Athenaeum Review
By Athenaeum Review
Athenaeum ReviewJun 11, 2020
The Asian American Renaissance: A Conversation with Mai Wang
Mai Wang is an assistant professor of literature at UT Dallas, where she teaches Asian American and Chinese diasporic literature.
Her first book project, The Asian American Renaissance, examines the imaginative alliances formed between diasporic Asian American authors and their nineteenth-century American predecessors.
In this conversation: How Asian American authors have formed imaginative alliances with their 19th century predecessors; Eileen Chang and Emerson's concept of negative freedom; Carlos Bulosan and America Is in the Heart; and much more!
The Legacy of Vesuvius: A Conversation with Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas is curator of The Legacy of Vesuvius: Bourbon Discoveries on the Bay of Naples at the Meadows Museum, Dallas, as well as From Texas to the World: Common Ground at UT Dallas and the Dallas Museum of Art.
In this conversation: What the Bourbons discovered in 18th-century excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum; the effect of the Grand Tour; 18th-century archaeological techniques; highlights of the exhibition; artists at the Spanish royal court, and more!
Aristophanes and Timeless Comedy: A Conversation with A.M. Juster
Gerytades: An Aristophanes Play... sort of, by poet and translator A.M. Juster, is out now from Contubernales Publishing.
In this conversation: How Gerytades was lost and found; what makes for great comedy; timeliness and timelessness in human nature; how to approach a play that survives in fragments; the fate of light verse; literature, humor, and the underworld; approaches to translating Latin; and much more!
Dragon Eye: A Conversation with Thomas Riccio
"Dragon Eye," Thomas Riccio's immersive video installation documenting the culture of the Miao people of China, was recently on view at the SP/N Gallery at UT Dallas.
In this conversation: The process of visiting and doing research with the Miao people in remote mountain villages; cultural preservation in the face of modernity; "Form Fatigue"; an example of a healing ritual; the relationship between Indigenous rituals and Western performance; doing theater in Chicago, Alaska, and Dallas; anthropology and AI; Sophia Robot: Post Human Being; and more!
Views of L.A. and Medellín: A Conversation with Thomas Locke Hobbs
Thomas Locke Hobbs is a photographer whose books include L.A. Vedute, which was shortlisted for Aperture Photobook of the Year, and Rampitas.
In this conversation: Cities in the U.S., Peru and Colombia; domestic architecture, density and class division; negative space in the built environment; Eugène Atget and photo history; season, climate, and mood in Los Angeles; the photo book as object; and more!
Aphorisms for Artists: A Conversation with Franklin Einspruch
Franklin Einspruch is the editor of Aphorisms for Artists: 100 Ways Toward Better Art, by Walter Darby Bannard, and the proprietor of Dissident Muse Journal.
In this conversation: Why the aphorism?; the significance of abstract art and of Clement Greenberg; the place of commitment in art; how to teach art; the relationship between creativity, intuition, imagination, and habit; the practice of art criticism; and more!
Spiritual Moderns: A Conversation with Erika Doss
Erika Doss is the author of Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth-Century American Artists and Religion (University of Chicago Press).
In this conversation: why art historians have often neglected the intersection of art and faith in modernism; the fluidity of religion in modernity; modern artists vs. religious artists; comparing Christian Science, Bahá’í, occultism, and Byzantine Catholicism; dominant and marginal American identities; and more!
Hermeneutics of the Image: A Conversation with Thomas Pfau
Thomas Pfau, Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of English and professor of German at Duke University, with a secondary appointment on the Duke Divinity School faculty, is the author of Incomprehensible Certainty: Metaphysics and Hermeneutics of the Image (Notre Dame, 2022). The journal Modern Theology recently devoted a forum to this book, with contributions from Cyril O'Regan, Kevin Hart, William Desmond, Ben Quash, and Anne M. Carpenter, and a response by the author.
In this conversation: The path from Minding the Modern to Incomprehensible Certainty; what is an image?; which figures were included in the book (and which were not but might have been); how the Renaissance and Baroque periods fit into the book's argument; the problem of disciplinarity and specialization; phenomenology in contrast to other critical theories; the relevance of Gerschom Scholem's Walter Benjamin; and more!
Wonder Confronts Certainty: A Conversation with Gary Saul Morson
Gary Saul Morson is Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. He is the author of Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter (Harvard University Press).
In this episode: How Russian literature differs from English or French literature; contrasting the 19th and 20th centuries; the role of revolutionary violence; the importance of small moments in shaping history; translation recommendations; suggestions on short Russian novels; and more!
The Poetry of Christine de Pizan: A Conversation with Maryann Corbett
Maryann Corbett's translations of three ballades by Christine de Pizan appear in the Winter 2024 issue of Athenaeum Review.
In this conversation: The poet's life and times amidst the Hundred Years' War, the Western Schism and the execution of Joan of Arc; the literary debate on the rights of women; the poet's representation of courtly love; the ballade as a poetic form; and much more!
Maryann Corbett is the author of six books, most recently The O in the Air (Franciscan University Press, 2023). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Dark Horse, the New Statesman, the Hopkins Review online, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her poetry has won the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize and the Richard Wilbur Award; has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and the Poetry Foundation website; and was included in The Best American Poetry 2018. New work is forthcoming in Raritan, Image, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
Christine de Pizan (1364-c. 1430) was the author of The Book of the City of Ladies and The Treasure of the City of Ladies, among many other works.
Art Criticism and the Art World: A Conversation with Brian Allen
Brian Allen, a senior fellow at National Review Institute and National Review’s art critic, is an art historian living in Arlington, Vermont and a frequent contributor to Athenaeum Review.
In this conversation: the transition from museum director to full-time art critic; the state of art criticism and the value of diverse points of view; how to cultivate a critical perspective; the state of art museums in America; curatorial trends in 2024; and more!
Philosophy and Practical Politics: A Conversation with Bill Kristol
Bill Kristol is director of Defending Democracy Together, editor at large of The Bulwark, and the host of Conversations with Bill Kristol.
In this conversation: moving from academia to Washington, D.C.; changing perspectives over the course of a career in politics; the successes and failures of American conservatism; the most insightful political observers today; what to learn from the most successful political figures; liberalism vs. populism, and more!
Poetry in the Modern Age: A Conversation with Micah Mattix
Micah Mattix is Professor of English at Regent University and the editor of the Prufrock newsletter on Substack. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, National Review, and The New Criterion, and was appointed poetry editor at First Things in 2021.
In this conversation: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, ten years of Prufrock; the state of literary criticism and of literary publishing; reflections on teaching poetry; advice to students and young poets; and more!
A Brief History of Emergence: Conversation with Frederick Turner, Robert Stern, and Roger F. Malina
"A Brief History of Emergence," by Frederick Turner, Robert Stern, and Roger F. Malina, appears in the Winter 2024 issue of Athenaeum Review.
In this podcast: Why is emergence important in complex systems? How is emergence important for physics, for geophysics and for the arts? What is an emergent university? How is emergent research conducted? Discussion of the Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, time, evolution, and being.
See also:
"Emergence: A chaotic system pushed into organization" (YouTube/UTD Geoscience Studio)
"Henri Bergson on why the existence of things precedes their possibility" (Aeon)
Physics of Emergence and Organization (ed. Licata & Sakaji)
Jack Tworkov and Yayoi Kusama: A Conversation with Jason Andrew and Midori Yamamura
Jason Andrew is the founding partner at Artist Estate Studio, LLC, the entity that manages the estates of Jack Tworkov and Elizabeth Murray among others. Over the past 20 years, he has organized historic exhibitions and published extensively on the life and work of Jack Tworkov. He lives and works in Brooklyn.
Midori Yamamura, Ph.D., is the Alcaly/Bodian Distinguished CUNY Scholar, the Advanced Research Collaborative (ARC), The CUNY Graduate Center and the Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Art at CUNY Kingsborough. She is the author of "Yayoi Kusama: Inventing the Singular” (MIT Press, 2015) and Co-Editor and a contributor to "Visual Representations of the Cold War and Postcolonial Struggles: Arts in East and Southeast Asia" (Routledge: 2021)
Latter Days: A Conversation with Frederick Turner
Frederick Turner's collection of poems, LATTER DAYS, is available from Franciscan University Press:
https://www.cuapress.org/9781736656136/latter-days/
Observations on Music, Culture, and Politics: A Conversation with Daniel Asia
Daniel Asia has been an eclectic and unique composer from the start. He has enjoyed the usual grants from Meet the Composer, a UK Fulbright award, Guggenheim Fellowship, MacDowell and Tanglewood fellowships, ASCAP and BMI prizes, Copland Fund grants, and numerous others. He was recently honored with a Music Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As a writer and critic, his articles have appeared in Academic Questions, The New Criterion, the Huffington Post, New Music Connoisseur, and American Institute for Economic Research. He is the author of Observations on Music, Culture and Politics, recently published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and editor of The Future of (High) Culture in America (CSP). The recorded works of Daniel Asia may be heard on the labels of Summit, New World, Attacca, Albany, Babel, Innova, and Mushkatweek. Mr. Asia is Professor of Music at the University of Arizona, and President of the Center for American Culture and Ideas (a 501c3).
His website is www.danielasia.net.
What Is Called Thinking? A Conversation with Zohar Atkins
Zohar Atkins is is the Founder of Etz Hasadeh, a Center for Existential Torah. He is a Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He holds a DPhil in Theology from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and semikha from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. He received both an MA and BA from Brown University. In 2016, The Jewish Week named him one of the “36 under 36 Changemakers in Jewish Life.”
The winner of a 2018 Eric Gregory Award for Poetry, Zohar is the author of An Ethical and Theological Appropriation of Heidegger’s Critique of Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) and Nineveh (Carcanet, 2019).
Turks, Jews, and Other Germans in Contemporary Art: A Conversation with Peter Chametzky
Peter Chametzky is Professor of Art History, and has been on the SVAD faculty since 2012. His research focuses on 20th and 21st century German art and culture.
From 1998 to 2012 he taught at Southern Illinois University, first as Associate Professor and then as Professor, and served as Director of the School of Art and Design on the Carbondale campus from 2008-12. He served as Director of the UofSC SVAD from 2013-2018. Previously, he taught at Adelphi University (1990-98), the School of Visual Arts (1984-88), and in the School of Continuing Education at New York University (1986-88). He earned his Ph.D. in Art History from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 1991. His B.A., also in Art History, is from Cornell University. He has also studied in Freiburg iBr, and Stuttgart, Germany.
Science, Technology, and Muslim Politics in South Asia: A Conversation with Andrew Amstutz
Andrew Amstutz studies modern South Asian history in global contexts. His work explores the intertwined histories of science, technology, and Muslim politics in South Asia as well as museums and public history debates. He currently is a member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. At UA Little Rock, he teaches courses on Asian history, world history, museum studies, and material culture. Dr. Amstutz received his PhD in history from Cornell University in 2017 and prior to joining UA Little Rock, he was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
His first book project, “Finding a Home for Urdu: Language and Technoscience in Muslim South Asia,” argues that experiments with technology and debates over science lie at the heart of the making of Indian Muslim politics. It offers a cross-border history of a leading publishing house in South Asia that experimented with the print technologies and literary arts of Urdu to produce popular science texts during the late colonial era and early post-independence period (1910s-1960s.)
Dr. Amstutz’s second book project, “Buddhist Afterlives: The Public Life of the Ancient Past in Pakistan,” follows the global circulation of ancient Buddhist artifacts from Pakistan during the Cold War. The project chronicles how museum curators and archaeologists in Pakistan turned to Buddhist sculpture to exhibit an ancient history for the new Muslim nation-state in the wake of partition and post-colonial independence and to forge an eclectic identity for Pakistan through collaborations with colleagues across Asia and Europe. His research has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays DDRA fellowship program and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies.
Turner's Modern World: A Conversation with George Shackelford
Turner’s Modern World at the Kimbell Art Museum: https://kimbellart.org/exhibition/turners-modern-world
Turner’s Modern World catalog: https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847869343/
What made Turner modern? (1:00) — Stylistic transition in the 1830s; “painting with tinted steam”; The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (4:30) — The sublime and the incomprehensibly powerful; painting a steamship in a snowstorm (8:00) — Contrast with Ruskin on medievalism and industrialization; The Thames Above Waterloo Bridge; canals and steam engines (12:30) — Mark Twain trashes The Slave Ship; evolving reception and public appreciation of Turner’s style (17:15) — A British painter; traveling in Europe; Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen; seeing Venice, Venetian painting and Vesuvius; seeing European painting at the National Gallery in London and the Dulwich Picture Gallery (24:00) — Political and social conflicts in 19th-century England; the class system and political reform; women’s suffrage; the wreck of the Amphitrite (A Disaster at Sea) (31:30) — The wide range of Turner’s patrons; painting a scene in Venice and a nocturne of coal barges being loaded (Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight) (38:00) — Viewing Turner: in person vs. online (43:15)
Paintings by J.M.W. Turner:
The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (c. 1834-35) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-burning-of-the-houses-of-parliament-d36235
Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (exh. 1842) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-steam-boat-off-a-harbours-mouth-n00530
The Thames above Waterloo Bridge (c. 1830-35) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-thames-above-waterloo-bridge-n01992
Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (c. 1805-06) https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31489/fall-of-the-rhine-at-schaffhausen
A Disaster at Sea (c. 1835) https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-a-disaster-at-sea-n00558
Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835) https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1225.html
Czesław Miłosz: A California Life — A Conversation with Cynthia L. Haven
More about Czesław Miłosz: A California Life
https://www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/czeslaw-milosz-a-california-life/
https://bookhaven.stanford.edu/tag/czeslaw-milosz/
How the book originated (0:45) — The vatic tradition in Polish poetry (4:30) — Warsaw 1945 and “Dedication” (6:45) — Introducing Polish literature to California students (11:00) — Immersion in American literature and culture after 1945 (15:00) — Under surveillance by the U.S. government; defecting to the U.S.; Stalinism as “swallowing frogs” (17:30) — Being and becoming; poetry and philosophy; from Thomas Aquinas to James Fenimore Cooper (20:30) — The superhuman California landscape (24:30) — Transition from Poland to Berkeley and “Magic Mountain” (25:30) — The loss of “second space” and spiritual imagination (30:30) — A playful thinker, and “To Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat’s Honor and Not Only” (34:00)
“Dedication” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49458/dedication
“A Magic Mountain” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49456/a-magic-mountain
“To Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat’s Honor and Not Only” https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/03/23/to-mrs-professor-in-defense-of-my-cats-honor-and-n/
The Deep Places: A Conversation with Ross Douthat
Engaging skeptical audiences in a polarized age (1:30) — Two cheers for the Enlightenment, and the Stephen King-Lovecraftian vibes of New England (7:30) — Self-experimentation, and moderate deference to scientific consensus (12:15) — Giving science the right amount of authority (17:00) — When, and when not, to write from personal experience (19:30) — American Gnosticism, Emerson, Descartes, and the overwhelming desire to escape from the body when suffering from chronic illness (23:00) — Taking Marvel seriously (29:15) — The campus Left’s long-overdue challenge to the neoliberal-technocratic elite university (35:00) — Care, the humanities, & the bureaucracy (38:00) — The successes of urbanism in New Haven (42:00)
THE DEEP PLACES: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646761/the-deep-places-by-ross-douthat/
Ross Douthat at the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/column/ross-douthat
The Athenaeum Review podcast: http://athenaeumreview.org/podcasts/
Flora: A Conversation With Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler
Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler speak about Flora, their exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, on view from September 5, 2021 to January 16, 2022.
https://www.themodern.org/exhibition/teresa-hubbard-alexander-birchler-flora
https://hubbardbirchler.net/works/flora/
https://hubbardbirchler.net/works/bust/
John Wilcox: The Relinquishment Of Time -- A Conversation with Exploredinary and David Wilcox
A conversation about the new film, John Wilcox: The Relinquishment of Time, with filmmakers Exploredinary (Sarah Reyes and Daniel Driensky) and Dr. David Wilcox, the artist's brother.
About the film: https://www.exploredinary.com/johnwilcox
About the artist John Wilcox: https://johnwilcoxart.com/
Winner of "Best Texas Film" at the 2021 Hill Country Film Festival in Fredericksburg.
Oct. 3, 2021 screening at Dallas VideoFest: https://www.facebook.com/events/597286891298995/
Oct. 28, 2021 screening on KERA's Frame of Mind: https://artandseek.org/2021/09/01/texas-film-fans-check-out-the-lineup-for-frame-of-mind-on-kera-tv/
Coming soon: screenings at the Lone Star Film Festival (November 2021) and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
John Wilcox Art on Instagram
Exploredinary on Instagram
Remembering Rick Brettell & Angstrom Gallery: A Conversation with David Quadrini
An interview with artist and gallerist David Quadrini, on the occasion of the exhibition "An Artists' Homage to the Dynamic Influence of Rick Brettell," curated by Greg Metz at SP/N Gallery, UT Dallas, Sept. 10 to Oct. 9, 2021.
https://calendar.utdallas.edu/event/art_exhibition_brettell_an_artistshomageto_the_dynamic_influence_of_rick_brettell
http://athenaeumreview.org/podcasts
Catrachos: A Conversation with poet Roy G. Guzmán
Lauren Brazeal, Matthew Baker and Rebecca Cai interview poet Roy G. Guzmán.
http://athenaeumreview.org/podcasts/
The State of the Arts and Humanities: A Conversation With Nils Roemer
Our guest on this episode of the podcast is Nils Roemer, interim dean of the School of the Arts and Humanities, director of the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, and the Stan and Barbara Rabin Professor in Holocaust Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas.
On Poetry and Translation: A Conversation with A. M. Juster
Our guest on this episode is the poet, translator, and critic A. M. Juster, whose next book, Wonder and Wrath, will be published by Paul Dry Books in early 2021.
Philosophy of Population Health: A Conversation with Sean Valles
Medical Nihilism: A Conversation With Jacob Stegenga
Our guest on this podcast is Jacob Stegenga, the author of Care and Cure and Medical Nihilism. We discuss the effectiveness of medical interventions, the relationship between philosophers and practitioners, how to deal with complexity, the nature of sexual desire, and much more.
Virtual Events in the Arts: A Conversation With Michele Hanlon
A conversation with Michele Hanlon, Associate Dean of the Arts at UT Dallas, about the transition to producing virtual events in spring 2020: https://www.utdallas.edu/ah/events/virtual-events.html