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Scott Stossel

Scott Stossel is Culture Editor of The American Prospect.

Scott Stossel joined The American Prospect as associate editor in early
1996, helping to preside over its first transformation from quarterly to
bimonthly, and served as the magazine's executive editor from 1997 to 2001.
As executive editor, Stossel helped found and run the Prospect's writing
fellows program, oversaw the magazine's second transformation from a
bimonthly to a biweekly publication, and brought a number of exciting new
writers into the magazine.

Stossel has written for the Prospect on such diverse issues as TV imagery,
race and sports, the 2000 election, and literary critic Edmund Wilson.
Stossel's articles and essays on culture and society also appear regularly
in such publications as The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Atlantic
Monthly, and The Boston Phoenix. He is currently working on a book about
Sargent Shriver (founder of the Peace Corps, the War on Poverty, and the
Special Olympics, as well as the brother-in-law of John F. Kennedy).

Stossel came to The American Prospect from The Atlantic Monthly, where he spent
one year editing the Arts & Entertainment Preview and four years as both a staff
editor and editorial director for new media.

An avid sports fan, he plays tennis, squash, and soccer regularly. He considers
the United States's victory in the 1999 Women's World Cup one of the best things
to happen to the country in recent years. One of his biggest heroes is the soccer
player Mia Hamm. Since 1999, he has been a visiting lecturer in American Studies
at Trinity College, where he teaches a graduate seminar on sports and culture.

Born and raised in the Boston area, Stossel graduated from Harvard University in
1991 and presently lives in Cambridge with (in the order in which they moved in)
a cat, Atalanta; a wife, Susanna; a dog, Honey Bear; and another cat, Lil' Sage.
He believes himself to have the largest collection of oversized- superballs-
with- strange- objects- inside- them of any magazine editor in the country.

Recent Articles

Kerrey's Quagmire

Scott StosselApr 26, 2002

On the afternoon of Friday, March 15, the last day before spring break, New School University President Bob Kerrey made one of his periodic star turns on the Tishman Auditorium' stage in lower Manhattan. In his last such appearance, in April of 2001, Kerrey had answered questions about The New York Times Magazine's revelation that a platoon of soldiers, under his nighttime command, had slaughtered civilians in the village of Thanh Phong during the Vietnam War. On that occasion Kerrey had played, if not quite the villain, then the tortured antihero, wrestling with his conscience while attacking his critics. In his more recent appearance, however, there was no such ambiguity: Kerrey was the bad guy.

The Sexual Counterrevolution

The sexual revolution brought excess as well as progress. In the aftermath of AIDS, a new puritanism threatens to repeal both.

Scott StosselDec 19, 2001



WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY

Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider, The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right (Warner Books, 1995).

John Heidenry, What Wild Ecstasy: The Rise and Fall of the Sexual Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 1997).

Samuel Janus and Cynthia Janus, The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior (John Wiley & Sons, 1993).

Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (W.B. Saunders, 1948).

Born-Again Bipartisanship

Scott StosselDec 19, 2001

Here's a dictionary entry straight out of Ambrose Bierce: bipartisan politician--a Democrat who's afraid of being indicted.


Stirrings in the Justice Department have led some observers to predict that indictments are forthcoming against two 18-year Democratic veterans of Congress. In the Senate, New Jersey's Robert Torricelli has reportedly been under scrutiny for possible fundraising improprieties during his 1996 election campaign [see Art Levine, "The Amazing Adventures of Money Man," TAP, April 24, 2000]. And in the House of Representatives, the inimitable Jim Traficant of Youngstown, Ohio, may have to answer to a litany of charges ranging from tax evasion to bribery and racketeering.

Echo Chamber of Horrors

Scott StosselDec 19, 2001

Let's get one thing straight right from the get-go. We would rather be last in reporting returns than be wrong... . If we say somebody has carried a state, you can pretty much take it to the bank, book it that that's true.


--Dan Rather, CBS News, early evening, November 7





We've always said, you know, this is not an exact science. It's an imperfect art at best. And one of the things I think we could do better is to underscore more often with people that while we believe we were right in making these calls ... they can be wrong.



--Dan Rather on CNN's Reliable Sources, November 11

State of the Debate: Who's Afraid of Michael Jordan?

There's no denying that blacks dominate basketball and other professional sports. But have whites rationalized black physical prowess only by equating it with mental deficiency?

Scott StosselDec 07, 2001





WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY

John Hoberman, Darwin's Athletes: How Sport Has Damaged Black
America and Preserved the Myth of Race (Houghton Mifflin,
1997).

Dennis Rodman (with Tim Keown), Bad As I Wanna Be (Delacorte
Press, 1996).

Kenneth L. Shropshire, In Black and White: Race and Sports
in America (New York University Press, 1996).

One of the blackest players ever to play professional basketball
was white.

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