Ellen Willis
Ellen Willis | |
|---|---|
Queens, New York, U.S. | |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse | Stanley Aronowitz |
Ellen Jane Willis (December 14, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was an American
critic. A 2014 collection of her essays, The Essential Ellen Willis, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
.
Early life and education
Willis was born in
Queens in New York City.[1] Her father was a police lieutenant in the New York City Police Department.[1] Willis attended Barnard College as an undergraduate and did graduate study at University of California, Berkeley, where she studied comparative literature.[1]
Career
In the late 1960s and 1970s, she was the first pop music critic for the , where she was also on the editorial board. She was the author of several books of collected essays.
At the time of her death, she was a professor in the journalism department of New York University and the head of its Center for Cultural Reporting and Criticism.[2]
Writing and activism
Willis was known for her
pro-sex feminism".[4]
She was a strong supporter of women's
left. In cultural politics, she was equally opposed to the idea that cultural issues are politically unimportant, as well as to strong forms of identity politics and their manifestation as political correctness. [citation needed
]
In several essays and interviews written since the September 11 attacks, she cautiously supported humanitarian intervention and, while opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq,[5] she criticized certain aspects of the anti-war movement.[6][7]
Willis wrote a number of essays on
Baal Teshuva for Rolling Stone in 1977.[8]
She saw political authoritarianism and
psychoanalytic thought to current social and political issues.[2]
Rock criticism
Willis was the first popular music critic for the Velvet Underground for the Greil Marcus "desert island disc" anthology Stranded (1979). Her contemporary Richard Goldstein characterized her work as "liberationist" at its heart and said that "Ellen, Emma Goldman, and Abbie Hoffman are part of a lost tradition — radicals of desire."[9]
She was a friend of many contemporary critics, including
Nona Willis-Aronowitz. Ellen Willis "celebrated the seriousness of pleasure and relished the pleasure of thinking seriously," a review in The New York Times said.[12] It was announced that a conference at New York University, "Sex, Hope, & Rock 'n' Roll: The Writings of Ellen Willis",[13]
celebrated her anthology and pop music criticism on April 30, 2011.
Death
Willis died of
Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University in 2008.[14]
Personal life
Willis had met her second husband, sociology professor Stanley Aronowitz, in the late 1960s, and they entered a relationship some 10 years later. They shared domestic tasks equally.[15]
She was survived by her husband and her daughter,
Nona Willis-Aronowitz.[1]
Legacy
Willis is featured in the feminist history film She's Beautiful When She's Angry.[16][17]
Awards
- The Essential Ellen Willis, edited by Nona Willis Aronowitz, won the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism).[18]
Bibliography
 |
Books
- Willis, Ellen (1962). Questions freshmen ask : a guide for college girls. New York: Dutton.
- Willis, Ellen (1981). Beginning to See the Light: Pieces of a Decade. New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House. ISBN 0-394-51137-9.
- Willis, Ellen (1992). Beginning to See the Light: Sex, Hope, and Rock-and-Roll. 2d ed. Hanover: Wesleyan. ISBN 0-8195-6255-6.
- Willis, Ellen (1992). No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays. Hanover, NH: Published by University Press of New England [for] Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-5250-X.
- Willis, Ellen (1999). Don't Think, Smile!: Notes on a Decade of Denial. Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-4320-6.
- Willis, Ellen (2011). Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7283-7. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
- Willis, Ellen (2014). Willis-Aronowitz, Nona (ed.). The Essential Ellen Willis. University of Minnesota. ISBN 978-0-8166-8121-1.
- Echols, Alice (1989). Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1786-4. Retrieved June 3, 2009. Willis wrote the foreword.
Essays, reporting and other contributions
- "Ellen Willis's Reply", 1968.
- "Women and the Myth of Consumerism", Ramparts, 1969.
- "Hell No, I Won't Go: End the War on Drugs", Village Voice, September 19, 1989.
- "Vote for Ralph Nader!", Salon, November 6, 2000.
- "The Realities of War" (A response to Elaine Scarry's "Citizenship in Emergency"), Boston Review, October/November 2002.
- "The Pernicious Concept of 'Balance'", The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 9, 2005. Note: scroll down page.
- Willis, Ellen (July 27, 2020). "Hearing". The Talk of the Town. February 22, 1969. The New Yorker. Vol. 96, no. 21. pp. 13–14.[19]
References
- ^ a b c d e Margalit Fox, Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies, The New York Times, November 10, 2006.
- ^ a b Official page Archived July 5, 2006, at the Wayback Machine on the site of the Department of Journalism, New York University, accessed July 7, 2007
- ISBN 0-8195-5250-X, pp. 117–150, especially pp. 119 and 124.
- ^ Ellen Willis, Lust Horizons: The 'Voice' and the women's movement Archived August 29, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Village Voice 50th Anniversary Issue, 2007. This is not the original "Lust Horizons" essay, but a retrospective essay mentioning that essay as the origin of the term. Accessed online July 7, 2007. A lightly revised version of the original "Lust Horizons" essay can be found in No More Nice Girls, pp. 3–14.
- ^ Ellen Willis, Ellen Willis Responds Archived September 29, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Dissent, Winter 2003. Accessed online July 7, 2007.
- ^ "Why I'm not for Peace" (PDF). Archived from the original on December 23, 2005. Retrieved June 16, 2006.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), Radical Society, April 2002, pp. 13–19; copy formerly posted on Willis's NYU faculty site was archived on the Internet Archive, December 23, 2005. Accessed online July 7, 2007. - ^ March 27, 2003 broadcast, Doug Henwood's radio archives, Left Business Observer.
- ^ Ellen Willis, Next Year in Jerusalem, originally published in Rolling Stone, April 1977.
- ISBN 9780816672837.
- ISBN 9780816672837.
- ^ Itzkoff, Dave (March 6, 2015). "Robert Christgau's 'Going into the City'". The New York Times.
- ^ McDonnell, Evelyn (June 10, 2011). "Ellen Willis's Pioneering Rock Criticism". The New York Times. Retrieved November 15, 2011.
- ^ "Sex, Hope, & Rock 'n' Roll". website.
- ^ "What's Essential: A Conversation with Nona Willis Aronowitz About Her Late Mother's Work". June 2, 2016.
- ^ "Q&A: Nona Willis Aronowitz on Family Life and Feminism with Her Mom, Ellen Willis". April 30, 2014.
- ^ "The Women".
- ^ "The Film — She's Beautiful When She's Angry". Shesbeautifulwhenshesangry.com. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
- ^ "National Book Critics Circle: awards". Bookcritics.org. Archived from the original on October 18, 2015. Retrieved April 28, 2017.
- ^ Originally published in the February 22, 1969 issue.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ellen Willis.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Ellen Willis.
- Ellen Willis Tumblr Page - large collection of Willis's writings.
- "Ellen Willis, 64, Journalist and Feminist, Dies" by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, November 10, 2006.
- "My Ellen Willis" by Michael Bronski, The Boston Phoenix, November 30, 2006.
- "Sex, Hope and Rock and Roll: A Conversation with Ellen Willis" by Chris O'Connell, Pop Matters, January 8, 2007.
- Papers of Ellen Willis, 1941-2006. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
Reviews and critiques of Ellen Willis
- Review of Don't Think, Smile! at the Wayback Machine (archived October 16, 2004) by Marcy Sheiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 29, 2000.
- Bully in the Pulpit? (Discussion of Ellen Willis "Freedom From Religion"), The Nation, February 22, 2001.
Interviews
- "Ellen Willis, Feminist and Writer", Fresh Air, November 10, 2006 (originally broadcast February 14, 1989). (page links to RealAudio audio file)
- Interview with Ellen Willis and others on Implicating Empire by Left Business Observer (radio), March 27, 2003. (page links to MP3audio)
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