{"product_id":"the-forbidden-subject-peter-quigley-9781912186099","title":"The Forbidden Subject: How Oppositional Aesthetics Banished Natural Beauty from the Arts","description":"\u003cp\u003e'WE ARE FOOLS TO TURN FROM THE SUPERHUMAN BEAUTY'*\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Forbidden Subject\u003c\/em\u003e launches from Ed Abbey's affirmation in \u003cem\u003eDesert Solitaire\u003c\/em\u003e: 'This is the most beautiful place on earth'. How could such a sentiment become construed as problematic, elitist, or worse? How was a calculated and intentional attack on beauty sustained for more than a century? How did beauty become, and why does it largely remain, what Emory Elliot dubbed 'the forbidden subject'? This book reviews the devastating impacts modernist avant-garde, Marxism, some feminisms and postmodernism have enacted - through paranoia, blame, cynicism - on beauty, hope and desire. Oppositional epistemologies deliberately eviscerated the possibilities and standing of beauty in criticism as well as in lived experience. According to Myra Jehlen, the orthodox critic thus became 'an adversary of the work he or she analyses', tasked with undoing the aesthetic deception of what was read to 'expose its misrepresentations and false ideals, to strip away the lie and expose the liar'. Tracing the war on natural beauty through the literary and visual arts, \u003cem\u003eThe Forbidden Subject\u003c\/em\u003e asks what it has meant for the humanities, for problem solving environmental issues, for educating students, for our personal lives and, more recently, for ecocriticism. The book asks if current ecocriticism has been misdirected by the corrosive weight of negativity - the requirement always to be 'reading against' - that has persisted in the arts and humanities for decades. It rehearses why a 'return to beauty' was imperative, and what has happened to that return since the turn of the twenty-first century. Pondering these questions, \u003cem\u003eThe Forbidden Subject\u003c\/em\u003e intertwines the potential place and nature of beauty and the beauty of nature and place, concluding with a substantial reading of the poetry and thought of Robinson Jeffers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Peter Quigley\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1912186098\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781912186099\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e White Horse Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/23\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 284\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.29lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.75d","brand":"Peter Quigley","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47244251857151,"sku":"9781912186099","price":90.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_bf159146-2727-4e78-b78b-77e38b6ac4f9.jpg?v=1758135292","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-forbidden-subject-peter-quigley-9781912186099","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}