Dear Readers, One of the online publications that has helped me publicize the Dos Passos legacy is International Policy Digest. I’ve written the following articles for IDP: “Dos Passos, Hemingway, and France” and “John Dos Passos Remembered.” Now, after years of growth, International Policy Digest requires capital investment to deliver better service and continue growing. IDP‘s… Read more »
Rosa María Bautista Cordero is a professor and translator based in Madrid, Spain. She attended the First Biennial John Dos Passos Society Conference in Chattanooga, TN and presented on Manhattan Transfer in translation. See her description below on discovering the Dos Passos canon: My John Dos Passos Connection I first read John Dos Passos at… Read more »
Eulalia Piñero Gil is Associate Professor in American Literature and Gender Studies at the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid. She is fascinated by John Dos Passos’ insights into Spanish politics, culture, and art. She has researched Dos Passos’ Rosinante to the Road Again (1922) extensively. I am delighted to post here some of the conclusions from… Read more »
Aaron Shaheen, UC Foundation Associate Professor of English at University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, is co-founder of the John Dos Passos Society. His energy and knowledge have been instrument in the success of the Society. We are fortunate that he is currently serving as secretary of the Society. Below, Shaheen discusses the World War I novels… Read more »
Alice Béja is a top Dos Passos scholar. I’m excited to read her book when it publishes in 2015. See her fascinating remarks below on discovering the Dos Passos legacy in France: John Dos Passos’ posterity in France was largely shaped by Sartre, who in 1939 famously proclaimed him « the best author of our… Read more »
Jason Cannon, Ph.D. candidate at Texas Christian University, recently presented at the First Biennial John Dos Passos Society Conference in Chattanooga, TN. Read his interesting thoughts below on discovering Dos Passos and studying Adventures of a Young Man (1939): I first encountered Adventures of a Young Man while researching literature written about the Spanish Civil… Read more »
While I was in Chattanooga, TN for the First Biennial John Dos Passos Society Conference, I was interviewed by WUTC Public Radio’s Michael Miller. Listen to the interview here. We talked about Dos Passos, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald. And I talked briefly about my first book, Walkin’ Lawton, a political biography of legendary Florida statesman Lawton… Read more »
Wesley Beal, the author of a new guest blog entry, is an accomplished scholar of American modernism and the Dos Passos canon. He teaches at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas. He is the former president of the John Dos Passos Society and he played a critical role in organizing the First Biennial John Dos Passos… Read more »
Miguel Oliveira, a writer based in Portugal, is one of the top Dos Passos scholars around the world. The Official John Dos Passos Website is fortunate to host another of his guest entries. Today, he writes on Dos Passos in the context of the centennial remembrance of World War I. See below: First World War… Read more »
On October 10-11, the John Dos Passos Society met for a riveting series of inquiries into the Dos Passos legacy of literature and art. The topics were varied and fascinating. They included: Dean Bartholomew (Independent Scholar) on the fractured friendship between Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos. Rosa Maria Bautisa Cordero (Universidad Alfonso X El… Read more »
I’m grateful to my grandfather for so boldly enunciating his heritage in his memoirs, The Best Times. He discusses his father, John Randolph Dos Passos, and his grandfather, Manuel Dos Passos. It isn’t the details of the family tree; it’s the statement of priorities that speaks me. He writes of the grief he feels in… Read more »
It’s testament to the beauty of Spanish culture that the memory of its people still lingers fondly in my mind. The many learnings and friendships developed during my recent trip have continued to pay out rich benefits. With the help of new friends, including talented translator Álvaro Domínguez, my original English-language article on Dos Passos… Read more »
About a month ago, I visited Spain to contribute to a new documentary–currently in post-production–on my grandfather’s role in reporting on the Spanish Civil War and his friendship with Spanish writer and translator José Robles. The documentary is directed by Sonia Tercero Ramiro and produced by Time Zone Productions out of Madrid. It will air… Read more »
At the recent American Literature Association annual conference in Washington, DC, Victoria M. Bryan–co-founder of the John Dos Passos Society–delivered an innovative speech on John Dos Passos’s “They Are Dead Now.” Her talk below eloquently asks us to consider the relevance of the JDP canon to the prison classroom. Enjoy: Close Reading “They Are Dead… Read more »
First Biannual John Dos Passos Society Conference Chattanooga, TN October 17-18, 2014 The John Dos Passos Society invites papers for its first biennial conference. Prompted by the centennial of The Great War, a formative event in Dos Passos’s life and career, this conference will facilitate discussion of the author’s responses… Read more »
Literary scholar Lisa Nanney, author of John Dos Passos Revisited (MacMillan/Twayne, 1998), has generously shared her connection to the Dos Passos legacy: Like so many other readers, I first read Dos Passos in a course—a graduate seminar in Politics and the Novel. There, in the 1980s, I discovered in U.S.A. novels that confronted issues urgent to… Read more »
Today is publication day for Amanda Vaill’s new nonfiction book, Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War. As I understand it, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos are key figures in the story. I have ordered my copy and I look forward to the author’s event at Politics & Prose in Washington,… Read more »
My mother, Lucy Dos Passos Coggin, provides a personal reflection on one of my grandfather’s most precious paintings… Staying at Haiti’s Hotel Oloffson There is something jaunty about the striped awning in my father’s painting of the famous old Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The tropical foliage and romantic cupola evoke an air of… Read more »
This article reports that my grandfather visited the Ponce de Leon Hotel in St. Augustine, Florida. I don’t know of any such visit. I can’t confirm. But I do know that he made a significant walking trek through Florida in 1924–perhaps hist first major trip to the Sunshine State. Dos Passos called Florida “fabulous and… Read more »
Here is Smith College Professor Michael Gorra’s review of The Dream of the Great American Novel by Lawrence Buell. The new book includes Dos Passos’s U.S.A. in its discussion of literary works with national themes.
