The Arts of Democracy

by Blake, Casey Nelson

• ISBN13: 9780812220018
• ISBN10: 0812220013
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-27
• Publisher: Univ of Pennsylvania Pr

Summary

Influenced by two decades of debate inside and outside the academy about the relationship among the arts, politics, and public policy, the essays collected inThe Arts of Democracyrepresent the coming of age of one of the liveliest fields in contemporary academic life. Written by some of the most respected and accomplished scholars working in their fields, this volume illuminates the often contradictory impulses that have shaped the historical intersection of the arts, public culture, and the state in modern America, beginning with an art market at the turn of the twentieth century that supported a notion of civic identity, through the mid-century era of state-sponsored art, to the postmodern disconnect between artistic and civic languages. Topics range from Norman Rockwell as public artist and the creation of the NEA visual arts program to State Department-sponsored jazz tours in the mid-twentieth century and religious displays in the twenty-first century. Taken together, the essays inThe Arts of Democracypave the way for future study in the complex and interwoven histories of artistic expression, values, ideology, statecraft, and democratic aspiration. Distributed for the Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Author Biography

Casey N. Blake is Professor of History and American Studies at Columbia University.

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Public Culture Reconsidered

Commercial Culture as Public Culture

Festival Culture, American Style

Norman Rockwell, Public Artis

Cultural Policy and the State

Culture and the State in America

The Happy Few--en Masse: Franco-American Comparisons in Cultural Democratization

Exporting America: The U.S. Propaganda Offensive, 1945-1959

The Goodwill Ambassador: Duke Ellington and Black Worldliness

A Modernist Vision: The Origins and Early Years of the National Endowment for the Arts' Visual Arts Program

Between Civics and Politics: The Modernist Moment in Federal Public Art

The Arts and Civic Culture After Modernism

The Swirl of Image and Sound: On the Latest Version of Antirealism

Public Attitudes toward Cultural Authority and Cultural Diversity in Higher Education and the Arts

"Subtle, Intangible, and Non-Quantifiable": Aesthetics, Law, and Speech in Public Space

The Public Display of Religion

Contributors

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.