Kobek Bonus: The CIA and Literary Fiction

In this freewheeling bonus episode, Kylie and Dan assess Jarett Kobek's claim in I Hate the Internet that "the good novel, as an idea, was created by the Central Intelligence Agency." Kylie summarizes her dissertation research on the relationship between the American intelligence community and American fiction, Dan comes up with some wild metaphors, and they both weigh in on whether the CIA's influence on literary production prevented authors from developing new forms or ideas. Plus, a spontaneous NewlyReads Game and Dan's infamous T.S. Eliot impression!An incomplete bibliography of great books on this topic that Kylie references in the episode: For more information on the Congress of Cultural Freedom, see Frances Stonor Saunders's The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. For more on the general relationship between American intelligence, literature, and university humanities programs, see Timothy Melley's The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State and Robin Winks's Cloak and Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961.For a more focused examination of how Faulkner was promoted as an American asset in the Cold War cultural battle, see Lawrence H. Schwartz's Creating Faulkner's Reputation: The Politics of Modern Literary Criticism. And finally, for more information on the FBI's policing of black writers and thinkers in the twentieth century, see F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover's Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature , Barbara Foley's Wrestling with the Left: The Making of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Richard Gid Powers's G-Men: Hoover's FBI in American Popular Culture.