Eighteen Students Named In Philolexian Election Philolexian elections of eighteen new students, raising membership in the one hundred and forty-two year, old society, third oldest college literary group in America, to twenty-seven, took place recently under the guidance of Theodore Hoffman, retiring chairman. ' During the meeting Walter Adams was named chairman protem until the society could become reorganized sufficiently to hold a definite election. Plans are under way for a Philolexian editorial board to run Jester-Re-view, although this does not eliminate outside contributions. Newly elected members are as follows: John Crossett, Robert Gutmann, Jay Vogelbaum, Arthur Armstrong, William Garrett, Lale Andrews, Lucien Can-, Matt Kenny, Allen Ginsberg, Rudolph Binion, Ralph Gladstone, William Jocelyn, Joseph Duffy, Jerry Rothenberg, Ernest Schwartz, Spurgeon Keany, Arthur Lazarus,…

Columbia Daily Spectator, 1944-06-02 →

New Jester-Review Board Submitted By Philolexians Needs Approval of Hoffman, Lawrence, Society Elects Wietzner, Ginsberg, Crosset As Next Year's Officers Philolexian merged its revived organization with JesterReview officially last week by electing new officers for the Society and selecting an editorial panel for the magazine to be submitted to Theodore Hoffman and Seymour Lawrence, out-going Jester-Review editorial board, for final approval. In the Society's own elections, held in the Browsing Room on the third floor of South Hall, Richard Weitzner was chosen president, Allen Ginsberg vicepresident, and John Crossett as Treasurer. The appointment of Mr. Benjamin Hubbard as permanent secretary of the organization was announced and confirmed. As the initial move in bringing the editorial control of JesterReview under Philolexian hands, a panel of editors was chosen for submission…

Columbia Daily Spectator, 1944-08-04 →

Philolexians To Form Plans For Jester-Review The supervision and publishing of Jester-Review by the Philolexian Society were discussed last night at a meeting in the Browsing Room of South Hall as a request for editors, staff members, and contributors to the humorliterary magazine was formulated for presentation to the student body. Jester-Review's new editorial board remains under the jurisdiction of King's Crown, although Philolexian maintains its independence as a Society separate from any University influence. The by-laws which were presented at last week's meeting were finally ratified after several of their points were discussed. Officers who will aid in supervising the Jester-Review were elected at the meeting. Mr. Benjamin Hubbard was named permanent secretary. The Rules Committee includes Acting Chairman Walter W. Adams, Allan Ginsberg, Richard Weitzner, and John Crossett.

Columbia Daily Spectator, 1944-07-28 →

Prize Winners Announced For Boar's Head Reading Coman Leavenworth, Allen Ginsberg, and Theodore Melnechuk are the winners of the $lOO Boar's Head Poetry Contest sponsored jointly by Philolexian and the Columbia Review, it was announced yesterday by John Hollander, outgoing editor of Review. Leavenworth, Ginsberg, and Melnechuk, who are the recipients of a fifty dollar and two twentyfive dollar prizes respectively, will read their verse along with seven other finalists in the contest tonight at 8 o'clock in Earl Hall. W. H. Auden, renowned British poet, will be present at the Boar's Head Poetry Reading, along with many students and members of the faculty. The final group of poems was submitted for the consideration of the judges, Professors Andrew J. Chiappe and Lionel Trilling, who commented upon the generally high quality of the Boar's Head Poetry this year. All of the verse read…

Columbia Daily Spectator, 1947-04-22 →

Prize Poetry Will be Read Stephen Spender, noted English poet now lecturing at Sarah Lawrence College, will attend as guest speaker and will lead an informal discussion of the poetry read at the annual Boar's Head Poetry Reading tonight at 8:30 in the Browsing Room of the Library. Free to all who are interested in poetry, the Reading is sponsored jointly by the Columbia Review and the Philolexian Society, and will feature a reading and discussion of the winning poems in the recent Boar's Head Poetry Contest. The winners of the contest, who will recite their poetic creations this evening were announced last week by Norman Kelvin and Donald Friedman, co-chairmen of the competition. Sharing first place were John Hollander and Allen Ginsberg, while Ted Melnechuk captured second prize. The three winners will divide the $5O award. The judges of the contest, Professors Mark Van Doren and…

Columbia Daily Spectator, 1948-05-04 →

From Hamilton to Sha Na Na: Famous CU alums abound By Jean Lee Did the walls of your John Jay room witness the musical birth of Sha Na Na? Are you washins your whites in the same machine as Suzanne Vesa did? Did Art Garfunkel lose his way around campus durins Orientation, too? Possibly, very probably. These former Columbia first—years and more survived Orientation, Contemporary Civilization, and the required swim test while their counterparts across Broadway endured the senior thesis and the year of lab science. And they went beyond the sates on Broadway to achieve fame and admiration in the music, art, literature, business, and political worlds of American culture. The lons an d lustrous list of Columbia alums stretches back to the University'sorisins as Kins's Collese, established in 1754. Under the leadership of the Collese's first president, the Reverend Samuel Johnson,…

Columbia Daily Spectator, 1990-08-30 →

Sylvain Bromberger, back in our student days at Columbia, was one of the literary bunch who revived the Philolexian Society and edited or wrote for the Columbia Review; others included Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Gold '46, Daniel G. Hoffman '47, John Hollander '50, Norman Kelvin, Louis Simpson '49GS, and me.

One of the mid/late-1940s revivers of the Philolexian Society.

Columbia College Today — vol. 41 (~2001), Class of 1948 alumni class notes — reminiscence by Ted Melnechuk '48 about Sylvain Bromberger →

Thomas Vinceguerra '85, former managing editor of CCT and now deputy editor of The Week, helped to revive the Philolexian Society in October 1985 and still helps to maintain and lead it... In the Columbia archives, Tom discovered the Philolexian Society's original membership scroll. From it, he could tell that, between Philos' original founding in 1802 and its 1985 revival, it was revived twice. The first revival was in 1944 and involved Walter Wager '44, who nowadays is that year's class correspondent. The second was in October 1947, and among the signatures from that time were those of Vincent Carrozza '49, Jason Epstein '49, and Theodor [sic] Melnechuk... Tom sent me a list of members of our class who were members of the Philolexian Society when it was revived in 1947. They included Sylvain Bromberger, the late Barry Decker, Herbert C. V. Feinstein, the late Allen Ginsberg, Donald…

Melnechuk's class-notes column names Allen Ginsberg as a 1947 revival signatory (and the subject of the late-1947 mock trial at which Melnechuk was his defense attorney) — cross-checked against Thomas Vinciguerra's 1980s discovery of the original Philolexian membership scroll in the Columbia archives, which lists the members who signed at the October 1947 revival. Two-source confirmation of Society membership: (a) the physical scroll signature, and (b) Vinciguerra + Melnechuk's transcription.

Columbia College Today — vol. 44 (Nov 2002 / Jan 2003), Class of 1948 alumni class notes by Ted Melnechuk →

typed insert linked by a dotted rule into the 1948 group; X in blue · Confidence: CERTAIN

142nd year of the Society (1944) · Confidence: CERTAIN

note on recent books about him, ten years after his death · Confidence: CERTAIN