Goodman, Paul
Recommended Author Index

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Particularly recommended items are flagged with a red Connexions logo:

  1. Compulsory Mis-education and The Community of Scholars
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1964
    Two books combined in a single volume. A far-ranging critique of the state of American eduation.
  2. Creator Spirit Come
    Resource Type: Book
  3. Designing Pacifist Films 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1961
  4. Growing Up Absurd
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1962
    Goodman offers a fundamental critique of the Organized System of semimonopolies, government, advertisers, etc., and the disaffection of the growing generation.
  5. Kafka's Prayer
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1947   Published: 1976
    Kafka said that writing is a form of prayer and it is in that light that Paul Goodman confronts the body of Kafka's work and ideas.
  6. The Moral Ambiguity of America
    The Massey Lectures for 1966
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1967
  7. New Reformation
    Notes of a Neolithic Conservative
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1969   Published: 1971
    Goodman says: "For green grass and clean rivers, children with bright eyes and good color whatever the color, people safe from being pushed around so they can be themselves -- for a few things like these, I find I am pretty ready to think away all other political economic, and technological advantages."
  8. People or Personnel and Like a Conquered Province 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1968
    Goodman offers his analysis of what is wrong with American society, and what could be done about it.
  9. The Politics of Being Queer
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1969
    Goodman writes: "On balance, I don't know whether my choice, or compulsion, of a bisexual life has made me especially unhappy or only averagely unhappy. It is obvious that every way of life has its hang-ups, having a father or no father, being married or single, being strongly sexed or rather sexless, and so forth; but it is hard to judge what other people's experience has been, to make a comparison. I have persistently felt that the world was not made for me, but I have had good moments.
  10. The Present Moment in Education
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1969   Published: 1970
  11. Sex and Ethics
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1963
    In America, as it is at present, most behavior -- and this is not only in sexual matters -- has nothing to do with what one is or would normally desire or naturally desire, but what is pected of one or in order to provide something which has got nothing to do with the functioning of it.
  12. Some Remarks on War Spirit
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1962
    How under modern conditions can we wage peace instead of war? We need a vast increase in the opportunities for initiative and making important decisions. This involves considerable decentralization of management, in industry, in government, in urban affairs like housing and schooling. It involves the use of our productivity to insure minimum subsistence, but otherwise the encouragement of individual enterprises. We must forthrightly carry through the sexual revolution, encourage the sexuality of children and adolescents, get rid of the sex laws and other moral laws.
  13. Speaking and Language
    Defence of Poetry
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1971   Published: 1972
    Goodman writes, "I do not think there can be a rule for the appropriate use of formal or vernacular language...The best is to try for a vernacular that molds itself to what is going on and to use it critically".
  14. Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1951   Published: 1962
    Whatever the subject, Goodman asks: What blocks and limits human freedom, joy, and creativity? What tends to release, free, liberate? In criticizing society and life his purpose is to improve. Goodman is animated by a vision of a good society, a coherent community, a style, and quality, of life that is fully human, and humanizes.