New Books in Art

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...

Thomas Yarrow, "Architects: Portraits of a Practice" (Cornell UP, 2019)

12 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is creativity? What is the relationship between work life and personal life? How is it possible to live truthfully in a world of contradiction an...

Erin Schoneveld, "Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde" (Brill, 2018)

06 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Befitting an art history book, Erin Schoneveld’s Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-Garde (B...

Alberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019)

03 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, i...

Roland Elliot Brown, "Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda" (FUEL, 2019)

26 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the arc of Soviet history, few government programs were as tenacious as the anti-religious campaign, which systematically set out to debunk organiz...

Gary Meisner, "The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics" (Race Point Press, 2018)

22 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From the pyramids of Giza, to quasicrystals, to the proportions of the human face, the golden ratio has an infinite capacity to generate shapes with e...

Johanna Taylor, "The Art Museum Redefined: Power, Opportunity, and Community Engagement" (Palgrave, 2019)

13 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of the museum? In The Art Museum Redefined: Power, Opportunity, and Community Engagement (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Johanna Taylor...

Noelle Giuffrida, "Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America" (U California Press, 2018)

09 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Noelle Giuffrida’s book, Separating Sheep from Goats: Sherman E. Lee and Chinese Art Collecting in Postwar America (University of California Press, ...

Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing

03 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trad...

J. Neuhaus, "Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers" (West Virginia UP, 2019)

24 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude t...

Catherine Clark, "Paris and the Cliché of History: The City in Photographs, 1860-1970" (Oxford UP, 2018)

18 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What’s the first image that comes to mind when you hear the words “Paris” and “photography”? Is it a famous photo, perhaps an Atget, Brassai...

Gabriel Jones, "Splashes" (RVB Press, 2018)

19 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The images featured in Splashes (RVB Press, 2018) are characteristic of Gabriel Jones’ approach to making images by capturing the “backdrop”, th...

Jennifer C. Lena, "Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts" ( Princeton UP, 2019)

29 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How did American elites change the meaning of Art? In Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts (Princeton University Press, 2019)...

Susan Jaques, "The Caesar of Paris:  Napoleon Bonaparte, Rome, and the Artistic Obsession That Shaped An Empire" (Pegasus Books, 2018)

22 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her book, The Caesar of Paris:  Napoleon Bonaparte, Rome, and the Artistic Obsession That Shaped An Empire (Pegasus Books, 2018), Susan Jaques off...

Sean Foley, "Changing Saudi Arabia: Art, Culture and Society in the Kingdom" (Lynne Rienner, 2019)

08 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Changing Saudi Arabia, Art, Culture and Society in the Kingdom (Lynne Rienner, 2019), Sean Foley offers eye-opening insights into a changing societ...

Elizabeth Otto, "Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics" (MIT Press, 2019)

06 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this segment of New Books in History, Jana Byars talks with Elizabeth “Libby” Otto, Associate Professor of Art History and Visual Studies and E...

Carlos Garrido Castellano, "Beyond Representation in Contemporary Caribbean Art" (Rutgers UP, 2019)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A work of art about doing nothing; a work of art that invites people to take it apart; a work of art that consists of two people walking in a town in ...

Melissa McCormick, "The Tale of Genji: A Visual Companion" (Princeton UP, 2018)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Genji Album (1510) in the Harvard Art Museums is the oldest dated set of Genji illustrations known to exist. In The Tale of Genji. A Visual Compan...

Nancy S. Steinhardt, "Chinese Architecture: A History" (Princeton UP, 2019)

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If there’s one thing that conjures up the – rightly contested – idea of a ‘civilisation’, it is grand palatial or religious buildings, and m...

Sarah Anne Carter, "Object Lessons: How Nineteenth-Century Americans Learned to Make Sense of the Material World" (Oxford UP, 2018)

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The metaphor “object lesson” is a familiar one, still in everyday use. But what exactly does the metaphor refer to? In her book Object Lessons: Ho...

Kimberly Alexander, "Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Fashion is universal,” writes my guest Kimberly Alexander in her book Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018...

Amy Lippert, "Consuming Identities: Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco" (Oxford UP, 2018)

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Along with the rapid expansion of the market economy and industrial production methods, such innovations as photography, lithography, and steam printi...

Eleonor Gilburd, "To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture" (Harvard UP, 2018)

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West.  A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief...

John Etty, "Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: Krokodil’s Political Cartoons" (UP of Mississippi, 2019)

30 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: Krokodil’s Political Cartoons (University Press of Mississippi, 2019), Dr. John Etty explains how Krokodil ma...

John J. Curley, "Global Art and the Cold War" (Laurence King Publishers, 2019)

27 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It was the passionate amateur painter, Winston Churchill, who introduced one of the Cold War’s key metaphors: The Iron Curtain. As John J. Curley ar...

Linda M. Grasso, "Equal under the Sky: Georgia O’Keeffe and Twentieth-Century Feminism" (U New Mexico Press, 2017)

27 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Linda M. Grasso's Equal under the Sky: Georgia O’Keeffe & Twentieth-Century Feminism (University of New Mexico Press, 2017) provides an in-depth loo...

Dia Da Costa, "Politicizing Creative Economy: Activism and a Hunger Called Theater" (U Illinois Press, 2016)

24 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a world where heritage, culture, creativity, and the capacity to imagine are themselves commodified and sold under the banner of neoliberal freedom...

Lisa Blee and Jean M. O'Brien, "Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit" (UNC Press, 2019)

22 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Installed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1921 to commemorate the tercentenary of the landing of the Pilgrims, Cyrus Dallin's statue Massasoit was inte...

Anne A. Cheng, "Ornamentalism" (Oxford UP, 2019)

22 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her original and thought-provoking book Ornamentalism (Oxford University Press, 2019), Anne A. Cheng illustrates the longstanding relationship betw...

Chip Sullivan, “Cartooning the Landscape” (U Virginia Press, 2016)

16 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This is a magically journey about the mystery of the design process. Chip Sullivan's Cartooning the Landscape (University of Virginia Press, 2016) is ...

Caitlín Eilís Barrett, "Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens" (Oxford UP, 2019)

07 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Domesticating Empire: Egyptian Landscapes in Pompeian Gardens (Oxford University Press, 2019) is the first contextually-oriented monograph on Egyptian...

Chip Colwell, "Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim Native America's Culture" (U Chicago Press, 2017)

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Five decades ago, Native American leaders launched a crusade to force museums to return their sacred objects and allow them to rebury their kin. Today...

Harold Holzer, "Monument Man: The Life and Art of Daniel Chester French" (Princeton Architectural Press, 2019)

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Harold Holzer has written a biography of one of America’s greatest public artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Daniel Chester Fren...

Sigrid Lien, "Pictures of Longing: Photography and the Norwegian-American Migration" (U Minnesota Press, 2018)

08 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In one of history’s largest migrations, hundreds of thousands of Norwegians immigrated to North American during the 1800s and early 1900s. In additi...

Anne Cheng, "Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface" (Oxford UP, 2017)

25 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)--Pr...

Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more de...

Seth Bernard, "Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy" (Oxford UP, 2018)

14 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018), offers a holistic treatment of the developme...

Farhana Shaikh, "From Imposter to Impact: Arts Leadership in the 21st Century" (Dahlia Publishing, 2019)

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What are the characteristics of the 21st Century arts leader? In From Imposter to Impact: Arts Leadership in the 21st Century (Dahlia Publishing, 2019...

Alexander Langlands, "Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts" (Norton, 2017)

04 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander Langlands is a British archaeologist, historian, writer, and broadcaster.  His most recent book, Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and Tr...

S. A. Duncan and A. McClellan, "The Art of Curating: Paul J. Sachs and the Museum Course at Harvard" (Getty Research Institute, 2018)

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew McClellan and Sally Anne Duncan’s book offers a behind-the-scenes exploration of the career of Paul J. Sachs (1878-1965) and the graduate pro...

Nadia Amoroso, "Representing Landscapes: A Visual Collection of Landscape Architectural Drawings" (Routledge, 2012)

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nadia Amoroso’s Representing Landscapes: A Visual Collection of Landscape Architectural Drawings (Routledge, 2012) is a collaboration between landsc...

Sun-Young Park, "Ideals of the Body: Architecture, Urbanism, and Hygiene in Postrevolutionary Paris" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2018)

01 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We know quite a bit about the physical signatures of urban “modernity” foisted upon Paris by Baron Haussmann in the late nineteenth century — th...

Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis. "Classical New York: Discovering Greece and Rome in Gotham" (Empire States Editions, 2018)

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A new book explores how and why New York City became a showcase for the art and architectural styles of ancient Greece and Rome. Classical New York: D...

Elizabeth A. Fraser, "Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839" (Penn State UP, 2017)

23 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth A. Fraser's Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839 (Penn State University Press, 2017) takes i...

Benoît Majerus, "From the Middle Ages to Today: Experiences and Representations of Madness in Paris" (Parigramme, 2018)

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With Paris as the organizing locus of his new book, Du moyen âge à nos jours, expériences et représentations de la folie à Paris [From the Middle...

Kellie Jones, "South of Pico: African American Artists in the 1960s and 1970s" (Duke UP, 2017)

24 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

New York City might have been the epicenter of the twentieth century American art scene, but Los Angeles was no slouch either, writes Kellie Jones in ...

McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)

06 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...

Catherine Russell, "Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices" (Duke UP, 2018)

29 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In her book Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices (Duke University Press, 2018), Catherine Russell defines "archiveology" as “th...

Mark J. Blechner, "The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation" (Routledge, 2018)

28 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sigmund Freud may have been the first to popularize the study of dreams, but several scholars since Freud have advanced our understanding of dreams in...

Nivedita Lakhera, “Pillow of Dreams” (Nivedita Lakhera, 2017)

21 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Pillow of Dreams (Nivedita Lakhera, 2017) is an intensely emotional and inspirational collection of poetry and art by Dr. Nivedita Lakhera. She experi...

Eric D. Weitz, “Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy” (Princeton UP, 2018)

20 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What can the Weimar Republic teach us about how democracies fail? How could the same vibrancy that gave us cultural touchstones spawn Nazism? In his n...

Pedith Pui Chan, “The Making of a Modern Art World: Institutionalization and Legitimization of Guohua in Republican Shanghai” (Brill, 2017)

20 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Making of a Modern Art World: Institutionalization and Legitimization of Gouhua in Republican Shanghai (Brill, 2017) investigates the production a...

Ronald Rael, “Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-Mexico Boundary” (U California Press, 2017)

16 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

With the passage of the Secure Fence Act in 2006, the U.S. Congress authorized funding for what has become the largest domestic construction project i...

Dustin Parsons, “Exploded View: Essays on Fatherhood, with Diagrams” (U Georgia Press, 2018)

07 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If you open Dustin Parsons’ new book, you’ll find maps, figures, footprints, a floor plan, silhouettes of roadside birds, charts of riverbed topog...

Gary Alan Fine, “Talking Art: The Culture of Practice and the Practice of Culture in MFA Education” (U Chicago Press, 2018)

25 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Most people have heard of the Masters of Fine Arts–“MFA”–degree, but few know about the grueling process one must undergo to complete one. In ...

Jorge Coronado, “Portraits in the Andes: Photography and Agency, 1900-1950” (U Pittsburgh Press, 2018)

24 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Portraits in the Andes: Photography and Agency, 1900-1950 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), Jorge Coronado, Professor of Spanish and Portugue...

Denise Y. Ho, “Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China” (Cambridge UP, 2017)

27 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

“In Mao’s China, to curate revolution was to make it material.” Denise Y. Ho’s new book explores this premise in a masterful account of exhib...

Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe, “Queering Contemporary Asian American Art” (U Washington Press, 2017)

08 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Queering Contemporary Asian American Art (University of Washington Press, 2017), Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe gather artists and scholars wh...

Simone Wesner, “Artists’ Voices in Cultural Policy: Careers, Myths and the Creative Profession after German Unification” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018)

03 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Why is the artist’s voice missing from cultural policy? In Artists’ Voices in Cultural Policy: Careers, Myths and the Creative Profession after G...

Reginald Jackson, “Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls” (U Michigan Press, 2018)

02 Aug 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Reginald Jackson’s inspiring new book takes a transdisciplinary approach to rethinking how we read, how we pay attention, and why that matters deepl...

Jo Weldon, “Fierce: The History of Leopard Print” (Harper Design, 2018)

31 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Leopard print has a long history, as Jo Weldon shares in her new book, Fierce: The History of Leopard Print (Harper Design, 2018). In her illustrated...

Marsha MacDowell, Clare Luz, and Beth Donaldson, “Quilts and Health” (Indiana UP, 2017)

25 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Quilts and Health (Indiana University Press, 2017), Marsha MacDowell and her colleagues examine the phenomenon of health-related quilts, of which t...

madison moore, “Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric” (Yale UP, 2018)

23 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Did you catch that look? The theory of fabulousness is on the move. In his new book, Fabulous: the Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric (Yale UP, 2018), ma...

Stacey Pierson, “Private Collecting, Exhibitions, and the Shaping of Art History in London: The Burlington Fine Arts Club” (Routledge, 2017)

11 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In her latest book, Private Collecting, Exhibitions, and the Shaping of Art History in London: The Burlington Fine Arts Club (Routledge, 2017), Stacey...

Ari Heinrich, “Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body” (Duke UP, 2018)

10 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Ari Larissa Heinrich’s new book, Chinese Surplus: Biopolitical Aesthetics and the Medically Commodified Body (Duke University Press, 2018), is a fas...

Cary Cordova, “The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco” (U Pennsylvania Press, 2017)

10 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), Cary Cordova combines urban, political...

Michelle C. Wang, “Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang” (Brill, 2018)

05 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Michelle C. Wang’s new book Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang (Brill, 2018) joins a growing body of schola...

Paula Serafini, “Performance Action: The Politics of Art Activism” (Routledge, 2018)

28 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

How can art change the world? In Performance Action: The Politics of Art Activism (Routledge, 2018), Paula Serafini, a Research Associate at the Unive...

Pamela Potter, “Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts” (U California Press, 2016)

27 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In her new book, Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts (University of California Press, 2016), ...

Laura Kalba, “Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology, and Art” (Penn State UP, 2018)

14 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When you imagine the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, what colors do you see? Whatever comes to mind, Laura Kalba’s, Color in the Age of...

Steven Lubar, “Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present” (Harvard UP, 2017)

13 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Steven Lubar’s latest book Inside the Lost Museum: Curating, Past and Present (Harvard University Press, 2017), Steven gets to the heart of what...

Wojtek Sawa, “The Wall Speaks: Voices of the Unheard” (National Center of Culture, 2016)

05 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Wojtek Sawa‘s The Wall Speaks: Voices of the Unheard (National Center of Culture, 2016) is a bilingual Polish-English project that engages with the ...

Catherine Soussloff, “Foucault on Painting” (U Minnesota Press, 2017)

22 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Foucault on Painting (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Catherine Soussloff discusses an area of Foucault’s development that has remained lar...

Joseph Sciorra, “Built with Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in NYC” (U Tennessee Press, 2018)

08 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Folklore scholar Joseph Sciorra is the Director for Academic and Cultural Programs at the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute in Queens Colleg...

Erin Edwards, “The Modernist Corpse: Posthumanism and the Posthumous” (U Minnesota Press, 2018)

07 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

At the beginning of the 20th century, surrealists such as André Breton and Man Ray played a game called “Exquisite Corpse.” You can play it by dr...

Susan M. Squier, “Epigenetic Landscapes: Drawings as Metaphor” (Duke UP, 2017)

17 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Susan M. Squier’s book, Epigenetic Landscapes: Drawings as Metaphor (Duke University Press, 2017)  is about development— biological and ecologic...

Nadia Yaqub and Rula Quawas, “Bad Girls of the Arab World” (U Texas Press, 2017)

16 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Modeled on Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Bad Girls of the Arab World (University of Texas Press, 2017), edited by Nadia Yaqub and the...

Stephen Monteiro, “The Fabric of Interface: Mobile Media, Design, and Gender” (MIT Press, 2017)

06 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Sewing, knitting, quilting, the crafts related to fabric making, are usually not what we think about when we consider our digital communications devic...

Craig Clunas, “Chinese Painting and Its Audiences” (Princeton UP, 2017)

05 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest book, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences published in 2017 by Princeton University Press, Craig Clunas puts to question the entire conce...

Natchee Blu Barnd, “Native Space: Geographic Strategies to Unsettle Settler Colonialism” (Oregon State UP, 2017)

29 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In Native Space: Geographic Strategies to Unsettle Settler Colonialism (Oregon State University Press, 2017), Natchee Blu Barnd examines how Indigenou...

Jo Farb Hernandez, “Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments” (Raw Vision, 2013)

28 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments (Raw Vision, 2013) is an audacious tome. A comprehensive survey o...

Looted Episode 4: Village Pillage (“Field Notes”)

10 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This is the fourth in a series of podcasts from Zoe Kontes’ terrific “Looted.” Archaeologist Dr. Spencer Pope shares his thoughts on looting in...

James Reston, Jr., “A Rift in the Earth: Art, Memory and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial” (Arcade Publishing, 2017)

07 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

My students don’t remember Vietnam. That’s hard to believe, for someone born in 1968. But it’s true, nonetheless. High school history courses r...

Molly Wright Steenson, “Architectural Intelligence: How Designers and Architects Created the Digital Landscape” (MIT Press, 2017)

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For most people the field of architecture is not what they think about when discussing artificial intelligence as we describe it today. Yet, architect...