The Essential Jill Johnston Reader

The Essential Jill Johnston Reader

  • Author: Johnston, Jill; Croft, Clare
  • Publisher: Duke University Press
  • ISBN: 9781478026679
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781478059943
  • Place of publication:  Durham , United States
  • Year of digital publication: 2024
  • Month: September
  • Pages: 297
  • Language: English
Jill Johnston began the 1960s as an influential dance columnist for the Village Voice and by the start of the next decade she was known as a keen observer of postmodern art and lesbian feminist life who challenged how dance, art, and women can and should be seen. The Essential Jill Johnston Reader collects dozens of pieces of her writing from across her career. These writings—many of which appeared in the Village Voice and the New York Times—survey the breadth of her work, braiding together her thinking, writing, and activism. From personal essays, travel writing, and artist profiles to dance and visual art reviews as well as her infamous series of columns for the Voice in which she came out as a lesbian, these pieces demonstrate the evolution of her philosophies and writing style. Illustrating how Johnston drew on lessons from dance to reconsider what it means to be a woman, this collection brings a fascinating and brilliant voice of American arts criticism, radical feminism, and gay liberation back to contemporary audiences.
  • Cover
  • Contents
  • A Note on Transcription
  • Introduction / Clare Croft
  • Theory
    • “Thoughts on the Present and Future Directions of Modern Dance"
    • “Abstraction in Dance"
    • “Which Way the Avant Garde?"
    • “The Unhappy Spectator"
    • “Heads—Tails"
    • “What Sex?"
    • “Dance Journal"
  • Reviews
    • On Criticism/On Watching
      • “Cunningham in Connecticut"
      • “Untitled (Response to Alan Kaprow)"
      • “Waring—Rainer"
      • “Hello Young Lovers"
  • Description
    • “Bruce Conner"
    • “Claes Oldenburg"
    • “Democracy"
    • “The Royal Ballet"
    • “Agnes Martin"
    • “Rainer’s ‘Mind is a Muscle’ ”
    • “Cancelled"
    • “Paxton’s People"
  • Experiments in Writing
    • “Fluxus Fuxus"
    • “Robert Whitman"
    • “Danscrabble"
  • Historical Lineages
    • “New ‘Happenings’ at the Reuben"
    • “New London Revivals: Part II"
    • “Time Tunnel”
  • Artistic Patterns
    • “Jack Moore”
    • “Romantic Dancers”
    • “The Object”
    • “Judson ’64: I”
    • “Judson ’64: II”
    • “The Holy Hurricane”
    • “Hay’s Groups”
  • State of the Field
    • “Martha Graham & Co.”
    • “The Bolshoi”
  • Embedded Writing
    • “Inside ‘Originale’”
    • “Over His Dead Body”
    • “Bash in the Sculls”
  • Profiles
    • “On a White Camel, Investigating Everything”
    • “For America”
    • “Stein: Affectionately Obscene Poetry”
    • “Hurricane Bella Sweeps Country”
    • “Agnes Martin (1): Surrender & Solitude”
    • “Agnes Martin (2): Of Deserts and Shores”
  • Travel Writing
    • “Tell Me the Weather”
    • “Like a Boy in a Boat”
    • “Three American Pennies”
    • “The Making of a Lesbian Chauvinist”
  • Coming Out
    • “Of This Pure But Irregular Passion”
    • “The Wedding”
    • “Lois Lane is a Lesbian (1)”
    • “Lois Lane is a Lesbian (2)”
    • “Lois Lane is a Lesbian (3)”
    • “The Comingest Womanifesto”
  • Personal Essay
    • “In Her Altogether Also”
    • “Teach Your Angels Karate”
    • “On the Death of a Mother/Twelve-Part Variation on the Death of a Mother”
  • Reflection
    • “Fictions of the Self in the Making”
  • Appendix. Additional Writings by Jill Johnston
  • Index
    • A
    • B
    • C
    • D
    • E
    • F
    • G
    • H
    • I
    • J
    • K
    • L
    • M
    • N
    • O
    • P
    • Q
    • R
    • S
    • T
    • U
    • V
    • W
    • Y
    • Z

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