83.12

“Mailer at Penn.” Article by Carlin Romano. Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 March, Sec. C, pp. 1, 5. Detailed report with long quotes on Mailer’s week-long appointment as a Pappas Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania where he lectured and met with a variety of classes. The centerpiece of the week was a lecture titled “The White Negro Reconsidered,” which was followed by a pointed exchange with black students about Mailer’s “antique view of blacks,” as one student put it. Mailer “neither completely endorsed nor disavowed what he had once felt” about blacks, but as he explained, he had wished to compliment blacks by “celebrating their ability to live in the present.” Mailer’s friend and English Department Chairman, Robert F. Lucid, organized the visit. Of the Penn students who met Mailer, Lucid said, “These are the sons and daughters of the generation that knew Mailer. So they know that he’s important from an authoritative source, but they’re not sure why.” See 83.14–83.16, 83.21, 83.35.