''Salmagundi'' is a US quarterly periodical, featuring cultural criticism, fiction, and poetry, along with transcripts of symposia and interviews with prominent writers and intellectuals.

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

, a longtime friend of the publication, referred to it as "simply my favorite little magazine." In ''The Book Wars'', James Atlas writes that ''Salmagundi'' is "perhaps the country's leading journal of intellectual opinion."

History and profile

''Salmagundi'' was founded by Robert Boyers in the fall of 1965, using money he earned as a youth, singing at his neighborhood Jewish temple, and at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. Boyers drew inspiration for his quarterly from other "little magazines" of the era, such as ''

Partisan Review ''Partisan Review'' (''PR'') was a left-wing small-circulation quarterly "little magazine" dealing with literature, politics, and cultural commentary published in New York City. The magazine was launched in 1934 by the Communist Party USA–affi ...

'', F.R. Leavis's ''

Scrutiny Scrutiny (French: ''scrutin''; Late Latin: ''scrutinium''; from ''scrutari'', meaning "those who search through piles of rubbish in the hope of finding something of value" and originally from the Latin "scruta," meaning "broken things, rags, or ...

'', and T.S. Eliot's ''Criterion'', among others. The title of the magazine was chosen as a reference to the 19th-century periodical of the same name, published by

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...

. In 1969, the magazine moved its headquarters to

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a Private school, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,700 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Scien ...

, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Boyers and his wife, Margarita "Peg" Boyers, are both professors in Skidmore's English Department. The magazine celebrated its Fiftieth Anniversary in 2015 by publishing three large volumes, featuring "Best Of" selections from ''Salmagundi'''s first five decades. While the magazine has no explicit mission statement, Boyers has often invoked

Lionel Trilling Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...

's description of the role served by little magazines in preventing the culture from "being cautious and settled, or merely sociological, or merely pious" and "to make the official representatives of literature a little uneasy." ''Salmagundi'''s editors take pride in continually finding "ways to say NO and THINK AGAIN to the largely settled views of our own enlightened readership."

Christopher Lasch Robert Christopher Lasch (June 1, 1932 – February 14, 1994) was an American historian and social critic who was a history professor at the University of Rochester. He sought to use history to demonstrate what he saw as the pervasiveness with ...

, a frequent contributor to the ''Salmagundi'' until his death in 1994, observed, in 1975, that the magazine "often criticized leftist clichés from a point of view sympathetic to the underlying objectives of the left." Lasch further noted that ''Salmagundi'' reliably opposed "fake radicalism," "genteel academicism" and "estheticism," even as it recognized "the precarious position of intellectual culture in the modern world." One thing that sets ''Salmagundi'' apart from other literary magazines is its commitment to hosting (and transcribing, for publication) ambitious symposia, featuring lively debate among prominent scholars and writers. Past symposia have included figures such as,

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher, historian of ideas, and public intellectual. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, Rorty's academic career included appointments as the Stu ...

Martha Nussbaum Martha Nussbaum (; Craven; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philos ...

Slavoj Zizek Slavoj may refer to: * Karel Slavoj Amerling (1807–1884), Czech teacher, writer, and philosopher * Slavoj Černý (1937–2020), Czech former cyclist *Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosoph ...

Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is an English-American philosopher and writer who has written about political philosophy, ethics, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah is Prof ...

Orlando Patterson Horace Orlando Patterson (born 5 June 1940) is a Jamaican-American historian and sociologist known for his work on the history of race and slavery in the United States and Jamaica, as well as the sociology of development. He is currently the Jo ...

, and many others.

Notable columnists and contributors

Critics and scholars

George Steiner Francis George Steiner, Fellow of the British Academy#Fellowship, FBA (April 23, 1929 – February 3, 2020) was a Franco-American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist and educator. He wrote extensively about the relationship between ...

Marilynne Robinson Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and th ...

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. He was the author of Christopher Hitchens bibliography, 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He was born ...

* James Miller *

Tzvetan Todorov Tzvetan Todorov (; ; ; 1 March 1939 – 7 February 2017) was a Bulgarian- French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist. He was the author of many books and essays, which have had a significant influe ...

Sir Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

William H. Gass William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...

* Adam Phillips *

Phillip Lopate Phillip Lopate (born November 16, 1943) is an American film critic, essayist, fiction writer, poet, and teacher. Early life Phillip Lopate was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with a BA degree from Columbia University in 1964 and rec ...

Steve Fraser Steven Howard "Steve" Fraser (born March 23, 1958) is an American Greco-Roman wrestler and coach. He was the 1984 Olympic Games gold medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling, in the 90 kg weight class. Fraser's gold medal was the first ever for t ...

Daniel Swift Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the activi ...

Siri Hustvedt Siri Hustvedt (born February 19, 1955) is an American novelist and essayist. Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, seven novels, two books of essays, and several works of non-fiction. Her books include ''The Blindfold'' (1992), ''The Encha ...

*George Scialabba

Novelists

Russell Banks Russell Earl Banks (March 28, 1940 – January 8, 2023) was an American writer of fiction and poetry. His novels are known for "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". He drew from ...

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...

J.M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025) was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists a ...

Darryl Pinckney Darryl Pinckney (born 1953 in Indianapolis, Indiana) is an American novelist, playwright, and essayist. Early life Pinckney grew up in a middle-class African-American family in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he attended local public schools. He wa ...

Steve Stern Steve J. Stern (born 1947) is an American author from Memphis, Tennessee. Much of his work draws inspiration from Yiddish folklore. Biography Stern was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1947, the son of a grocer. He left Memphis in the 1960s t ...

* Mary Gordon *

Norman Manea Norman Manea (; born 19 July 1936) is a Romanian writer and author of short fiction, novels, and essays about the Holocaust, daily life in a communist state, and exile. He lives in the United States, where he is a Professor and writer in resid ...

Mary Gaitskill Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's Magazine'', ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire'', ''The Best American Short Stories'' (1993, 20 ...

Rick Moody Hiram Frederick Moody III (born October 18, 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel '' The Ice Storm'', a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1 ...

Amy Hempel Amy Hempel (born December 14, 1951) is an American short story writer and journalist. She teaches creative writing at the Michener Center for Writers. Life Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois. She moved to California at age 16, which is wher ...

* Binnie Kirschenbaum *

Jim Shepard Jim Shepard (born 1956) is an American novelist and short story writer, who teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. Biography Shepard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He received a B.A. at Trinity College in 1978 and an M ...

Howard Norman Howard Alan Norman (born 1949), is an American writer and educator. Most of his short stories and novels are set in Canada's Maritime Provinces. He has written several translations of Algonquin, Cree, and Inuit folklore. His books have been tran ...

Poets

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky (born October 20, 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. He was the first United States Poet Laureate to serve three terms. Recognized worldwide, Pinsky's work has earned numerous accolades. Pinsky ...

Frank Bidart Frank Bidart (born May 27, 1939, Bakersfield, CA) is an American academic and poet, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Biography Bidart is a native of California and considered a career in acting or directing when he was young. In 19 ...

Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022), adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz, was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, ...

Marie Howe Marie Howe (born 1950) is an American poet. Howe served as Poets Laureate of New York, New York Poet Laureate from 2012–2016. She is currently a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Poet-in-Residence at Cathedral of St. John the Di ...

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; May 9, 1938 – January 9, 2023), known as Charles Simic, was a Serbian American poet and poetry co-editor of ''The Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for '' The W ...

Louise Glück Louise Elisabeth Glück ( ; April 22, 1943 – October 13, 2023) was an American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose judges praised "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existe ...

Carolyn Forché Carolyn Forché (born April 28, 1950) is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work. Biography Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louise ...

Honor Moore Honor Moore (born October 28, 1945) is an American writer of poetry, creative nonfiction and plays. She currently teaches at The New School in the MFA program for creative nonfiction, where she is a part-time associate teaching professor. ''The ...

Carl Dennis Carl Dennis (born September 17, 1939) is an American poet and educator. His book ''Practical Gods'' won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Life and work Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 17, 1939, Dennis attended Oberlin College and the ...

Campbell McGrath Campbell John McGrath (born January 26, 1962) is an American poet. He is the author of twelve full-length collections of poetry, including ''Seven Notebooks'' (Ecco Press, 2008), ''Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition'' (Ecco Press, 20 ...

Vijay Seshadri Vijay Seshadri (born 13 February 1954) is an American poet, essayist and literary critic based in Brooklyn. Vijay won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for '' 3 Sections''. Early life Vijay's parents immigrated to the United States from Bang ...

* Rosanna Warren

Notable essays, poetry, and fiction

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...

's "Beginnings" (1966) *

Howard Nemerov Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920 – July 5, 1991) was an American poet. Nemerov was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. He was twice ...

's "First Snow" (#22 - 23, 1973) *

's "Pieces" and "Incipience" (#22 - 23, 1973) *

's "History" and "Man and Woman" (#22 - 23, 1973) *

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic and professor at Yale University. He was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern ...

's "The Nature of A Mirror" (#22 - 23, 1973) *

's "Pomegranate" (#22 - 23, 1973) * Leslie H. Farber's "Lying on the Couch" (1975) *

's "Ozymandias II" and "Ginkgoes in Fall" (#28, 1975) *

's "Epilogue" (#37, 1977) *

's "Question You Must Learn to Live Past" and "What Was The Thought?" (#50 - 51, 1980–81) *

's "First Goodbye" (#50 - 51, 1980–81) *

's "The Death of the Author" (1984) *

's "Our Homeland, the Text" (1985) *

's "Place, Pastness, Poems: A Tryptch" (1986) *

Martin Jay Martin Evan Jay (born May 4, 1944) is an American intellectual historian whose research interests connected history with Frankfurt School critical theory, social theory, cultural criticism, and historiography. He is currently the Sidney Hellman ...

's "The Descent of de Man" (1988) *

's "Counting by Tens" (1989) *

's "Shiva And Parvati Hiding In The Rain" (#85 - 86, 1990) *

's "Seeing Things" (#88 - 89, 1990–91) *

Natalia Ginzburg Natalia Ginzburg (, ; ; 14 July 1916 – 7 October 1991) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, f ...

's "My Psychoanalysis" (1991) '' rans. from Italian by Lynne Sharon Schwartz' *

Jed Perl Jed Perl (born 1951) is an American art critic and author in New York City. He was a longtime staff of ''The New Republic''. Career Jed Perl initially trained as a painter. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College and also studied at the ...

's "Abstract Questions" (1992) *

Sharon Olds Sharon Olds (born November 19, 1942) is an American poet. She won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

's "Parent Visiting Day" and "His Smell" and "The Urn" and "To My Father" (#93, 1992) *

's "Emerging from Censorship" (1993) *

's "My Last Hustler" (#100, 1993) * James Miller's "Foucault's Politics in Biographical Perspective" (1993) *

Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is an English-American philosopher and writer who has written about political philosophy, ethics, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah is Prof ...

's "Ancestral Voices" (1994) *

Roger Shattuck Roger Whitney Shattuck (August 20, 1923 in Manhattan, New York – December 8, 2005 in Lincoln, Vermont) was an American writer best known for his books on French literature, art, and music of the twentieth century. Background and education Born ...

's "Second Thoughts on a Wooden Horse" (1995) *

's "The Touvier Trial" (1995) '' rans. from French by John Anzalone' *

Stanley Kauffmann Stanley Kauffmann (April 24, 1916 – October 9, 2013) was an American writer, editor, and critic of film and theater. Career Kauffmann started with ''The New Republic'' in 1958 and contributed film criticism to that magazine for the next 55 ye ...

's "What's Left of the Center?" (1996) *

's "The God Who Loves You" (#111, 1996) *

's "Realism" (#114 - 115, 1997) '' his was eventually published as a chapter in Coetzee's acclaimed novel,'' Elizabeth Costello''' *

Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist. Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing ''The Dainty Monsters'', and then in 1970 the critically a ...

's "Buried" (#113, 1997) * Charles Molesworth's "From Collage to Combine: Rauschenberg and Visual Culture" (1998) *

David Rieff David Rieff (; born September 28, 1952) is an American nonfiction writer and policy analyst. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism. Biography Rieff is the only child of Susan Sontag, who w ...

's "In Rwanda: The Crisis of Humanitarianism" (1998) *

's "The Aesthetics of Fear" (1998) *

's "The Fate of Ideas: Moses" (1999) *

's "Progress" (#121 - 122, 1999) *

's "Luggage" and "Hammer" (#121 - 122, 1999) * C.K. Williams's "The Nail" (#121 - 122, 1999) *

's "Porch Steps" and "Song" (#124 - 125, 1999-2000) *

's "Nocturne" (#126 - 127, 2000) *

's "Pre-Existing Forms: We Fill Them and When We Fill Them We Change Them and Are Changed" (2000) *

's "The Photographer" (#135 - 136, 2002) *

's "Knowing When To Stop" (#135 - 136, 2002) * C.K. Williams's "Inculcations" (#137 - 138, 2003) *

's "Death Bed" and "Fisherman" (#148 - 149, 2005–06) *

's "Violetta, 2000" (#144 - 145, 2004–05) *

's "Wallace Stevens" (#146 - 147, 2005) *

's "Winter Spring Summer Fall" and "God's Catastrophe in Our Time" (#148 - 149, 2005–06) *

's "The Aerodrome" (#148 - 149, 2005–06) *

's "Work Song" (#148 - 149, 2005–06) * Adam Phillips's "On What is Fundamental" (2009) *

's "How Do You End an Essay?" (2010) *

's "The Invisible" (#166 - 167, 2010) *

's "The Real Story" (2012)

References

{{Reflist

External links

''Salmagundi'' official site
Literary magazines published in the United States Quarterly magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1965 Magazines published in New York (state) Skidmore College Hijacked journals