"The Rise and Fall of the Jewish-American Novel"

Experience the complete proceedings on-line: streaming video of the lecture is now available.
Video (1:16 min.)

For some thirty years (between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s) being-Jewish-in-America was a powerful metaphor in American literature: it attracted major talents, changed the language, and left an indelible mark on the culture. The strength of the metaphor lay in the rage of men who, from beginning to end, kept screaming, “Don't tell me I don't run things around here!” This lecture takes a close look at the phenomenon. The work of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, in particular, will be addressed.

Vivian Gornick has spent most of her working life writing memoirs and personal essays. At the same time, she has written critical work much influenced by her absorption in modern American feminism, the development in nonfiction writing of personal narrative, and the idea of the "persona" as a control in all serious nonfiction writing.

Gornick holds a bachelor of arts degree in literature from the City College of New York and a master of arts degree in literature from New York University. She is the author of eight books, one of them nominated for a National Book Award and another nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the recipient of a Ford Foundation grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Gornick’s essays and articles have appeared in Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, Threepenny Review, and the Women’s Review of Books. She has taught for many years in MFA programs all over the country, including those at the University of Houston, the University of Arizona, Sarah Lawrence College, and the New School in New York City.

The Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in Art and the Humanities was established to honor the memory of Julia S. Phelps, longtime instructor in the Radcliffe Seminars, and is supported by the generous contributions of her family, friends, and colleagues.