The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 27 No. 2

Authors

• John C. Burnham
• Robert M. Khoury
• Judith A. Spector
• Leslie M. Thompson
• Robert Wexelblatt
• Pierre Papazian
• Donald E. Secrest
• Lucile Blanchard
• Kelly Cherry
• Martha Collins
• Malcolm Glass
• Robert Harlow
• Duane Locke
• George Looney
• Naomi Shihab Nye
• Cynthia S. Pederson
• Jim Thomas
• Kathleen Spivack
• James Armstrong
• Stephen Meats
• Paul W. Zagorski
• Philip Paradis
• Midwest Quarterly Editors

Contents

ARTICLES

Where Has Greatness Gone?

The Future as a Social Problem: A Critique of the "One-Minute" Weltanschauung

People as Machines and the Body as Property

Between Recurrence and Invention

The Armenian Nation and the Ottoman Empire: Roots of Terrorism

American Military Intervention in Grenada: The Moral Aspect

POEMS

The Cliffs of Puyé

The Daughter Who Visits the Green River Singing

The Relation that Art Bears to Silence

Iris

How the Moon Got Its Handle

Home

Heartland

Guided Tour

A Blue Shadow

Prayer

The Dream of a Language

The Tunnel of Questions

The Key

Cissy's Ciseaux

Young Girl, Northern New Mexico

REVIEWS

William Maxwell; Time Will Darken It

Lola Haskins; Castings

Gordon J. Tolle ; Human Nature Under Fire: The Political Philosophy of Hannah Arendt

Brendan Galvin; Winter Oysters

The Midwest Quarterly is happy to announce that it is opening its poetry section once more to submissions from all serious writers of poetry. The new poetry editor is particularly interested in well-mad, though not necessarily traditional, poems that see nature and the self in bold combinations, from writers striving to find expression for the ineffable, the inexplicable, the irrational, the unknown either in themselves or in the world around them.

The poetry editor is particularly interested right now in poems dealing with Halley's comet or other astronomical phenomena.

Abstract

in this issue. . .

Playing JOHN C. BURNHAM's new parlor game, "Who Is Now Great?” unexpectedly forms a negative consensus: the great men and women, like the dinosaurs, seem to belong to an earlier time, not to our own. The author wonders why, and shares his thoughts on the past, present, and future of greatness. Professor of History at The Ohio State University, with a scholarly interest in the history of psychiatry and American medical and social history, Burnham' s most recent book is on the psychoanalyst and physician Jelliffe.

ROBERT M. KHOURY and JUDITH A. SPECTOR explore the mindless dash for the future which some Americans confuse with progress. Along the way they manage more than a sixty-second glimpse of the one-minute practitioners who peddle com sense and pithy phrases as, they would assert, state-of-the-art, high-tech philosophy. Editor of The Sociology of the Offbeat and author, appropriately enough, of articles on time, humor, work, and modern warfare, Khoury is Associate Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. Along with duties as Associate Professor of English at Indiana University Indianapolis, where she teaches literature courses in collaboration with sociology and psychology faculty, Spector has published articles on sexual aesthetics and science fiction in The Midwest Quarterly and is editor of an anthology of essays entitled Gender Studies.

A science now able to manipulate genes, interchange body parts and manufacture hearts (what would the Aztecs have thought of that!), should bring us to confront and discard the man-as-machine metaphor, warns LESLIE M. THOMPSON, or we risk losing the humanity we seek in these ways to preserve and improve. Provost of the Graduate School at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Thompson has written numerous articles on literary criticism, primarily dealing with English authors, and recently on the meaning and definition of death in this age of mechanization.

ROBERT WEXELBLATT approaches a definition of the extra- ordinary gift of creative endeavor, the moving resonance of melodies felt and not heard. More than coincidence or association, like the harmony of the spheres which produces a music understood intellectually if not aurally, there are voices in many mediums which stir in us a revelation of disturbing, exciting possibilities, and these are the subject of an essay of broad scope and precise understanding. Wexelblatt has shared the etudes and symphonies of his own invention with many audiences, not least with the readers of past issues of The Midwest Quarterly, and he continues as a Professor of Humanities at Boston University.

LUCILE BLANCHARD of Wesleyan University has had poems and stories published in The Literary Review, The Antioch Review, The New Laurel Review, Negative Capability, and others, and is currently working on a novel.

KELLY CHERRY of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has published two chapbooks and two books of poetry. The most recent of her four novels, The Lost Traveller's Dream, was published in 1984 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. An interview with her recently appeared in Finding the Words: Conversations with Writers Who Teach.

MARTHA COLLINS, director of the creative writing program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, published her first book of poems, The Catastrophe of Rainbows, last spring. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Field, Virginia Quarterly, and others.

MALCOLM GLASS has published one book of poetry, Bone Love (1979), a chapbook, Wiggins Poems (1984), and his poems and fiction have appeared in The Sewanee Review, Poetry Northwest, The Arizona Quarterly, New Letters, and others. His play, Greetings, was recently produced in Nashville, and he is co-editor of Red River Review.

ROBERT HARLOW of Albany, New York, has had recent work in Cottonwood and The Albany Review.

DUANE LOCKE recently retired from the University of Tampa where he taught poetry for many years and founded a school of poets based on his theories of linguistic reality. He was also founder and editor of the UT Review.

GEORGE LOONEY, poetry editor of Mid-American Review in 1984 and current editor of Pooka Press, has had poems in Mississippi Review, Tar River Poetry, Indiana Review, Cincinnati Poetry Review, and other magazines, and has had a poem selected to appear in this year's Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry.

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE of San Antonio has published two books of poetry, Different Ways to Pray and Hugging the Jukebox, both by Bre1tenbush Books, and has work in two current anthologies, The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets and New American Poets of the 80's.

CYNTHIA PEDERSON of Topeka has had poetry published in a number of literary magazines, including Cottonwood Review Inscape, and The Little Balkans Review. The Woodley Press published a book of her poetry, Spoken Across A Distance in 1982.

KATHLEEN SPIVACK lives and writes in Watertown Massachusetts.

JIM THOMAS of Northeast Missouri State University has had poetry published in English Journal, Cape Rock, Chariton Review, New Jersey Poetry Journal, New Mexico Humanities Review, Kansas Quarterly, Pacific Review, and others.

PIERRE PAPAZIAN explores the origins of the conflict between Armenians and Turks which has recently erupted in terrorist violence. Papazian finds sufficient evidence for both the hatred and the frustration which have prompted the current campaign of violence m the centuries-long oppression visited by the Ottoman Turks on the Armenian population which the former found in Asia Minor when they invaded this land of many peoples and diverse history. An independent scholar and writer, Papazian has published articles on ethnic culture, human rights, the Medieval Kingdom of Cilicia, Soviet power, the Lebanese civil war and a United Nations Forum for Stateless Nations, along with a recent essay comparing the Jewish Holocaust with the Armenian Massacres.

Nations, unlike boxers and football teams, seem bound to justify mismatches; it is not enough for them to pretend the contest was by mutual consent or to assert the outcome was to some degree in doubt. Applying the just-war theory to the Grenada intervention, DONALD E. SECREST finds the Reagan Administration's reasoning wanting and its intentions troubling. Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma, Secrest has with this article placed essays in The Midwest Quarterly with the last three editors-in-chief, certainly something of no mean accomplishment. Like the present offering, the others reflected his professional interest in international relations.

JAMES ARMSTRONG is an attorney and writer. His most recent fiction and review have appeared, respectively, in the Pacific Review and the Des Moines Register. He is currently finishing a novel.

STEPHEN MEATS is Professor of English at Pittsburg State University and Poetry Editor of The Midwest Quarterly.

PAUL W. ZAGORSKI teaches at Pittsburg State University. He is Associate Professor of Political Science, offering courses in political philosophy and comparative politics.

PHILIP PARADIS teaches English at Iowa State University. His book of poems, Tornado Alley, is to be published by Ampersand.

Permissions to Use

In accordance with database agreements, the full text of the issue is not available for download. Pittsburg State Digital Commons has only provided the first 6 pages for author and publication information.

Recommended Citation

Burnham, John C.; Khoury, Robert M.; Spector, Judith A.; Thompson, Leslie M.; Wexelblatt, Robert; Papazian, Pierre; Secrest, Donald E.; Blanchard, Lucile; Cherry, Kelly; Collins, Martha; Glass, Malcolm; Harlow, Robert; Locke, Duane; Looney, George; Nye, Naomi Shihab; Pederson, Cynthia S.; Thomas, Jim; Spivack, Kathleen; Armstrong, James; Meats, Stephen; Zagorski, Paul W.; Paradis, Philip; and Midwest Quarterly Editors (1986) "The Midwest Quarterly; Vol. 27 No. 2," The Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought: Vol. 27: Iss. 2, Article 1.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/mwq/vol27/iss2/1