Philip Roth: Reconsidered

Philip Roth - celebrated like few others in American letters -- has inspired controversy as well as admiration since his first appearance as a writer in the 1950s. In the wake of the controversy surrounding Blake Bailey's biography, the book now pulped by its publisher, this remains no less true today than ever.

Stanford's Jewish Studies has invited three of the best-informed writers and scholars on Roth to discuss his life, his literary legacy, and the current, ongoing controversy: Aimee Pozorski, co-editor of the journal "Philip Roth Studies," is Professor of English at Central Connecticut State University where she directs the English graduate program. She is the author of "Roth and Trauma: The Problem of History in the Later Works (2011), "Falling After 9/11; Crisis in American Art and Literature (2014), and several other edited volumes on Roth and other subjects in contemporary American literature, trauma theory, and narrative medicine. Jesse Tisch has published widely on Roth in Tablet, Jewish Review of Books and elsewhere. His essays on Roth -- as well as Mel Brooks, Ben Hecht, Gertrude Stein, Leonard Michaels -- have elicited considerable attention. Until 2012, he was Director of the Posen Foundation in the US. Before then, he worked as a journalist covering sports, crime and live events in Maine. Steven J. Zipperstein is the Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford. His most recent book is "Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History" (2018) and he is currently writing a biography of Roth for Yale's Jewish Lives. This event is co-sponsored by Stanford's History Department.

Please note that the Zoom link and password will be sent out to those who have rsvp'ed the day before the event. * If you require a disability-related accommodation, please contact us at taubecenterjewishstudies [at] gmail.com (taubecenterjewishstudies[at]gmail[dot]com).