{"product_id":"the-beauty-of-choice-wendy-steiner-9780231215268","title":"The Beauty of Choice: On Women, Art, and Freedom","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Beauty of Choice\u003c\/i\u003e, the renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner offers a dazzling new account of aesthetics grounded in female agency. Through a series of linked meditations on canonical and contemporary literature and art, she casts women's taste as the engine of liberal values. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSteiner reframes long-standing questions surrounding desire, art, sexual assault, and beauty in light of #MeToo. Beginning with an opera she wrote based on Chaucer's \"The Wife of Bath's Tale,\" she presents women's sexual choices as fundamentally aesthetic in nature--expressions of their taste--and artworks as stagings of choice in courtship, coquetry, consent, marriage, and liberation. A merger of art criticism, evolutionary theory, political history, and aesthetics, this book paints the struggle between female autonomy and patriarchal violence and extremism as the essence of art. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Beauty of Choice\u003c\/i\u003e pursues its claims through a striking diversity of examples: Sei Shōnagon's defense of pleasure in the \u003ci\u003ePillow Book\u003c\/i\u003e; Picasso's and Balthus's sexualization of their models; the redefinition of \"waste\" in postmodern fiction; and interactivity and empathy in the works of contemporary artists such as Marlene Dumas, Barbara MacCallum, Kristin Beeler, and Hannah Gadsby. It offers the first critical study of \u003ci\u003eHeroines\u003c\/i\u003e, a memorial to the twenty thousand women raped in Kosovo during the Serbian genocide. This deeply original book gives taste, beauty, and pleasure central roles in a passionate defense of women's freedom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Wendy Steiner\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0231215266\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780231215268\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Columbia University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/09\/2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Wendy Steiner","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":45481790046463,"sku":"9780231215268","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_46e62fd6-56a8-4e9f-80ab-2f00bebc4866.jpg?v=1715987688","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-beauty-of-choice-wendy-steiner-9780231215268","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}