Summary Information
Cultural Correspondence Records
1968-1981
Mss 614
0.8 c.f. (2 archives boxes)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Records of Cultural Correspondence, a leftist journal on popular culture established by Paul Buhle and others in 1975; including correspondence with editors, readers, writers, artists, and business persons. Also included are writings on culture and politics, including book reviews, poetry, a manuscript on German socialists in America, and a book of Tuli Kupferberg's poetry; transcripts of interviews with Yiddish poet Martin Birnbaum, Ernie Reymer of the International Workers Order, and the editors of the Italian cartoon magazine Strix; pamphlets and posters from other groups; cartoons; mailing lists; and production materials.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00614 ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Paul Buhle, former editor of Radical America and Radical America Komix and director of oral history programs of the left, and David Wagner, Madison newspaper reporter for The Capital Times and The Madison Press Connection, began organizing Cultural Correspondence in 1974. They envisioned the journal as a “research exchange” of bibliographies, reviews, and commentaries distributed to a small group of people actively interested in the role of “latent progressive and revolutionary tendencies within mass culture.” The journal was intended to describe “progressive” elements in popular culture, encourage a dialogue between radical artists, and trace “forgotten traditions among blue collar ethnic and racial groups expressing a sense of culture as the fullness of social collectivity within a daily life of political committment.”
Cultural Correspondence consisted of articles, reviews, fiction, graphic art, poetry, and comics. Several issues had a theme--health, feminist humor, ethnic radical popular culture, surrealism. Other topics covered include Marxism and mass culture, UFOs, drag racing, television, horror literature, diners, “people's music,” underground comics, sports, and vaudeville. The editorial in the final issue of the first series (nos. 12-14), outlining the history and philosophy of the journal, was translated and reprinted in I Giorni Cantati, no. 4, 1983. Cultural Correspondence was “a journal for American culture . . .it excludes both the bourgeois notion of culture--which is the subjectivity of capital itself in repose (as it attempts to 'transcend' its self imposed denial of daily life in its fullness)--and the bourgeois instruments of discovery of the culture of the masses, i.e. positivist sociology and anthropology which represent the subjectivity of Capital in an active state.”
Fourteen numbers of Cultural Correspondence were published from 1975 to 1981. The editorial staff changed over the years with the exception of Paul Buhle. Active were Danny Czitrom, George Lipsitz, Edith Hoshino Altbach, Ron Weisberger, and Marcia Blair. Even as the journal's orientation changed to general distribution, circulation never surpassed a few thousand. Constant financial woes resulted in the demise of the first series. A second series of Cultural Correspondence began publication out of New York City in 1982, with Jim Murray as editor.
Cultural Correspondence's editors believed popular culture was an important and neglected or trivialized element of comprehensive social analysis. They optimistically believed in a “resurgent Left” and the need for theoretical as well as practical “revolutionary” work. They perceived their contribution to this work as “. . . seeking a broader and deeper theoretical understanding toward fashioning a new grammar which sympathetically treats popular culture from the perspective of the Left.”
Scope and Content Note
The papers are divided into six categories: Correspondence, Writings, Interviews, Pamphlets and Posters, Cartoons, and Production.
The Correspondence is Paul Buhle's incoming and outgoing mail. He corresponded with fellow editors, business people (printers, distributors), readers, subscribers, writers, artists, potential financial backers, and other people interested in analyzing culture's meaning for leftists. Notable correspondents include R. Crumb, Todd Gitlin, Marge Piercy, CLR James, and Ursula LeGuin.
The Writings are published and unpublished, solicited and unsolicited treatments of culture and politics on a wide variety of topics, for example, health, voodoo, music, comics, television, science fiction, sports, and women in music. Also included are book reviews, poetry, a long manuscript on German socialists in America, and a book of poetry by Tuli Kuperberg.
The Interviews are transcripts of interviews conducted by Paul Buhle with Martin Birnbaum, Ernie Reymer, and the editors of Strix, an Italian cartoon magazine. They discuss humor and the Left.
The Pamphlets and Posters are items, many probably received in the mail, published by individuals or groups with interests similar to those of Cultural Correspondence. For instance, the folder contains a brochure from the Socialist Media Group and numerous political posters designed by Billboards of the Future.
The Cartoons category is made up of cartoons and comic strips by Terre Richards, Bill Griffith, Jay Kinney, and L. Contemori.
The Production category is divided into four sections. The dated material includes two covers and some contents of Cultural Correspondence, editorials, statements of purpose, grant proposals, prospectuses, printing business information, and a brochure promoting the journal. The Mailing Lists are names and addresses of recipients of the journal. The Internal Communication from Sam Hunting includes editorial comments on Sam Hunting's work, notes by Hunting on Cultural Correspondence's layout, articles, editorials, and policy, and a typewritten article, “Radicalism and Radical History.” The Reviews are published reviews of Cultural Correspondence.
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Paul Buhle, Providence, Rhode Island, 1980, 1981. Accession Number: M80-306, M81-429
Processed by Christian Frazza, January 1984.
Contents List
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Correspondence
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Incoming
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Box
1
Folder
1
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1973-1977
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Box
1
Folder
2
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1978-1979
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Box
1
Folder
3
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1980-1981, undated
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Box
1
Folder
4
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Postcards, 1975-1980, undated
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Outgoing
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Box
1
Folder
5
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1974-1978
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Box
1
Folder
6
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1979-1980, undated
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Writings
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Box
2
Folder
1
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1968-1981
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Box
2
Folder
2-3
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Undated
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Box
2
Folder
4
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Interviews, undated
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Box
2
Folder
5
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Pamphlets and Posters, 1977-1981, undated
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Box
2
Folder
6
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Cartoons, undated
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Production
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Box
2
Folder
7
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1974-1981, undated
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Box
2
Folder
8
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Internal Communications from Sam Hunting, undated
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Box
2
Folder
9
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Mailing Lists, undated
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Box
2
Folder
10
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Reviews of Cultural Correspondence, 1979-1980, undated
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