Martin Duberman
Encyclopedia
Martin Bauml Duberman is an American historian, playwright, and gay-rights activist. He is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College
and the Graduate School of the City University of New York
and was the founder of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies
at the CUNY Graduate School. He has authored over twenty books including James Russell Lowell (a National Book Award finalist), Paul Robeson, Stonewall, and the memoir Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey. He is also a neoabolitionist
scholar, as evidenced by his edited collection of essays, The Antislavery Vanguard. Reputedly, his play In White America won the Vernon Rice/Drama Desk Award for Best Off-Broadway Production in 1963.
In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War
. Around the same time, he wrote an article in the Partisan Review
"criticiz[ing] SNCC
and CORE
for being 'anarchists
,' for rejecting the authority of the state, for insisting that community be voluntary, and for stressing, along with SDS
, participatory
instead of representative democracy
." He wrote that:
In 2007, Duberman published The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, a biography of the man behind George Balanchine
's New York City Ballet
.
Lehman College
Lehman College is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, USA. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within the City University in 1968. The college is named after Herbert Lehman, a former New York governor,...
and the Graduate School of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
and was the founder of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies
Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and communities...
at the CUNY Graduate School. He has authored over twenty books including James Russell Lowell (a National Book Award finalist), Paul Robeson, Stonewall, and the memoir Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey. He is also a neoabolitionist
Neoabolitionist
Neoabolitionist is a term used by some historians to refer to the heightened activity of the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s...
scholar, as evidenced by his edited collection of essays, The Antislavery Vanguard. Reputedly, his play In White America won the Vernon Rice/Drama Desk Award for Best Off-Broadway Production in 1963.
In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Around the same time, he wrote an article in the Partisan Review
Partisan Review
Partisan Review was an American political and literary quarterly published from 1934 to 2003, though it suspended publication between October 1936 and December 1937.-Overview:...
"criticiz[ing] SNCC
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ' was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960...
and CORE
Congress of Racial Equality
The Congress of Racial Equality or CORE was a U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement...
for being 'anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
,' for rejecting the authority of the state, for insisting that community be voluntary, and for stressing, along with SDS
Students for a Democratic Society
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
, participatory
Participatory democracy
Participatory Democracy, also known as Deliberative Democracy, Direct Democracy and Real Democracy , is a process where political decisions are made directly by regular people...
instead of representative democracy
Representative democracy
Representative democracy is a form of government founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, as opposed to autocracy and direct democracy...
." He wrote that:
SNCC and CORE, like the Anarchists, talk increasingly of the supreme importance of the individual. They do so, paradoxically, in a rhetoric strongly reminiscent of that long associated with the right. It could be Herbert HooverHerbert HooverHerbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
. . . but it is in fact Rap BrownH. Rap BrownJamil Abdullah Al-Amin , also known as H. Rap Brown, was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, and during a short lived alliance between SNCC , later the Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party...
who now reiterates the Negro's need to stand on his own two feet, to make his own decisions, to develop self-reliance and a sense of self-worth. SNCC may be scornful of present-day liberals and 'statism,' but it seems hardly to realize that the laissez-faireLaissez-faireIn economics, laissez-faire describes an environment in which transactions between private parties are free from state intervention, including restrictive regulations, taxes, tariffs and enforced monopolies....
rhetoric it prefers derives almost verbatim from the classic liberalismClassical liberalismClassical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
of John Stuart MillJohn Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
.
In 2007, Duberman published The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, a biography of the man behind George Balanchine
George Balanchine
George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...
's New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
.
Writings
- Charles Frances Adams, 1807–1886, Houghton, 1961.
- In White America (play), 1963.
- The Antislavery Vanguard: New Essays on the Abolitionists (editor), Princeton University Press, 1965.
- James Russell Lowell, Houghton, 1966.
- Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community, Dutton, 1972.
- Male Armor: Selected Plays, 1968–1974, Dutton, 1975.
- Visions of Kerouac: A Play, Little, Brown and Company, 1977.
- About Time: Exploring the Gay Past, Gay Presses of New York, 1986.
- Paul Robeson, Knopf, 1988.
- Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (co-editor with George Chauncey and Matha Vicinus), NAL, 1989.
- Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey, Dutton, 1991.
- Stonewall, Dutton, 1993.
- Midlife Queen: Autobiography of a Decade, 1971–1981, Scribner, 1996.
- Left Out: The Politics of Exclusion: Essays, 1964–2002, Basic Books, 2002.
- Haymarket (novel), Seven Stories Press, 2004.
- "The Avenging Angel" (a reconsideration of John BrownJohn Brown (abolitionist)John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...
), The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, May 23, 2005. - The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, Knopf, 2007.
- Unnatural Acts: Collected Political Plays, The New Press, 2008.
- Waiting to Land: A (Mostly) Political Memoir, 1985-2008, The New Press, 2009.
External links
- Martin Bauml Duberman, biographical entry in qlbtq (encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, & queer culture)
- ArtsEditor review of Duberman's The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein
- Martin B. Duberman: Papers, 1917-1997