How to think about what it means to look and see- a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture The visual surrounds us, some of it invited, most of it not. In this visual environment, everything we see-color, the moon, a skyscraper, a stop sign, a political poster, rising sea levels, a photograph of Kim Kardashian West-somehow becomes legible, normalized, accessible. How does this happen? How do we live and move in our visual environments? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture, outlining strategies for thinking about what it means to look and see-and what is at stake in doing so. Visual culture has always been inscribed by the dominant and by domination. This book suggests how we might weaponize the visual for positive, unifying change. Drawing on both historical and contemporary examples-from Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party and Beyonce and Jay-Z at the Louvre to the first images of a black hole-Alexis Boylan considers how we engage with and are manipulated by what we see. She begins with what- what is visual culture, and what questions, ideas, and quandaries animate our approach to the visual? She continues with where- where are we allowed to see it, and where do we stand when we look? Then, who- whose bodies have been present or absent from visual culture, and who is allowed to see it? And, finally, when- is the visual detached from time? When do we see what we need to see?

Visual Culture (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series)

Arts & Photography

Boylan, Alexis L.

History & Criticism

The MIT Press

A close look at early-20th-century New York City through the eyes of Ashcan artist John Sloan John Sloan (1871–1951) began his career as a commercial newspaper artist in Philadelphia where he studied with Robert Henri. Following Henri to New York, Sloan joined a small circle of eight talented artists whose dissatisfaction with the dominating National Academy led to a protest exhibit in 1908, the emergence of a powerful movement for change in American art, and ultimately to the famous Armory Show of 1913. It was in part Sloan’s dark palette and views of city streets and working-class life that gave rise to the epithet now used to describe the works of the “Ashcan School.” Sloan’s compelling images of New York City are the subject of this generously illustrated book. His paintings, drawings, and prints clearly reflect his own experience of the city as he walked its neighborhoods and observed human dramas played out in streets and apartments. The contributors to the volume investigate a variety of topics, including Sloan’s understanding of the urban experience in America, his interest in social reform, his fascination with moving pictures and cinema aesthetics, and his relationship with Henri. The authors also situate Sloan’s paintings within the geography and social fabric of New York. John Sloan’s New York presents a unique perspective on New York and its people and also on the artist himself, who was captivated by the soul of the city.

John Sloan's New York

Fillin-Yeh, Susan

Manthorne, Katherine E.

Schiller, Joyce K.

Coyle, Heather Campbell

Hutton, Molly S.

Delaware Museum of Art

Arriving in New York City in the first decade of the twentieth century, six painters-Robert Henri, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, Glackens, George Luks, and George Bellows, subsequently known as the Ashcan Circle-faced a visual culture that depicted the urban man as a diseased body under assault. Ashcan artists countered this narrative, manipulating the bodies of construction workers, tramps, entertainers, and office workers to stand in visual opposition to popular, political, and commercial cultures. They did so by repeatedly positioning white male bodies as having no cleverness, no moral authority, no style, and no particular charisma, crafting with consistency an unspectacular man. This was an attempt, both radical and deeply insidious, to make the white male body stand outside visual systems of knowledge, to resist the disciplining powers of commercial capitalism, and to simply be with no justification or rationale. Ashcan Art, Whiteness, and the Unspectacular Man maps how Ashcan artists reconfigured urban masculinity for national audiences and reimagined the possibility and privilege of the unremarkable white, male body thus shaping dialogues about modernity, gender, and race that shifted visual culture in the United States.

Ashcan Art, Whiteness, and the Unspectacular Man

Bloomsbury Academic

Bloomsbury Visual Arts

A provocative peek into this complicated film as a space for subversion, activism, and imaginative power While both fans and foes point to Mad Max: Fury Road's feminist credentials, Furious Feminisms asks: is there really anything feminist or radical happening on the screen? The four authors--from backgrounds in art history, American literature, disability studies, and sociology--ask what is possible, desirable, or damaging in theorizing feminism in the contested landscape of the twenty-first century. Can we find beauty in the Anthropocene? Can power be wrested from a violent system without employing and perpetuating violence?&nbsp; This experiment in collaborative criticism weaves multiple threads of dialogue together to offer a fresh perspective on our current cultural moment.&nbsp; Forerunners: Ideas First Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

Furious Feminisms: Alternate Routes on Mad Max: Fury Road (Forerunners: Ideas First)

Humor & Entertainment

Gill, Michael

Gurr, Barbara

Duane, Anna Mae

Movies

Univ. of Minnesota Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Boylan, Alexis L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Boylan, Alexis L.