1. Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader Charles Esche The relationship between art and social and political change is not only a highly topical area of current debate, it is also fundamental to the history of modern art. This volume gathers together for the first time the essential texts that have defined this area since the late nineteenth century. Using primary sources, case studies, and new commissions, Art and Social Change provides an overview of the historical development of art with ideas of social and political change, from utopian imaginings to active engagement. Incorporating artists’ writings and public statements, as well as critical and theoretical texts, the volume also highlights developments outside established Western art history.

    Art and Social Change: A Critical Reader

    Charles Esche

    The relationship between art and social and political change is not only a highly topical area of current debate, it is also fundamental to the history of modern art. This volume gathers together for the first time the essential texts that have defined this area since the late nineteenth century. Using primary sources, case studies, and new commissions, Art and Social Change provides an overview of the historical development of art with ideas of social and political change, from utopian imaginings to active engagement. Incorporating artists’ writings and public statements, as well as critical and theoretical texts, the volume also highlights developments outside established Western art history.
  2. Guy de Cointet Marie de Brugerolle Mentor to a generation of Californian Conceptualists and performance artists, Guy de Cointet (1934-1983) took language as a material from which to generate drawings, plays and performances. De Cointet collected phrases, words and even single letters culled from popular culture and literary sources, and scripted them as dialogues or props for plays inspired by the writings and homonymic compositional methods of Raymond Roussel: in the 1976 play At Sunrise… A Cry Was Heard, for example, a large painting depicting letters bisected by a white sash provides the dialogue of the lead actress, who recites its jumble of letters as if it were ordinary conversation. His drawings were often generated by geometric erasures of found text, leaving behind Concrete-style abstract patterns. A formative figure for Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy during his tenure at the Otis Art institute, de Cointet is today in the process of being rediscovered; this timely monograph is the first overview of his enigmatic and influential oeuvre.

    Guy de Cointet

    Marie de Brugerolle

    Mentor to a generation of Californian Conceptualists and performance artists, Guy de Cointet (1934-1983) took language as a material from which to generate drawings, plays and performances. De Cointet collected phrases, words and even single letters culled from popular culture and literary sources, and scripted them as dialogues or props for plays inspired by the writings and homonymic compositional methods of Raymond Roussel: in the 1976 play At Sunrise… A Cry Was Heard, for example, a large painting depicting letters bisected by a white sash provides the dialogue of the lead actress, who recites its jumble of letters as if it were ordinary conversation. His drawings were often generated by geometric erasures of found text, leaving behind Concrete-style abstract patterns. A formative figure for Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy during his tenure at the Otis Art institute, de Cointet is today in the process of being rediscovered; this timely monograph is the first overview of his enigmatic and influential oeuvre.
  3. Project Japan: Metabolism Talks Rem Koolhaas Between 2005 and 2011, architect Rem Koolhaas and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed the surviving members of Metabolism—the first non-western avant-garde, launched in Tokyo in 1960, in the midst of Japan’s postwar miracle. Project Japan features hundreds of never-before-seen images—master plans from Manchuria to Tokyo, intimate snapshots of the Metabolists at work and play, architectural models, magazine excerpts, and astonishing sci-fi urban visions—telling the 20th century history of Japan through its architecture, from the tabula rasa of a colonized Manchuria in the 1930s to a devastated Japan after the war, the establishment of Metabolism at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokoy, to the rise of Kisho Kurokawa as the first celebrity architect, to the apotheosis of Metabolism at Expo ’70 in Osaka and its expansion into the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s. The result is a vivid documentary of the last moment when architecture was a public rather than a private affair.

    Project Japan: Metabolism Talks

    Rem Koolhaas

    Between 2005 and 2011, architect Rem Koolhaas and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist interviewed the surviving members of Metabolism—the first non-western avant-garde, launched in Tokyo in 1960, in the midst of Japan’s postwar miracle. Project Japan features hundreds of never-before-seen images—master plans from Manchuria to Tokyo, intimate snapshots of the Metabolists at work and play, architectural models, magazine excerpts, and astonishing sci-fi urban visions—telling the 20th century history of Japan through its architecture, from the tabula rasa of a colonized Manchuria in the 1930s to a devastated Japan after the war, the establishment of Metabolism at the 1960 World Design Conference in Tokoy, to the rise of Kisho Kurokawa as the first celebrity architect, to the apotheosis of Metabolism at Expo ’70 in Osaka and its expansion into the Middle East and Africa in the 1970s. The result is a vivid documentary of the last moment when architecture was a public rather than a private affair.
  4. A Little History of Philosophy Nigel Warburton Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it. In forty brief chapters, Nigel Warburton guides us on a chronological tour of the major ideas in the history of philosophy. He provides interesting and often quirky stories of the lives and deaths of thought-provoking philosophers from Socrates, who chose to die by hemlock poisoning rather than live on without the freedom to think for himself, to Peter Singer, who asks the disquieting philosophical and ethical questions that haunt our own times. Warburton not only makes philosophy accessible, he offers inspiration to think, argue, reason, and ask in the tradition of Socrates. A Little History of Philosophy presents the grand sweep of humanity’s search for philosophical understanding and invites all to join in the discussion.

    A Little History of Philosophy

    Nigel Warburton

    Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it.

    In forty brief chapters, Nigel Warburton guides us on a chronological tour of the major ideas in the history of philosophy. He provides interesting and often quirky stories of the lives and deaths of thought-provoking philosophers from Socrates, who chose to die by hemlock poisoning rather than live on without the freedom to think for himself, to Peter Singer, who asks the disquieting philosophical and ethical questions that haunt our own times.

    Warburton not only makes philosophy accessible, he offers inspiration to think, argue, reason, and ask in the tradition of Socrates. A Little History of Philosophy presents the grand sweep of humanity’s search for philosophical understanding and invites all to join in the discussion.
  5. Experience: Challenging Visual Indifference Through New Sensory Experience Sean Perkins Experience documents dialogue between over 100 organisations, marketeers, designers and artists around the world — from the creators of Japanese fog parks to the creatives behind Nike Town — exploring the possibilities of a radically progressive approach to marketing.

    Experience: Challenging Visual Indifference Through New Sensory Experience

    Sean Perkins

    Experience documents dialogue between over 100 organisations, marketeers, designers and artists around the world — from the creators of Japanese fog parks to the creatives behind Nike Town — exploring the possibilities of a radically progressive approach to marketing.
  6. A Universal History of Iniquity Jorge Luis Borges In his writing, Borges always combined high seriousness with a wicked sense of fun. Here he reveals his delight in re-creating (or making up) colorful stories from the Orient, the Islamic world, and the Wild West, as well as his horrified fascination with knife fights, political and personal betrayal, and bloodthirsty revenge. Sparkling with the sheer exuberant pleasure of story-telling, this collection marked the emergence of an utterly distinctive literary voice.

    A Universal History of Iniquity

    Jorge Luis Borges

    In his writing, Borges always combined high seriousness with a wicked sense of fun. Here he reveals his delight in re-creating (or making up) colorful stories from the Orient, the Islamic world, and the Wild West, as well as his horrified fascination with knife fights, political and personal betrayal, and bloodthirsty revenge. Sparkling with the sheer exuberant pleasure of story-telling, this collection marked the emergence of an utterly distinctive literary voice.
  7. Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism John Updike Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, Hugging the Shore is an enormously intelligent, witty collection of essays by John Updike. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist sheds keen light on everything from the first kiss to going barefoot to the world’s greatest writers. First time in paper.

    Hugging the Shore: Essays and Criticism

    John Updike

    Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, Hugging the Shore is an enormously intelligent, witty collection of essays by John Updike. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist sheds keen light on everything from the first kiss to going barefoot to the world’s greatest writers. First time in paper.
  8. The Books, 1968-2010 Peter Downsbrough Like his contemporaries Lawrence Weiner, Robert Barry and Sol LeWitt, American Conceptualist Peter Downsbrough (born 1940) combines a fondness for geometric art and typography with the possibilities of the artist’s book. Since the late 1960s he has worked across media (video, film and photography), but the artist’s book has proved an enduring format, a place in which to incorporate other projects and compose with text, line drawings, maps and photographs. In 1993 the publisher, book collector and curator Guy Schraenen wrote of his work: “One might call it the absolute zero of the book, since it presents itself in the simplest form.” This catalogue provides a comprehensive overview of the 85 artist’s books that Downsbrough has published from 1972 to the present, including such classics of Conceptualist book art as And, A Place—New York, Beside, Notes on Location 2 and Two Pipes Fourteen Locations.

    The Books, 1968-2010

    Peter Downsbrough

    Like his contemporaries Lawrence Weiner, Robert Barry and Sol LeWitt, American Conceptualist Peter Downsbrough (born 1940) combines a fondness for geometric art and typography with the possibilities of the artist’s book. Since the late 1960s he has worked across media (video, film and photography), but the artist’s book has proved an enduring format, a place in which to incorporate other projects and compose with text, line drawings, maps and photographs. In 1993 the publisher, book collector and curator Guy Schraenen wrote of his work: “One might call it the absolute zero of the book, since it presents itself in the simplest form.” This catalogue provides a comprehensive overview of the 85 artist’s books that Downsbrough has published from 1972 to the present, including such classics of Conceptualist book art as And, A Place—New York, Beside, Notes on Location 2 and Two Pipes Fourteen Locations.
  9. I’m Thinking of a Number Micah Lexier Canadian artist Micah Lexier has built an international reputation working in a variety of media, often making work with numerical themes, such as 1995’s “Self-portrait as a Lucite Cube Divided Proportionally a (Red) Volume Representing Life Lived and a (Clear) Volume Representing Life to Come, Based on Statistical Life Expectancy.” Over the past three decades, he has also produced a significant body of multiple materials to be distributed to viewers, including prize ribbons, printed balloons, custom-minted coins and individually numbered cards. Micah Lexier: I’m Thinking of a Number is a survey of the artist’s invitations, posters, book works, T-shirts, boxed sets and other multiples produced between 1980 and 2010. It includes a multiple created by the artist for this publication—a letterpress sheet of four stickers tipped in as the final work itemized by the monograph.

    I’m Thinking of a Number

    Micah Lexier

    Canadian artist Micah Lexier has built an international reputation working in a variety of media, often making work with numerical themes, such as 1995’s “Self-portrait as a Lucite Cube Divided Proportionally a (Red) Volume Representing Life Lived and a (Clear) Volume Representing Life to Come, Based on Statistical Life Expectancy.” Over the past three decades, he has also produced a significant body of multiple materials to be distributed to viewers, including prize ribbons, printed balloons, custom-minted coins and individually numbered cards. Micah Lexier: I’m Thinking of a Number is a survey of the artist’s invitations, posters, book works, T-shirts, boxed sets and other multiples produced between 1980 and 2010. It includes a multiple created by the artist for this publication—a letterpress sheet of four stickers tipped in as the final work itemized by the monograph.
  10. Silence: Lectures and Writings John Cage Silence, John Cage’s first book and epic masterpiece, was published in October 1961. In these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries, as he says, to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, is not about them, but that produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching. Fifty years later comes a beautiful new edition with a foreword by eminent music critic Kyle Gann. A landmark book in American arts and culture, Silence has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. Wesleyan University Press is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication with this special hardcover edition.

    Silence: Lectures and Writings

    John Cage

    Silence, John Cage’s first book and epic masterpiece, was published in October 1961. In these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries, as he says, to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, is not about them, but that produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching. Fifty years later comes a beautiful new edition with a foreword by eminent music critic Kyle Gann. A landmark book in American arts and culture, Silence has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. Wesleyan University Press is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication with this special hardcover edition.
  11. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations Christopher Lasch When The Culture of Narcissism was first published, it was clear that Christopher Lasch had identified something important: what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century. The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, “The Culture of Narcissism Revisited.”

    The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

    Christopher Lasch

    When The Culture of Narcissism was first published, it was clear that Christopher Lasch had identified something important: what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century. The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, “The Culture of Narcissism Revisited.”
  12. Travels in Hyperreality Umberto Eco Umberto Eco displays in these essays the same wit, learning, and lively intelligence that delighted readers of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum. His range is wide, and his insights are acute, frequently ironic, and often downright funny. Translated by William Weaver.

    Travels in Hyperreality

    Umberto Eco

    Umberto Eco displays in these essays the same wit, learning, and lively intelligence that delighted readers of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum. His range is wide, and his insights are acute, frequently ironic, and often downright funny. Translated by William Weaver.
  13. The Electric Information Age Book Jeffrey T. Schnapp & Adam Michaels The Electric Information Age Book explores the nine-year window of mass-market publishing in the sixties and seventies when formerly backstage players designers, graphic artists, editors stepped into the spotlight to produce a series of exceptional books. Aimed squarely at the young media-savvy consumers of the “Electronic Information Age,” these small, inexpensive paperbacks aimed to bring the ideas of contemporary thinkers like Marshall McLuhan, R. Buckminster Fuller, Herman Kahn, and Carl Sagan to the masses. Graphic designers such as Quentin Fiore (The Medium is the Massage, 1967) employed a variety of radical techniques verbal visual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics that were as important to the content as the text. The Electric Information Age Book is the first book-length history of this brief yet highly influential publishing phenomenon.

    The Electric Information Age Book

    Jeffrey T. Schnapp & Adam Michaels

    The Electric Information Age Book explores the nine-year window of mass-market publishing in the sixties and seventies when formerly backstage players designers, graphic artists, editors stepped into the spotlight to produce a series of exceptional books. Aimed squarely at the young media-savvy consumers of the “Electronic Information Age,” these small, inexpensive paperbacks aimed to bring the ideas of contemporary thinkers like Marshall McLuhan, R. Buckminster Fuller, Herman Kahn, and Carl Sagan to the masses. Graphic designers such as Quentin Fiore (The Medium is the Massage, 1967) employed a variety of radical techniques verbal visual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics that were as important to the content as the text. The Electric Information Age Book is the first book-length history of this brief yet highly influential publishing phenomenon.
  14. Conversations with Woody Allen Eric Lax From the author of the best-selling biography Woody Allen—the most informative, revealing, and entertaining conversations from his thirty-six years of interviewing the great comedian and filmmaker. For more than three decades, Woody Allen has been talking regularly and candidly with Eric Lax, and has given him singular and unfettered access to his film sets, his editing room, and his thoughts and observations. In discussions that begin in 1971 and continue into 2007, Allen discusses every facet of moviemaking through the prism of his own films and the work of directors he admires. In doing so, he reveals an artist’s development over the course of his career to date, from joke writer to standup comedian to world-acclaimed filmmaker. Woody talks about the seeds of his ideas and the writing of his screenplays; about casting and acting, shooting and directing, editing and scoring. He tells how he reworks screenplays even while filming them. He describes the problems he has had casting American men, and he explains why he admires the acting of (among many others) Alan Alda, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, John Cusack, Judy Davis, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mia Farrow, Gene Hackman, Scarlett Johansson, Julie Kavner, Liam Neeson, Jack Nicholson, Charlize Theron, Tracey Ullman, Sam Waterston, and Dianne Wiest. He places Diane Keaton second only to Judy Holliday in the pantheon of great screen comediennes. He discusses his favorite films (Citizen Kane *is the lone American movie on his list of sixteen “best films ever made”; *Duck Soup *and *Airplane! *are two of his preferred “comedian’s films”; *Trouble in Paradise *and *Born Yesterday *among his favorite “talking plot comedies”). *He describes himself as a boy in Brooklyn enthralled by the joke-laden movies of Bob Hope and the sophisticated film stories of Manhattan. As a director, he tells us what he appreciates about Bergman, De Sica, Fellini, Welles, Kurosawa, John Huston, and Jean Renoir. Throughout he shows himself to be thoughtful, honest, self–deprecating, witty, and often hilarious.

    Conversations with Woody Allen

    Eric Lax

    From the author of the best-selling biography Woody Allen—the most informative, revealing, and entertaining conversations from his thirty-six years of interviewing the great comedian and filmmaker. For more than three decades, Woody Allen has been talking regularly and candidly with Eric Lax, and has given him singular and unfettered access to his film sets, his editing room, and his thoughts and observations. In discussions that begin in 1971 and continue into 2007, Allen discusses every facet of moviemaking through the prism of his own films and the work of directors he admires. In doing so, he reveals an artist’s development over the course of his career to date, from joke writer to standup comedian to world-acclaimed filmmaker. Woody talks about the seeds of his ideas and the writing of his screenplays; about casting and acting, shooting and directing, editing and scoring. He tells how he reworks screenplays even while filming them. He describes the problems he has had casting American men, and he explains why he admires the acting of (among many others) Alan Alda, Marlon Brando, Michael Caine, John Cusack, Judy Davis, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mia Farrow, Gene Hackman, Scarlett Johansson, Julie Kavner, Liam Neeson, Jack Nicholson, Charlize Theron, Tracey Ullman, Sam Waterston, and Dianne Wiest. He places Diane Keaton second only to Judy Holliday in the pantheon of great screen comediennes. He discusses his favorite films (Citizen Kane *is the lone American movie on his list of sixteen “best films ever made”; *Duck Soup *and *Airplane! *are two of his preferred “comedian’s films”; *Trouble in Paradise *and *Born Yesterday *among his favorite “talking plot comedies”). *He describes himself as a boy in Brooklyn enthralled by the joke-laden movies of Bob Hope and the sophisticated film stories of Manhattan. As a director, he tells us what he appreciates about Bergman, De Sica, Fellini, Welles, Kurosawa, John Huston, and Jean Renoir. Throughout he shows himself to be thoughtful, honest, self–deprecating, witty, and often hilarious.
  15. Assembling California John McPhee At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults. The two disparate time scales occasionally intersect—in the gold disruptions of the nineteenth century no less than in the earthquakes of the twentieth—and always with relevance to a newly understood geologic history in which half a dozen large and separate pieces of country are seen to have drifted in from far and near to coalesce as California. McPhee and Moores also journeyed to remote mountains of Arizona and to Cyprus and northern Greece, where rock of the deep-ocean floor has been transported into continental settings, as it has in California. Global in scope and a delight to read, Assembling California is a sweeping narrative of maps in motion, of evolving and dissolving lands.

    Assembling California

    John McPhee

    At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults. The two disparate time scales occasionally intersect—in the gold disruptions of the nineteenth century no less than in the earthquakes of the twentieth—and always with relevance to a newly understood geologic history in which half a dozen large and separate pieces of country are seen to have drifted in from far and near to coalesce as California. McPhee and Moores also journeyed to remote mountains of Arizona and to Cyprus and northern Greece, where rock of the deep-ocean floor has been transported into continental settings, as it has in California. Global in scope and a delight to read, Assembling California is a sweeping narrative of maps in motion, of evolving and dissolving lands.
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