Vol. 3, Number 2	Summer 2000

Dear Reader,

This is the first issue of the YRB on which its founders-Joey Fishkin, the original editor-in-chief; Sarah Van der Laan, the original publisher and the second editor-in-chief; and Martha Bagnall, the original managing editor-have not worked, and I want to thank them, on behalf of the current editorial board, for passing the magazine on to us.

Joey, Sarah, and Martha are seniors in Branford, so there’s something disturbingly symbolic about the fact that a Berkeleyite is taking over as editor-in-chief while they are all exiled in Swing Space. But we promise that, as we continually renovate the YRB, we’ll keep its history in mind. And, most importantly, we promise not to cover it in scaffolding, gut it, and put it out of commission for a year.

Two and a half years ago, the YRB’s first cover story was a review of Henry Louis Gates’ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man. In this issue’s cover story, Simon Rodberg reviews Michael Eric Dyson’s I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr., which explores the way Americans look at one of the most prominent black men in our history.

While we idealize some public figures, such as King, by ignoring the difficult or complicated aspects of their legacies, it is just as possible, by viewing a celebrity’s life entirely through the lens of one scandal, to demonize him. According to our reviewer, Adrian Bonenberger, this is exactly what Marion Meade does to Woody Allen in her new biography, The Unruly Life of Woody Allen.

In this issue we review, in addition to these two quasi-biographies, five works of fiction, from Saving Agnes, the first novel by the young British author Rachel Cusk, to Gertrude and Claudius, a prequel to Hamlet by one of America’s most prolific and established novelists, John Updike.

It is important, I think, that in addition to reading and analyzing the works of already-canonized authors in our classes, that we students register our ideas and opinions about the new books, and new issues, of our own time-that we comment on the novelists of the previous generation, such as Updike; keep an eye on emerging novelists like Cusk; and discuss the limitations of the way our elders, such as Dyson and Meade, view the public figures, and public issues, of our society. After all, as Yale students we are among the next authors and the next leaders, and we’re the youngest members of the intelligentsia. We’ll soon be the producers of culture, so we should be commenting on it now.

I must admit there’s something a little disturbing about that last paragraph. While students should, and undoubtedly will, assume their roles as the next producers of culture, the question remains of why we in particular (Yalies, Ivy League students, college students in general) are in the privileged position of constituting the next cultural elite. How is this elite chosen; how should it be chosen? What happens if we enjoy the benefits of our status without assuming the cultural and civic responsibilities that come with it?

Fittingly, Susannah Rutherglen discusses these very issues in her review of Nicholas Lemann’s The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy. I hope this issue successfully fulfills the little role the YRB plays in commenting on and evaluating contemporary culture, but at the same time I hope we keep Susannah’s, and Lemann’s, points in mind.

Happy Reading,
Ty Hudson
Editor-in-Chief