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{{short description|American writer and cultural critic (born 1957)}}

factoids

| birth_place = The Bronx, New York, U.S.| death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Writer| language = English| nationality = American| ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = Columbia University| period = | genre = Criticism| subjects = Culture, Literature, Society| movement = | notableworks = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website = | portaldisp = }}Lee Siegel (born 1957) is an American writer and cultural critic who has written for multiple publications.WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100408085440weblink">weblink April 8, 2010, Lee Siegel, The New York Review of Books. nybooks.com, 2018-07-28, He has authored multiple books of nonfiction and received a National Magazine Award.

Early life and career

Siegel was born in The Bronx, New York. He received his BA from the Columbia University School of General Studies and his MA and MPhil from Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.He worked as an editor at The New Leader and ARTnews before turning to writing full-time in 1998. Siegel has been the book critic for The Nation, art critic for Slate, television critic for and senior editor of The New Republic,WEB,weblink Lee Siegel, Thenation.com, 2010-04-13, staff writer for Talk magazine, staff writer for Harper's, contributing writer for the Los Angeles Times Book Review, associate editor of Raritan, senior columnist for The Daily Beast, and weekly columnist for The New York Observer. He is a contributing editor of City Journal. In 2011 Siegel served as one of three judges for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award.WEB, 2011 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award,weblink PEN America, 12 June 2015, {{Dead link|date=February 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}Siegel has authored multiple books of nonfiction starting in 2006.

Reception

In 2002 Siegel received the National Magazine Award in the category "Reviews and Criticism". Jeff Bercovici, writing in Media Life Magazine, quoted the award citation, which called the essays "models of original thinking and passionate writing... {{interp|Siegel's}} tough-minded yet generous criticism is prose of uncommon power—work that dazzles readers by drawing them into the play of ideas and the enjoyment of lively, committed debate".MAGAZINE, Bercovici, Jeff, Atlantic rises to the occasion,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160304201314weblink">weblink 2016-03-04, May 2, 2002, Media Life, Media Life Magazine, 2018-07-28, In 2007 Caryn James, commenting on Not Remotely Controlled in the New York Times, said that "at their best, Siegel’s scattershot observations offer a kind of drive-by brilliance," but that he often "wildly overstates his case or ignores inconvenient evidence."WEB, James, Caryn, TV Guide,weblink New York Times. nytimes.com, July 22, 2007, 2015-06-15, Siegel's 2008 critique of Web culture, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, was called by Janet Maslin in the New York Times "rigorously sane, fair, and illuminating". Maslin noted that, with occasional lapses, it "brings dead-on accuracy to depicting the quietly insinuating ways in which the Internet can blow your mind".NEWS, Maslin, Janet, Spinning Out into the Pileup on the Information Superhighway, January 17, 2008,weblink New York Times, 2015-06-14, In 2011, Donna Rifkind, writing in New York Times Book Review, reviewed Are You Serious? How to Be True and Get Real in the Age of Silly, calling Siegel "a tireless adversary, battling wrong-headed people and worn-out ideas" but also saying "there is little practical counsel here."WEB, Rifkind, Donna, The Age of Anti-Serious Seriousness,weblink New York Times. nytimes.com, July 29, 2011, 2015-06-14, Print version July 31, 2011, in the Sunday Book Review.Siegel's 2017 memoir, The Draw, was praised in the New York Times Book Review by Jerald Walker as "brilliant." Walker went on to say, "An assortment of lively characters, hard-edged humor, rich psychological portraits and searing social commentary, The Draw is spellbinding, a coming-of-age tour de force."NEWS, Walker, Jerald, 2017-05-12, Mothers and Sons, en-US, The New York Times,weblink 2022-12-15, 0362-4331,

Controversies

Deceptive posting and suspension

In September 2006, Siegel was suspended from The New Republic after an internal investigation determined he was participating in misleading comments in the magazine's "Talkback" section in response to criticisms of his blog postings at The New Republic's website.WEB, Parker, James,weblink 'We see you, Lee. We see you.' - The Boston Globe, Boston.com, September 10, 2006, 2010-04-13, The comments were made through the device of a "sock puppet" dubbed "sprezzatura", who, as one reader noted, was a consistently vigorous defender of Siegel, and who specifically denied being Siegel when challenged by another commenter in "Talkback". In response to readers who had criticized Siegel's negative comments about TV talk show host Jon Stewart, 'sprezzatura' wrote, "Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep".NEWS, Aspan, Maria, New Republic Suspends an Editor for Attacks on Blog, New York Times, Section C, Page 4, September 4, 2006,weblink The New Republic posted an apology and shut down Siegel's blog. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Siegel dismissed the incident as a "prank". He resumed writing for The New Republic in early 2007.WEB, Meyer, David, Raging against the internet machine, ZDNet, May 29, 2008,weblink 2015-12-14,

Student loan default op-ed

In June 2015, Siegel wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times entitled "Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans",NEWS, Siegel, Lee, Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans, June 6, 2015,weblink New York Times, 2015-06-12, in which he defended defaulting on the loans he received for living expensesMAGAZINE, Weissmann, Jordan, June 8, 2015, The New York Times Should Apologize for the Awful Op-Ed It Just Ran on Student Loans,weblink Slate, 2015-06-12, NEWS, Lyster, Lauren, Interview with Lee Siegel: Why one man defaulted on his student loans and suggests you should too,weblink 2015-06-12, Yahoo News, June 8, 2015, while on full scholarship and working his way through college and graduate school at Columbia University, writing that “[t]he millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example.”Economist Susan Dynarski wrote that Siegel is not typical of student loan defaulters both in that the typical student-loan recipient attends a public university and in that only two percent of those borrowing to fund a graduate degree default on their loans.WEB, Dynarski, Susan, Student Loans and Defaults: The Facts,weblink New York Times. nytimes.com, June 11, 2015, 2015-06-12, Conservative political commentator Kevin D. Williamson, writing in National Review, called it "theft,"MAGAZINE, Williamson, Kevin D., Student-Loan Deadbeats: Fashionable Theft,weblink National Review, June 9, 2015, 2015-06-12, saying that "an Ivy League degree or three is every much an item of conspicuous consumption and a status symbol as a Lamborghini." Senior Business and Economics Correspondent for Slate Jordan Weissman called it "deeply irresponsible" to suggest that students should consider defaulting on their loans and said that The New York Times should apologize for the piece.NEWS, Dynarski, Susan,weblink Student Loans and Defaults: The Facts, 2015-06-11, The New York Times, 2020-03-30, en-US, 0362-4331, Siegel's original article was also criticized in Business Insider and MarketWatch.WEB,weblink New York Times op-ed writer who defaulted on student loans differs from many borrowers in one big way, Jackson, Abby, Business Insider, 2020-03-30, WEB,weblink Defaulting on student loans is still a bad idea, Berman, Jillian, MarketWatch, en-US, 2020-03-30, Siegel appeared to further discuss the article on Yahoo! Finance.WEB,weblink Why Lee Siegel is defaulting on his college loans, finance.yahoo.com, 8 June 2015, en-US, 2020-03-30,

Personal life

Siegel lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.Lee Siegel , The Huffington Post. Accessed February 6, 2012. "Lee Siegel is the author, most recently, of Are You Serious: How to Be True and Get Real in the Age of Silly, just out from HarperCollins."

Bibliography

• Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination (Basic Books, 2006)
• Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television (Basic Books, 2007)
• Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob (Spiegel&Grau/Random House, 2008)
• Are You Serious? How to Be True and Get Real in the Age of Silly (HarperCollins, 2011)
• Harvard Is Burning (Kindle Single, 2011)
• Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence (Yale University Press, 2016)
• The Draw: A Memoir (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017)
• Why Argument Matters (Yale University Press, 2022)

References

{{Reflist|2}}

External links

• Video Interview: Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob at LIVE from the New York Public Library, April 10, 2008
• Review of Against The Machine in salon.com

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