Cultural passions
Subtitle: fans, aesthetes and tarot readers
By: Elizabeth Wilson
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Published: 2013
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9781780762852; 9781780762869
Subjects: Culture; Aesthetics; Popular culture
Description: "Elizabeth Wilson is one of our most radical cultural critics. In "Cultural Passions" she transcends the division between 'high' and 'low' culture, exploring the emotional commitment people bring to the books, performances, objects and rituals in which they find meaning and challenging an enduring suspicion of the pleasure of the aesthetic. Ranging from Marcel Proust to tarot readings, from urban planning to interiors, Elizabeth Wilson investigates an underlying Puritanism in critical commentary on matters as wide ranging as Roger Federer and C S Lewis, Surrealism and fashion and the relationship of religion to fan culture. She questions why pleasure appears suspect, even as consumer society incites it and turns life into entertainment. She questions why there is such fear of elitism when at the same time the fans of mass culture are held in contempt. Subverting conventional views, her oblique point of view provides startling insights on both familiar and marginal cultural experiences."--Publisher's website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-215) and index.
Table of contents: title: Part 1: Cultural diseases. Introduction ; Pleasure's dangers ; Looking backwards: Nostalgia mode.; title: Part 2: Fashion. Magic fashion ; Glamour: The secret behind the sheen ; Dressed to kill ; Camouflage and its vicissitudes ; Fashion and memory ; Urbane fashion.; title: Part 3: The future we have lost. Austerity in retrospect: The glamour of masochism ; Post-war perverts ; Bethnal green.; title: Part 4: Magic moments. Modern magic ; 'Disoriented agnosticism': Reading the Tarot ; Secret worlds ; Temporary gods ; Conclusion.