Overview

In the Rebel Cafe: Interviews with Ed Sanders is a collection of interviews with Ed Sanders. Interviews have been selected representing each decade of Sanders’s career from the 1960s up to the present. All are previously published except for one conducted by a historian about Sanders’s involvement in the peace movement. Interviews have been selected for historical significance (such as his first interview, his appearance on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line TV program, history of the Fugs, history of the Lower East Side avant-garde, the evolution of his poetry) and for the depth and quality of the discussion of his work (interviews by poets and literary critics). Read in chronological order, the interviews constitute a career biography of Sanders as a writer, musician, and activist. In his own words, Sanders chronicles his transition as a poet from lyric to historical narrative to epic, the development of his fiction and journalism, the creation and revival of the Fugs (his satirical folk rock band), his role in the art and counter-culture of the 1960s, his subsequent historical assessment of the era, and his continuing social commitments. In addition to the interviews, the book includes a critical introduction to Sanders’s life and work, a chronology of Sanders’ career, a bibliography of his publications, and a discography of Fugs and Sanders albums.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jennie Skerl
Publisher:   Clemson University Digital Press
Imprint:   Clemson University Digital Press
ISBN:  

9781638041719

ISBN 10:   1638041717
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   04 March 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction   Chronology of Sanders’ life and work   Bibliography   Discography   The Interviews   1960s Wilcock, John.  “An Interview with Ed Sanders.”  Village Voice, 17 June 1965, p. 2.   Buckley, Jr., William F.  “The Hippies.” Firing Line, PBS series, 3 September, 1968.  Available on DVD from the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.   Miles, Barry. “An Interview with Ed Sanders—1 October 1968.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction, vol. 19, no. 1, Spring 1999, pp. 14-22.    1970s   Stambler, Sookie.  “‘Sleezy Icky Yucky Mucky & Uck’:  An Interview with Ed Sanders.”  Win, no. 8, January 1972, pp. 6-10.    1980s   Skerl, Jennie.  “Interview with Ed Sanders.” 1983.  Forthcoming in Journal of Beat Studies, vol. 6, 2018.    Sturgeon, Tandy.  “An Interview with Edward Sanders.”  Contemporary Literature, vol. 31, no. 3, Autumn 1990, pp. 263-80.    1990s   Dougherty, Sean Thomas.  “Ed Sanders Interview.”  Long Shot, no. 13, 1992, pp. 87-90.    Ring, Kevin.  “Thirsting for Peace:  An Interview with Ed Sanders.”  Beat Scene, no. 17, 1993, available online, n.p.   Luttrell, Steve.  “Interview with Ed Sanders.”  Transcribed by Robert Dutton.   The Cafe Review, no. 6, Fall 1995, pp. 23-35.   Gross, Jason.  “Ed Sanders Interview.”  Perfect Sound Forever, June 1997.  Available online, n.p.   Jarnot, Lisa.  “ An Interview with Ed Sanders.”  Poetry Project Newsletter, no. 166, Oct/Nov 1997, pp. 5-9, 28-29.   Joost, Wesley.  “Going Out in a Blaze of Leaflets.”  Goblin Magazine, no. 3, 18 May 1998. Available online, n.p.   Mollin, Marian.  “Interview with Ed Sanders.” Unpublished. 13 August 1998.    Horvath, Brooke. “Edward Sanders on His Fiction:  An Interview.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction, vol. 19, no. 1, Spring 1999, pp. 23-30.   2000s   Reidel, Bob.  “One Busy Fug.”  Beat Scene, no. 48, Summer 2005, pp. 47-49.   Paul, Steve.  “An American History, Line by Line: An Interview with Edward Sanders.”  New Letters, vol. 76, no. 1, Fall 2009.  Rpt. Poetry Daily, 2009, available online, n.p.   Brandstetter, Markus.  “Edward Sanders Im Gesprach.”  Stadt Wien Bekannt, 8 October 2011. Available online, n.p.   Schultz, Marc.  “From Turbulent 60s to Turbulent Teens: A Q&A with Ed Sanders,” Publishers Weekly, 9 December 2011.  Available online, n.p.    Maurer, Daniel.  “Ed Sanders on His New Memoir, ‘Fug You,’ and the East Village of the 60s and Today.”  The Local East Village, 11 December 2007.  Available online, n.p.   Bisbort, Alan.  “Peace Eye, Fugs, A Long Talk With Ed Sanders.”  Literary Kicks, 3 January 2012.  Available online, n.p.   Skerl, Jennie.  “Interview with Ed Sanders.”  Forthcoming 2018.

Reviews

'Jennie Skerl has put together a magnificent intro/crash course to Ed Sanders... A must for anyone with interest in Ed Sanders.' Marc Olmsted, Sensitive Skin 'Sanders seems to be something of a polymath, learned in ancient texts and languages, politically astute and still up for a fight - non violent of course, historian, journalist. A man for all seasons. These extended interviews capture an agile mind. An American treasure.' Colin Cooper, Beat Scene 'In line with her rightly applauded previous Beat scholarship Skerl offers a full, meticulous Introduction to the interviews she perceptively calls Sanders’s “career biography,” together with due life-chronology and bibliography... Skerl has shown a keen not to say timely hand, one to put us considerably in her debt.' A. Robert Lee, European Beat Studies Network ‘You can open In the Rebel Café to just about any page and find something interesting, eye-catching, thought-provoking or rib-tickling (or all of these at once).’ Alan Bisbort, Ugly Things ‘[A] highly detailed and insightful study about Ed Sanders and all facets of his personality and work… In addition to great insight into his poetry and musician's workshops, at the same time we get a plastic overview of the entire era.’ Josef Ravoulf, *UNI *(translated from Czech)

Author Information

Jennie Skerl is a Founding Board member and Past President of the Beat Studies Association. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Beat Studies. She has published William S. Burroughs (Twayne, 1985), William S. Burroughs at the Front: Critical Reception, 1959-1989 (co-edited with Robin Lydenberg, Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), A Tawdry Place of Salvation: The Art of Jane Bowles (Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), Reconstructing the Beats (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), and The Transnational Beat Generation, (co-edited with Nancy M. Grace, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Dr. Skerl edited the Winter 2000 special issue of College Literature on Teaching Beat Literature and has published invited introductions to the 25th anniversary edition of Naked Lunch (Grove, 1984), Speed by William Burroughs, Jr. (Overlook Press, 1984), William S. Burroughs: Time-Place-Word (Brown University exhibit catalog, ed. Eric Shoaf, 2000), and the foreword to Retaking the Universe: William Burroughs in the Age of Globalization (ed. Davis Shneiderman and Philip Walsh, Pluto, 2004). She was a contributor of the Dictionary of Literary Biography volume on the Beats (edited by Ann Charters, 1983), the Encyclopedia of Beat Literature (edited by Kurt Hemmer, 2007), and Naked Lunch @ 50 (edited by Oliver Harris and Ian Macfadyen, Southern Illinois University Press, 2009). Her essay on Ed Sanders entitled “Sappho Comes to the Lower East Side: Ed Sanders, the Sixties Avant-garde, and Fictions of Sappho” was recently published in Hip Sublime: Beat Writers and the Classical Tradition (edited by Sheila Murnaghan and Ralph M. Rosen, Ohio State UP, 2018), and her interview with Sanders was published in the Journal of Beat Studies, (volume 6, 2018). Dr. Skerl has also taught courses, delivered guest lectures, and organized conference panels on Beat writers. She retired as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at West Chester University.

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