cultural historian
Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...
,
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...
and
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...
.
Education and teaching
Hillel Schwartz was born in Chicago and got his B.A. degree at
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, p ...
in 1969. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in European History at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
(1974), and the following year he got a master's degree in library science (M.L.S.) at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
.
Schwartz considers himself primarily an independent scholar, but he has also taught history, humanities, and religious studies at UC Berkeley (1975), the University of Florida, Gainesville (1975–77), San Diego State University (1979–82, 1996). Most recently, he was an instructor in the History Department at UC San Diego (1992).
Schwartz has been both a fellow at and an adviser to the Millennium Institute, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit organization founded in the 1980s to work on global sustainability issues.
Schwartz lives in
Encinitas, California
Encinitas ( Spanish for "Small Oaks") is a beach city in the North County area of San Diego County, California. Located within Southern California, it is approximately north of San Diego, between Solana Beach and Carlsbad, and about south ...
Schwartz, who has been called a "peripatetic cultural historian," has written on the French prophets,
millenarianism
Millenarianism or millenarism (from Latin , "containing a thousand") is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming fundamental transformation of society, after which "all things will be changed". Millenarian ...
, and
copies
Copy may refer to:
*Copying or the product of copying (including the plural "copies"); the duplication of information or an artifact
**Cut, copy and paste, a method of reproducing text or other data in computing
**File copying
**Photocopying, a pr ...
, as well as on the history of
dieting
Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-red ...
noise
Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...
. His scholarship is formidable, with one of his recent books, ''Making Noise'', sporting 350 pages of notes. Schwartz's work has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese.
''Making Noise'' examines the changing understanding of sound in western culture—from music to tinnitis, babies' cries to urban hubbub—demonstrating that the primacy of the visual in human experience has been somewhat oversold.
''The Culture of the Copy'' is a comprehensive 600-page exploration of doubles of all kinds: facsimiles, reproductions, fakes, twins, mannequins, ''
trompe-l'œil
''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...
'' painting, camouflage, and so on. Schwartz examines how copies have been framed in western culture over the centuries, with a particular interest in the ethical dimensions of our relationship to replicas. Schwartz takes the position that copies are an important part of our cultural inheritance and should not be immediately dismissed as inauthentic.
In ''Never Satisfied'' (1986), Schwartz surveys the history of dieting fads and changing fashions in body types, with attention to major cultural shifts around the turn of the 20th century attendant on the rise of consumer culture.
''The French Prophets'', Schwartz's 1980 book on French prophets of the 18th century, has been called an excellent historical monograph and the first systematic exploration of these prophets' origins.
In ''Century's End'', Schwartz analyzes the fuss that is persistently made over millennial dates, publishing his "wise and humane" survey in anticipation of the year 2000.Shostak, Arthur B. "Reflections on Teaching About Utopias: Oh What a Lift That Phantom Offers!" ''Thinking Creatively in Turbulent Times'' (2004): 296.
Schwartz is also the co-founder of Sage Case Management, a California company that advocates on behalf of people who are terminally ill or in need of complex medical care. This experience led him to write his most recent book, ''Long Days Last Days'' (2013), a highly personal and deeply informed guide to the experience of accompanying another person through their last days on earth.
As a poet, Schwartz has been published in ''
Beloit Poetry Journal
The ''Beloit Poetry Journal'' is an American poetry magazine established in 1950 at Beloit College.James Tate's survey, ''The Best American Poetry 1997''.
Schwartz was co-translator (with Sunny Jung) of poems by the South Korean poet
Ko Un
Ko Un (born 1 August 1933) is a South Korean poet whose works have been translated and published in more than fifteen countries. He had been imprisoned many times due to his role in the campaign for Korean democracy and was later mentioned in K ...
, published by Tupelo Press under the title ''Abiding Places: Korea North and South'' (2006).
Works
Books
*''Long Days, Last Days: A Down-to-Earth Guide for Those at the Bedside''. CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013.
*''Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang and Beyond''. New York: Zone Books, 2011
*''The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimiles''. New York: Zone Books, 1996.
*''Century's End: A Cultural History of the Fin de Siècle—From the 990s Through the 1990s''. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
*''Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies, and Fat''. New York: Free Press/Macmillan, 1986.
*''The French Prophets: The History of a Millenarian Group in Eighteenth-Century England''. Berkeley: University of California, 1980.
*''Knaves, Fools, Madmen, and that Subtile Effluvium : A Study of the Opposition to the French Prophets in England, 1706-1710''. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1978.
Selected Essays
*"Economics of the Millennium." ''Two Thousand: Essays on the End'', eds. C. B. Strozier and M. Flynn. New York: NYU Press, 1997.
*"A Hands-On Millennium". ''Future Moment: The Turn of 1999-2001'', ed. J. Gary. Adamantine 21st Century Series, 1997.
*"Global Fin de Siecle". ''Aspenia'' 2 (1995) 8-21.
*"Stairways to H". ''Journal of Unconventional History'' 7:3 (1996) 84-96.
*"NoBody's Fool". ''Dimensions'' (February 1996) 20-21.
*"Fat and Time". ''Dimensions'' 11 (June/July 1995) 20-21.
*"Legend of the Vanishing Twin". ''Parabola'' 29:2 (Summer 1994) 70-75/
*"Torque: The New Kinaesthetic of the 20th Century". ''Incorporations'' (''Zone'' vol. 6), eds. S. Kwinter and J. Crary. Cambridge and New York: Zone/MIT Press, 1992, 70-127.
*"Beyond Tone and Decibel: The History of Noise". ''Chronicle of Higher Education'', 9 January 1998, B8.
*"The End of the Beginning: Millenarian Studies, 1969-1975." ''Religious Studies Review'' 2:3 (1976) 1-15.