59.18

“Eggheads in the Tall Corn.” Article by unidentified writer. Newsweek, 28 December, 65. Final report on the 4-5 December symposium at the University of Iowa at which Mailer, Dwight Macdonald, Mark Harris and Ralph Ellison discussed literature and culture. The symposium sessions were moderated by Paul Engle of the university and Arnold Gingrich, editor-publisher of Esquire. Mailer said that the totalitarian threats of the 1930s were less terrifying than the current “conformity, monotony and boredom.” See 59.15, 59.16, 59.17, 83.10.

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  (Left to right) Paul Engle, Ralph Ellison, Mark Harris, Dwight MacDonald, Norman Mailer, and (standing) Arnold Gingrich. (December 4, 1959, Iowa State)

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  Norman Mailer and Ralph Ellison (1959) Front row: Donald Kaufmann and Edmund Skellings, the University of Iowa, December 4-5.