Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community

Duberman, Martin. "Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community", Northwestern University Press, 2009. A Unique Community Amos Lassen Black Mountain College is ranked as one of the most important artistic and intellectual communities of the twentieth century. Among its faculty and alumni are John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller and Paul Goodman among many others. Martin Duberman takes us there as we read through interviews, research and stories and we see the college for what it was. The book looks at the 23 year tenure of Black Mountain College and includes the up and downs, the victories and the low points. Through all kinds of difficulties, Black Mountain continued to operate and it has been a community that has been important to the development of the arts in America as well as a counterculture. Black Mountain is almost mythological and this is a comprehensive look at the school that provided the United States with its most important artists. It is a world of ideas and we see how easily living and learning come together. Education was not only in the classroom; it was in the air and the atmosphere. Duberman's research is outstanding and he gives us the history of the school and we see the influence it has had and still has. The major problem, as with any center of learning, has been finances but this did not hinder the intellectual achievements of the school. A school like none other, it is integral to the artistic and intellectual history of our country and Martin Duberman has done it and himself proud.

Most of the book is devoted to institutional history (governance, finances, who sided with who in this or that petty dispute, etc.). Some attention is given to community aspects. We learn next to nothing about the academic side of things. The one exception is art, which is given some attention and only here are there some accounts of what actually went on in the classrooms. Art was central from the start and Black Mountain College became artier with the years and is perhaps best remembered as an art school today, but I still think there is good reason to be dissatisfied with this one-sided perspective, especially considering the founder Rice's very explicit rejection of the idea of the college as an art school: "'God, no!' he'd thunder, 'that's the last thing I want. They're the most awful places in the world!'" (p. 55). The following brief summary is essentially all we learn about how the college functioned academically: "Classes varied considerably in format, since each teacher was left to his own devices. Some would lecture or direct discussions more than others; some would settle for words, others would show pictures and play music; and occasional seminar would be taught by three or four instructors, and many classes had staff members or their wives sitting in as students. Most instructors privately jotted down grades, but only---so went the rationale, anyway---in case a student later needed a 'record' for transfer or for graduate school. The grades were never passed on to the students themselves, and never, therefore, became the focus of energy or the standards for evaluating self-worth ... The only exams given at Black Mountain were those to pass from junior to senior (specialized) division, and those set by outside examiners when a student felt ready to graduate. For the division exam, students were given all day, free use of the library and wide choice among many questions (which often included conundrums like 'How do you know the Philippine Islands exist?', or 'How do you know the sky is blue?'). ... Black Mountain never managed to get accreditation." (p. 108). Other interesting topics on which we would have liked to learn more include things like John Dewey's relation to the college. Dewey visited several times and became a member of the college's advisory board, but for some reason Duberman thinks that this should earn him no more that two short paragraphs (p. 102). The general conclusion from the entire experiment is fairly predictable: the college attracted interesting students (when fired from Rollins College, Rice "had few doubts about the students interested in starting a new school; 'top flight,' according to Rice, 'not a second-rater in the lot'---and indeed they included the president of the student body and the editor of the undergraduate paper." (p. 28)), and dedicated faculty (In 1942 "the community tried various expediencies in order to cut costs. Having already contributed its labor in putting up the new plant, the faculty

With exceptional research, interviews and anecdotes, Duberman details the brief, lively history of Black Mountain College in western North Carolina. The influence of this experimental community continues to the present (the faculty and alumni included Anna and Josef Albers, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Jonathan Williams, among many others). The struggle to keep the College fiscally solvent from year-to-year, as often happens at any instution, becomes paramount to the story, but doesn't detract from the intellectual achievement of Black Mountain -- or diminish the artistic clashes of its participants. In the 1970s, the founding of the Naropa Institute, the Jack Kerouac School of Disemobodied Poetics, and other experiments in community would find echoes in the history of Black Mountain College. This is an entertaining and informative history, and essential reading for anyone interested in mid-20th century literature and art.

Needing guidance on how to lead an artist's community, I discovered this rare and remarkable book. It takes you inside an intentional community, one better known for its mythology than for its reality, and shows you the birth, growth and death of an ideal. Unlike other books on similar subjects, it is never trivial or purely ancedotal -- every paragraph reveals something fundamental about the struggles, passions, successes and failures that are part of inventing a community. There are moments in this book that are so profoundly true -- I know this because I recognize them from my own similar experiences. I respect Duberman's perceptions and his deep emotional attachment to the subject (someday I hope to thank the author personally as this book has made a positive difference in my life and the development of my community). I recommend this as a textbook for those thinking of starting an artist's community.

Duberman's classic "Black Mountain" is the definitive work of scholarship on the school that gave America its most pivotal and influential artists of the 20th century. A sheer joy to read, this account of the rise and fall of Black Mountain engages the reader into a world of ideas, community and art that is all too rare in today's considerations. Teachers can learn how to Teach and Do at the same time. Students can learn the meaning of involvement, responsibility and creativity. Parents might learn a thing or two about choices. And administrators will see where they've gone wrong. Something for nearly everyone in this erudite, and poignant dissertation. If there was one idea that pervades the book, and, indeed, pervaded the college it was that "living" and "learning" should be intertwined, and a favorite slogan at Black Mountain was that "as much real education took place over the coffee cups as in the classrooms." There is much that we all can learn from this account. But read it for the adventure! Think of it as a sort of Intellectual Indiana Jones where the treasure is that harmonious mix of education, art, community and life -- in other words, the very gem that these brave and gifted women and men of eminence sought at Black Mountain. We owe these pioneers a great deal. Honor them with your mind, and read this wondrous account by one of Black Mountain's own. Dave Beckwith Founder/President Charlotte Internet Society