Cambridge U. Pr.

Abstract art against autonomy; infection, resistance, and cure since the '60s.

In this thought-provoking volume, Cheetham (art history, U. of Toronto, Canada) uses a complex and sustained metaphor of infection, resistance, and cure — as from disease — to analyze the challenging field of abstract art. Demonstrating an impressive depth of knowledge of the art and its criticism, the lengthy first chapter discusses widely the development, concepts, and various permutations of the genre. Monochromes, types of nonrepresentations, and current trends are then discussed, including the work of Yves Klein, Olafu Eliasson, James Turrell, Gerhard Richter, Robert Smithson, and General Idea. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Art and cultural heritage; law, policy, and practice.

The plundering of the Iraq Museum, the burning of its National Library, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban, the illegal excavation and looting of archaeological sites in Central Asia and worldwide, restitution and reparation claims by countries whose culture is displayed in foreign museums — these are the issues and realities with which art and cultural heritage laws and policies grapple. Produced by the International Bar Association, and resulting in part from a conference held in Cancun, Mexico in 2001, this volume presents 65 scholarly articles by an international group of lawyers and experts describing issues, cases, and solutions in the field. The papers are divided into ten sections: on underwater cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, museums, innovative partnerships, arbitration and mediation, the mining industry and its financing, national interpretations of the World Heritage Convention, and the art market. Twelve essays are devoted to individual examples of cultural heritage preservation and management, in Angkor Wat, New Zealand, Paraguay, Nigeria, Bolivia, and Peru, among others. In addition, the first seven articles delve into legal tools and broad issues relevant to any lawyer, curator, or other professional in the field of heritage preservation and protection. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Art, science, and witchcraft in early modern Holland; Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1620).

Swan (art history, Northwestern U.) explores how printmaker, painter, and draftsman de Gheyn oscillated between scientific naturalism and fantastic imagery. In so doing, she also offers accounts of the reciprocity between visual representation and early modern descriptive science, and of the parallels between demonological theories of the human imagination and artistic theories of creativity. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Attalos, Athens, and the Akropolis; the Pergamene 'Little Barbarians' and their Roman and Renaissance legacy.

The Little Barbarians are ten Roman marble figures of Giants, Amazons, Persians, and Gauls, two-thirds life size, discovered in Rome during the Renaissance. In 1865, they were identified with a dedication on the Athenian Acropolis seen by the traveler Pausanius around AD 170. Stewart (ancient Mediterranean art and archeology, U. of California-Berkeley) traces the evidence concerning and controversies around the figures. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

British film.

In this text for students and general readers, Leach (film, Brock U., Ontario) explores British cinema within its social, political, and cultural contexts. Each chapter focuses on a particular topic, illustrated by close readings of key films from different historical periods. A few of those topics: class and ideology; sexuality and gender; and the relationship between British theater and the film industry. The text is accompanied throughout by b&w movie stills. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Cambridge companion to David Mamet.

The first couple of plays tanked. The next picked up an Obie award and slapped its author with a reputation as a casual acquaintance of the convention better known as "plot" but a lover of the expletive. In each play over the decades Mamet has continued to push the limits but by now it is fairly obvious he is not casual at all. In these 12 essays contributors take on various facets of Mamet the dramatist, including decade-by decade assessments of his work in the 1970s through the 1990s, reviews of American Buffalo, Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna, and descriptions of Mamet's impact on actors, directors, and film. The collection also includes a survey of Mamet's reviewers and a biography. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Cambridge companion to Merleau-Ponty.

Affirmed as one of the greatest of the phenomenologists but also underrated as a major force in philosophy within the historical contexts of existentialism and structuralism, Merleau-Ponty is receive significant attention over four decades after his death. This collection of 13 essays and an introduction introduce Merleau-Ponty's thought on perception and the bodily construction of intentionality to students and expand on his reflections on science, nature, art, history and politics. Topics include his take on epistemology, sensation and judgment in the phenomenal field, the subtle differences and interplay between the concepts of motives, reasons and causes, Merleau-Ponty's impact on recent cognitive science, his perceptions of the body, and his relation to Malebranche. Several articles analyze his approach to art, and one analyzes his existential conception of science. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Cambridge companion to the Age of Augustus.

Historians, classicists, literature scholars, and historians of art and architecture describe the time and place when the young heir to Caesar ruled the known (to the Romans) world in the first century. They explore political history, intellectual and social developments, the emperor's impact, art and the city, Augustan literature, and Herod and the Jewish experience of Augustan rule. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Cézanne/Pissarro, Johns/Rauschenberg; comparative studies on intersubjectivity in modern art.

In this comparative study of two pairs of collaborative artists, Pissarro (painting and sculpture curator, Museum of Modern Art, New York) goes beyond the individual artists to offer a critique of modernism as a monological ideology. The first pair under study, Cézanne and Pissarro, contributed to the emergence of modernism, while the second, Johns and Rauschenberg, contributed to its demise. Pissarro suggests that their interactive dialogues were of great significance to each artist and argues further, calling on Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, that the individual is the result of reciprocal encounters. He demonstrates that modern subjectivity is essentially open to others, although the modernist tradition paradoxically has presented each of these artists in isolation. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The Coen brothers' Fargo.

In 1996, Fargo, by Ethan and Joel Coen, was the winner of two Academy Awards — an exceptional feat for a low budget, independently produced film. This volume contains five contributions from scholars examining the film from various disciplinary perspectives. These are accompanied by an interview with the Coen brothers, a film critic's review, and a filmography. The place of music in the film is also discussed in an essay by score composer Carter Burwell. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Conceptual art; theory, myth, and practice.

De-emphasizing the art object while promoting the epistemological importance of language, conceptual art has been a controversial element in the art world since its emergence in the 1960s. These essays elucidate debates about conceptual art with new research on the earliest international exhibitions, new interpretations of some of the genre's most important practitioners, and a reconsideration of the relationship between conceptual art and the intellectual and social contexts of the 1960s and 1970s. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Concrete vaulted construction in Imperial Rome; innovations in context.

Lancaster (classics, Ohio U.) examines the methods and techniques that enabled builders to construct some of the most imposing monuments of ancient Rome. Focusing on structurally innovative vaulting and the factors that influenced its advancement, Lancaster explores a range of practices. She provides the geological background of the local building stones and applies mineralogical analysis to determine material provenance. To draw connections between changes in the building industry and the events that shaped Roman society, Lancaster examines construction techniques in relation to the social, economic and political contexts of Rome. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Cosimo I de' Medici and his self-representation in Florentine art and culture.

Veen (art history, U. Groningen, The Netherlands) presents an integrated perspective on Grand-Duke of Tuscany Cosimo's (1519-74) patronage of art, architecture, and culture. He explains that during his 27-year reign, he commissioned a long list of buildings and art works that still determine the appearance of Florence to a large extent, and chronicle his rise from a minor player on the Italian political stage to a powerful absolutist prince. He argues that Cosimo achieved this by using his official commissions for specific propagandistic ends. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The death of the baroque and the rhetoric of good taste.

Minor (art and art history, U. of Colorado, Boulder) examines the cultural upheaval that accompanied debates about the elements and nature of the Baroque, debates that fueled dialog in art, literature, religion, and to some extent hierarchical and ornamented societies. She compares some aspects of Baroque rhetoric with the concept of cattivo gusto, looks at arcadia (especially its architecture) and pastoralism, and closes with an examination of the Parrhasian grove. The result is a fresh look at what constituted a cultural revolution as well as a structure for debate and alignment in a variety of different genres, fields and subjects. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Florentine villas in the fifteenth century; an architectural and social history.

Lillie (history of art, U. of York) challenges the urban bias in Renaissance art and architectural history by investigating the architecture and patronage strategies of the Strozzi and Sassetti clans in the Florentine countryside during the 15th century. Drawing on unpublished archival material and the study of little-known buildings, she finds a different reality than the traditional, idealized notion of the Renaissance villa. The pastoral idyll is replaced here by dilapidated houses undergoing renovation and conversion, by the nurturing of dynastic and patrimonial values, and a thrifty, utilitarian attitude toward villa life. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Freedom and entertainment; rating the movies in an age of new media.

In 1968, Hollywood adopted a new ratings system that replaced the 1930 Production Code based on prior censorship. Vaughn (history of communications, U. of Wisconsin — Madison) describes industry and government efforts to regulate and control movie content in the wake of that sea change. He first describes the institution of the new system and the reaction of moviemakers. Ratings and other controversies surrounding sex, profanity, violence, drugs, and religion in the movies are then discussed. A number of chapters explore the evolution of the X rating, its association with pornography, the antipornography crusades of Reagan administration Attorney General Meese and others, and the recent institution of the NC-17 rating. One chapter considers similar issues for television. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Gender in the early medieval world; East and West, 300-900.

Brubaker (Byzantine art history, U. of Birmingham) and Smith (medieval history, U. of St. Andrews) assemble 16 essays on gender in late Roman society, and Byzantine, Islamic, and western European civilizations during the period of 300 to 900. The international group of scholars discusses government, economy, religion, family life, death and burial, ethnicity, and writing history. Topics encompass dress and masculinity, sexuality, bride shows, slaves in Abbasid society, the harem of al-Muqtadir, women's brooches, patronage, genealogy, the Frankish empress Judith, and Anglo-Saxon burial practices. Some of the essays were given as papers in earlier versions at the Leeds International Medieval Congress in 2000. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Gender, politics, and allegory in the art of Rubens.

Rosenthal (art history, U. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) applies critical and gender theory in a new interpretation of how the Flemish master intertwined themes of intimate and political relationships. The analysis begins by a description of a recently discovered collaborative painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577- 1640) and Jan Brueghel the Elder, which depicts an encounter between Venus and Mars. The author argues that such signature scenes are visual allegories of a humanist promoting peace over war. She also explores themes of self-representation, social status, familial roles, and his ideas of creativity. The volume contains color and b&w images of Rubens' works. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Greek sculpture and the problem of description.

Examining scholarship from the 18th century to the present, Donohue (classical and Near Eastern archeology, Bryn Mawr College) explores the role of description in the interpretation of ancient Greek statuary. Although scholars have emphasized the importance of separating objective evaluation of evidence from interpretation, in practice the distinction has been problematic and has been molded by particular concepts and convictions. Donohue demonstrates the influences on this scholarship from understandings about ethnicity, psychology, theories about artistic form, and evolving conceptions of nude and clothed figures. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Hostages and hostage-taking in the Roman Empire.

While Allen (history, Queens College, City U. of New York) does not relate his study to current world events, his discussion of negotiations over hostages and power is relevant. Trajan's victory column and Augustus's Altar of Peace, featured illustrations, exemplify the extremes of leaders' desired images as conquering hero or universal friend. The author discusses hostage-taking in the Roman Empire in relation to these political aims and cultural norms. Drawing on period historical and literary accounts, he analyzes the parallels between hostages representing the Other and scapegoats, and hostages and marriage as alliance-fostering. Indexing is by passage discussed (translated by the author) and general subject. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)