A Conversation with Norman Podhoretz
Celebrating the Reissue of Making It, His Breakthrough 1967 Memoir
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
7:00 PM (Doors open at 6:30 PM)
The Tikvah Center, 165 E 56th Street, New York, New York
Norman Podhoretz is one of the preeminent intellectuals of the modern era: editor of Commentary for 35 years, master literary critic, piercing political thinker and polemicist, fearless defender of American and Jewish interests. After an early collection of essays, his first full-length book, Making It, was published in 1967—and it was an intellectual earthquake.
A boldly personal account of the meaning of success in America, Making It swept into its orbit a dazzling range of issues, personalities, and events from Jewish life to the vocation of writing, from the experience of military service to the state of the academy, from the fate of the nation and the pull of ethnic loyalties to the temptations of modern individualism. A sensation—and, to some critics, a scandal—in its time, Making It has endured as a masterpiece of modern literature and a landmark product of the disputatious “Family” of New York intellectuals who helped define our culture.
A newly released edition of Making It, with an introduction by the cultural critic Terry Teachout, offers an occasion to explore with the author how American intellectual, cultural, and political life has changed over the past many decades.,
Please join us for what promises to be a uniquely scintillating event as Norman Podhoretz converses with his son John: writer, polymath, and current editor of Commentary.
This event is at capacity, and registration is closed. Please check back later for a recording of the event.
Norman Podhoretz was born in 1930 in Brownsville, Brooklyn to immigrant Jewish parents and attended Boys High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He received a full scholarship to Columbia College, where he became a protégé of Lionel Trilling and received his B.A. in English literature in 1950. Concurrently, he earned a B.A. in Hebrew literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He was awarded a Kellett Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship and received a B.A. in literature (1st) and an M.A. from Clare College, Cambridge. From 1953-1955, he served in the U.S. Army. In 1960 Mr. Podhoretz became editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine; he remained in that position until his retirement in 1995. In 2004 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. Mr. Podhoretz’s books include Why Are Jews Liberals? (2009), The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are (2002), Ex-Friends (1999), The Bloody Crossroads: Where Literature and Politics Meet (1986), and Breaking Ranks: A Political Memoir (1979). His memoir, Making It (1967), will be reissued in April by NYRB Classics.