Arguing the World oral history collection, 1988-1996

Biographical Note

"Arguing the World" is a film directed by Joseph Dorman of Riverside Productions, released in 1998. The film documents the lives, thought, and intellectual milieu of four prominent intellectuals who attended City College in the 1930s: Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer

Scope and Contents

The Arguing the World oral history collection contains oral history interviews and other materials used in the 1998 documentary of the same name. The film focuses on the lives and thought of Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer. The collection includes interviews with these four individuals and their associates. Speakers discuss various strains of leftist thought, centrism, and neoconservatism. Political discourse at City College in the 1930s gets particular attention, especially debates between Communist Party supporters and other socialists. Narrators also address the New Left, the development of the neoconservative movement, and political thought at the time of the interviews. Transcripts were created by Riverside Productions and indexed by Columbia University's Oral History Research Office. Transcript coverage is not complete across recordings, but many transcribed interviews are accompanied by related materials. The collection also includes Riverside Productions' index of footage. Digital video was created in 2021 from Betacam videocassettes and from U-Matic videocassettes when there were no Betacam tapes. The archives also holds this content on additional U-Matic videocassettes and 16 mm film negatives. There are also undigitized audio reels of B-roll. The collection's narrators are: Lionel Abel, Daniel Bell, Raymond A. Brown, William F. Buckley, Jr., Chandler Davis, Morris Dickstein, E.J. Dionne, Jason Epstein, Franklin Folsom, Helen Frankenthaler, Lillian Gates, Todd Gitlin, Nathan Glazer, Jackie Goldberg, Clement Greenberg, Tom Hayden, Dorothy Healey, Irving Howe, Tom Hurwitz, Russell Jacoby, Neil Jumonville, Alfred Kazin, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Jordan Linfield, Seymour Melman, Morris Milgram, Celia Morris, Victor Navasky, William O'Neill, Maurice Paprin, William Phillips, Norman Podhoretz, Herbert Robinson, Robert J. Rutman, Philip Selznick, Paul Starr, Diana Trilling, Julian Utevsky, Michael Walzer, Jack Weinberg, Sean Wilentz, Leon Wofsy. There is also a recording of a memorial for Irving Howe, and some interviews are accompanied by recordings of lectures or other events

Subjects

• City University of New York. City College--History.
• Interviews.
• New York (N.Y.)--Intellectual life--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by Joseph Dorman