The arts: general topics Books

Book SynopsisHow artists wield demonstration to question the status quo both aesthetically and politically, marshaling art and education as powerful agents of change.Demonstration, in short, says: See here. It is the practice of pointing to something in order to explain or contest it. As such, Sven Spieker argues that demonstration has helped reshape art from the height of the Cold War to the late twentieth century, reformatting our understanding of how art and political engagement relate to each other. Focusing on Western Europe (especially Germany), Eastern Europe, and the United States, Art as Demonstration expands on contemporary discussions of art-as-protest, activism, and resistance. Spieker shows how a closer, more historical look at art’s connection with demonstration reconnects us with earlier efforts, notably by the early twentieth-century avant-garde, to marshal art for the purpose of instruction and engagement.Art as Demonstration reconceives t

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Book SynopsisReflections on the cultural and political complexities of translation in global contemporary artistic practices.The movement of global populations, and subsequently the task of translation, underlies contemporary culture. Economic and environmental migration, forced political exiles, and the plight of refugees are now superimposed upon the intricacies of ancient and modern diasporas, generations of colonization, and the transportation of slaves. This timely anthology considers translation's ongoing role in cultural navigation, empathy, and understanding disparate experiences. It explores the approaches of artists, poets, and theorists in negotiating increasingly protean identities—from the intrinsic intimacy of language, to translation's embedded structures of knowledge production and interaction, to its limitations of expression, and, ultimately, its importance in a world of multiple perspectives.Artists surveyed include Meric Algün Ringborg, Get

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Book SynopsisArtists and writers consider a tactical desertion from the “culture wars”—a refusal to be distracted, an embrace of the emancipatory understanding of culture.Deserting from the Culture Wars reflects upon and intervenes in our current moment of ever-more polarizing ideological combat, often seen as the return of the “culture wars.” How are these culture wars defined and waged? Engaging in a theater of war that has been delineated by the enemy is a shortcut to defeat. Getting out of the reactive mode that produces little but a series of Pavlovian responses, this book proposes a tactical desertion from the culture wars as they are being waged today—a refusal to play the other side's war games, an unwillingness to be distracted.The volunteer troops in the culture wars are often given marching orders by professional masters of propaganda. What, then, might artists and others who are professionally engaged with images and imaginarie

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Book SynopsisCombining handbook, dictionary, and anthology, investigations and examples of artistic practices aimed at social change.This volume from BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, combines handbook, dictionary, and anthology to investigate artistic practice aimed at achieving social change. With text and visual essays, definitions, exercises, interviews, and images, the contributors envision a praxis that is committed to experimenting with aesthetics and politics in ways that go beyond the conventions of Western modernity. These are practices that are interdisciplinary, theoretically informed, and politically driven, offering ways of being together otherwise. Catalyzed by the work of artist Jeanne van Heeswijk, which focuses on radicalizing civic processes, Toward the Not-Yet imagines and enacts alternative ways of conceiving the present and future.Contributors, among them notable artists, scholars, activists, and writers consider ways of participating in civic life,

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Book SynopsisA satirical poem about the rivalry of various fruits becomes a point of departure for investigations of tolerance and identity in a pluralistic world.The Contest of the Fruits takes a nineteenth-century Uyghur satirical poem as a departure point for investigations of language, politics, religion, humor, resilience, and resistance in a pluralistic world. Composed at the crossroads of multiple civilizations and empires and born of the Uyghurs' liminal position at the edges of Islam and the frontiers of China, The Contest of the Fruits captures a world in which borders are gateways rather than dividing lines. The poem, highly performative, embellished with verbal flourishes, and featuring the ribald rivalry of such fruits as mulberry, pomegranate, quince, and pear, may be the first Turkic rap battle. The book, which accompanies a project by the art collective Slavs and Tatars, brings together artists, academics, poets, and performers to create a visually comp

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Book SynopsisA richly illustrated volume—and the first exhibition catalog—of the work of the artist Allison Katz, whose multilayered paintings, ceramics, and posters are both embodied and enigmatic.London-based Canadian artist Allison Katz has been exploring painting’s relationship to questions of identity and expression, selfhood and voice, for more than a decade. Animated by a restless sense of humor, her works articulate what the artist has called a “genuine ambiguity.” Artery—a book that situates itself somewhere between a monograph, exhibition catalog, and an artist’s book—is an exploration of what is within and below, and of the infrastructural arteries that connect all of us. It is published on the occasion of Katz’s first institutional exhibition in the United Kingdom, presented at Nottingham Contemporary (2021) and Camden Art Centre, London (2022).Gathering together essays from Sam Thorne, director of Notti

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Book SynopsisAn intimate collection of portraits of internationally renowned scientists and Nobel Prize winners, paired with interviews and personal stories.What makes a brilliant scientist? Who are the people behind the greatest discoveries of our time? Connecting art and science, photographer Herlinde Koelbl seeks the answers in this English translation of the German book Fascination of Science, an indelible collection of portraits of and interviews with sixty pioneering scientists of the twenty-first century. Koelbl’s approach is intimate and accessible, and her highly personal interviews with her subjects reveal the forces (as well as the personal quirks) that motivate the scientists’ work; for example, one wakes up at 3 am because her mind is calm then, another says his best ideas come to him in the shower. These glimpses into the scientists’ lives and thinking add untold texture in this up-to-the-minute survey of the activities and progress that are cur

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Book SynopsisHow the use of machine learning to analyze art images has revived formalism in art history, presenting a golden opportunity for art historians and computer scientists to learn from one another.Though formalism is an essential tool for art historians, much recent art history has focused on the social and political aspects of art. But now art historians are adopting machine learning methods to develop new ways to analyze the purely visual in datasets of art images. Amanda Wasielewski uses the term “computational formalism” to describe this use of machine learning and computer vision technique in art historical research. At the same time that art historians are analyzing art images in new ways, computer scientists are using art images for experiments in machine learning and computer vision. Their research, says Wasielewski, would be greatly enriched by the inclusion of humanistic issues.The main purpose in applying comput

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Book SynopsisOriginal essays and visual arts projects that explore the understudied breadth and richness of American artist Tony Smith?s work in architecture.Against Reason: Volume 2 is the companion publication to Tony Smith Catalogue Raisonné: Architecture, the second in a two-volume, four-book printed publication series dedicated to Tony Smith?s sculpture and architecture. Edited by curator and historian James Voorhies, Against Reason gathers newly commissioned essays together with visual arts projects by practitioners and critics, including Mario Gooden, Christopher Ketcham, Marta Kuzma, Peter L?Official, R.H. Quaytman, and Jasmine Rault. Their contributions from a wide range of disciplines? from American studies, architecture, and art history to theory, design, and visual art?place Smith?s architectural design work in dialogue with contemporary culture, expanding perspectives on the artist?s canonical work and offering fresh twenty-first-century insights.The Against Reason books complicate and pluralize the very idea of the catalogue raisonné to challenge the monolithic place these forms have in writing art history by providing a more nuanced and historically rich lens through which the Tony Smith archive and his work can be read. In this case, the dual-publication project is an innovative approach to scholarship that situates Smith within contemporary culture, thus making evident his ongoing relevance in the fields of art and design.

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Book SynopsisThe Andean Hybrid Baroque is the first comprehensive study of the architecture and architectural sculpture of Southern Peru in the late colonial period (1660s-1820s).Trade Review“Gauvin Alexander Bailey’s The Andean Hybrid Baroque is a magnificent and ambitious study that not only covers an important geographic area of the southern Andes but also encompasses, in an informative and ordered style, a complex and dense constellation of pre-Hispanic and European cultural references in constant change.” —Ramón Mujica Pinilla, Universidad de San Marcos, Lima, Peru“Gauvin Alexander Bailey’s new book will surely become a textbook and standard resource for Andean art and architecture. With exciting insights into the colonial period in the southern Andes for the avid reader, and with original archival research for the inquisitive scholar, The Andean Hybrid Baroque challenges many of the facile suppositions about the indigenous and European cultural encounter and religious worldview. The author examines church facades in Peru and Bolivia, dating and scrutinizing the detailed carving work of native artists and combining that visual information with the testimony of colonial historians, inquisition records, and the images on textiles and queros (drinking cups). The result is an original and nuanced contribution to Andean scholarship.” —Jaime Lara, University of Notre Dame“In a field which has long been populated by ‘anonymous’ or ‘unknown’ masters, Bailey does important work bringing to light the names of indigenous, mestizo, black, criollo, and European craftsmen, artists, and architects, illustrating the complexity of the artistic and political situation during the colonial era.” —Renaissance Quarterly“In this ambitious and lavishly illustrated volume Gauvin Alexander Bailey reconsiders the imagery carved on the stone facades and portals of a group of colonial churches in present-day southern Peru and northern Bolivia. More than 170 photographs display the visual opulence and lush variety of the ornamentation. . . . His research demonstrates that that notion of ‘hybridity’ in colonial Latin American visual culture is still very much an issue in scholarship today.” —The Americas“Dealing with the late colonial period (1660s–1820s), Gauvin Alexander Bailey . . . [presents a] pioneering and reliable, detailed survey Renaissance scholars can attach to their knowledge of the sixteenth century architecture and anthropology.” —Bibliotheque d’Humanisme et Renaissance“. . . the book’s highly systematic and methodical approach and the wealth of information that is contained within it, so painstakingly researched and brought together, enables the book to do exactly what [Bailey] says it will do and solidly fills the gaps that have hitherto been left in scholarship on the theme. . . this work is an impressive and necessary keystone for any future scholar of religious architecture in the colonial Andes.” —Ecclesiastical History“[A]rt and architectural history are still bound to centuries-old ideas of purity, and The Andean Hybrid Baroque is an important step towards liberating art and architecture from the idea of purity and the consequent exclusion of alterity.” —Bulletin of Latin American Research“This book has two contributions of note. First, the gallery of photographs provides an invaluable resource to scholars interested in the material at hand. Second, Bailey’s documentary transcriptions in the appendices are certain to be mined by future scholars. . . . With these inventories laid forth by Bailey, the book advances a consideration of the periphery of the Spanish colonial world as a dynamic place of architectural, sculptural, and social innovation deserving further study.” —Art Bulletin

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Book SynopsisVincent P. Pecora discovers an alternative history of the twentieth-century Western novel that explains the resurgence of Christian theological ideas in the supposedly secularized genre.Trade Review"Secularization without End is a well-argued and provocative exploration of the modern novel grounded in a compelling set of theological reflections. Vincent P. Pecora discusses primarily Samuel Beckett's trilogy (1950), Thomas Mann's Dr. Faustus (1947), and various novels by J. M. Coetzee from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. This is not just a set of three individual-author essays; it is about an alternative history of the novel that challenges the paradigms that have prevailed from Watt to Moretti." —Russell Berman, Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University"A must read. After Vincent P. Pecora’s Secularization without End, modernism won’t be the same. On the back of his innovative understanding of secularization as interminable, Pecora shows that his authors—Beckett, Mann, and Coetzee—are saturated in a bleak Christianity that they can’t overcome. I can think of few recent books of literary criticism from which I have learnt more." —Simon During, University of Queensland"Vincent P. Pecora's new study offers a most welcome corrective to the still widely accepted notion that the European novel had 'come to supplant the history of religion as the basis of our moral sensibility.' Compact, accessible, and full of engaging and trenchant commentary, Secularization without End provides a valuable resource not just for specialists but for undergraduates studying the modern novel and trying to develop a nuanced and capacious understanding of the complex relationship between literature and religion." —Thomas Pfau, author of Minding the Modern: Human Agency, Intellectual Traditions, and Responsible Knowledge“In Secularization without End, Pecora continues the provocative exploration of the secularization phenomenon that he began in Secularization and Cultural Criticism (2006). His subject is modernism’s tendency to replace religious categories of thought and experience with those of a secular philosophical ethics and epistemology.” —Choice "This is one of the finest exercises in literature and theology that I have encountered for a long time. Its challenge to the reader lies in its profound grasp of theology and its philosophical implications, while at the same time pursuing complex literary discussions of the nature of writing and narrative after Roland Barthes' Writing Degree Zero." —Literature and Theology"Pecora is at his best when revising the big picture and moving through a complex philosophical and literary-critical heritage. . . . Secularization without End is a book that is designed to alter paradigms, and whether or not Pecora’s readers come away convinced of all of his claims, he has written an important and even necessary study that should continue to alter the way we read modern fiction for years to come." —Modern Language Review“Among the most provocative of the questions Pecora explores is this: In what ways has secularization promoted a return to supposedly discarded theologies? While Pecora is interested in the broader and more commonly studied issue of the demise of the secularization thesis, he moves beyond explanations of how religious (primarily Christian) commitments persist in supposedly secular societies to the question of how secularization might have actually served as a causal factor in the renewal of religious thoughts and sentiment.” —Fides et Historia

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“In this brilliant and wonderfully arresting set of responses to Regina Schwartz’s important work Sacramental Poetics at the Dawn of Secularism, an eminent group of contributors helps us think about the capacity of signs to point beyond themselves in our modern secular world.” —Mark Knight, editor of The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion"Toward a Sacramental Poetics offers a compelling invitation to recognize the inexhaustible depths of meaning available in a sacramental vision of reality. Such depths of meaning embrace the poetic in its broadest artistic, epistemological, and communal dimensions. The essays gathered here are a wonderful expression of the depths of communal meaning to which the volume points." —Vittorio Montemaggi, co-editor of Dante, Mercy, and the Beauty of the Human Person“It is impossible to read Milton, Shakespeare, or Jonson the same way after the insightful literary analyses in Toward a Sacramental Poetics.” —Ilha do DesterroTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Cloven Tongues: Theology and the Translation of the Scriptures 2. “Those are pearls”: Transformation, Translation and Exchange 3. How to Write Like God: Dante and Sacramental Poetics 4. Sacramental Poetics and Quasi-Sacramentals 5. The Sacramental Dilation of Richard Hooker 6. The Miracle of the Eucharist and the Mysticism of the Political Body 7. Doubling Metaphysics 8. Verbum efficax: The Theopoetics of Real Presence 9. Dracula’s Sacramental Prosaics and the Remains of Religion in Modernity 10. The Franciscan Hearts of Hopkins and Merton

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“This highly stimulating, erudite, yet also accessible collection provides an absorbing survey of the full range of Dante’s ‘other works’ beyond the Commedia.”—J. Catherine Keen, co-editor of Ethics, Politics and Justice in Dante“Dante’s ‘Other Works’ is altogether excellent, and it fills a much-lamented gap in the bibliography on Dante in English.” —Lino Pertile, co-editor of Dante in Context“The essays are informative, text-centered, and devoid of the kind of tendentious critical theory that subordinates works of literature to contemporary ideology.” —Choice“Dante’s “Other Works” is a wonderful exposition on the complexity of Europe’s greatest poet, the poet of Christendom but also a poet of the universal and syncretic. . . . Any lover of Dante would do well to pick up this volume.” —VoegelinViewTable of ContentsAbbreviations List of illustrations Preface 1. The Lyric Poetry - Manuele Gragnolati 2. Fiore and Detto d’Amore - Christopher Kleinhenz 3. Vita nova - Zygmunt G. Barański 4. Epistles - Claire E. Honess 5. Convivio - Simon Gilson 6. De vulgari eloquentia - Mirko Tavoni 7. Monarchia - Paola Nasti 8. Egloge - David Lummus 9. Questio de acqua et terra - Theodore J. Cachey Jr. 10. Philosophy and the ‘Other Works’ - Luca Bianchi 11. Theology and the ‘Other Works’ - Vittorio Montemaggi Bibliography List of contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Bernadette Waterman Ward confirms the promise of René Girard’s Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, that what came to be called mimetic theory had real explanatory power well beyond the authors Girard himself discussed.” —William A. Johnsen, author of Violence and ModernismTable of Contents1. Introduction 2. Mimesis and George Eliot's Fiction 3. Mimetic Anthropology: Eliot's Early Years 4. The Intellectual Development of Mary Ann Evans 5. George Eliot's Clerical Life 6. The Magic of Sympathy in Adam Bede 7. Hell in Other People: Mimesis and The Lifted Veil 8. Death and the River: The Mill on the Floss 9. The Interruptions: Brother Jacob and Silas Marner 10. Romola, Full-Fledged Mimetic Angel 11. Foiled Tragedy and Felix Holt 12. Myth and the Artist: The Spanish Gypsy, The Legend of Jubal, and Armgart 13. The Apocalyptic Angel of Middlemarch 14. Satanic Masquerade: Daniel Deronda 15. Mimesis in Theophrastus Such Afterword Works Cited

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Manuscript Poetics offers a new perspective on the relationship between textuality and materiality in fourteenth-century Italy and between different kinds of authorial poetics related to the materiality of books and their subsequent publics.” —Laura Banella, author of La “Vita nuova” del Boccaccio“Manuscript Poetics functions both as a history of medieval manuscript culture and poetry, which will serve as an excellent introduction to and overview of the literary culture of the period for undergraduate students, and as a more focused study of specific texts and authors for specialists.” —Rhiannon Daniels, author of Boccaccio and the BookTable of ContentsList of Plates Acknowledgements Introduction: Materiality and Method Part 1. Materiality as Narrative in Dante’s Vita nuova 1. Scriptor in Fabula 2. The Author as Scribe 3. The Scribe as Author Appendix: Pulcra Metaphora de Quaterno et Volumine Part Two: Materiality and Authority in Boccaccio’s Teseida 4. Picture-Book (without Pictures) 5. The Textual Proliferation of the Teseida Part Three: Materiality and Poetics in Petrarca’s Sestinas 6. Materiality and Meter 7. Carmina Figurata Afterword: In Praise of Materiality Works Cited

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Manuscript Poetics offers a new perspective on the relationship between textuality and materiality in fourteenth-century Italy and between different kinds of authorial poetics related to the materiality of books and their subsequent publics.” —Laura Banella, author of La “Vita nuova” del Boccaccio“Manuscript Poetics functions both as a history of medieval manuscript culture and poetry, which will serve as an excellent introduction to and overview of the literary culture of the period for undergraduate students, and as a more focused study of specific texts and authors for specialists.” —Rhiannon Daniels, author of Boccaccio and the BookTable of ContentsList of Plates Acknowledgements Introduction: Materiality and Method Part 1. Materiality as Narrative in Dante’s Vita nuova 1. Scriptor in Fabula 2. The Author as Scribe 3. The Scribe as Author Appendix: Pulcra Metaphora de Quaterno et Volumine Part Two: Materiality and Authority in Boccaccio’s Teseida 4. Picture-Book (without Pictures) 5. The Textual Proliferation of the Teseida Part Three: Materiality and Poetics in Petrarca’s Sestinas 6. Materiality and Meter 7. Carmina Figurata Afterword: In Praise of Materiality Works Cited

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Book SynopsisLittle demonstrates in Transforming Work: Early Modern Pastoral and Medieval Poetry, the pastoral mode is in fact indebted to medieval representations of rural labor.Trade Review"Katherine C. Little's elegant and fluidly written book offers a necessary corrective to a generic narrative that usually occludes the medieval period's contributions to pastoral. As such, her work is a welcome addition, since it both revises the Renaissance literary map and offers new contexts for reading familiar late medieval texts as part of this larger tradition." —Kellie Robertson, University of Maryland"Transforming Work is an exciting, perceptive and innovative monograph which shows how poetry from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries represented work and labour. In doing so the book poses a serious challenge to prevailing orthodoxies, establishing a courteous dialogue with literary texts and literary critics. Katherine Little shows herself throughout to be an adept and alert reader, committed to revealing what has remained hidden for far too long, our understanding of the relationship between the major literary works of Langland, Googe, Barclay, and Spenser, the literary traditions to which their work belonged, and the reality of work in Medieval and early modern England." —Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex"Little's purpose in this study is to revise understanding of the development of the pastoral in English literature. . . . The analysis is thorough, the findings offer an important and much-needed revision to the scholarship of the pastoral, and the style is elegant and accessible, allowing Little's clarity of thought to occupy readers' attention." —Choice"More germane to the arguments of Transforming Work is a larger question of how genre shapes periodization. To rethink the influences of native literary traditions on the flourishing of pastoral literature in the sixteenth century is to reimagine the contiguities of literary progression from the medieval to the Renaissance." —Times Literary Supplement“Transforming Work is a valuable contribution not just to the study of premodern poetry and its multivalent representations of labor, but also to the growing body of work attesting to the urgent necessity of reading across the artificial medieval–early modern divide.” —Renaissance Quarterly“This affordable, handsomely designed paperback reproduces Brueghel’s Landscape with Fall of Icarus (ca. 1558) on its cover. . . . Little writes in a straightforward, readable style. . . . Strong commercial currents flow through the painting, as they do through the literary works discussed here.” —Sixteenth Century Journal“Little’s argument is admirably lucid; the writing clear and focused. The case is made persuasively.” —SHARP News“In this rich, engaging new study Katherine C. Little revisits and reconceptualizes the relationship between medieval and early modern pastoral poetry through focusing on the literal and symbolic value of rural labor . . . . Little’s own labours in this book are to be commended. She has not only proposed a new framework for discussing medieval and early modern pastoral, but also presented a thesis about the genre’s ontology that will surely prompt further debate.” —Modern Language Review“Little offers readers a lucid and nuanced revisionist reading of the early modern pastoral’s inseparability from the medieval tradition of writing rural labour that preceded it, thereby illuminating the social, political, and religious roots of a mode whose interests are often understood as primarily classist. . . the real power of Transforming Work is generated by its elaborating historical continuity for the pastoral, thereby deepening our critical comprehension of the various pressures that shaped and haunt a late medieval tradition’s early modern transformation.” —Renaissance and Reformation“Katherine C. Little’s Transforming Work is a very welcome addition to the burgeoning field of ‘trans-Reformation’ studies that place early modern literature more fully in dialogue with medieval culture.” —Modern Philology

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Book SynopsisTastemakers, Collectors, and Patrons explores the dynamic landscape of American art collecting in the United States from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries. The geographic range of collecting histories presented in this publication spans the country, including the Eastern Seaboard, the Old South, the Midwest, and the West Coast. In this volume, the contributing scholars investigate individual collectors and collectives whose missions to create regional and national collecting communities in the United States encouraged civic philanthropy in the fine arts. Key themessuch as the creation of an American school distinct from, yet rooted in, European tradition as well as the trials of forming publicly supported museumsreverberate throughout the publication. Essays examine early patrons, collectors, and museum founders; the impact of sectionalism, the Civil War, and reform on American collecting efforts; and the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of artists, colleTable of ContentsContentsList of Illustrations PrefaceSamantha Deutch and Margaret R. LasterAcknowledgments Samantha DeutchIntroduction: Collecting American Art During the Long Nineteenth Century Linda S. FerberPart ICrafting a Cultural Identity: Early Tastemakers Collectors, and Patrons1. The Patronage of Robert Gilmor, Jr.: The Role of a Merchant Prince in Defining an American School of Art Lance Humphries2. An Art Museum for Gotham: The Luman Reed Collection and the New- York Gallery of the Fine Arts Margaret R. Laster3. Power Failure: The American Art- Union Experiment Kimberly Orcutt4. Daniel Wadsworth and Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt: Connecticut’s Leading Collectors of American Landscape ArtElizabeth Mankin KornhauserPart IITurbulence of Taste in Mid- Nineteenth- Century America5. Nicholas Longworth: Early Midwestern Activist Art PatronLynne D. Ambrosini6. Patrons of Reform: Collecting the American Pre- RaphaelitesSophie Lynford7. “Encouraging American Genius”: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, from Private Collection to the Nation’s Art MuseumSarah CashPart IIIPromoting, Advancing, and Collecting American Art at the Turn of the Century and Beyond8. Samuel Untermyer: The Man Who Bought Whistler’s Falling RocketBarbara Dayer Gallati9. “Caveat Emptor”: The Trade in American Historical Portraits in the Early Twentieth CenturyRichard Saunders10. A Curator’s Perspective: William Preston Harrison, Childe Hassam, and a Quest for Legacy in CaliforniaIlene Susan Fort11. The Grand Central Art Galleries: Expanding the Taste and Market for American Art in the 1920s and 1930sJulie McGinnis FlanaganNotes References List of ContributorsIndex

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Book Synopsis Using interdisciplinary performance studies and cultural studies frameworks, Laura G. Gutiérrez examines the cultural representation of queer sexuality in the contemporary cultural production of Mexican female and Chicana performance and visual artists. In particular, she locates the analytical lenses of feminist theory and queer theory in a central position to interrogate Mexican female dissident sexualities in transnational public culture. This is the first book-length study to wed performance studies and queer theory in examining the performative/performance work of important contemporary Mexicana and Chicana cultural workers. It proposes that the creations of several important artists—Chicana visual artist Alma López; the Mexican political cabareteras Astrid Hadad, Jesusa Rodríguez, Liliana Felipe, and Regina Orozco; the Chicana performance artist Nao Bustamante; and the Mexican video artist Ximena Cuevas—unsettle heterosexual natTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Unsettling Comforts: Notes on Language, Politics, and Sex/Sexuality in a Transnational Context Part One. Reimagining the Archives of Femininity and Sexuality Chapter 1. Sexing Guadalupe in Transnational Double Crossings Chapter 2. Gender Parody, Political Satire, and Postmodern Rancheras: Astrid Hadad's "Heavy Nopal" Aesthetics Chapter 3. Fue en un cabaret: Nation, Melodrama, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Mexican Performance Part Two. Chicana and Mexicana Queer Performative Interventions Chapter 4. Nao Bustamante's "Bad-Girl" Aesthetics Chapter 5. Ximena Cuevas's Critical Collages Coda. Transtortilleras: Political Cabaret in the Twenty-first Century Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisIn this pathbreaking study, Frances Pohl traces the political and artistic struggles Ben Shahn became embroiled in as he tried to remain a socially concerned artist during the early Cold War period.Trade ReviewAs an example of integrated cultural history, Pohl's book stands as a model...highly recommended.... * Choice *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Battle Lines Are Drawn The CIO-PAC Trouble in the Labor Movement Censorship in the Art World A Tribute to Shahn 2. Wallace, Dondero, and Roosevelt, N.J. The Progressive Party Campaign From the Topical to the Universal: The Hickman Story Dondero, Communism, and Modern Art A Call for Peace In the Key of Roosevelt, N.J. 3. Defending Civil Liberties at Home and the American Image Abroad Signs of an Epoch Humanism and Art Portrait of the Artist as an American Liberal Attack and Counterattack Civil Liberties and the Liberal Community "With works of Art their armies meet, And War shall sink beneath thy feet." 4. An American in Venice The Slaying of the Dragon Italy, the United States, and Cultural Propaganda The Venice Biennial Promotional Literature and Press Reaction A Broad Appeal: Liberation and The Red Stairway Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFrom clandestine images of Jewish children isolated in Nazi ghettos and Japanese American children incarcerated in camps to images of Native children removed to North American boarding schools, classroom photographs of schoolchildren are pervasive even in repressive historical and political contexts. School Photos in Liquid Time offers a closer look at this genre of vernacular photography, tracing how photography advances ideologies of social assimilation as well as those of hierarchy and exclusion. In Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer's deft analysis, school photographs reveal connections between the histories of persecuted subjects in different national and imperial centers. Exploring what this ubiquitous and mundane but understudied genre tells us about domination as well as resistance, the authors examine school photos as documents of social life and agents of transformation. They place them in dialogue with works by contemporary artists who reframe, remediate, and elucidate them. Trade Review"[A] new book by Marianne Hirsch, the William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature and a professor at the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, examines this common but overlooked genre of vernacular photography for the first time." * Columbia News *"Every new publication from Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer is an event to be welcomed and read with deep attention. When we encounter their co-authored work — on memorial objects, witness testimonies, photographs, and family secrets — we are given a triple dose of insight, fine-tuned historical research, and transformative close readings of freighted images. Their latest book, School Photos in Liquid Time: Reframing Difference, is no different." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"Hirsch and Spitzer’s investigation into the school photograph as a site where difficult histories play out is a timely and important contribution to how we imagine the critical and affective potential of everyday photographs." * Photography and Culture *"[P]ath-breaking...the book is commended for offering a full-length study devoted to school photos and for directing academic attention to a genre of vernacular photography that has received only a paucity of scholarly and historical investigation." * Kronos *

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Book SynopsisRobert Brain traces the origins of artistic modernism to specific technologies of perception developed in late-nineteenth-century laboratories. Brain argues that the thriving fin-de-siècle field of physiological aesthetics, which sought physiological explanations for the capacity to appreciate beauty and art, changed the way poets, artists, and musicians worked and brought a dramatic transformation to the idea of art itself.Trade Review"[A] highly creative endeavour in the cultural history of science and aesthetics which provides a compelling account of the inspiration which various early practitioners of the modernist movement drew from the physiological laboratories of the nineteenth century. For historians working at the intersection between science and art it is essential reading, whilst historians of science, technology and medicine more medicine more generally can draw inspiration from this approach just as artists in the late nineteenth century looked outside the conventional boundaries of their practice to inform new directions of experimentation in the studio." -- James F. Stark * The British Journal for the History of Science *"The Pulse of Modernism is richly informed by scholarship in art history, history of science, and social studies of science. Its synthesis of wide-ranging philosophical and scientific matters makes for intensive reading, yet readers are generously rewarded with exquisite descriptions of laboratory techniques, scientific discoveries, and works of art." -- Jill Morawski * Journal of Modern History *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part 1: Experimentalizing Life 1. Representation on the Line 2. The Vibratory Organism 3. Visible Speech Part 2: Experimentalizing Art 4. Algorithms of Pleasure 5. Liberating Verse 6. Sensory Fusion 7. Art for Life’s Sake Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisJoseph Farington (1747-1821) was a professional topographical artist and lived most of his life in London. Through his extensive involvement in the affairs of the Royal Academy, his wide circle of friends, and his membership in several clubs and societies, he touched the life of his time at many points. This diary, which he kept from 1793 until his death, provides a meticulous record of his actions and observations and is an invaluable source for the history of English art and artists. It also constitutes an absorbing record of this period's social, political, and literary developments. These first two volumes cover the time from July 31, 1793, when he visited Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, to August 31, 1796. Apart from recording his constant involvement in Academy business, he describes his visit to Valenciennes and his sketching tour for the History of the River Thames. Such matters as the sale of part of Sir Joshua Reynolds's collection, the controversies over the Shakespeare forgeries are set down against the background of the French Revolution and the war, and of political turbulence at home. The diary is now for the first time published in full. The unannotated text will be published in successive volumes with a full index and a final volume, A Companion to The Farington Diary, to follow.

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Book SynopsisA survey of the range of craft disciplines and key practitioners from the pre-World War I years to the 1990s. It shows how the crafts movement emerged in response to generalized anxiety about the production, commodification and consumption of objects in an industrialised society.

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Book SynopsisA collection of letters by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is the first edition to be published since 1929, and since that date the number of known letters has almost doubled. This volume contains 308 letters by the artist to friends, family and patrons, all accompanied by detailed notes.

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive discussion of materials, techniques and condition issues in Western easel paintings from mediaeval times to the present.Trade Review"An essential handbook for the pro, and also a beautifully illustrated primer for the layperson. Kirsh and Levenson teach the most valuable lessons about painting of all: how meanings, material, and techniques are bound up together." John Walsh, former director, J. Paul Getty Museum "Every element of Kirsh and Levenson's book is smart, concise, and informative. It is the essential book on its subject." Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle "A long overdue book with direct relevance for modern students of the history of art." Libby Sheldon, Burlington Magazine "Lavishly illustrated and lucidly written, Seeing Through Paintings will fascinate anyone with more than a passing interest in art." Virginia Quarterly Review

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis beautifully illustrated book provides a complete overview of the art of the Southern Netherlands from 1585 to 1700. The author examines the development of Flemish and specifically Antwerp painting, the work of Rubens and such other leading masters as Van Dyck and Jordaens, and the Antwerp tradition of specialization among painters as well as the sculpture and architecture of this period. "Hans Vlieghe's long-awaited work on Flemish art offers a detailed and comprehensive overview of the art produced in the south Netherlands from the time of partition up to the end of Spanish-Hapsburg rule. As well as examining the output and influence of leading figures such as Rubens and Van Dyke, Dr. Vlieghe provides the historical, social and cultural context for the development of history painting and other specializations. . . . This book will attract both the informed and general reader."—Alison Smith, Art Newspaper

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Book SynopsisExamines ancient ivories from the coast of Bering Strait, western Alaska, and the islands in between - illuminating their sophisticated formal aesthetic, cultural complexity, and individual histories.

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Book SynopsisArgues that American audiences have been exposed only to a narrow range of what is available - with the majority of exposure having been given to avant-garde, experimental, or politically charged art. This book discusses contemporary Chinese art in a range of styles and subject matter and substantially expands on our understanding of this work.

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Book SynopsisLuxurious, beautiful, and portable, tapestry was the pre-eminent art form of the Tudor court. Henry VIII amassed an unrivaled collection over the course of his reign. This work weaves the history of this collection into the life of its owner with a narrative style. It also includes photographs that recreates Europe's greatest tapestry collection.Trade Review"This thoroughly researched study provides a welcome infusion of scholarly rigor into a field that has suffered from a bias toward fine arts at the expense of decorative arts. An important contribution to scholarship, it is among the best in its genre. . . . Essential."—Choice * Choice *

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Book SynopsisThroughout his life, Pablo Picasso had close friendships with writers and an abiding interest in the written word. This book, which draws on the collections of Yale University, traces the relationship that Picasso had with literature and writing in his life and work.Trade Review"[The] catalogue contains an introduction by Susan Greenberg Fisher; essays that probe Picasso's lifelong relationship to writers and writing by Mary Ann Caws, and extended catalogue entries that present new scholarship on select objects from the exhibition by modern-art scholars."—Artdaily * Artdaily *“…a stylish book that is a must for fans of the Spanish master.” — Artists and Illustrators * Artists and Illustrators *"Picasso and the Allure of Language is a crucial starting point for understanding [that writing and drawing are the same act] in the artist's work and serves as a unique introduction to many of his most celebrated pieces."—Stefanie Sobelle, Bookforum -- Stefanie Sobelle * Bookforum *

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Book SynopsisThe print repertoire of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England has been neglected historically. This book provides an iconographic survey of the single-sheet prints produced in Britain during the early modern era and reveals significant discoveries from this visual storehouse.Trade Review"Highly recommended."—T. J. McCormick, Choice -- T. J. McCormick * Choice *"The Print in Early Modern England: An Historical Oversight represents both a vital contribution to the developing study of the early modern English print and a stimulating call to emerging scholars in the field."—Helen Pierce, Huntington Library Quarterly -- Helen Pierce * Huntington Library Quarterly *"The combination of the author’s knowledge of the literature and words of the period, his experience working with Continental influences on English art, his abilities with visual and bibliographic details, his organizational abilities, and his nice way of incorporating other scholars’ efforts with his own discoveries have led to a very fine book."—Agnes Haigh Widder, Historians of British Art Newsletter -- Agnes Haigh Widder * Historians of British Art Newsletter *"The Print in Early Modern England is a testament to the discoveries still attainable through good, old-fashioned, archival research. . . . What [Jones] uncovered is a bounty that should dispel the myth of early modern England's visual illiteracy, and transform the way we picture the life of that extraordinary, culturally dynamic time."—Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Art in Print -- Suzanne Karr Schmidt * Art in Print *

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Book SynopsisA collection of essay, which reexamine the Wu Family Shrines pictorial carvings from Han dynasty China, helping readers understand the long cultural history behind them. It addresses the ideals, practices, and problems of the Wu Family Shrines and Han China; and Han funerary art and architecture in Shandong and other regions.

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