Background
Swan, John Charles was born on April 12, 1945 in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, United States. Son of John Clement and Winifred Jean (Sturtevant).
(What do Stravinsky, Degas, Chaplin, Isak Dinesen, Meyerho...)
What do Stravinsky, Degas, Chaplin, Isak Dinesen, Meyerhold, Monty Python, and T. S. Eliot have in common? What do such disparate work as Picasso's Family of Saltimbanques," Bergman's "Sawdust and Tinsel," Waugh's "Put Out More Flags," and Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" share? As Green and Swan persuasively argue in their new book, all have been influenced by the Italian commedia dell-arte. . . . Exaggeration, artifice, and a self-conscious theatricality are commedia's hallmarks; impertinence, mockery, and irony its weapons against the serious threats of the real world. No wonder, then, that commedia (along with the archetypes it supplies) exerted a fierce hold on the modernist imagination, and according to the authors left its imprint on virtually every area of Western culture from 1890 to 1930."-Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times"Green and Swan have given us an extraordinary interdisciplinary work. Using Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the saltimbanque paintings of Picasso and Schoenberg's musical experiments as the starting point, they examine the modernist consciousness, which evolved from the 16th-century concept of the commedia dell'arte character of Pierrot, the original free-spirited revolutionary of European improvisational theater. Green and Swan are sweeping and occasionally breathtaking as they link the masters of modern literary culture to the tragicomic, grotesque traditions of the Harlequin: in literature, Rilke, Kafka, Brecht, and Weill; in art, Chagall and Rouault; in music, Stravinsky and Ravel; in film, Keaton, Chaplin, and the German expressionist montage of Lang and Wiene. From commedia to Caligari, the theme of this enormously provocative book is revolt and the modern spirit. . . . an intellectual tour de force."-Choice
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0271009284/?tag=2022091-20
Swan, John Charles was born on April 12, 1945 in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, United States. Son of John Clement and Winifred Jean (Sturtevant).
Student, Northwestern University, 1966. Bachelor, Boston University, 1967. Master of Arts, Tufts University, 1969.
Doctor of Philosophy, Tufts University, 1975. Master of Library Science, Simmons College, 1979.
Reformed library Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, 1979-1986. Head library Bennington (Vermont) College, 1986-1994. Part-time instructor English and American literature University Massachusetts, Boston, Tufts University, Curry College, Massasoit Community College, University Massachusetts Higher Education for Prisoners Program, 1970-1979.
Learning libraries assistant lectureship National Endowment of the Humanities Boston Public Library., 1975, lectureship, 1977.
(What do Stravinsky, Degas, Chaplin, Isak Dinesen, Meyerho...)
Board directors adult education The Tutorial Center, Bennington, 1989-1993. Trustee McCullough Library., North Bennington, Vermont, 1991-1994. Permanent trustee Bennington Free Library., 1991-1994.
Board directors Sage City Symphony, 1992-1994. Member American Library Association (chair intellectual freedom round table 1985-1986, executive board directors 1980-1992), American Civil Liberties Union (board directors Vermont chapter 1990-1992), Vermont Library. Association (chair intellectual freedom committee 1987-1993), Indiana Library.
Association (chair intellectual freedom committee 1981-1986), Granville Bantock Society (Annual award 1983), Baker Street Breakfast Club.
Son of; married Susan Reynolds Crocker, May 1, 1971. Children: Matthew Carey, Benjamin Charles.