The Intellectual American
Observations on Film, Literature, Music, and American Culture
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
I had been writing about film for some time and I wanted to turn my attention, occasionally, to American culture at large, as well as the classic literature I was reading, and other topics in which I was stimulated by the connections I was making in my new reading. The Intellectual American was the title I gave to the blog where many of these essays were first published. I didn’t name it that because I saw myself as an intellectual—not yet, anyway—but because I saw precious little evidence of an intellectual spirit in this country, from the laissez-faire obstructionism in Washington D.C. right down to the inability of the students in my classroom to think. I immediately began to put the insights I had gained from my reading to work in my own writing, using strong textual evidence—especially from literature—to support my arguments. But connections can come from anywhere, music, film, history, science. Fortunately, ideas aren’t limited to specialized disciplines; they can be discovered wherever people are doing the work of thinking. As a result of the influence of a number of intellectuals, rather than focus on one particular area of scholarship I have instead been motivated to allow my reading and studies to roam over the entire range of the humanities with the single goal—in Isaiah Berlin’s words—“to know more at the end of my life than I knew at the beginning.”
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
In his first collection of essays, author and educator Eric B. Olsen offers the reader a wide range of analytical thought and cultural criticism. The book opens by examining the history of film in the twentieth century and then analyzing literature from ancient Greek drama to modern American poetry, as well as commenting on jazz and popular music. The final group of essays concerns topics as diverse as climate change, popular culture, religion, anti-intellectualism and politics. Drawing on a broad base of literary and social criticism, from the philosophical thought of Plato and Aristotle to the writings of Lionel Trilling and Richard Hofstadter, The Intellectual American is a work of confident scholarship and the herald of a new voice in American letters.
About the Author
Eric B. Olsen is an independent film analyst and literary critic. He has written six works of fiction in three different genres, and is the author of The E List film blog and The Intellectual American blog. Mr. Olsen’s previous works of non-fiction include The Death of Education, an exposé of the public school system in America, and The Films of Jon Garcia: 2009-2013, an analysis of the work of the acclaimed Portland independent filmmaker. He currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife. Please visit the author’s web site at https://sites.google.com/ericbolsenauthor/home or contact by email at neslowepublishing@gmail.com.