The Subversive Imagination

In The Subversive Imagination , professional writers, artists and cultural critics from around the world offer their views on the issue of the artist's responsibility to society. The contributors look beyond censorship and free speech issues and instead emphasize the subject of freedom. More specifically, the contributors question the ethical, mutual responsibilities between artists and the societies in which they live. The original essays address an eclectic range of subjects: censorship, multiculturalism, the transition from communism to capitalism in Eastern Europe, postmodernism, Salman Rushdie, and young black filmmakers' responsibility to the black community.

George's Daughter is a companion volume to Carol Becker's first memoir/essay, Losing Helen. Becker has also written numerous articles and several collections of essays as well as nonfiction books, including: The Invisible Drama: Women and the Anxiety of Change; The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Social Responsibility; Zones of Contention: Essays on Art, Institutions, Gender, and Anxiety; Surpassing the Spectacle: Global Transformations and the Changing Politics of Art; Thinking in Place: Art, Action, and Cultural Production. Carol Becker is Professor of the Arts and Dean Emerita of Columbia University School of the Arts. Before arriving at Columbia, she was Professor of Liberal Arts, Dean of Faculty, and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received her PhD in English and American Literature from the University of California, San Diego. She travels widely, lectures about art, culture, and the place of art in society. Her writing, talks, and interviews can be found at caroldbecker.com. Becker's third memoir/essay, in progress, will focus on her time in California from 1968 to 1978, a decade of revolutionary ideas and actions that continue to transform the world.

Part one Personal Responsibility and Political Contingencies; Chapter 1 The Prehistory of Art, Page duBois; Chapter 2 A Pled for Irresponsibility, Ewa Kuryluk; Chapter 3 Dead Doll Prophecy, Kathy Acker; Chapter 4 The Heuristic Power of Art, Elizam Escobar; Chapter 5 Place, Position, Power, Politics, Martha Rosler; Chapter 6 The Velvet Revolution and Iron Necessity, Eva Hauser; Chapter 7 El Diario de Miranda/Miranda's Diary, Coco Fusco; Part two Decolinizing the Imagination; Chapter 8 Herbert Marcuse and the Subversive Potential of Art, Carol Becker; Chapter 9 East and West-The Twain do Meet A Tale of More than Two Worlds, Felipe Ehrenberg; Chapter 10 Defining South African Literature for a New Nation, Njabulo S. Ndebele; Chapter 11 The Politics of Black Masculinity and the Ghetto in Black Film, Michael Eric Dyson; Chapter 12 Adjusting to the World According to Salman Rushdie, Ahmad Sadri; Part three Theorizing the Future; Chapter 13 Benetton's "World without Borders", Henry A. Giroux; Chapter 14 The Free Art Agreement/El Tratado de Libre Cultura, Guillermo Gómez-Peña; Chapter 15 Dissed and Disconnected, B. Ruby Rich;