Front Table 10/28/2022

Serge Diaghilev, the Russian impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, is often said to have invented modern ballet. An art critic and connoisseur, Diaghilev had no training in dance or choreography, but he had a dream of bringing Russian art, music, design, and expression to the West and a mission to drive a cultural and artistic revolution. Bringing together such talents as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Stravinsky, Picasso, and Matisse, he created a new form of ballet defined by artistic integrity and creative freedom. The explosive color combinations, sensual and androgynous choreography, and experimental sounds of the Ballets Russes were called "barbaric" by the Parisian press, but its radical style usurped traditional ballet and transformed the European cultural sphere at large. Diaghilev's Empire, marking the 150th anniversary of Diaghilev's birth, is a daring, impeccably researched reassessment of the phenomenon of the Ballets Russes and the Russian Revolution in 20th century art and culture. Rupert Christiansen, a leading dance critic, explores the fiery conflicts, outsize personalities, and extraordinary artistic innovations that make up this enduring story of triumph and disaster.



Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection
(MIT Press)
Tung-Hui Hu

The exhaustion, disappointment, and listlessness experienced under digital capitalism, explored through works by contemporary artists, writers, and performers. Sometimes, interacting with digital platforms, we want to be passive—in those moments of dissociation when we scroll mindlessly rather than connecting with anyone. Tung-Hui Hu calls this state of exhaustion, disappointment, and listlessness digital lethargy. This condition permeates our lives under digital capitalism, whether we are “users,” who are what they click, or racialized workers in Asia and the Global South. Far from being a state of apathy, however, lethargy may hold the potential for social change. Hu explores digital lethargy through a series of works by contemporary artists, writers, and performers. These dispatches include a fictional dystopia where low-wage Mexican workers laugh and emote for white audiences; a group that invites lazy viewers to strap their Fitbits to a swinging metronome, faking fitness and earning a discount on their health insurance premiums; and a memoir of burnout in an Amazon warehouse. 

The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society
(Henry Holt and Company)
William Deresiewicz

What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career. The End of Solitude brings together more than forty of his finest essays, including four that are published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse as Mad Men and Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinizing the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups?

Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America's Mayor
(Simon & Schuster)
Andrew Kirtzman

Giuliani was hailed after 9/11 as "America's Mayor," a singular figure who at the time was more widely admired than the pope. He was brilliant, accomplished--and complicated. He conflated politics with morality and caused his own downfall with a series of disastrous decisions and cynical compromises. He made reckless personal choices and engaged in self-destructive behavior. His need for power, money, and attention gradually ruined his reputation, cost him friendships, and ultimately damaged the country. Kirtzman, who was with Giuliani at the World Trade Center on 9/11, conducted hundreds of interviews to write this insightful portrait of this polarizing figure, from the beginning of his rise to his ruinous role as Donald Trump's personal lawyer. Giuliani was a celebrated prosecutor, a transformative New York City mayor, and a contender for the presidency. But by the end of the Trump presidency, he was reviled and ridiculed after a series of embarrassing errors. He was a major figure in both of Trump's impeachments, and ended up widely ostracized, in legal jeopardy, and facing financial ruin. This is the remarkable story of how it all began and how it came crashing down.

Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution
(Stanford Briefs)
Austin Sarat

From the beginning of the Republic, this country has struggled to reconcile its use of capital punishment with the Constitution's prohibition of cruel punishment. Since the earliest executions, abolitionists have fought against this state-sanctioned killing, arguing, among other things, that the methods of execution have frequently been just as gruesome as the crimes meriting their use. Lethal injection was first introduced in order to quell such objections, but, as Austin Sarat shows in this brief history, its supporters' commitment to painless and humane death has never been certain. Drawing on rare data, Sarat makes the case that lethal injections during this time only became more unreliable, inefficient, and more frequently botched. Beyond his stirring narrative history, Sarat mounts a comprehensive condemnation of the state-level maneuvering in response to such mishaps, whereby death penalty states adopted secrecy statutes and adjusted their execution protocols to make it harder to identify and observe lethal injection's flaws. What was once touted as America's most humane execution method is now its most unreliable one.

Possessions: Indigenous Art / Colonial Culture / Decolonization
(Thames & Hudson)
Nicholas Thomas

The arts of Africa, Oceania, and Native America famously inspired twentieth-century modernist artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Max Ernst. Was this a cross-cultural discovery to be celebrated? Or just one more example of Western colonial appropriation? What might a "decolonized" art history look like? "Decolonization" refers to an event, a liberation. In one sense, decolonization has happened: it was the moment of national independence for formerly colonized nations across Africa, Asia, and Oceania. But from another perspective, decolonization is ongoing. What work does art do now, toward decolonization? And how can the audience be active agents in redefining these histories? Possessions, first published in 1999, offered a dynamic and genuinely cross-cultural art history, focused on the encounter, or the confrontation, in Australasia between the visual cultures of European colonization and Indigenous expressions. This new edition of Possessions contributes to today's debates on diversity and race, giving voice to Indigenous artists and their continued presence in contemporary art today. 

The Power of Women: A Doctor's Journey of Hope and Healing
(Flatiron Books)
Denis Mukwege

Dr. Mukwege's dramatic personal story is interwoven throughout as he stresses the importance of breaking down the taboos surrounding assault, and the necessity of building a system that supports women who come forward. At the heart of Dr. Mukwege's message are the voices of the women he worked with for years as he advocates for saying 'no' to indifference. He asks readers to reckon with the West's involvement in perpetuating sexual violence in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and to confront the abuse taking place in their own communities. Dr. Mukwege's work has led him to South Korea, Latin America, the Middle East, and elsewhere in Africa, where he has found striking similarities in women's testimonies. Through the intricate ties of the global economy, we are all implicated in violence against women - whether it occurs amidst the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo or on college campuses in the West. Dr. Mukwege's writing addresses men as well, encouraging them to build a more inclusive society through "positive masculinity" - a systemic change in male behavior and attitudes towards women - and to speak out and join the struggle, rather than leaving women to fight the battle alone. The Power of Women illuminates the enduring strength of women in the face of violence and trauma, and gives hope for the potential of individuals to turn the tide.