The most recent issue of the literary journal Salmagundi has published Associate Professor of English Catherine Gunther Kodat's review of Martin Duberman's The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein (Knopf, 2007). "If it is read with the careful attention it deserves," Kodat writes, "Martin Duberman's biography of Lincoln Kirstein should have several bracing effects on U.S. cultural scholarship, not least of which would involve serious re-examinations of the purposes of arts patronage, the cultivation of aesthetic distinction, and the intersections of class, politics, and sexuality in mid-century U.S. life."
Kirstein is best known for his role as co-founder (with choreographer George Balanchine) of the New York City Ballet, but Duberman's study makes clear his importance to many other areas of U.S. cultural development. The issue of Salmagundi in which Kodat's essay appears also features work by the novelist Russell Banks and the literary scholar Tzvetan Todorov.
Kirstein is best known for his role as co-founder (with choreographer George Balanchine) of the New York City Ballet, but Duberman's study makes clear his importance to many other areas of U.S. cultural development. The issue of Salmagundi in which Kodat's essay appears also features work by the novelist Russell Banks and the literary scholar Tzvetan Todorov.
