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The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought

Contents

ARTICLES 

Academic Socialism 

Eisenhower and Truman: Their Flawed Relationship  

City Perspectives in Anne Tyler's Morgan’s Passing and The Accidental Tourist  

Proust's Remembrance of Things Past as an Influence on Sartre's Early Philosophy  

Two Conceptions of the Value of Individuals in Children's Programming 

Stereotypes and Media  

POEMS OF DISCOVERY  

Lost At Sea  

Father Sky, Mother Earth 

In This Place  

The Line 

the crowd 

Lover's Leap Vernon County, Wisconsin 

Westering 

The Abravayas, the Levys and Hattems  

Nebraska 

Immigrant 

Discovery 

Coming to Kansas 

The Offering 

Archaeology (As If The Present Mattered) 

The Inheritance 

Ready Or Not, Columbus 

Sought, Unsought 

Borderland  

My Father, Who Wants To Discover America 

Wild Horses 

Analogies 

Adriano Lambe's Florida 

The Daughter 

Trinidad, Cuidad Colonial  

Tribal Passages 

Llano Estacado: The Naming  

ne plus ultra 

In the Earth Cellar 

Drawing the Line 

Montezuma Sends His Messengers to Cortés 

Broken Spears 

Common Ground  

Vita Brevis  

The New World 

In 1492 

REVIEWS 

Virginia Jeans Laas, editor; Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee 

The Diary of Caroline Seabury, 1854-1863 

Robert Wexelblatt; Professors at Play 

Abstract

What is wrong with today's university? MICHAEL J. BUGEJA believes academia has wandered away from individual excellence---in teaching and in the student's rational and aesthetic education--and turned a diploma into dollars, not sense. Internationally published poet and writer, editor of a volume of cultural essays from Oklahoma State Press, and author of two journalism manuals, Bugeja is a professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, where he teaches ethics, writing, and editing.

Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, as DONALD R. McCOY shows, were thrust together by war and driven apart by partisan politics. University Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas, McCoy specializes in teaching the history of the United States since 1920. Author or co-author of seven books and dozens of scholarly articles, McCoy has among them biographies of Calvin Coolidge and Alfred Landon and The Presidency of Harry S. Truman.

Coping with--and surviving in--Anne Tyler's Baltimore is the subject of JOYCE R. DURHAM's article. Currently Assistant Professor of English at the University of Dayton, she has a previous article on Black urban voices in recent American fiction.

DON BOES has been a resident at both the MacDowell Colony and the Ragdale Foundation. He has received two Al Smith fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, the most recent in 1990. He lives in Frankfort, Kentucky, with his wife and daughter and works in Louisville as a technical writer.

MARGUERITE BOUVARD, Wellesley, Massachusetts, has published three books of poems, the most recent of which is Of Light and Silence (Zoland Books). She has also published a number of books on psychology and political science.

KIM BRIDGFORD has published poetry in The Georgia Review, The Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, and numerous other journals. She was a Jacob K. Javits Fellow in English for two years, and recently was a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Poetry at the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She teaches at Fairfield University in Connecticut.

CARL BUCHANAN, Indianapolis, Indiana, recently published an essay and some poems about Jack-the-Ripper in Kansas Quarterly.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI' s latest book is The Last Night of the Earth Poems (Black Sparrow Press, 1992).

DUANE K. CAYLOR is a family physician in Pardeeville, Wisconsin. His poems have been published in Kansas Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, Plains Poetry Journal, and other magazines.

MARY CROW, a creative writing professor at Colorado State University, has published a book of poems, Borders (Boa Editions), with an introduction by David Ignatow. She has also published two books of translations of poems by Jorge Teillier of Chile and by Roberto Juarroz of Argentina. Professor Crow spent spring 1992 in Venezuela and Argentina on a Fulbright.

MYRON ERNST has recently published poems in Chicago Review, Poet Lore, Poetry East, and other journals. He lives in Vestal, New York.

PATRICK WORTH GRAY lives and writes in Bellevue, Nebraska.

RAY GREENBLATT, Paoli, Pennsylvania, published his seventh book of poetry in early 1992 in collaboration with Philadelphia artist Michael Quinn.

CHRISTOPHER GUERIN is general manager of the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Philharmonic. His stories and poems have appeared in several journals, including Wittenberg Review, AURA, and Wind.

MARGARET HOLLEY, Devon, Pennsylvania, won the 1991 Bluestem Award for her first book of poems, The Smoke Tree. A second collection, The Sleeper (Copper Canyon), will appear in 1992. Ms. Holley works as assistant to the president of Bryn Mawr College.

ERNEST KROLL, a former newspaperman and U. S. Government official, has published six books. Two lines from one of his poems have been cut into the granite floor of the new Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D. C. He is the editor of three forthcoming books, including Marianne Moore at The Dial Commissions an Article on the Movies (Colorado College Press).

RACHEL LODEN has had poems recently in New American Writing, Kansas Quarterly, New York Quarterly, and other journals. She lives in Palo Alto, California.

PETER LUDWIN, Los Angeles, California, has been publishing poetry for many years. Two years ago he spent the summer traveling in Ecuador and Peru, including a week visiting Indians in the Amazon Basin by dugout canoe. His chapbook, Whitewater (Samisdat), was published in 1987.

JOYCE K. LUZZI is a freelance writer and editor in Rhode Island. She has published poems in The Laurel Review, The MacGuffin, Poem, and other journals.

HILLARY LYON, Dallas, Texas, has published some poems in The Literary Review, Poem, Poetry Northwest, and The Seattle Review.

JAMES MAGO RIAN, Lincoln, Nebraska, has published seven books of poetry. His most recent book is Mountain Man (1989). His poems have also appeared in more than a dozen journals, including Black River Review, Nebraska Review, and Kansas Quarterly.

JO McDOUGALL has published two books of poems, The Woman in the Next Booth (BkMk) and Towns Facing Railroads (University of Arkansas). She is a professor of creative writing at Pittsburg State University.

GEAN MORENO, Miami, Florida, is a student in literature under the guidance of poet Ricardo Pau-Llosa at Miami-Dade Community College.

RICARDO PAU-LLOSA teaches at Miami-Dade Community College, Florida. His poems have appeared in Missouri Review, Tampa Review, Prairie Schooner, and numerous other journals. His third book of poems, Cuba (Carnegie Mellon), is forthcoming later this year. He is also U. S. editor for Art International, published in Paris.

TIMOTHY R. PHILLIPS, Lakewood, California, originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is currently the audit manager of Knott' s Berry Farm, a large theme park that started as a roadside berry stand more than seventy years ago.

PAUL RUFFIN, editor of The Texas Review, Sam Houston State University, has published three collections of his own poems and edited four anthologies. His poems have also appeared in several hundred journals and in X. J. Kennedy's and Scott-Foresman's introduction to literature anthologies.

JAMES SCOFIELD lives and writes in Olympia, Washington.

BARBARA STALLONE lives and writes in Tacoma, Washington.

BARRY STERNLIEB lives in Richmond, Massachusetts, with his wife and two daughters. He edits Mad River Press. His works have appeared in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and other journals.

ROBERT TREMMEL teaches writing at Iowa State University. He has recently published his first book, Driving the Milford Blacktop (BkMk).

ROBERT WEXELBLATT has published frequent articles in The Midwest Quarterly. Other poems have appeared in Hawaii Review, The Literary Review, The Cape Rock, and Stone Country. Three of his short stories have been published in Small Pond. His most recent book is reviewed elsewhere in this issue. He teaches at Boston University.

STEVE WILSON is the author of Allegory Dance (1991) and is editor of The Anatomy of Water: A Sampling of Contemporary American Prose Poetry (1992). He teaches in the MF A program at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos.

HAROLD WITT, co-editor of Blue Unicorn, will have a chapbook, The Light at Newport, out this year. His poems have lately appeared in Chariton Review, Kansas Quarterly, Literary Review, and other journals.

An important but overlooked source for Jean Paul Sartre's early philosophy, according to HAIM GORDON, was the work of Marcel Proust. A teacher in the Department of Education at the University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel, Gordon’s most recent scholarly books are The Other Martin Buber, Make Room For Dreams: Spiritual Challenges to Zionism, and Naquib Mahfouz's Egypt. He has also been active in Israel in promoting Jewish-Arab dialogue and struggling for the human rights of the Palestinians.

Examining two children's television programs, "Captain Kangaroo" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," THOMAS M. NORTONSMITH and LINDA L. NORTON-SMITH argue that they promote different views of individual worth, the role of authority, and, ultimately, offer differing concepts of morality. Thomas Norton-Smith is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kent State Uhiversity/Stark Campus. He has published several recent articles on the philosophy of mathematics and is co-authoring a book on "Public Opinion: Ethics and Issues." Linda Norton-Smith has held several positions in the child care industry, including the Director of Operations and the Director of Education and Training for Gerber Children's Centers of the Gerber Company. Currently she manages a corporate child care center and conducts child-care in-service training for the State of Ohio.

By understanding stereotypes, RICHARD M. GARDNER contends, we may hope to find an American classical style. A teacher of English at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, he has published work in several journals, including this one, and a monograph, Tourism and Fiction, printed in France.

DANIEL E. SUTHERLAND, Civil War specialist and professor of history at the University of Arkansas, has recently been named chairman of his department. He welcomes your prayers.

VIRGINIA JEANS LAAS, Assistant Professor of History at Missouri Southern State College, Joplin, is the editor of Wartime Washington and a veteran of seven years of teaching here at PSU.

DONALD WAYNE VINEY, professor of philosophy and accomplished guitarist, is a valued member of our Board of Editors and a frequent contributor to these pages.

DECONSTRUCTION: Invitation to Interested Readers

The Midwest Quarterly recently invited Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien to amplify an article critical of certain trends in academia, "Devaluing the University," which he contributed to The Times of London on March 5. Dr. Cruise O'Brien would like to do as we asked, but he feels he needs more information from people--whether for or against deconstruction--who are at present working in American or other universities and research institutes. He would be interested in hearing from any readers who might be willing to describe for him the state of affairs in relation to deconstruction (and allied tendencies) at the writer's university. Any replies would be treated as entirely confidential, in that neither the writer's name nor academic affiliation would be cited. The answers would be used as the bases for a general comment on the overall situation as regards the influence of deconstruction in academia. Extracts would be quoted for pertinent illustration, but care would be taken to see that no quotation could lead to the identification of the respondent or his or her university.

While Dr. Cruise O'Brien would certainly not wish to restrict the area within which any respondent might choose to frame his or her comments on deconstruction, the following is a non-exhaustive list of topics he would like to know about. In the institution at which you work: estimate the proportion of deconstructionists and allies in relevant departments, including English and comparative literature; estimate the relative influence of deconstructionists, anti-deconstructionists, and neutrals in academic policy, including appointments, tenure, and promotions. In the main the information that is requested would concern the particular institution in which the respondent works, but general observations about the perceived strength of these tendencies in, for example, The Modern Language Association and whether such tendencies are growing stronger or weaker would be appreciated.

Send responses to Dr. Cruise O'Brien to The Midwest Quarterly, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas 66762, in care of the Editor, and he will forward them unopened to Ireland in a timely manner.

ANNOUNCING THE ANNUAL VICTOR J. EMMETT, JR., MEMORIAL PRIZE AND LECTURE

The editors of The Midwest Quarterly invite submission of articles on any aspect of Victorian and Modern British literature to be considered for the annual Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Prize. The winning article will be published in The Midwest Quarterly, and the author will receive an honorarium and will be invited to Pittsburg State University to deliver the annual Victor J. Emmett, Jr., Memorial Lecture. The late Victor J. Emmett, Jr., was for many years Professor of English at Pittsburg State University and this journal's Editor-in-Chief.

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