Misplaced Pages

Seth Abramson

Article snapshot taken from[REDACTED] with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 96.87.198.41 (talk) at 22:05, 18 April 2019. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 22:05, 18 April 2019 by 96.87.198.41 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) American professor, poet, and attorney
Seth Abramson
Born (1976-10-31) October 31, 1976 (age 48)
Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
OccupationAttorney, professor, author
EducationDartmouth College (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
University of Iowa (MFA)
University of Wisconsin–Madison (MA, PhD)
GenreCuratorial journalism, metajournalism
Literary movementMetamodernism

Seth Abramson (born October 31, 1976) is an American professor, poet, attorney, journalist, and author. He officially lost his sanity on April 18th, 2019 when he posted a Twitter rant ober 300 tweets long regarding the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Early life and education

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College (1998), Harvard Law School (2001), the Iowa Writers' Workshop (2009), and the doctoral program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010; 2016).

Career

Abramson is an assistant professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at University of New Hampshire and affiliate faculty at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. His teaching areas include digital journalism, post-internet cultural theory, post-internet writing, and legal advocacy. Prior to entering academia in 2015, Abramson was a trial attorney for the New Hampshire Public Defender from 2001 to 2007. While still an attorney and member in good standing of the New Hampshire Bar Association and the Federal Bar for the District of New Hampshire, he no longer practices.

Since 2010, Abramson has at various times been a columnist for Indiewire, The Huffington Post, and Poets & Writers on subjects ranging from politics to higher education and metamodernism. Publishers Weekly notes that Abramson has "picked up a very large following as a blogger and commentator, covering poetry, politics, and higher education, and generating a controversial, U.S. News-style ranking of graduate programs in writing."

In November 2018, Abramson became a political columnist for Newsweek.

In a 2019 interview, a Playboy interviewer said that that "Abramson helped pioneer the literary form of the 'thread'" and, speaking of his 2018 book Proof of Collusion, credited "the eccentric New Hampshirite" for "his meticulous attention to the evidence of Trumpworld’s alleged collusion with the Kremlin." The magazine added that Abramson was a "left-brained gonzo."

On March 26, 2019, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, issued an official statement from her White House social media account referring to Abramson on a list of 32 "angry and hysterical Trump haters."

Creative writing

Abramson has published a number of poetry books and anthologies. Publishers Weekly describes Abramson as "serious and ambitious...uncommonly interested in general statements, in hard questions, and harder answers, about how to live."

Colorado Review called Northerners, Abramson's second collection of poetry, "alternately expansive and deeply personal...of crystalline beauty and complexity," terming Abramson "a major American voice." Notre Dame Review echoed the sentiment, calling Abramson "a powerful voice."

Abramson won the 2008 J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry. Editor Don Share said of Abramson's "What I Have," "The poem absorbs certain details but doesn't fasten upon them the way poets are tempted to do; it's not adjectival, it's not descriptive, it's not painting a kind of canvas with scenery on it, and yet those details are really fascinating."

Best American Experimental Writing

Abramson, with the poet Jesse Damiani, has been series co-editor of the annual anthology of innovative verse, Best American Experimental Writing, since its inception with Omnidawn in 2012. The series was picked up by Wesleyan University Press in 2014. Guest editors for the series have included Cole Swensen (2014), Douglas Kearney (2015), Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris (2016), Myung Mi Kim (2018), and Carmen Maria Machado and Joyelle McSweeney (2019).

In 2018, The Rumpus called the anthology "meaty, daring, and beautiful." Nicole Rudick, managing editor of The Paris Review, has called the series "just my kind of rabbit hole."

Trump-Russia investigation

Further information: Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)

After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Abramson received widespread attention for his tweets alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Based on the timing, publicly known content, and personnel involved in those meetings, Abramson suggests that, through intermediaries, Trump and Putin came to an understanding in 2013 that Trump would run for president and push for an end to U.S. sanctions against Russia, and that Putin would in return greenlight a multibillion-dollar Trump Tower Moscow deal and other potential Trump ventures in Russia while using Russian capabilities to aid the Trump campaign. According to the Washington Post, "There are, to be sure, many leaps in his analysis. Abramson’s tweets link copiously to sources, but they range in quality from investigative news articles to off-the-wall Facebook posts and tweets from Tom Arnold."

Writers at The New Republic, The Atlantic, and Deadspin have described Abramson as a conspiracy theorist, while Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate argues that Abramson is "not making things up, per se; he's just recycling information you could find on any news site and adding sinister what-if hypotheticals to create conclusions that he refers to . . . as 'investigatory analyses.'" The Chronicle of Higher Education notes, however, that Abramson often "feuds with anti-Trump conspiracy theorists whom he sees linking to dubious sources and making claims without evidence."

Meanwhile, Virginia Heffernan writes in Politico that Abramson's "theory-testing" is "urgently important." Der Spiegel calls Abramson "a quintessential American figure: an underdog who became an involuntary hero." The New York Observer writes that "events like Trump's 2013 trip to Russia for Miss Universe were covered extensively on Abramson's feed prior to the mainstream media catching on, a fact that has given him a reputation for being early to connect events within the broader Russia story." According to Avi Selk of The Washington Post, Abramson "has become virally popular by reframing a complex tangle of public reporting on the Russia scandal into a story so simple it can be laid out in daily tweets."

In November 2018, Abramson published the New York Times bestselling book Proof of Collusion (Simon & Schuster), which sought to establish "proof of collusion in the Trump-Russia case." A Playboy interviewer wrote of Proof of Collusion that "not one error has been found in the book." According to a review in the Herald, "Amassed theories and suggestive juxtapositions notwithstanding, we end up with something closer to the Scottish 'not proven' verdict with its unique mix of moral conviction of guilt and inability to conclusively prove the case."

The MFA Research Project

Abramson authors The MFA Research Project (MRP), a website that publishes indexes of creative writing Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs based on surveys and hard-data research. Indexes appearing on the MRP include ordered listings of program popularity, funding, selectivity, fellowship placement, job placement, student-faculty ratio, application cost, application response times, application and curriculum requirements, and foundation dates. The MRP also publishes surveys of current MFA applicants, and of various creative writing programs. Writing for The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945, Hank Lazer described Abramson's project as "a daring and data-rich endeavor." The Missouri Review observed that Abramson, along with novelist Tom Kealey, "had done a tremendous amount of work to peel back the layers of MFA programs and get applicants to make informed decisions."

Data from the MRP was regularly published by Poets & Writers between 2008 and 2013. The Chronicle of Higher Education termed the Poets & Writers national assessment methodology "comprehensive" and "the only MFA ranking regime." The data was not without its critics. In September 2011, a critical open letter signed by professors from undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs was published. In their response, Poets & Writers asserted that it adhered to the highest journalistic standards. The magazine's Editorial Director Mary Gannon said of Abramson, the rankings' primary researcher, that he "has been collecting data about applicants' preferences and about MFA programs for five years, and we stand behind his integrity."

In June 2018, Abramson published an expanded version of the MRP data archive as part of a nonfiction reference guide, The Insider's Guide to Graduate Degrees in Creative Writing (Bloomsbury).

Controversy

In May 2014, Abramson was criticised for his Huffington Post piece "Last Words for Elliot Rodger", a "remix" of words taken from the final YouTube video of the perpetrator of the Isla Vista killings, which Abramson published less than two days after they took place. Both the reuse of Rodger's words and the timing of the poem caused offense. Although Abramson called the work "a vehicle for amity and compassion", Omnidawn, Abramson's publisher at the time, issued a statement saying that it was "dismayed, disheartened, distressed", adding that "his actions in this matter are not in alignment with our principles."

Awards

Selected works

Books

Anthologies

References

  1. https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1118998420633600001
  2. ^ Plenda, Melanie (2015-03-24). "Acclaimed Author and Poet Seth Abramson joins UNH Manchester English Program". University of New Hampshire at Manchester. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25.
  3. Seth Abramson (2017-02-08). "Listen up, progressives: We need to be smart in the digital age". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25.
  4. ^ "Seth Abramson archive at Newsweek". www.newsweek. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
  5. "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction NYT Bestsellers for December 2, 2018". www.nytimes. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  6. ^ New Hampshire Institute of Art (2018-06-05). "Seth Abramson Joins NHIA MFA Faculty". Retrieved 2018-06-23.
  7. "Seth Abramson". UNH at Manchester. 2016-02-24. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  8. "Seth Abramson - HuffPost". www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  9. "On American Metamodernism," The Huffington Post (February 7, 2014).
  10. "A New Press Play Column: Seth Abramson's 'Metamericana'", Indiewire (January 31, 2014).
  11. Review of Northerners, Publishers Weekly (May 2011).
  12. Interview with Seth Abramson. Playboy (March 2019).
  13. Interview with Seth Abramson. Playboy (March 2019).
  14. Tweet by Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Twitter (March 26, 2019).
  15. Northerners, Publishers Weekly (Review).
  16. Northerners (review), Colorado Review.
  17. "From Ruin to Rebirth," Notre Dame Review.
  18. "You're Always Moving Toward Silence," Poetry (March 2009 Poetry Foundation Podcast).
  19. "Best American Experimental Writing Anthology Announced," The Poetry Foundation (November 12, 2012).
  20. "Announcing Omnidawn's New Annual Anthology, Best American Experimental Writing," Omnidawn (November 7, 2012). "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-02-21. Retrieved 2012-11-21. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  21. "Best American Experimental Writing: Guidelines for Submitting," Wesleyan University Press (April 17, 2014).
  22. "Best American Experimental Writing," Wesleyan University Press (November 20, 2017).
  23. "Logic and Lack of Logic: Best American Experimental Writing 2016," The Rumpus (February 23, 2018).
  24. "Staff Picks: Nicole Rudick," The Paris Review (June 17, 2016).
  25. ^ Selk, Avi (December 6, 2017). "People can't stop reading a professor's theory of a Trump-Russia conspiracy — true or not". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
  26. Dickey, Colin (8 June 2017). "The New Paranoia". The New Republic. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  27. McKay Coppins (2017-07-02). "How the Left Lost Its Mind". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-05-25.
  28. Blest, Paul (2017-04-04). "Trump Conspiracy Tweetstorms Are The Infowars Of The Left". Deadspin. Retrieved 2018-05-25.
  29. Ben Mathis-Lilley (2017-12-05). "Democrats: Please, Please Stop Sharing Seth Abramson's Very Bad Tweets". Slate. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25.
  30. Kolowich, Steve (2017-05-15). "What Is Seth Abramson Trying to Tell Us?". The Chronicle of Higher Education. ISSN 0009-5982. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  31. Virginia Heffernan (September–October 2017). "The Rise of the Twitter Thread". Politico. Retrieved 2018-05-25.
  32. Christoph Scheuermann (June 4, 2018). "Army of Investigators Has Trump in Its Sights". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  33. Mike Albanese (June 21, 2018). "Seth Abramson Is Combating Trump and the Media on Twitter". New York Observer. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  34. "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction NYT Bestsellers for December 2, 2018". www.nytimes. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  35. Interview with Seth Abramson. Playboy (March 2019).
  36. "Review: Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America, by Seth Abramson". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 2019-04-07.
  37. "Protected Blog ' Log in". mfaresearchproject.wordpress.com. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  38. "American Poetry and Its Institutions," The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945 (February 8, 2013)
  39. "The MFA Degree: A Bad Decision?", The Missouri Review (August 29, 2011). Archived 2014-04-19 at the Wayback Machine
  40. "What Defines a Successful Post-M.F.A. Career?", The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 3, 2011).
  41. "M.F.A. Application-Season Etiquette," The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  42. "Creative Writing Profs Dispute Their Ranking. No, the Entire Notion of Ranking!", The New York Observer, Kat Stoeffel (September 8, 2011).
  43. ^ "Poets & Writers Responds to Open Letter". Poets & Writers. 13 September 2011. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
  44. "Abramson Publisher "Distressed" by His Elliot Rodger "Remix"". Coldfront. 29 May 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
  45. Kempf, Christopher (10 June 2014). "The Poetics of Tragedy". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 14 January 2015. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  46. "Rap Genius and Bad Poetry: It's Always Too Soon to Grab Personal Attention After a Tragedy". Flavorwire. 27 May 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2016. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  47. "Omnidawn Breaks the Sound Barrier for BAX". Poetry Foundation. 30 May 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-10-16. Retrieved 28 August 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  48. "NCJT list of 238 most respected journalists" (PDF), NCTJ, October 11, 2018, retrieved October 11, 2018

External links

Interviews

This section may require cleanup to meet Misplaced Pages's quality standards. The specific problem is: dates in reverse chronological order, contrary to WP:DATELIST. Please help improve this section if you can. (April 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
  • The Conversant (March 7, 2015)
  • As It Ought to Be (March 12, 2014)
  • Poem of the Week (January 29, 2014)
  • Full Stop (November 8, 2012)
  • LitBridge (September 14, 2012)
  • Poetry Society of America (March 12, 2010)
Categories:
Seth Abramson Add topic