52.1

“Our Country and Our Culture: A Symposium.” Partisan Review 19 (May-June), 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; 59.13.