New Books In Literary Studies

George Cotkin is an emeritus professor of history at California Polytechnic State University. In his book Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility (Oxford University Press, 2015) he has given us cultural criticism through a set of provocative portraits of creative Americans at mid-twentieth century who defied convention, pushed the boundaries of aesthetics and forged a new sensibility of personal liberation. From John Cage, who in 1952 explored the musical possibilities of silence in the composition 4′ 33″ to Chris Burden’s 1974 performance piece Trans-fixed nailing him to a Volkswagen; both challenged the standing categories of art and aesthetics. Two-dozen dramatic vignettes demonstrate the excess of violence, sex, and madness that blurred the boundaries between art, artist and audience. Creatives such as Marlon Brando, Lenny Bruce, Andy Warhol, and Anne Sexton populate his pages. The fascination with excess cut across diverse expressions taking art and audiences into unc