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Topic: Joan Acocella

	Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism - Joan Acocella
		Acocella does not go into dry academic detail, but she gives a good sense of the general critical attitude to and estimation of Cather's work, from the earliest days (when her work was highly praised by H.L.Mencken) through to the present day (when she has been elevated to lesbian-icon status).
		Acocella offers a useful overview of Cather's life, and she addresses the question of was she or wasn't she (a lesbian, that is) at some length.
		Acocella correctly points out that the power of the critics is a dangerous one, warning already of the forewords some of them are penning for the new, cheap paperback editions of Cather's work that are being published as her work loses its copyright protection.
	www.complete-review.com /reviews/catherw/acocella.htm (1011 words)

	Joan Acocella - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Joan Acocella is an American journalist who is dance critic for the The New Yorker.
		Acocella received her B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley.
		Acocella has served as the senior critic and reviews editor for Dance Magazine and New York dance critic for the Financial Times.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Joan_Acocella (173 words)

	Avenali Lecture - Joan Acocella (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Joan Acocella received her B.A. cum laude in English from the University of California at Berkeley.
		In addition, Acocella has been a Guggenheim fellow and is currently a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
		Acocella’s dance reviews have a wide appeal because her wit is down to earth and energetically conversational in style: “Today, primitivism is the opposite of surprising.
	ls.berkeley.edu /departments/townsend/avenali_acocella_bio.shtml (221 words)

	P. Scott: Review of Acocella, Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Yet Acocella sees her forwarding a modern perspective: "Her austere style is part of modernist classicism, her tragic vision, part of modernist pessimism" (23).
		Acocella rightly says that Cather is important as a feminist in writing novels which show that women could achieve success in the world and not just give themselves to men.
		Acocella asserts further that nature inspired Cather’s irony and tragic vision, and concludes the chapter by stating that such a view does not concur with any political reform since "it gives implicit assent to life’s unfairness," an unfairness that political reform tries to abolish (89).
	rmmla.wsu.edu /ereview/55.1/reviews/scott.asp (1365 words)

	Making Room for Themselves (washingtonpost.com)
		Acocella's mission is to rescue Willa Cather from the gangs of feminists and theorists--queer or otherwise--who have been holding her hostage since they outed her in 1975, launching the Cather criticism boom.
		Acocella also sneers a lot, albeit lucidly, about what she regards as the politicized and clotted state of Cather criticism.
		Acocella concludes by deflating Sedgwick's contortions: "She apparently does not know that it was the name of a real ship, a famous Cunard ocean liner, on which Cather had returned from Europe immediately before starting work on The Professor's House." Poor Sedgwick.
	www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=print/sunday/bookworld&contentId=A42274-2000May20¬Found=true (1005 words)

	LRB \| Terry Castle : Pipe down back there! (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		In her new book on the novelist, Joan Acocella speaks with some reverence of Cath-er's 'Duse revelation': the young writer's precocious verdict, having seen both actresses perform onstage in the 1890s, that Duse was the superior artist because of the classical restraint she invariably brought to her roles.
		Acocella is the same lucid, obdurate force: an intelligent outsider challenging the norms of a somewhat decadent and in-grown professional clique.
		Acocella's most magnificent potshot is reserved for Eve Sedgwick, reigning doyenne of 'queer' literary studies in the United States and occasional commentator on the new crypto-homo Cather.
	www.lrb.co.uk /v22/n24/print/cast01_.html (6096 words)

	Critics have feelings, too by Tim Wilson \| New Zealand Listener
		One rule that Acocella observes is that she avoids writing advance pieces (such as profiles of the performers).
		Acocella notes that ballet is having a tough time at present, a situation she feels obligated to meet.
		Acocella regrets that she didn't have a musical education; perhaps because of this, she sympathises with critics who are mindful of their limitations, but exercise judgment in good faith.
	www.listener.co.nz /default,1170.sm (906 words)

	Amazon.ca: Books: Mark Morris (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Acocella devotes chapters to the preoccupations of his work, its themes (e.g., "irony and sincerity") and fundamental character, and others to the character of the choreographer himself as seen in the context of his career.
		But Acocella is also an acute observer of the dances themselves, and goes beyond them to venture general thoughts on dancing that linger in the mind ("What makes most classical art interesting is not an achieved balance but a struggle for balance").
		Acocella (dance critic for New York's Daily News) has long championed Morris: here, by chronicling his early life and examining his works, she presents an extraordinary primer not only on how a choreographer develops but also on what dance can mean-- and how it works.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0819567310 (525 words)

	Biblio: Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism by Acocella, Joan: Details (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Acocella surveys Cather's critical history and argues that the best way to read Cather is to leave politics out of the picture and to pay attention to what she actually wrote.
		In this impassioned and controversial essay, New Yorker writer Joan Acocella accuses literary critics of obscuring the brilliance of a great American writer and offers a witty and engaging defense of Willa Cather and her work.
		Joan Acocella’s acute and often very funny critique of the critics untangles Cather’s reputation from decades of politically motivated misreadings, and proposes her own view of Cather’s genius.
	www.biblio.com /books/isbnnu/9086395.html (312 words)

	Feminista! v3n7 - Review: Creating Hysteria
		Acocella starts off by describing MPD-recanter Elizabeth Carlson's perspective of her treatment by psychiatrist Diane Humenansky and Carlson's subsequent lawsuit and settlement.
		Curiously, Acocella accuses the "MPD movement" clinicians of being unscientific, yet her own background (and, one would presume, training) is in writing rather than science.
		Acocella et al's section on PTSD discusses reactions to combat and "civilian catastrophes" such as plane crashes, fires, floods, "being attacked or raped." Childhood abuse is not mentioned.
	www.feminista.com /archives/v3n7/elam.html (1197 words)

	Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism - University of Nebraska Press (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Acocella is pointed and funny in her analysis (on current critics: 'No tree can grow, no river flow, in Cather's landscapes without this being a penis or menstrual period') and compelling in her request to move beyond politics."— Publishers Weekly starred review.
		"[Joan Acocella] has written a cogently argued, persuasive, and often very funny overview of the work of Willa Cather and the congeries of literary critics that have followed in her wake.
		Acocella argues that the central element of Cather’s works was not a political agenda but rather a tragic vision of life.
	www.nebraskapress.unl.edu /bookinfo/3797.html (977 words)

	Joan Acocella The New Yorker 06-Apr-1998 MPD and the Jewish Holocaust
		The two quotations at the bottom of the present page are taken from Joan Acocella, The Politics of Hysteria: Over the past twenty years, multiple-personality disorder has been used to explain the behavior of thousands of American women.
		The subjects of Acocella's article are the related topics of multiple-personality disorder (MPD), satanic-ritual-abuse (SRA), and recovered memory (RM).
		At that point, it is attacked, and then the situation becomes clear: that in this promise of an alternative truth what the disadvantaged were given was not a place in the world but a sort of refugee camp, where they could go on dreaming the same dreams as before, based on their history of powerlessness.
	www.ukar.org /acocel01.html (697 words)

	TALK FOUR: of generational perspective
		Acocella points out that all of these critics were of a younger generation than Cather.
		What it assures, in Acocella's view here, at least, is that the finding will be in the patois of the academy at that moment--and that it will have been done because of the priorities and needs of the scholar.
		Acocella is mainly pursuing the point that the lack of historical understanding of younger critics constitutes a basic shortcoming in the criticism.
	webpages.ursinus.edu /rrichter/talkfour.html (733 words)

	Alibris: Joan Acocella
		With an inspired and richly detailed essay by the "New Yorker" dance critic (and Baryshnikov biographer) Joan Acocella, a complete chronology of his roles, and extensive annotated captions, "Baryshnikov in Black and White" is the definitive book on the dancer's remarkable career in the West.
		Since she first made waves as a novelist, Willa Cather has been knocked about by critics of all political and aesthetic stripes, from those who rejected her as a stick-in-the-mud sentimentalist to those who saw her as a leftist radical.
		Acocella surveys Cather's critical history and argues that the best way to read Cather is to leave politics out...
	www.alibris.com /search/books/author/Joan_Acocella (460 words)

	Boston Globe Online / From the Archives / Books (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		The new English edition, in a translation by Kyril Fitzlyon, is edited by Joan Acocella, whose lengthy introduction is both fascinating and essential.
		Acocella, biographer of Mark Morris, is not only among the finest dance writers of the day but also uniquely equipped to take on Nijinsky: She coauthored the textbook ``Abnormal Psychology: Current Perspectives.''
		His use of language, writes Acocella, shows schizophrenic traits including insistent repetition and ``clanging,'' connecting words on the basis of sound rather than sense.
	www.boston.com /globe/search/stories/books/joan_acocella.htm (1171 words)

	Amazon.ca: Books: Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Acocella is pointed and funny in her analysis (on current critics: "No tree can grow, no river flow, in Cather's landscapes without this being a penis or menstrual period") and compelling in her request to move beyond politics.
		Acocella skewers anti-scholarly scholarship and retrieves one of America's great writers from the dark grip of the dogmatists.
		Her account of Cather's early life and preparation is concise and filled with understanding; what's more in the briefest space she tells the story of that life in the context of the age and gives us Cather's achievement without the burden of spurious literary theories.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/037571295X (753 words)

	CNN - Salon review: 'The Diary Of Vaslav Nijinsky -- The Unexpurgated Edition' - February 25, 1999
		Acocella, who was recently named dance critic of the New Yorker, is a meticulous, no-nonsense scholar whose writings on dance entirely lack the airy vagueness and insufferable jargon of most choreographic criticism.
		While rejecting the romantic link between madness and creativity, she nevertheless recognizes the unique importance of the Nijinsky diary.
		Acocella thinks it entirely possible that in writing the diary Nijinsky hoped to create a work of literature, but she offers it, wisely, for what it is: a footnote to genius, the last, sad record of a legend.
	www.cnn.com /books/reviews/9902/25/diary.salon (439 words)

	Voice Of Dance - Insights - Features
		As part of a week’s residency at the University of California, Berkeley, the New Yorker’s estimable dance critic Joan Acocella offered an illustrated lecture on George Balanchine’s pre-occupation with the female crotch and how the choreographer elevated his obsession with that area of the woman’s anatomy into an artistic first principle of American neo-classicism.
		Acocella showed the clip in support of her argument and watching it gave me an extraordinary thrill.
		Then, Acocella reminded us of Mitchell’s memory of Adams in Agon, The assignment scared her to death every time she danced it, and Balanchine knew it.
	www.voiceofdance.org /Insights/insights.trans.col.cfm?LinkID=33000000000000195 (1081 words)

	Joan Acocella Speaks to the Cather Colloquium (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Since the article and book have been published, Acocella has received a lot of attention, from prestigious reviewers of her book like Joyce Carol Oates and A. Byatt, to ordinary readers of Cather: “I have people stop me on the street.
		When asked about her hopes for criticism, Acocella said she wished for a “synthesis of the ahistorical amnesia of the New Criticism with the political hysteria of recent criticism.
		For the future critics, Acocella claimed that all she had were “corny hopes.” “Because of what we’ve been through,” she said, “what I would hope is that literature would be sustaining to them psychologically and intellectually, and maybe spiritually.
	www.unl.edu /cather_seminar/scholarship/mt/Winter2002/acocella.html (480 words)

	Masterclass! \| Performance Criticism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-06)
		Joan Acocella has been a dance critic at The New Yorker since 1998.
		She has authored a half-dozen books - the latest, "Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticsm," was published by the University of Nebraska Press.
		Joan earned her PhD in comparative literature at Rutgers University.
	www.fulbright.org.nz /masterclass/events/200003-performance.html (232 words)

	Avenali Lecture Series
		The webcast of Joan Acocella's Avenali lecture is available at UC Berkeley's webcast site.
		Joan Acocella conducts a public interview with Trisha Brown, one of modern dance’s most influential choreographers.
		A discussion with Joan Acocella specifically geared towards undergraduates, on dance, gender, and life at The New Yorker.
	townsendcenter.berkeley.edu /avenali.shtml (147 words)

	Cal Performances \| Dance \| Trisha Brown Dance Company
		One of modern dance's most influential choreographers, Trisha Brown is widely respected for her ability to infuse formal elegance with eccentricity and lyricism.
		Joan Acocella has been The New Yorker's dance critic since 1998.
		She is the author of a biographical/critical study of the choreographer Mark Morris, editor of the first English language volume of Nijinsky's diaries, and co-editor of Andre Levinson on Dance: Writings from Paris in the Twenties.
	www.calperfs.berkeley.edu /presents/season/2004/dance/events/brown.php (494 words)

	bookofjoe: 'Memoirs of Hadrian' – by Margaret Yourcenar
		Acocella writes, "She performed both, and wrought a kind of trans-historical miracle.
		Acocella writes that of the major novelists of the twentieth century, including Joyce, Yourcenar was probably the most erudite.
		Acocella's review is a mini-biography of this singular woman.
	www.bookofjoe.com /2005/02/memoirs_of_hadr.html (435 words)

	Powell's Books - Baryshnikov by Joan Ross Acocella
		With an inspired and richly detailed essay by the New Yorker dance critic (and Baryshnikov biographer) Joan Acocella, a complete chronology of his roles, and extensive annotated captions, Baryshnikov in Black and White is the definitive book on his remarkable career in the West.
		The introduction by New Yorker dance critic Joan Acocella provides details about his childhood in Latvia, his training with Pushkin, his career at the Kirov, and his departure to the West.
		He is the 1997 recipient of a New York Dance and Performance Award and received both the Kennedy Center honor and the National Medal of Arts in 2000.
	www.powells.com /cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=719&cgi=product&isbn=1582341869 (454 words)

	The Talk of the Rest of the Town
		Of the remaining four female contributors, one is for staffer Joan Acocella, another is for Carol Muske–Dukes, who contributed a poem, and Zadie Smith and Annie Proulx each contriubted a short story.
		Pertinent details: In this special double issue — "The Food Issue" — four of the contributions by women came from staffers (Joan Acocella, Elizabeth Kolbert, Alma Guillermoprieto, and Jane Kramer), one was a short story (by Annie Proulx) and another was a poem (by Rossana Warren).
		Pertinent details: One of the contributions by women was a review by a staffer, Joan Acocella, one was a short story by Edna O'Brien, and one was a poem by Muriel Spark.
	www.mobylives.com /NYer_survey.html (1748 words)

	Harvard Gazette: The grace and wisdom of Suzanne Farrell
		Joan Acocella, dance critic for the New Yorker, introduced the video as "one of the most extraordinary pieces of dance footage I have ever seen."
		The 40-year-old tape, taken by an audience member, showed a young woman in a filmy white costume dancing with fluid grace combined with furious, almost demonic, energy.
		The woman whom Acocella, the moderator of the event, called "the most influential ballerina America has ever produced," was at Harvard April 15 for "An Evening With Suzanne Farrell," presented by the Office for the Arts, in association with the Harvard Theatre Collection.
	www.news.harvard.edu /gazette/2004/04.22/14-farrell.html (948 words)

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