We are so excited to welcome Ed Simon back to celebrate and discuss his new book, American Elegy. He will be joined in conversation by Frank Lehner. Following the talk there will be time for Q&A with the audience and book signing.
Want to pre-order a copy of the book? You can do so here.
About the book:
Before there was the United States, there was America. The former is a country, a nation, a geographic reality, but the latter
is an idea. Invented more than discovered, "America" signified a revolutionary ideal of freedom, liberty,
equality, and justice, what Tom Paine in Common Sense meant when he wrote that "We have it in our power to begin the world over again."
Among the greatest expressions of that faith was the Declaration of Independence with its promise to forge a nation dedicated to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. American society and culture have always existed within the gulf of our stated aspirations and the actual reality, which has necessitated the forging of prophetic voices from Walt Whitman to Toni Morrison, Herman Melville to James Baldwin. Now, just as we prepare for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the United States is succumbing to authoritarianism and the noxious blood-and-soil nationalism which curses the faith in the universal and indispensable America.
In response to this moment, noted cultural critic Ed Simon offers a rejoinder in American Elegy: Reflections on 250 Years of the Dis-United States of America. Compiling an assemblage that's less a canon than a cultural mixtape, Simon presents fifty short chapters that are asynchronously organized works of flash criticism, meant to draw connections across time periods, which each celebrate an aspect of the "America" that's larger, deeper,
and broader than the mere United States. Here the Great American Novel meets the Great American Songbook; sign language converses with the blues; method acting shares the stage with Afrofuturism, and Superman plays baseball. Defining "literature" as broadly as possible, each of the works profiled critiques the status quo and imagines a better world.
As cynical politicians deny the diversity, complexity, and actual beauty of American culture in favor of myths about the nation being made great again, Simon provides not just an elegy, but a challenge and celebration, as well as a repository, an archive, and a call to start over. In the tradition of Gary Wills and Greil Marcus, American Elegy charts a course to a land still undiscovered.
About the author:
Ed Simon is Public Humanities Lecturer in the English Department of Carnegie Mellon University and editor of The Pittsburgh Review of Books. A widely published author, his Devil's Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain was named one of the Best Books of 2024 by The New Yorker.
About the conversation partner:
Frank Lehner is a writer, educator, and award-winning book designer, and executive coach whose work explores storytelling’s power to shape experience and community. He has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University, and for President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative. His community focus is on guiding youth and young adults to develop and apply their stories that serve to create believable lives rich with meaning, passion, and purpose.
Deeply rooted in the urban pastoral of Pittsburgh, Lehner’s work finds grace, grit, and humor in the characters—human and otherwise—and wonder within. His poetry appears in diverse periodicals, and his plays have been staged in Pittsburgh and New York City. He holds a master’s in psychology from Duquesne University. His poetry collection, Mrs. Nussbaum’s Monkey, is from Bottom Dog Press (2025). Lehner and Jamie Lee Curtis, oddly enough, share the same SAT score.