"Write Like a Man" examines how masculinity and Jewishness were linked in the minds of the New York intellectuals. Men and women, Jews and non-Jews in the group, all embraced a secular Jewish machismo that at its core prized verbal combativeness, polemical aggression, and an unflinching style of argumentation. This understanding of masculinity was an outsider stance when it first emerged in the 1930s. But in the years following World War II, the New York intellectuals became some of the most renowned critics and writers in the country, bringing their fractious masculinity to the mainstream of American life.
Light lunch will be provided.