Is Art Good for Us?

Beliefs about High Culture in American Life

Häftad, Engelska, 2002

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Are the arts good for us? This book questions our taken-for-granted assumptions about the transformational powers of high culture by critiquing an instrumental American heritage of beliefs about the arts. Jensen argues that faith in high culture's unproven ability to transform people and society allows social critics to keep faith with the idea of a democratic society while deploring popular culture. Employing perspectives from Tocqueville and Dewey, she argues that the arts are good, but they don't do good. Instead of expecting the arts to improve things (and blaming the media for ruining them) we need to recognize that it is up to us, not 'the arts' to make the world a better place.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2002-04-08
Mått154 x 227 x 20 mm
Vikt354 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor224
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9780742517417

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Konstböcker inom Kultur
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In this brilliant work, Joli Jensen speaks with the reach and range and assurance of the public intellectuals she has read so carefully. She shows that 'we have not been thinking or talking wisely or well about the arts.' Through original readings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Walt Whitman, Lewis Mumford, and John Dewey, she argues that the mass media are not so bad nor 'art' so good for us as public discourse assumes. In clear-headed, strong, and almost breathtakingly lucid prose, she helps us reconsider what we want and expect of art, criticism, and democracy. What a gift this book is!