This volume examines the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). The authors present Kahlo's story through their interpretations of and their commentary about 100 of Kahlo's paintings. They explore Kahlo's many faces -- woman, artist, historical figure, and inspiration. The authors discuss how Kahlo's work fits in with some of the major themes of women's art throughout the 20th century, including gender, the body, relationships, the self, pain, pride, and culture.

Along with Satre, Camus and Orwell, Arthur Koestler helped to shape the ideas of today. Once a communist, he saw through Marxism and led the intellectual counter-attack that culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall. His writings on science introduced millions to cutting-edge theories of evolution and the workings of the human mind. His speculations on human nature and the future of mankind in the atomic age stamped a generation that grew up in the shadow of the Bomb. As restless in his personal relationships as he was in politics, his violent affairs with women were legendary. His fascinating study is t he first to make use of Koestler's private papers and draws on previously secret documents held by the KGB and the FBI, exposing the depth of his involvement in the Communist Party and, later, his relations with the CIA. It also reveals the darker side to his nature, which led to the tragic dual suicide with his third wife, Cynthia, in 1983. David Cesarani has ensured Koestler's place in the pantheon of intellectual giants of the twentieth century as surely as the 'warts and all' approach is guaranteed to perpetuate the controversy that swirled around Koestler in his life and death.

An elegant, masterful portrait of Andy Warhol's life, character, and lasting influence by an eminent art critic. "Danto . . . sums up the Pop master's evolution as both artist and persona. . . . It is, in essence, everything you need to dive deeper into Brillo boxes and Empire ."--Rachel Wolff, The Daily Beast (Best Art and Photography Books of 2009) In a work of great wisdom and insight, art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto delivers a compact, masterful tour of Andy Warhol's personal, artistic, and philosophical transformations. Danto traces the evolution of the pop artist, including his early reception, relationships with artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and the Factory phenomenon. He offers close readings of individual Warhol works, including their social context and philosophical dimensions, key differences with predecessors such as Marcel Duchamp, and parallels with successors like Jeff Koons. Danto brings to bear encyclopedic knowledge of Warhol's time and shows us Warhol as an endlessly multidimensional figure--artist, political activist, filmmaker, writer, philosopher--who retains permanent residence in our national imagination. Danto suggests that "what makes him an American icon is that his subject matter is always something that the ordinary American understands: everything, or nearly everything he made art out of came straight out of the daily lives of very ordinary Americans. . . . The tastes and values of ordinary persons all at once were inseparable from advanced art."

In a work of great wisdom and insight, art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto delivers a compact, masterful tour of Andy Warhol’s personal, artistic, and philosophical transformations. Danto traces the evolution of the pop artist, including his early reception, relationships with artists such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and the Factory phenomenon. He offers close readings of individual Warhol works, including their social context and philosophical dimensions, key differences with predecessors such as Marcel Duchamp, and parallels with successors like Jeff Koons. Danto brings to bear encyclopedic knowledge of Warhol’s time and shows us Warhol as an endlessly multidimensional figure—artist, political activist, filmmaker, writer, philosopher—who retains permanent residence in our national imagination. Danto suggests that "what makes him an American icon is that his subject matter is always something that the ordinary American understands: everything, or nearly everything he made art out of came straight out of the daily lives of very ordinary Americans. . . . The tastes and values of ordinary persons all at once were inseparable from advanced art."

Known for their repeating motifs and signature tropes, the films of Ingmar Bergman also contain extensive variation and development. In these reflections on Bergman's artistry and thought, Irving Singer discerns distinctive themes in Bergman's filmmaking, from first intimations in the early work to consummate resolutions in the later movies. Singer demonstrates that while Bergman's output is not philosophy on celluloid, it attains an expressive and purely aesthetic truthfulness that can be considered philosophical in a broader sense. Through analysis of both narrative and filmic effects, Singer probes Bergman's mythmaking and his reliance upon the magic inherent in his cinematic techniques. Singer traces throughout the evolution of Bergman's ideas about life and death, and about the possibility of happiness and interpersonal love. In the overtly self-referential films that he wrote or directed (The Best Intentions, Fanny and Alexander, Sunday's Children) as well as the less obviously autobiographical ones (including Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, and the triad that begins with Through a Glass Darkly) Bergman investigates problems in his existence and frequently reverts to childhood memories. In such movies as Smiles of a Summer Night, Scenes from a Marriage, and Saraband, Bergman draws upon his mature experience and depicts the troubled relationships between men who are often weak and women who are made to suffer by the damaged men with whom they live. In Persona, Cries and Whispers, and other works, his experiments with the camera are uniquely masterful. Inspecting the panorama of Bergman's art, Singer shows how the endless search for human contact motivates the content of his films and reflects Bergman's profound perspective on the world.

Winner, 2015 USC Book Award in Literary and Cultural Studies, for outstanding monograph published on Russia, Eastern Europe or Eurasia in the fields of literary and cultural studies The Ethics of Witnessing investigates the reactions of five important Polish diaristswriters—Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Maria Dabrowska, Aurelia Wylezynska, Zofia Nalkowska, and Stanislaw Rembek—during the period when the Nazis persecuted and murdered Warsaw’s Jewish population. The responses to the Holocaust of these prominent prewar authors extended from insistence on empathic interaction with victims to resentful detachment from Jewish suffering. Whereas some defied the dehumanization of the Jews and endeavored to maintain intersubjective relationships with the victims they attempted to rescue, others selfdeceptively evaded the Jewish plight. The Ethics of Witnessing examines the extent to which ideologies of humanism and nationalism informed the diarists’ perceptions, proposing that the reality of the Final Solution exposed the limits of both orientations and ultimately destroyed the ethical landscape shaped by the Enlightenment tradition, which promised the equality and fellowship of all human beings.