Entries tagged with “Cambridge Companion” from Patell and Waterman's History of New York
Here is a proof of the front and back covers of our forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York. Ignore the blurb copy, which reproduces the earliest version and has since been substantially revised.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
The last time I checked our official Cambridge Companion page I was delighted to see that we officially have a cover. Even more delighted to see that they used the painting we recommended, by the Czech painter T. F. Simon:
The volume's due out in March. We just received proofs and think it looks pretty fantastic.
Some other highlights of the week ... via Stupefaction, a preview for a new film exploring the idea of "downtown" in the late 70s and early 80s. Narrated by Debbie Harry, Downtown Calling seems to have a special interest in exploring hip hop and underground dance. It premieres later this month in Austin.
Friends from LA are in town for a few days playing some shows. I caught them last night at Mercury Lounge and they're playing again at Union Hall in Brooklyn tomorrow. Not a lot of huge NYC content in this entry, if it weren't for the lovely and talented Sara Lov, the member of this tour I know best, who has a sweet little song called "New York":
Sara, who formerly fronted the band Devics, plays her set backed by a turntable that plays the instrumental tracks to her songs while she sings. I thought the trick worked quite well. Another LA band, Sea Wolf, headlines: friends of friends, they play perfectly pleasant indie rock. They had a nice crowd last night. My daughters have listened to them for the last few years and I took one of them, the 8th grader, to yesterday's sound check, since the show was 21+. Thanks to Sara and Tim for being so sweet to her while we were there.
And now? I think I'm going to go check out the much written about lobster rolls at Luke's. They're half the price of my favorites, at Ed's. I wonder if they'll only be half as good? Half the lobster? I'll report back.
So here's where we are: the Cambridge Companion to the Literatures of New York City has now become the Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York City; the book is in production; and and we're nearing the end of the copy-editing stage. In fact, we're hoping to send the copy-edited manuscript back to Cambridge at the end of the day on Monday. We've been working via e-mail with a wonderful freelance copy editor, and happily most of her queries have been relatively minor. Kudos to all of the contributors, who have been really good about answering the queries promptly!
If you check out the volume's listing on the Cambridge University Press site, you'll see that it's scheduled for March 2010, but our production editor is doing everything possible to speed it up so that we have a chance of ordering it for Writing New York next spring.
We'll keep you posted ...
Well, we've dropped the manuscript for our Cambridge Companion to the Literatures of New York City -- the size of a ream of paper -- in the mail to our editor. [Insert huge sigh of relief.] We were only a couple weeks late, and that owing to a few slow permissions and illustration requests. We're happy to say how very pleased we are with the volume, which should be out early next year.
Here's what the final table of contents looks like; it differs in minor details from the earlier one, and we've added one contributor since then:
Cyrus R. K. Patell INTRODUCTION
1 Robert Lawson-Peebles FROM BRITISH OUTPOST TO AMERICAN METROPOLIS
2
3 Bryan Waterman THE CITY ON STAGE
4 Thomas Augst MELVILLE, AT SEA IN THE CITY
5 Lytle Shaw WHITMAN'S URBANISM
6 Caleb Crain HIGH
LIFE, WITH A GLANCE AT THE LOW: THE EARLY LITERATURE OF NEW YORK'S MONEYED
CLASS
7 Martha Nadell WRITING
8 Sarah Wilson "BEAUFORT'S BASTARDS": NEW YORK NOVELS OF MANNERS
9 Eric Homberger CITY
OF
10 Melissa Bradshaw PERFORMING
11 Thulani
Davis BLACK
12 Trysh Travis NEW YORK'S CULTURES OF PRINT
13 Daniel Kane FROM
POETRY TO PUNK IN THE
14 Robin Bernstein STAGING
LESBIAN AND GAY
15 Cyrus R. K. Patell EMERGENT ETHNIC LITERATURES
Bryan Waterman EPILOGUE:
"THE MAGIC OF THIS BROKEN WORLD": NOSTALGIA AND COUNTER-NOSTALGIA IN
And it should be a happy one indeed, considering the change of administration headed our way. (In the picture above, folks are celebrating the arrival of 1938.)
I don't have much to offer by way of Year in Review. I'll send you here and here and here for good ones instead.
I will note, though, that we've finished the year stronger than we started here at AHNY. Our first post of 2008 announced the table of contents for our Cambridge Companion to the Literatures of New York City. We're happy to report a year later that the manuscript is on schedule to be delivered late next month, which puts it about a year away from actual publication.
For most of the spring, we posted only in relation to our Writing New York course -- blurbs on our weekly films, etc. But around July we began posting almost daily on a wider variety of topics, and I'm glad to say we've been able to keep the habit. Stay tuned as we attempt to do the same while actually teaching the course in the coming semester.
As for favorites, my favorite thing Cyrus posted last year had to do with Corlears Hook; runners up included his series of posts on Moby-Dick adaptations. My favorite from among my own posts had to do with the angel at the Bethesda Fountain, followed by the post on the 1970 Women's Strike for Equality. We'd be happy to hear from you if there were things here you particularly enjoyed -- and hope to provide more of the same (and some things new) in the coming year!
Lin-Manuel Miranda
I'm thinking about emblematic images or moments to use in my account of emergent contemporary New York writing for Bryan's and my forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the Literatures of New York City.
Here's one from Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights. Asked by the Gothamist last February to describe one experience that struck him as a classic New York moment, Miranda said this:
When I was writing the first draft of In the Heights during my winter break I would go for walks when I got stuck for inspiration I would take a walk around. I think I was on 181st Street walking around. I always tell people Washington Heights is full of music and they sort of think it's just a line I use to plug the show. But I swear to God when I was writing the first draft I was walking around and I saw a Chinese delivery guy riding his bike with a boom box strapped to the front of his bike. It wasn't a little radio; it was a two speaker boom box blasting music. It was like Pimp My Ride but with a two wheeler. I always thought that was a classic New York thing: Of course the Chinese delivery guy has got a subwoofer on his bike!It's an image of the confluence of cultures that's just what I'm trying to portray in my piece for the Companion. You can read the full interview with Miranda here. I'll be posting more suggestive moments in the days to come as a finish up the piece.
We're pleased to announce a prospective Table of Contents for our Cambridge Companion to the Literatures of New York City (edited by Waterman and Patell), due out in late 2009:Introduction: Cyrus R. K. Patell and Bryan Waterman (New York University)
1. Dutch New York, Before and After Irving: Elizabeth L. Bradley (New York Public Library)
2. From British Outpost to American Metropolis: Robert Lawson-Peebles (Exeter University)
3. The City on Stage: Waterman
4. Melville's New York: Thomas Augst (New York University)
5. Whitman and the Whitmanian Tradition: Lytle Shaw (New York University)
6. Sunshine and Shadow: Literature of Sensation and Reform: Glenn Hendler (Fordham University)
7. Writing Brooklyn: Martha Nadell (Brooklyn College)
8. New York Novels of Manners: Sarah Wilson (University of Toronto)
9. City of Immigrants: Political and Popular Cultures: Eric Homberger (University of East Anglia)
10. Performing Greenwich Village Bohemianism: Melissa Bradshaw (DePaul University)
11. From the Harlem Renaissance to Civil Rights: Thulani Davis (New York University)
12. From Poetry to Punk in the East Village: Daniel Kane (University of Sussex)
13. New York's Cultures of Print: Trysh Travis (University of Florida)
14. Staging Gay and Lesbian New York: Robin Bernstein (Harvard University)
15. Emergent Ethnic Literatures: Patell
Afterword: 9/11 and Beyond: Waterman and Patell
