On Art and Beauty: A Conversation with Wendy Steiner

"I have been reading Wendy Steiner since the publication of her 1996 book The Scandal Of Pleasure. Imagine my astonishment that I actually got to speak with her on this podcast after so many years. If I had to describe Wendy Steiner's contribution in arts and letters I would discuss her first as one of the very best public intellectuals.In her case, one who writes books for a general readership on the subjects closest to my heart. For her art and beauty are essential and very real things in the world, never abstractions or options that come after necessities.  The ways she weaves examples into her prose from both popular and non- commercial works and, above all, HOW she writes of them - with great erudition and wisdom - seems to me so rare in today's world. And I look forward to her next book on beauty - even if I must wait a year. Only recently did I discover that she is a part of the world of opera in writing librettos.I have been learning from her for decades and I hope you can feel my enthusiasm at being able to discuss my favorite subjects in the world with her in this dream come true episode." Bio: Wendy Steiner is the author or editor of fourteen books on aesthetics and cultural criticism, including The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism (NY Times “100 Best Books of 1996”); Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-Century Art (2001); and The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art (2010). At the University of Pennsylvania, she was the Richard L. Fisher Professor of English and Founding Director of the Penn Humanities Forum (now the Wolf Center). A Guggenheim, ACLS, Bellagio, and NEH Fellow, Steiner received a NYSCA Individual Artist’s Grant for her photography-opera-hologram installation in the 2022 Venice Biennale, Upon Reflection: An Opera in Ten Images (composer, Frances White). For the 2019 Biennale, Steiner co-designed Traces on the Farther Side (with Andrew Lucia), a “digital visualization” of an earlier composition by White. Steiner is the librettist of four operas with composer Paul Richards, two of which premiere in 2022: Mondo Novo, in the Vienna Summer Music Festival; and A Braided Light, commissioned by White Snake Projects in Boston. Steiner lives in New York, where she is at work on a new book, “The Beauty of Choice: Aesthetics and the Agency of Women.” Links to Wendy’s beautiful works: Website: https://web.english.upenn.edu/~wsteiner/ Links to Wendy's Books: https://www.amazon.com/Wendy-Steiner/e/B000APVXBA%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share A recent webinar about Wendy’s Venice Biennale project, Upon Reflection: An Opera in Ten Images: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdrplK6Zkgk