758
- eISBN:
- 9781469603285
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807882368_wald
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
The second of three volumes that track the political and personal lives of several generations of U.S. left-wing writers, this book carries forward the chronicle launched in Exiles from a Future ...
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The second of three volumes that track the political and personal lives of several generations of U.S. left-wing writers, this book carries forward the chronicle launched in Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left. In this volume, the author delves into literary, emotional, and ideological trajectories of radical cultural workers in the era when the International Brigades fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and the United States battled in World War II (1941–45). Probing in detail the controversial impact of the Popular Front on literary culture, he explores the ethical and aesthetic challenges that pro-Communist writers faced, and presents a cross-section of literary talent, from the famous to the forgotten, the major to the minor. The writers examined include Len Zinberg (a.k.a. Ed Lacy), John Oliver Killens, Irwin Shaw, Albert Maltz, Ann Petry, Chester Himes, Henry Roth, Lauren Gilfillan, Ruth Mc-Kenney, Morris U. Schappes, and Jo Sinclair. The author also uncovers dramatic new information about Arthur Miller's complex commitment to the Left. Confronting heartfelt questions about Jewish masculinity, racism at the core of liberal democracy, the corrosion of utopian dreams, and the thorny interaction between antifascism and Communism, he re-creates the intellectual and cultural landscape of a remarkable era.Less
The second of three volumes that track the political and personal lives of several generations of U.S. left-wing writers, this book carries forward the chronicle launched in Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left. In this volume, the author delves into literary, emotional, and ideological trajectories of radical cultural workers in the era when the International Brigades fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and the United States battled in World War II (1941–45). Probing in detail the controversial impact of the Popular Front on literary culture, he explores the ethical and aesthetic challenges that pro-Communist writers faced, and presents a cross-section of literary talent, from the famous to the forgotten, the major to the minor. The writers examined include Len Zinberg (a.k.a. Ed Lacy), John Oliver Killens, Irwin Shaw, Albert Maltz, Ann Petry, Chester Himes, Henry Roth, Lauren Gilfillan, Ruth Mc-Kenney, Morris U. Schappes, and Jo Sinclair. The author also uncovers dramatic new information about Arthur Miller's complex commitment to the Left. Confronting heartfelt questions about Jewish masculinity, racism at the core of liberal democracy, the corrosion of utopian dreams, and the thorny interaction between antifascism and Communism, he re-creates the intellectual and cultural landscape of a remarkable era.
Alan M. Wald
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835869
- eISBN:
- 9781469601502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837344_wald.4
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This book discusses several generations of Communist writers committed to the 1930s vision of advancing a new society. This introduction considers the problematical meanings for literature of the ...
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This book discusses several generations of Communist writers committed to the 1930s vision of advancing a new society. This introduction considers the problematical meanings for literature of the prevailing political strategy of the pro-Communist Left. It describes the enigma of the evolving meaning of “antifascism,” which is captured in Howard Fast's “An Epitaph for Sidney.”Less
This book discusses several generations of Communist writers committed to the 1930s vision of advancing a new society. This introduction considers the problematical meanings for literature of the prevailing political strategy of the pro-Communist Left. It describes the enigma of the evolving meaning of “antifascism,” which is captured in Howard Fast's “An Epitaph for Sidney.”
Alan M. Wald
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807835869
- eISBN:
- 9781469601502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807837344_wald.8
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter focuses on the homintern, an example of an “outsider” presence within the Left. The expression “homintern” refers to the milieu of gay men that were at one time pro-Communist. The term ...
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This chapter focuses on the homintern, an example of an “outsider” presence within the Left. The expression “homintern” refers to the milieu of gay men that were at one time pro-Communist. The term was also intended to suggest a humorous parallel between international networks of homosexuals and of Communists.Less
This chapter focuses on the homintern, an example of an “outsider” presence within the Left. The expression “homintern” refers to the milieu of gay men that were at one time pro-Communist. The term was also intended to suggest a humorous parallel between international networks of homosexuals and of Communists.
Frank Noack
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813167008
- eISBN:
- 9780813167794
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813167008.003.0025
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter deals with Harlan’s willingness to accept artistically inferior assignments only because they allow him to work outside Germany. Large parts of Die blaue Stunde (The blue hour, 1953) are ...
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This chapter deals with Harlan’s willingness to accept artistically inferior assignments only because they allow him to work outside Germany. Large parts of Die blaue Stunde (The blue hour, 1953) are shot in Italy; apart from that, the film is remarkable for portraying marriage problems in a humorous manner. A two-part adventure, Sterne über Colombo (Stars over Colombo, 1953) and Die Gefangene des Maharadscha (Prisoner of the maharaja, 1954), is shot in India and again deals with marriage problems as well as a tortured father–son relationship, the kind Harlan himself experienced with his father. Finally, the spy thriller Verrat an Deutschland (Betrayal of Germany, 1955), shot in Japan, is Harlan’s reflection about his own guilt in Nazi Germany and Söderbaum’s complicity in it. He gets bad reviews for all four films, but the Indian films are successful at the box office. His sympathetic treatment of Communists in Verrat an Deutschland leads to the last thing he wants after his comeback: a political controversy.Less
This chapter deals with Harlan’s willingness to accept artistically inferior assignments only because they allow him to work outside Germany. Large parts of Die blaue Stunde (The blue hour, 1953) are shot in Italy; apart from that, the film is remarkable for portraying marriage problems in a humorous manner. A two-part adventure, Sterne über Colombo (Stars over Colombo, 1953) and Die Gefangene des Maharadscha (Prisoner of the maharaja, 1954), is shot in India and again deals with marriage problems as well as a tortured father–son relationship, the kind Harlan himself experienced with his father. Finally, the spy thriller Verrat an Deutschland (Betrayal of Germany, 1955), shot in Japan, is Harlan’s reflection about his own guilt in Nazi Germany and Söderbaum’s complicity in it. He gets bad reviews for all four films, but the Indian films are successful at the box office. His sympathetic treatment of Communists in Verrat an Deutschland leads to the last thing he wants after his comeback: a political controversy.
