''Cultural Correspondence'' was a journal of leftist politics and cultural commentary published from 1975 to around 1985. According to one of its founders,

Paul Buhle Paul Merlyn Buhle (born September 27, 1944) is a (retired) Senior Lecturer at Brown University, author or editor of 35 volumes including histories of radicalism in the United States and the Caribbean, studies of popular culture, and a series of ...

, the magazine was "born from the collapse of the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...

and hopes for a new beginning of a social movement, but also of left-wing thinking about culture". ''Cultural Correspondence'' was part of a wave of cultural criticism journals founded in the 1970s that addressed popular culture. Buhle and Dave Wagner were its founding editors. They had previously collaborated on ''

Radical America ''Radical America'' was a left-wing political magazine in the United States established in 1967. The magazine was founded by Paul Buhle and Mari Jo Buhle, activists in Students for a Democratic Society and served during its first few years of exi ...

'', but after they moved to different locations, their letters to each other led to the idea for ''Cultural Correspondence''. The journal was originally published in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. Some of the early issues were also produced in collaboration with the Green Mountain Irregulars. ''Cultural Correspondence'' typically published leftist social commentary, with a particular emphasis on poetry, humor, and comics. Contributors to the magazine included:

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, ''The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are in ...

, George Lipsitz, Edith Hoshino Altbach, Eva Cockcroft, and

R. Crumb Robert Dennis Crumb (; born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contem ...

. In May 1981, Paul Buhle and James Murray met on the way to an anti-Reagan demonstration. Following the fourteenth issue of ''Cultural Correspondence''s initial run, Murray and

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...

collaborated with Buhle on a new series of ''Cultural Correspondence'', as a project of Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D). After this, the magazine was published in New York. Around the same time in 1982, ''Cultural Correspondence'' also organized the Radical Humor Conference and Festival in New York, a conference of "Left-academic self-ridicule". The influence of PAD/D (with its interest in archiving and artistic activism) on ''Cultural Correspondence'' can be seen in the third issue of its new series, which deviated from the magazine's normal format by including a long directory of artistic political projects. That issue was titled ''We will not be disappeared!: Directory of Arts Activism''. An archive of ''Cultural Correspondence'' issues is held in a digital repository by the

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Library. A PDF copy of the Fall 1979 issue "Surrealism & Its Popular Accomplices," of ''Cultural Correspondence'' is available at
darkmatterarchives.net
'

References

Defunct political magazines published in the United States Alternative magazines Magazines published in New York City Left-wing activism {{art-mag-stub