Journalism is not just about reporting on individual “news events.” More and more, it’s about getting a handle on the complicated reality that frames those events — the ever-shifting patterns of culture that reveal how we live and what we make of our lives. As the mainstream media expand their cultural coverage and alternative publications and websites proliferate, there has never been more need — or opportunity — for the aspiring cultural writer.
In 1995, cultural critic Ellen Willis responded to the rapid growth of this field by launching a concentration in Cultural Reporting and Criticism within the Institute's M.A. program. CRC is unique: the only graduate journalism program in the country specifically designed to prepare the next generation of cultural reporters and critics.
The arts and popular culture; the immense variety of social groups, from gay families to Pakistani cabdrivers to computer geeks; the explosion of social controversies, from the Terry Schiavo case to the controversy over rape at Duke University; the rise of religious fundamentalism; the changing nature of political violence: all this is fodder for the cultural journalist. Cultural journalism is for writers with an itch to understand connections — between news event and context, present and past, art and society, public and private. Since the events of September 11, the need for such explorations has only intensified.
The CRC concentration is unique, too, in its emphasis on criticism. We are inspired not by the turgid academic criticism that is taught at some universities, but by the Partisan Review/New Yorker tradition: that is, thoughtful, provocative criticism that addresses a wide, non-specialized audience and that can intervene in a broader cultural conversation. The writers we study include Mary McCarthy, Edmund Wilson, James Agee, Susan Sontag, Greil Marcus, and Pauline Kael.
If you are drawn to the big picture — if you suspect that neither conventional journalism training nor academic specialization is right for you — CRC may be what you’re looking for. Our curriculum emphasizes the integration of journalistic skills with a distinctive individual writer’s voice.
SPECIAL GUEST CRITIC, FALL 2010:
GREIL MARCUS
For over four decades, acclaimed critic Greil Marcus has been writing about American music, culture, and politics. His work has appeared in, among other publications, Rolling Stone (where he was the magazine's first reviews editor), Creem, The Village Voice, Artforum, Esquire, the New York Times, salon.com, and The Believer. His 1975 book Mystery Train is considered a classic of music criticism, placing rock music in the broader context of the American struggle for democracy. His other books include Lipstick Traces, Dead Elvis, The Dustbin of History, and Invisible Republic. Marcus is a co-editor of A New Literary History of America, which has just been published by Harvard University Press. He has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, and The New School, and has lectured widely throughout the United States and Europe.
