A vigorous, timely, necessary defense of creativity.
Eloquent essays on the vital meaning of art.
Arthurs is a senior fellow at the John Brademas Center at NYU, and DiNiscia is Deputy Director for Research and Strategic Initiatives at the Center. In this important collection, the editors gather a racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse group of more than two dozen eminent scholars, artists, professionals working in the field of arts and culture, and funders who support the arts. Jazz pianist Fred Hersch (interviewed by Arthurs), composer Tania León, choreographer and dancer Alice Sheppard, and Deborah Willis, historian of African American photography, join the other contributors in responding to the title question with a resounding “yes.” They argue forcefully for the importance of the arts in strengthening social ties, benefiting individuals, fostering community, engaging with the sciences, and recording and sharing human experiences. As music history scholar Karol Berger notes, “when you think that art is inessential and useless,” remember those artists who have been persecuted, marginalized, silenced, incarcerated, and killed because of the power of their creations. Like Berger, several contributors underscore the political significance of the arts. Philosophy professor and ethicist K. Anthony Appiah asserts that art “readies us for our real lives, enlarges our political possibilities, connects us within and across identities.” For Zeyba Rahman and Hussein Rashid, the arts, speaking through the language of imagination, “can bring alive communities and urgent problems that are unfamiliar to us by creating a universal resonance and relatability.” The arts nurture individuals, just as with other forms of sustenance. “All people…yearn for beauty,” writes Ford Foundation president Darren Walker, “also long for grace, also have hearts as well as stomachs that need to be fed and filled. And people inevitably create beauty and grace when they lift their voices in song, move their bodies to music, shape color and form on canvas or in sculpture, or use language to tell stories in ways that delight and surprise.”
A vigorous, timely, necessary defense of creativity.Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4798-1262-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Strictly for dittoheads.
An unabashed celebration of the late talking head.
Rush Limbaugh (1951-2021) insisted that he had a direct line to God, who blessed him with brilliance unseen since the time of the Messiah. In his tribute, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis calls him “the greatest broadcaster that [sic] ever lived.” That’s an accidental anointment, given checkered beginnings. Limbaugh himself records that, after earning a failing grade for not properly outlining a speech, he dropped out of college—doubtless the cause of his scorn for higher education. This book is a constant gush of cult-of-personality praise, with tributes from Ben Carson, Mike Pence, Donald Trump, and others. One radio caller called Limbaugh “practically perfect” and a latter-day George Washington by virtue of “the magnetism and the trust and the belief of all the people.” Limbaugh insists that conservatives are all about love, though he filled the airwaves with bitter, divisive invective about the evils of liberals, as with this tidbit: “to liberals, the Bill of Rights is horrible, the Bill of Rights grants citizens freedom….The Bill of Rights limits the federal government, and that’s negative to a socialist like Obama.” Moreover, “to Democrats, America’s heartland is ‘flyover’ country. They don’t know, or like, the Americans who live there, or their values.” Worse still for a money machine like Limbaugh, who flew over that heartland in a private jet while smoking fat cigars, liberals like Obama are “trying to socialize profit so that [they] can claim it”—anathema to wealthy Republicans, who prefer to socialize risk by way of bailouts while keeping the profits for themselves. Limbaugh fans will certainly eat this up, though a segment of the Republican caucus in Congress (Marjorie Taylor Greene et al.) might want to read past Limbaugh’s repeated insistence that “peace can’t be achieved by ‘developing an understanding’ with the Russian people.”
Strictly for dittoheads.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 9781668001844
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An unassuming work of literary theory that will dazzle hungry scholars.
A shimmering and perplexing work that challenges the constraints of traditional prose.
In her finely tempered collection of essays and experimental writing, Dutton, author of Margaret the First, explores a conceptual take on storytelling involving the ineffable feeling of a text, beyond mere words. Her work is highbrow while remaining mischievously playful, reminiscent of the form-smashing thrills of writers like Lydia Davis and Anne Carson. The first section, “Prairie,” features five abstract stories that eschew plot in favor of hazy, memoir-like fragments. The poetic and peculiar “Dresses” is an artfully arranged list of excerpts from poems and novels that include mentions of a dress. Despite the content coming from outside sources, their collaged curation transforms the texts into something unsuspectingly resonant. The revelatory essay in “Art” helps unlock Dutton’s puzzles. Here, she discusses contemporary art and the practice of ekphrastic writing, a technique that not only describes visual art in words but also aims to render in language and tone how a work makes a person feel. The author explains her interest in writing a text that can expand beyond its edges and open “a space within which we attend to the world.” “How might a story embody a specific way of looking?” she asks. “Other” further develops these ideas. In the short narrative “Not Writing,” Dutton briefly discusses the minimalist paintings of Agnes Martin and how scholar Olivia Laing noted “they aren’t meant to be read, but are there to be responded to.” Dutton asks, “Is it wrong to want to write towards what isn’t intended to be read? What I want is a story that’s an object that can turn itself inside out.” The author not only introduces big ideas; she shows her readers how to grapple with her lofty questions.
An unassuming work of literary theory that will dazzle hungry scholars.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781566897037
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
