Paul Goodman (writer)
| Paul Goodman | |
|---|---|
Goodman in 1959
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| Born |
September 9, 1911 Greenwich Village, New York, U.S. |
| Died | August 2, 1972 (aged 60) North Stratford, New Hampshire, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
Paul Goodman (/ˈɡʊdmən/; September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American novelist, playwright, poet, literary critic, and psychotherapist, although now best known as a social critic and anarchist philosopher. Though often thought of as a sociologist, he vehemently denied being one in a presentation in the Experimental College at San Francisco State in 1964, and in fact said he could not read sociology because it was too often lifeless. The author of dozens of books including Growing Up Absurd and The Community of Scholars, Goodman was an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and a frequently cited inspiration to the student movement of that decade. A lay therapist for a number of years, he was a co-founder of Gestalt therapy in the 1940s and 1950s.
Paul Goodman was born to Augusta and Barnette Goodman, Americans of German, Jewish, and middle-class heritage, on September 9, 1911 in New York City. His father left the family prior to his birth, making Paul their fourth and last child, after Alice (1902) and Percival (1904). Their mother worked to support the family as a women's clothes traveling saleswoman, which left Goodman to be raised mostly by his aunts and sister in New York City.
Goodman attended New York City public schools, where he was a "good student" and came to associate himself with Manhattan. He also went to Hebrew school. Goodman performed well in literature and languages during his time at Townsend Harris Hall High School, and graduated in 1927. He started at City College of New York the same year, where Goodman majored in philosophy, was influenced by philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen, and found an intellectual circle of what would be lifelong friends. He graduated with a bachelor's in 1931.
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