Ed Simon’s American Elegy in Publishers Weekly Feature on America250

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“Editor and public humanities lecturer Ed Simon takes a critic’s approach in American Elegy (Ig, June). In 50 short essays, he weaves history, pop culture, literature, music, science, and more, interrogating what he calls the dis-United States. Simon’s cultural studies background leads him to draw from unorthodox sources, emphasizing thought and content over hierarchy of form. “It’s an expansive view of what qualifies as literature,” he says. “To summarize what’s unique about American culture, certain things have to be in there—comic books, for instance, are an American form.”