New Books in Art

Clemena Antonova, "Visual Thought in Russian Religious Philosophy: Pavel Florensky's Theory of the Icon" (Routledge, 2019)

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Often referred to as “the Russian Leonardo”, religious philosopher and Orthodox parish priest Pavel Florensky was a pivotal figure in the Russian ...

Danielle Child, "Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019)

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) is the story of art and work under contemporary capitalism. Whilst labour...

Catherine E. McKinley, "The African Lookbook: A Visual History of 100 Years of African Womanhood" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What does it mean to tie your cloth to that of another person, as in the Ghanaian tradition, or to be in full dress? How is fashion photography in a c...

K. Bunn-Marcuse and A. Jonaitis, "Unsettling Native Art Histories on the Northwest Coast" (U Washington Press, 2020)

27 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Inseparable from its communities, Northwest Coast art functions aesthetically and performatively beyond the scope of non-Indigenous scholarship, from ...

R. Armstrong and R. Hughes "The Art of Experiment: Post-Pandemic Knowledge Practices for 21st-Century Architecture and Design" (Routledge, 2020)

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Art of Experiment: Post-Pandemic Knowledge Practices for 21st-Century Architecture and Design (Routledge, 2020) is a handbook for navigating our ...

W. David O. Taylor, "Glimpses of the New Creation: Worship and the Formative Power of the Arts" (Eerdmans, 2019)

09 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Churches have long sought the arts as a vehicle to communicate divine transcendence and to form worshipers. In Glimpses of the New Creation: Worship...

Helen Zughaib and Elia Zughaib, "Stories My Father Told Me: Memories of a Childhood in Syria and Lebanon" (Cune Press, 2020)

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Family stories are the texture of the human fabric. From every land, from every time, they bring the past to life for young ears. In the beginning of ...

Reshaping the Lost Wax Casting Technique: The Methods of Medardo Rosso

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Key to the revolutionary ideas of 19th century Italian modernist sculptor Medardo Rosso are his materials and technique. But for a long time, scholars...

M. I. Devine, "Warhol's Mother's Pantry: Art, America, and the Mom in Pop" (Mad Creek Books, 2020)

02 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Warhol's Mother's Pantry: Art America and the Mom in Pop (Mad Creek Press, 2020), M.I. Devine introduces readers to a collection of 21st-centur...

James Elkins and Erna Fiorentini, "Visual Worlds: Looking, Images, Visual Disciplines" (Oxford UP, 2020)

01 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Visual Worlds: Looking, Images, Visual Disciplines (Oxford University Press, 2020), James Elkins and Erna Fiorentini provide a full introduction ...

Aaron Tugendhaft, "The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2015, the Islamic State released a video of men smashing sculptures in Iraq’s Mosul Museum as part of a mission to cleanse the world of idolatry....

Eric Hayot, "Humanist Reason: A History. An Argument. A Plan" (Columbia UP, 2021)

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists have scientific reason and use the scientific method. Humanists have... Emotion? Close reading? Not so, argues Eric Hayot in Humanist Reaso...

Francoise Bollack, "Material Transfers: Metaphor, Craft, and Place in Contemporary Architecture" (Monacelli Press, 2020)

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Material Transfers: Metaphor, Craft, and Place in Contemporary Architecture (Monacelli Press, 2020), architect, architectural historian, and pre...

Peter Langland-Hassan, "Explaining Imagination" (Oxford UP, 2020)

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How do we think about situations and things do not exist but might, engage in pretense and fiction, and create new works of art? These are central cas...

J. L. Heilbron, "The Ghost of Galileo: In a Forgotten Painting from the English Civil War" (Oxford UP, 2021)

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

John Heilbron, professor of history and vice-chancellor emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley, is one of our most distinguished - and pro...

Amanda Brickell Bellows, "American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination" (UNC Press, 2020)

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This ambitious work explores the literary and cultural production about Russian peasants and African Americans in the post-emancipation period. Bricke...

Morton Schoolman, "A Democratic Enlightenment: The Reconciliation Image, Aesthetic Education, Possible Politics" (Duke UP, 2020)

04 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Morton Schoolman, Professor in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the State University of New York at Albany, has published a new...

J. Jay Garfinkel, "Heirlooms : Memory and Cherished Objects" (One Family Foundation, 2020)

01 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone will lose someone they love at some point in their life; a spouse, a parent, or a child. Having to deal with the clothes or personal effects ...

Fiona Greenland, "Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Raiders, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy" (U of Chicago Press, 2021)

26 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today we are joined by Fiona Greenland, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, to talk about her new book, Ruling Culture: ...

Enrico Bonadio, "Protecting Art in the Street: A Guide to Copyright in Street Art and Graffiti" (Dokument Forlag, 2020)

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There has recently been a sharp increase in cases where corporations have been sued by street and graffiti artists because their artworks had been use...

A Thai Contemporary Artist on Identity, Power, and the Space In-Between: A Discussion with Phaptawan Suwannakudt

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As a Thai-Australian woman artist, Phaptawan Suwannakudt has long battled prejudice and discrimination relating to her gender. This disappointment wit...

Luc Sante, "Maybe the People Would Be the Times" (Verse Chorus Press, 2020)

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Maybe the People Would Be the Times (Verse Chorus Press, 2020) could be described as a memoir in essay form. Collecting pieces from the past two dec...

William C. Brumfield, "Journeys through the Russian Empire: The Photographic Legacy of Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky" (Duke UP, 2020)

15 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest authoritative book, Journeys Through the Russian Empire: The Photographic Legacy of Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky (Duke University Press, 202...

Tavia Nyong’o, "Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life" (NYU Press, 2028)

05 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tavia Nyong’o's Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life (NYU Press, 2018), examines a broad range of artists and disciplines, from Adrian ...

Jonas Staal, "Propaganda Art in the 21st Century" (MIT Press, 2019)

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How to understand propaganda art in the post-truth era—and how to create a new kind of emancipatory propaganda art. Propaganda art — whether a d...

Leigh Claire La Berge, "Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art" (Duke UP, 2019)

28 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The last twenty years have seen a rise in the production, circulation, and criticism of new forms of socially engaged art aimed at achieving social ju...

GerShun Avilez, "Black Queer Freedom: Spaces of Injury and Paths of Desire" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

26 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Whether engaged in same-sex desire or gender nonconformity, black queer individuals live with being perceived as a threat while simultaneously being s...

David C. Lane, "Other End of the Needle: Continuity and Change Among Tattoo Workers" (Rutgers UP, 2020)

19 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In The Other End of the Needle (Rutgers University Press, 2020), David C. Lane, Ph.D. investigates the intricacies of the tattoo industry. Particu...

Rachel Berenson Perry, "The Life and Art of Felrath Hines: From Dark to Light" (Indiana UP, 2019)

15 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Rachel Berenson Perry about her book The Life and Art of Felrath Hines: From Dark to Light (Indiana University Press, 2019). Fel...

Janis Tomlinson, "Goya: A Portrait of the Artist" (Princeton UP, 2020)

15 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The life of Francisco Goya (1746–1828) coincided with an age of transformation in Spanish history that brought upheavals in the country’s politics...

Rob DeSalle, "A Natural History of Color: The Science Behind What We See and How We See it" (Pegasus Books, 2020)

13 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is color a phenomenon of science or a thing of art? Over the years, color has dazzled, enhanced, and clarified the world we see, embraced through the ...

Tom Holert, "Knowledge Beside Itself: Contemporary Art's Epistemic Politics" (Sternberg Press, 2020)

12 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is the role and function of contemporary art in economic and political systems that increasingly manage data and affect? Knowledge Beside Itself...

Myroslav Shkandrij, "Avant-Garde Art in Ukraine, 1910-1930: Contested Memory" (Academic Studies Press, 2019)

30 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Myroslav Shkandrij’s Avant-Garde Art in Ukraine, 1910-1930: Contested Memory (Academic Studies Press, 2019) offers an insight into the development...

Robin Mitchell, "Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France" (U Georgia Press, 2020)

29 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The preface to Robin Mitchell's new book, Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France (University of Georgia Pres...

Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages: A Discussion with Roland Betancourt

15 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages (Princeton University Press, 2020), Roland Betancourt reveals the fas...

Peter Gordon and Juan José Morales, "Painter and Patron: The Maritime Silk Road in the Códice Casanatense" (Abbreviated Press, 2020)

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Peter Gordon and Juan José Morales about their book Painter and Patron: The Maritime Silk Road in the Códice Casanatense (Abbrevia...

Philip D. Plowright, "Making Architecture Through Being Human: A Handbook of Design Ideas" (Routledge, 2019)

27 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Architecture can seem complicated, mysterious or even ill-defined, especially to a student being introduced to architectural ideas for the first time....

Ara H. Merjian, "Against the Avant-Garde: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Contemporary Art, and Neocapitalism" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

18 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of New Books in History, Jana Byars talks with Ara Marjian, Professor of Italian and affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the ...

Marisa Anne Bass, "Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt" (Princeton UP, 2019)

17 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt (Princeton UP, 2019) Marissa Anne Bass explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dut...

Charlotte Eubanks, "The Art of Persistence: Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2019)

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Art of Persistence: Akamatsu Toshiko and the Visual Cultures of Transwar Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2019) examines the relations between art and poli...

Charles L. Leavitt IV, "Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History" (U Toronto Press, 2020)

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History (University of Toronto Press, 2020), Charles Leavitt steps back from the micro-histories focusing more nar...

Arlene Davila, "Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics" (Duke UP, 2020)

13 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics (Duke UP, 2020), Arlene Dávila draws on numerous interviews with artists, dealers, and curators to ...

Anne Gerritsen, "The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

12 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We think of blue and white porcelain as the ultimate global commodity: throughout East and Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean including the African coas...

Stephen H. Whiteman, "Where Dragon Veins Meet: The Kangxi Emperor and His Estate at Rehe" (U Washington Press, 2020)

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In 1702, the second emperor of the Qing dynasty ordered construction of a new summer palace in Rehe (now Chengde, Hebei) to support his annual tours n...

C. Thi Nguyen, "Games: Agency as Art" (Oxford UP, 2020)

10 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Monopoly, Solitaire, football and Minecraft are all games, but for C. Thi Nyugen they are also an art form – specifically, the art form of agency, o...

Silvie Jacobi, "Art Schools and Place: Geographies of Emerging Artists and Art Scenes" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)

03 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What is an art school? In Art Schools and Place: Geographies of Emerging Artists and Art Scenes (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), Dr Silvie Jacobi, a r...

Sianne Ngai, "Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form" (Harvard UP, 2020)

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form (Harvard University Press, 2020), Sianne Ngai continues her theoretical work of demys...

Jessica Zychowicz, "Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine" (U Toronto Press, 2020)

16 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine (University of Toronto Press, 2020) tells the unique story of a gener...

Dave O’Brien, "Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries" (Manchester UP, 2020)

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It would be hard to overstate the importance of culture. It teaches us, heals us, rips us apart and puts us back together in new and surprising ways. ...

William P. Seeley, "Attentional Engines: A Perceptual Theory of the Arts" (Oxford UP, 2020)

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How do we distinguish art from non-art artifacts, and what does cognitive science have to do with it? In Attentional Engines: A Perceptual Theory of t...

Jill Richards, "The Fury Archives: Female Citizenship, Human Rights, and the International Avant-Gardes" (Columbia UP, 2020)

08 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Fury Archives: Female Citizenship, Human Rights, and the International Avant-Gardes (Columbia UP 2020), Jill Richards radically rewrites our un...

Prita Meier, "Swahili Port Cities: The Architecture of Elsewhere" (Indiana UP, 2016)

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On the Swahili coast of East Africa, monumental stone houses, tombs, and mosques mark the border zone between the interior of the African continent an...

Tamar Herzig, "A Convert’s Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy" (Harvard UP, 2019)

04 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of New Books in History, Jana Byars talks with Tamar Herzig, Professor of History at Tel Aviv University, the Director of Tel Aviv Uni...

Ronak K. Kapadia, "Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War"(Duke UP, 2019)

03 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Insurgent Aesthetics: Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War (Duke University Press), Ronak K. Kapadia theorizes the world-making power of ...

Beth Pickens, "Your Art Will Save Your Life" (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2018)

21 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As a teenager visiting the Andy Warhol Museum, Beth Pickens realized the importance of making art. As an adult, she has dedicated her life to empoweri...

T. Fischer and C.M. Herr, "Design Cybernetics: Navigating the New" (Springer, 2019)

20 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Those who have followed this podcast in the past, and those who follow developments in cybernetics in the present, will be no strangers to the name Ra...

Madina Tlostanova, "What Does it Mean to be Post-Soviet? Decolonial Art from the Ruins of the Soviet Empire" (Duke UP, 2018)

14 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In What Does it Mean to be Post-Soviet? Decolonial Art from the Ruins of the Soviet Empire (Duke University Press, 2018), Madina Tlostanova traces how...

Vesna Kittelson, "Lost and Found in America" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)

13 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The prolific artistic production of Vesna Kittelson always maintains autobiographical connections: her installations of deconstructed books and her lu...

Karen Patel, "The Politics of Expertise in Cultural Labour: Arts, Work and Inequalities" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020)

12 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How has social media changed inequality in the cultural industries? In The Politics of Expertise in Cultural Labour: Arts, Work and Inequalities (Rowm...

Nozomi Naoi, "Yumeji Modern: Designing the Everyday in Twentieth-Century Japan" (U Washington Press, 2020)

05 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Nozomi Naoi’s Yumeji Modern: Designing the Everyday in Twentieth-Century Japan (University of Washington Press, 2020) is the first book-length Engl...

Linda Goddard, "Savage Tales: The Writings of Paul Gauguin" (Yale UP, 2019)

31 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Savage Tales: The Writings of Paul Gauguin (Yale University Press, 2019), Linda Goddard investigates the role that Paul Gauguin’s writings played...

Brett Dakin, "American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and The Battles of Lev Gleason" (Chapterhouse Publishing, 2020)

30 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and The Battles of Lev Gleason (Chapterhouse Publishing, 2020), Brett Dakin, Gleason’s great-nephew delves...

Junior Tomlin, "Junior Tomlin: Flyer and Cover Art" (Velocity Press, 2020)

28 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art (Velocity Press, 2020) showcases the artwork of Junior Tomlin. Featuring flyers and record covers Tomlin has created...

Emily Wallace, "Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South" (U Texas Press, 2019)

24 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining ...

Laurie Olin, "Be Seated" (ORO Editions, 2017)

22 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Laurie Olin about his book Be Seated (ORO Editions, 2017). Olin’s interest in public outdoor seating in parks and civic spaces re...

Angela S. Chiu, "The Buddha in Lanna: Art, Lineage, Power, and Place in Northern Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2017)

20 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, wherever Thai Buddhists have made their homes, statues of the Buddha have provided striking testament to the role of Buddhism in the li...

Laurie Olin, "France Sketchbook" (ORO Editions, 2020)

15 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries artists and designers have recorded places, people, and life in travel sketchbooks. Over a period of fifty years, Laurie Olin, one of Am...

Yuhang Li, "Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China" (Columbia UP, 2020)

14 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How did Buddhist women access religious experience and transcendence in a Confucian patriarchal system in imperial China? How were Buddhist practices ...

Christopher Bonanos, "Flash: The Making of Weegee the Famous" (Henry Holt, 2018)

10 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In the middle of the twentieth century, a newspaper photographer who went by the name of Weegee took memorable pictures of New York City’s street li...

Christian Kleinbub, "Michelangelo’s Inner Anatomies" (Penn State UP, 2020)

07 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Michelangelo’s Inner Anatomies (Penn State University Press), Christian Kleinbub challenges the notion that Michelangelo, renowned for his magnif...

A Very Square Peg: A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler. Episode 3: Eisler vs. the Flat Earth

23 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, we talk with Michael Gubser about the pioneering art historian Alois Riegl, one of Eisler’s teachers in Vienna and a major influenc...

Ana María Reyes, "The Politics of Taste: Beatriz González and Cold War Aesthetics" (Duke UP, 2019)

09 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Politics of Taste: Beatriz González and Cold War Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2019), Ana María Reyes examines the ways Colombian artis...

Anne Godfrey, "Active Landscape Photography: Theoretical Groundwork for Landscape Architecture" (Routledge, 2020)

05 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Photographs play a hugely influential but largely unexamined role in the practice of landscape architecture and design. Through a diverse set of essay...

Scott Henderson, "Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame" (U Texas Press, 2019)

05 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster suc...

Susie Hodge, "The Short Story of Architecture" (Laurence King Publishing, 2019)

04 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What makes a building’s design come alive as it helps shape our existence? Listen in as I discuss this and other questions with Susie Hodge, author ...

Pablo Meninato, "Unexpected Affinities: The History of Type in Architectural Project from Laugier to Duchamp" (Routledge, 2018)

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

While the concept of "type" has been present in architectural discourse since its formal introduction at the end of the eighteenth century, its role i...

Breanne Fahs, "Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution" (Verso, 2020)

03 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Burn It Down: Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution (Verso, 2020), Breanne Fahs has curated a comprehensive collection of feminist manifestos from t...

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)

02 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for S...

Roxann Prazniak, "Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief, and Art" (U Hawaii Press 2019)

02 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The “Mongol turn” in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries forged new political, commercial, and religious circumstances in Eurasia. This legacy...

Iva Glisic, "The Futurist Files: Avant-Garde, Politics, and Ideology in Russia, 1905–1930" (NIU Press, 2018)

21 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Futurism was Russia's first avant-garde movement. Gatecrashing the Russian public sphere in the early twentieth century, the movement called for the d...

Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. B...

Ünver Rüstem, "Ottoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul" (Princeton UP, 2019)

28 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In Istanbul, there is a mosque on every hill. Cruising along the Bosphorus, either for pleasure, or like the majority of Istanbul’s denizens, for tr...

Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, "Stages: On Dying, Working, and Feeling" (Thick Press, 2020)

23 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Can care be enacted through art? Inside a cathedral, staff members from a nursing home work with an artist to perform a poetic text about caregiving, ...

Jacki Apple, "Performance / Media / Art / Culture: Selected Essays 1983-2018" (Intellect Books, 2019)

23 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Performance / Media / Art / Culture: Selected Essays 1983-2018 (Intellect Books, 2019) collects more than thirty years of critical writing by artist a...

Alex Berke, "Beautiful Symmetry: A Coloring Book about Math" (MIT Press, 2020)

22 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Alex Berke's Beautiful Symmetry (MIT Press, 2020) is both a fascinating book and a concept -- it's like no other book I’ve ever read. It's a colorin...

Christiane Gruber, “The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images" (Indiana UP, 2019)

17 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In our most recent public memory, images of the Prophet Muhammad have caused a great deal of controversy, such as satirical cartoons of Muhammad in Fr...

Mari Coates, "The Pelton Papers" (She Writes Press, 2020)

13 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Like the better-known and perhaps luckier Georgia O’Keeffe, the American painter Agnes Pelton also found her unique vision in the western desert. As...

Margaret Hillenbrand, "Negative Exposures: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China" (Duke UP, 2020)

02 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The fact that secrecy and the concealment of information is important in today’s China is hardly a secret in itself, yet the ways that this secrecy ...

Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020)

30 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat....

Elizabeth Goldring, "Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist" (Yale UP, 2019)

12 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Limning – the painting of miniature portraits – was an important art form in 16th-century Europe. Among its greatest practitioners was Nicholas Hi...

Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020)

25 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Philli...

Caitlin Frances Bruce, "Painting Publics: Transnational Legal Graffiti Scenes as Spaces for Encounter" (Temple UP, 2019)

19 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Public art is a form of communication that enables spaces for encounters across difference. These encounters may be routine, repeated, or rare, but al...

Maria Taroutina, "The Icon and the Square: Russian Modernism and the Russo-Byzantine Revival" (Penn State UP, 2018)

18 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

In The Icon and the Square: Russian Modernism and the Russo-Byzantine Revival (Penn State University Press, 2018), Maria Taroutina examines how the t...

Alex Dika Seggerman, "Modernism on the Nile: Art in Egypt between the Islamic and the Contemporary" (UNC Press, 2019)

04 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With scholarship in the discipline of history witnessing a shift toward global approaches to local historical processes, new questions are being raise...

K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020)

30 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. How...

Identity Crisis: The Self-Portrait of a Thirteen-Year-Old Van Gogh

10 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The person in the photograph of a thirteen-year-old Vincent Van Gogh What did the influential Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh actually look like? Popul...

Jane D. Hatter, "Composing Community in Late Medieval Music: Self-Reference, Pedagogy, and Practice" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

23 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There are a handful of pieces from the Medieval and Renaissance periods that most music students learn about in their introductory history courses; am...

K. B. Berzock, "Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa" (Princeton UP, 2019)

23 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The companion publication to the 2019-2020 traveling exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Sahara...

April Eisman, "Bernhard Heisig and the Fight for Modern Art in East Germany" (Camden House, 2018)

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her book, Bernhard Heisig and the Fight for Modern Art in East Germany (Camden House, 2018), April Eisman examines one of East Germany's most succe...

Fran Altvater, "Sacramental Theology and the Decoration of Baptismal Fonts" (Cambridge Scholars, 2017)

13 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Fran Altvater talks about the Medieval Pilgrimage, a practice that became central to Christian Europe in the early Middle Ages and evolved into the mi...