 | |
| Editor and publisher | Roger Kimball |
|---|---|
| Founding editor | Hilton Kramer |
| Categories | Literary magazine |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Circulation | 10,000[1] |
| Publisher | Foundation for Cultural Review |
| Founded | 1982 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City,New York |
| Language | English |
| Website | newcriterion |
| ISSN | 0734-0222 |
The New Criterion is aNew York–based monthlyliterary magazine and journal of artistic andcultural criticism, edited byRoger Kimball (editor and publisher) andJames Panero (executive editor). It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books. It was founded in 1982 byHilton Kramer, former art critic forThe New York Times, andSamuel Lipman, a pianist and music critic. The name is a reference toThe Criterion, a British literary magazine edited byT. S. Eliot from 1922 to 1939.
The magazine describes itself as a "monthly review of the arts and intellectual life ... at the forefront both of championing what is best and most humanely vital in our cultural inheritance and in exposing what is mendacious, corrosive, and spurious."[2] It is characterized by aModernist inclination and evinces a politicalconservatism that is rare among other publications of its type.[3][4]
It regularly publishes special symposia, or compilations of published material organized into themes. Some past examples includeAffirmative action and the law;Common-good conservatism: a debate;Corrupt Humanitarianism;Religion, Manners, and Morals in the U.S. and Great Britain; andReflections on Anti-Americanism.
Since 1999,The New Criterion has awarded the New Criterion Poetry Prize, a poetry contest wherein the magazine publishes the winner's work and awards them a cash prize.[5] In 2004,The New Criterion contributors began publishing an online section, initially named ArmaVirumque, and later renamed to Dispatch.
The New Criterion was founded in 1982 byThe New York Times art criticHilton Kramer. He cited his reasons for leaving the paper to startThe New Criterion as "the disgusting and deleterious doctrines with which the most popular of our Reviews disgraces its pages", as well as "the dishonesties and hypocrisies and disfiguring ideologies that nowadays afflict the criticism of the arts, [which] are deeply rooted in both our commercial and our academic culture." He went on to say: "It is therefore all the more urgent that a dissenting critical voice be heard, and it is for the purpose of providing such a voice thatThe New Criterion has been created."[6]
Kramer's decision to leaveThe New York Times, where he had been the newspaper's chief art critic, and to start a magazine devoted to ideas and the arts "surprised a lot of people and was a statement in itself", according to Erich Eichmann.[7]
Contributors to the journal have includedPeter Thiel, Douglas Murray,Mark Steyn,Roger Scruton,David Pryce-Jones,Theodore Dalrymple,Alexander McCall Smith,Victor Davis Hanson,Harvey Mansfield,Gertrude Himmelfarb,Penelope Fitzgerald,Allan Bloom, andJay Nordlinger.
In its first issue, dated September 1982, the magazine set out "to speak plainly and vigorously about the problems that beset the life of the artists and the life of the mind in our society" while resisting "a more general cultural drift" that had in many cases, "condemned true seriousness to a fugitive existence".[7]
Reviewing the debut issue for The Boston Phoenix, Gail Caldwell noted that "The opening editorial, 'A Note on theNew Criterion,' is fearlessly candid about the journal's slant. The alleged destruction of high culture in this country, including a 'fateful collapse in critical standards,' is due to the creeping meatball of the Far Left." Still, she predicted that "theNew Criterion's going to do quite nicely, thank you. Because Kramer, rearguard politics notwithstanding, has a formidable intellect—and because the table of contents is cluttered with Important People."[8]
The New Criterion ranked in the top ten most influential periodicals among American intellectuals according to a survey conducted bySteven G. Brint inIn an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics and Public Life (Princeton University Press).
Writing forThe Times Literary Supplement,Harry Mount calledThe New Criterion "More consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English."[9]
According to the conservative publicationThe New York Sun, for a quarter of a centuryThe New Criterion "has helped its readers distinguish achievement from failure in painting, music, dance, literature, theater, and other arts. The magazine ... has taken a leading role in the culture wars, publishing articles whose titles are an intellectual call to arms."[7]
Elsewhere, critics of the magazine have accused it of "sheer snobbery" and a tendency to get lost in the culture wars.[10][11] The criticMichael Dirda wrote inThe American Scholar that "Nearly all the magazine's reviewing—of books, art, and music—is first-rate. The poetry featured is comparably exceptional, with a strong preference for formal verse (which is just fine by me)."[12]
Since the magazine's founding, many writers, poets, academics, commentators, and politicians – mostly drawn from the conservative end of the political spectrum – have written for it. Contributors include:[citation needed]
Hilton Kramer Fellowship
Since its inauguration in 2013,The New Criterion's reader-funded[15] Hilton Kramer Fellowship has been awarded to promising writers with an interest in developing careers as critics.
Edmund Burke Annual Gala
First awarded in 2012,The New Criterion's Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society is given annually to individuals "who have made conspicuous contributions to the defense of civilization."[16]
The publication hosts an annual gala honoring recipients of the award. Edmund Burke Award recipients include:[17]
Since 2000 the magazine has been awarding its poetry prize to a poet for "a book-length manuscript of poems that pay close attention to form."[18] The following poets have won the prize:[19]
