Book party on Thursday, Dec. 14, at Labyrinth,
fetes new book by Keith Moxey
NEW
YORK, N.Y. - The community has been invited to
help celebrate the publication of a new book by
Keith Moxey, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Art
History, titled The Practice of Persuasion:
Paradox as Power in Art History.
Labyrinth
Books, at 536 West 112th Street, will host the
book party at 7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 14. The public
is invited.
The
book, published in hardcover and paperback by
Cornell University Press this month, is a sequel
to Moxey's 1994 work, The Practice of Theory:
Poststructuralism, Cultural Politics, and Art
History. The book stresses the need for continued
self-reflexive awareness in art historical writing.
According
to the publisher, "Offering a series of meditations
on the discipline of art history in the context
of contemporary critical theory, Moxey addresses
such central issues as the status of the canon,
the nature of aesthetic value, the character of
historical knowledge, and the identity of the
authorial voice. The chapters are linked by a
common interest in, even fascination with, the
paradoxical power of narrative."
In
Moxey's view, art history is a "rhetorical of
persuasion rather than a discourse of truth,"
and he adds that "art history as a discipline
is often unable to recognize its status as a regime
of truth that produces historically determined
meanings and so continues to act as if based on
a universal aesthetic foundation."
According
to David Carrier, of the University of Pittsburgh,
the book "Anyone wanting to see why art history
is intellectually exciting right now could hardly
do better than to read this extremely lucid, mercifully
brief and very important book."
Moxey
is also the author of Peasants, Warriors, and
Wives: Popular Imagery in the Reformation,
and co-editor of several anthologies of art historical
writings.
Contact:
Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037
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