Renewing the left

by Harvey M. Teres

Both a work of rigorous scholarship and a passionate challenge to today's left, Renewing the Left lucidly argues for a reassessment of the legacy of the New York intellectuals as a basis for transforming both the academy and American politics in general. Teres brings fresh thought to such crucial matters as race relations, Jews and blacks, gender troubles on the left, political correctness, values, literary quality, and politics as a means to fulfill personal, spiritual, and ethical needs. Teres deals with all of these matters as he illuminates the legacy of New York's leading intellectuals, beginning with the founding of the influential Partisan Review during the 1930s. He looks first at William Phillips and Philip Rahv, the chief editors of Partisan Review, and shows how they laid the groundwork for a revitalized Marxist criticism - one that rejected dogmatism and narrow materialism, and stressed instead the importance of literary criticism itself and the freedom of the intellectual.