This is the first in a continuing series of reminders that the past informs the present as it infuses the future. As Benj DeMott notes, the aim of First of the Year is to define "the democratic imperatives and demotic tones that make our ongoing politics of culture matter." This annual publication is grounded in the needs of "dissed" people: disenfranchised, disadvantaged, disinherited, discomfited, and dismissed. But the concept has been sharpened to acknowledge that though the underdog is owed sympathy, the mad dog is owed a bullet. In short, First of the Year is very...
This is the first in a continuing series of reminders that the past informs the present as it infuses the future. As Benj DeMott notes, the aim of ...
This is the second volume in the First of the Year Series. Contributors like Armond White, Philip Levine, Donna Gaines, Lawrence Goodwyn, Irving Louis Horowitz, Charles O'Brien, Fredric Smoler, Paul Berman, and Amiri Baraka are back (and blazing). And there are important new voices in the First mix, such as Vincent Harding, Roxane Johnson, and Bob Levin. If there is a leitmotif to this edition, it is the election and inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American president. First aims to be up to the minute of this moment.
As Benj DeMott notes...
This is the second volume in the First of the Year Series. Contributors like Armond White, Philip Levine, Donna Gaines, Lawrence Goodwyn, ...
This is the third volume of the First of the Year annual series. Contributors such as Armond White, Philip Levine, Charles O'Brien, Uri Avnery, Donna Gaines, Tom Smucker, Scott Spencer, and Amiri Baraka are back (and fractious as ever). And First's family of writers keeps growing. This volume includes vital new voices such as A. B. Spellman, Bernard Avishai, Rudolph Wurlitzer, and Diane di Prima.
First never shies away from hot button issues--Fredric Smoler, for example, offers a definitive consideration of America's recent history with torture. But...
This is the third volume of the First of the Year annual series. Contributors such as Armond White, Philip Levine, Charles O'Brien, Uri Av...
Diversity and "perspective by incongruity" dene the approach to changing times in this fourth volume of the First of the Year series. Insights come from interesting minds in unobvious juxtapositions. First's roster of irreverent-and holy -regulars includes Amiri Baraka, Bernard Avishai, Uri Avnery, Chuck D, Diane di Prima, Fr. Rick Frechette, Donna Gaines, Lawrence Goodwyn, Roxane Johnson, W.T. Lhamon Jr., Philip Levine, Kanan Makiya, Bongani Madondo, Greil Marcus, Charles O'Brien, Judy Oppenheimer, Tom Smucker, Fredric Smoler, A.B. Spellman, Scott Spencer, Robert Farris Thompson, Richard...
Diversity and "perspective by incongruity" dene the approach to changing times in this fourth volume of the First of the Year series. Insights come...
Alive to history in the making, this volume examines Barack Obama's presidency and Lyndon Johnson's, the killing of Trayvon Martin and the death of Andrew Breitbart, Occupy Wall Street and "America Beyond Capitalism." The title, That Floating Bridge, evokes Representative John Lewis' line-"Obama is what comes at the end of that bridge in Selma"-as it quotes a track on Gregg Allman's Low Country Blues, which Scott Spencer lauds here in a review for the Ages. That Floating Bridge includes contributions from Amiri Baraka, Gar Alperovitz, Bernard Avishai, Uri Avnery, Bill Ayers, Paul Berman, Mark...
Alive to history in the making, this volume examines Barack Obama's presidency and Lyndon Johnson's, the killing of Trayvon Martin and the death of An...