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 nonfiction comic art volumes. He is the authorized biographer of
C. L. R. James.
Biography
Buhle was born in
Champaign, Illinois, on September 27, 1944. His mother was a
registered nurse with the maiden name of Pearle Drake. His father, Merlyn Buhle, was a geologist. On December 30, 1963, Paul Buhle married
Mari Jo Kupski, who later earned a doctorate in history and co-authored several works with Buhle.
Buhle graduated from the
University of Illinois in 1966, where he had been a spokesperson for the chapter of
Students for a Democratic Society's antiwar activities. He received a master's degree from the
University of Connecticut (in 1967) and a Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison (in 1975). He had been active in the civil rights movement in SDS, and a member for some months of the
Socialist Labor Party
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 ...
. In 2006–07, he was one of the founding figures of the new
Students for a Democratic Society, and more recently a leader of the Movement for a Democratic Society.
Buhle was founding editor of the journal ''
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 (1960 organization), Students for a Democrat ...
'' (1967–1999), an unofficial organ of Students for a Democratic Society, founder of ''
Cultural Correspondence'' (1977–83), a journal of popular culture studies, and founder and director of the Oral History of the American Left archive at
New York University in 1976. In Rhode Island, he co-founded the Rhode Island Labor History Society, was active in labor history and labor support activities and produced several popular histories of the state's labor movement. He also produced ''Vanishing Rhode Island'', a pictorial history and plea for preservation; and with his students, ''Underground Rhode Island''. He has contributed frequently to the journals and newspapers ''
The Nation'', ''
The Village Voice'', ''
Monthly Review'', ''
Jewish Currents'', ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education'' and ''
The San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The p ...
''.
Buhle is the co-author of four books on the history of the
Hollywood Blacklist, and the editor of a series of graphic non-fiction works by American comics artists and writers, among them
Harvey Pekar, Sabrina Jones and
Sharon Rudahl.
He is a member of the
Democratic Socialists of America
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing Democratic Socialists of America#Tendencies within the DSA, multi-tendency Socialism, socialist and Labour movement, labor-oriented political organization. Its roots ...
.
Career
Buhle taught at the Cambridge-Godard Graduate School, 1971–73, and lectured at the
Rhode Island School of Design until accepting an appointment as lecturer in History and American Civilization at Brown University in 1995. In 1982–83 he created an oral history collection at the Tamiment Library, New York University, the Oral History of the American Left Collection, with associated research on ethnic radicalism. He has served on the Board of ''
The Minnesota Review'', as Contributing Editor to ''
Tikkun'', and on the editorial advisory board on ''Radical Americas'' (an on-line publication of MDS). He has also been a sponsor of ''
New Politics'' and an adviser on documentary biographies of
Howard Zinn, comic artist
Will Eisner, and
Sacco and Vanzetti, and served as historian for the radio series ''Grandma was an Activist'' in the 1980s.
Selected bibliography
Books:
* Co-editor, ''
Prophet Against Slavery'' (2022)
* Co-editor, ''Herbert Marcuse, Philosopher of Utopia'' (
City Lights
''City Lights'' is a 1931 American silent romantic comedy film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) and ...
, 2019)
* Co-editor, ''Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular & the New Land'' (2011)
* Co-author, with
Howard Zinn and
Mike Konopacki
Mike Konopacki (born c. 1951) is an American political cartoonist from Wisconsin, specializing in labor issues.
Background and early career
A 1974 graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison (B.A. in political science), Konopacki bega ...
of ''
A People's History of American Empire'' (2008),
* Editor, ''Che Guevara, a Graphic Biography'' (2008)
* Editor, ''Jews and American Popular Culture'', 3 volumes (2007)
* Author, ''Tim Hector, Caribbean Radical'' (2006)
* Co-editor, ''Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World'' (2005)
* Co-editor, ''The New Left Revisited'' (2004)
* Co-author, ''Hide in Plain Sight, the Blacklistees in Film and Television'', 1950–2002 (2003)
* Co-author, ''Radical Hollywood'' (2001)
* Co-author, ''A Very Dangerous Citizen, Abraham Lincoln Polonsky and the Hollywood Left'' (1999)
* Co-editor, ''Encyclopedia of the American Left'' (1990, 1998), with
Mari Jo Buhle and
Dan Georgakas
* Co-author, ''The Tragedy of Empire: A biography of William Appleman Williams'' (1995)
* Editor, ''History and the New Left: Madison, Wisconsin, 1950–1970'' (1990)
* Author,'' The Artist as Revolutionary'', C. L. R. James (1988)
* Author, ''Marxism in the United States'' (1987)
Articles:
* " E. P. Thompson and his Critics ". ''
Telos'' 49 (Fall 1981). New York
Telos Press
See also
*
Mari Jo Buhle
*
Dan Georgakas
References
External links
*
*
* Salar Mohandesi
'The Search for a Useable Past: An Interview with Paul Buhle on Radical America'at ''Viewpoint Magazine'', March 2, 2015
''Power to the panels'', an interview with Paul Buhle(villagevoice.com)
* Josh Jones
''Open Culture'', December 9, 2003
* Michael Schapira,
ttp://www.full-stop.net/2014/05/21/interviews/michael-schapira/paul-buhle "Paul Buhle" (interview) ''Full Stop'', May 21, 2014
Paul Buhle Papersat Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buhle, Paul
1944 births
Living people
People from Champaign, Illinois
American book editors
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
American social sciences writers
Brown University faculty
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
Members of Students for a Democratic Society
Members of the Democratic Socialists of America
Historians from Illinois
American male non-fiction writers