Camille Paglia

‘Everything great in Western culture has come from the quarrel with nature … The most effective weapon against the flux of nature is art.’ In this blazing work of brilliant originality, a phenomenon ever since it was first published in 1990, Camille Paglia outlines a new unified theory of Western art and literature and the primacy of sex and violence within it. Identifying the competing symbolic forces of Apollo and Dionysus - reason and instinct, order and chaos, logic and passion, male and female, civilisation and nature - Sexual Personae outlines key archetypes that embody different levels of Apollonian and Dionysian forces: the Great Mother, the beautiful boy, the femme fatale, the amazon, amongst many others, and traces how these archetypes have animated the pagan battle that underlies all Western art and culture. Audacious, vastly erudite, and wildly entertaining, Sexual Personae is art history that invites us to see the entire world anew. 'Few scholarly books are as readable as Sexual Personae, and none are as funny’ The Spectator ‘A remarkable book, at once outrageous and compelling, fanatical and brilliant’ The Washington Post

The renowned actress behind the character Nikki Newman of The Young and the Restless tells all in this scintillating memoir, divulging the insider details of her dramatic life and sixty-year career. Melody Thomas Scott admits she is nothing like her Young and the Restless role, who has seen it all in her forty-year tenure on America’s highest-rated daytime serial. But the high drama, angst, and catastrophes aren’t confined to her character’s plotlines. In this captivating memoir, Melody reveals behind-the-scenes tales of her own riveting journey to stardom. As Nikki went from impoverished stripper to resourceful, vivacious heroine—with missteps as gripping as her triumphs—Melody became a household name, enthralling global audiences. Her road to stardom was also her road to personal freedom, marked by an escape fit for cinema. In Always Young and Restless, Melody tells of her troubled, untraditional upbringing for the first time. Learn how she suffered at home with her grandmother, a compulsive hoarder, whose cruelty as her guardian is shockingly extreme, and endured abuse at the hands of industry men; what it was like to act in feature films with Alfred Hitchcock, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood; and how she took control of her life and career in a daring getaway move. And of course, Melody divulges juicy on-and-off-set details of what it’s like to be one half of the show’s most successful supercouple, “Niktor.” In witty, warm prose, meet the shining, persevering heart of an American icon—and prepare to be moved by a life story fit for a soap opera star.

Drawing on Daphne du Maurier's short story and contemporary newspaper reports of bird attacks in California, Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) featured Tippi Hedren in her first starring role. Camille Paglia's compelling study considers the film's aesthetic, technical and mythical qualities, and analyses its depiction of gender and family relations. A film about anxiety, sexual power and the violence of nature, it is quintessential Hitchcock.Camille Paglia's foreword to this new edition reflects upon the relationship between Hitchcock and his leading lady Hedren in the light of recent debates about male power, female agency and the #MeToo movement.

The Mad Men world is disappearing and the guys are struggling to figure out the altered parameters of manliness.'Maureen Dowd'Do women get anything from men being obsolete?

Much has changed since Camille Paglia first burst onto the scene with her groundbreaking Sexual Personae, but the laser-sharp insights of this major American thinker continue to be ahead of the curve--not only capturing the tone of the moment but also often anticipating it. Opening with a blazing manifesto of an introduction in which Paglia outlines the bedrock beliefs that inform her writing--freedom of speech, the necessity of fearless inquiry, and a deep respect for all art, both erudite and popular--Provocations gathers together a rich, varied body of work spanning twenty-five years, illuminating everything from the Odyssey to the Oscars, from punk rock to presidents past and present. Whatever your political inclination or literary and artistic touchstones, Paglia's takes are compulsively readable, thought provoking, galvanizing, and an essential part of our cultural dialogue, invariably giving voice to what most needs to be said.

From the fiery intellectual provocateur - and one of our most fearless advocates of gender equality - a brilliant, urgent essay collection that both celebrates modern feminism and affirms the power of men and women and what we can accomplish together.

Ever since the release of her seminal first book, Sexual Personae, Camille Paglia has remained one of feminism's most outspoken, independent, and searingly intelligent voices. Now, for the first time, her best essays on the subject are gathered together in one concise volume. Whether she's calling for equal opportunity for American women (years before the founding of the National Organization for Women), championing a more discerning standard of beauty that goes beyond plastic surgery's quest for eternal youth, lauding the liberating force of rock and roll, or demanding free and unfettered speech on university campuses and beyond, Paglia can always be counted on to get to the heart of matters large and small. At once illuminating, witty, and inspiring, these essays are essential reading that affirm the power of men and women and what we can accomplish together.

Modern life is a sea of images. With so much visual data bombarding us--from personal devices to mass media--our brains must rapidly adapt to make sense of it all. Here to guide us is America's premier intellectual provocateur, Camille Paglia. In these pages, Paglia returns to the subject that made her famous, situating our current visual environment within the epic scope of all of art history. With trademark audacity, Paglia tours through more than two dozen seminal paintings, sculptures, architectural styles, performance pieces, and digital art works that have transformed our world. Combining close analysis with historical context, she trains our eye to each image--from an Egyptian tomb to Jackson Pollock's abstract Green Silver to Ren e Cox's daring performance piece Chillin' with Liberty. And in her stunning conclusion, she declares the avant-garde tradition dead and film director George Lucas the world's greatest living artist. Written with energy, erudition, and wit, Glittering Images will profoundly change the way we see.

America's most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis to the most famous poems of the Western tradition--and unearths some previously obscure verses worthy of a place in our canon. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia sharpens our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare to Dickinson to Plath, and makes a case for including in the canon works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut--and even Joni Mitchell. Daring, riveting, and beautifully written, Break, Blow, Burn is a modern classic that excites even seasoned poetry lovers--and continues to create generations of new ones.

The bestselling author of Sexual Personae and Sex, Art, and American Culture is back with a fiery new collection of essays on everything from art and celebrity to gay activism, Lorena Bobbitt to Bill and Hillary. These essays have never appeared in book form, and many will be appearing in print for the first time.

A provocative and intelligent new book by the author of the national bestseller Sexual Personae. Camille Paglia has been called everything from "the intellectual pin-up of the '90s" to an academic Rottweiler to "the bravest and most original critic of our day". And she lives up to her various reputations in this incendiary new book of essays on the hottest issues in America's ongoing cultural debate.

From ancient Egypt through the nineteenth century, Sexual Personae explores the provocative connections between art and pagan ritual; between Emily Dickinson and the Marquis de Sade; between Lord Byron and Elvis Presley. It ultimately challenges the cultural assumptions of both conservatives and traditional liberals. 47 photographs.