Culture War - Imprint Academic

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Why has identity become so central to judging art today? Why are some groups reluctant to defend free speech within culture? Has state support made artists poorer not richer? How does the movement for social justice influence cultural production? Why is post-modernism dominant in the art world? Why are consumers of comic books so bitterly divided?

In Culture War: Art, Identity Politics and Cultural Entryism Alexander Adams examines a series of pressing issues in today's culture: censorship, Islamism, Feminism, identity politics, historical reparations and public arts policy. Through a series of linked essays, Culture War exposes connections between seemingly unrelated events and trends in high and popular cultures. From fine art to superhero comics, from political cartoons to museum policy, certain persistent ideas underpin the most contentious issues today. Adams draws on history, philosophy, politics and cultural criticism to explain the reasoning of creators, consumers and critics and to expose some uncomfortable truths.
Credit: David Lee, The Jackdaw

'This collection of essays opposing prejudicial and dangerous social and political attitudes needed urgently to be written. It will condemn the author to a future outside an art establishment intolerant of criticism, and you can't be a braver intellectual than that.’

Credit: Edward Lucie-Smith, writer and art critic

'I read Culture War with much interest. We seem to be living in a time when, in the field of the arts, suppression of opinion often comes disguised as its opposite. What Adams calls "Identarianism" is in danger of imposing a tyranny on independent critical opinion. As he demonstrates, this will inevitably bring about a collapse in the present official system for supporting and evaluating the arts — the contemporary visual arts in particular. Our current would-be populist, but smugly virtue-signalling professional set-up is a house of cards. It won't take that much to bring it down. This book makes a start.’

Credit: Simon Wilson OBE, former Tate curator

'Alexander Adams is that relatively rare phenomenon, an artist who is also a lucid and wide-ranging critic. He is perfectly poised therefore to comment on the rise of identity politics in the field of art. Culture War includes among much else some highly enjoyable busting of myths surrounding art and money, and a fascinating and original essay on the western canon — a concept currently under some pressure. His book is a timely contribution to an intensifying debate, raising in acute form the question of whether in attempts to right historic wrongs the pendulum has swung too far.'

Credit: Michael Daley, Director, ArtWatch UK

'Alexander Adams' Culture War will stiffen the fibres of those not yet conditioned to capitulate at sight of each successive wave of self-advancing cultural grievance-mongering. For all others this courageous young artist/scholar’s compilation of eviscerating essays will have arrived too late.’

Mar 8, 2019

https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/03/08/kick-identity-politics-out-of-the-arts/

Source: Spiked!

Credit: Wendy Earle

"Culture War… is a collection of trenchant, polemical essays pointing to the destructive effects of identity politics in the arts… You have to admire Adams' intellectual bravery here… For readers frustrated by the direction that the art world has taken over the past few decades, Culture War comes as a breath of fresh air."

Apr 29, 2019

Source: The Jackdaw

Credit: Eric Coombes

"This is an important publication, and I hope it will be widely read. It testifies to an immense amount of work and a most impressive range of knowledge… I have learnt much from reading it…"

Jun 1, 2019

Source: Salisbury Review

Credit: Brian Eassty

"The unifying theme of the essays in this book, which deal with a wide range a challenges to our cultural life, is that the ideologies identified by Alexander Adams are relentless, not amenable to appeasement and all the more worrying as a result."

Jul 1, 2019

Source: The Jackdaw

Credit: Giles Auty

"If I were obliged to pick out a section of particular brilliance from Alexander's book it would be the one dealing with Identity Politics which he presents with a lucidity and analytical completeness we seldom encounter..."

May 22, 2020

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/22-may/books-arts/book-reviews/culture-war-art-identity-politics-and-cultural-entryism-by-alexander-adams

Source: Church Times

Credit: Nicholas Cranfield

"[A] trenchant and, at times, prescient collection of essays on the culture war and virtue-signalling of our day."

May 1, 2021

Source: The British Art Journal

Credit: David Platzer

"[Adams'] two books [with Imprint Academic] are courageous marks in the debate which too many try to silence..."
Paperback
- Product Detail: 1 Trade paperback (US), Trade paperback (UK)
- Publication Date: 01 March 2019
- ISBN-13: 9781845409982
- Product Content: Text (eye-readable)
- Extent: Main content page count : 180
- Code: 9781845409982
- Dimensions: 13.5 x 21 x 1.3 cm
- Weight: 250 grams
- Packaging Type: No outer packaging
- List Price: £14.95
- ONIX Version 2.1, Version 3
Interview with the author

2nd interview with author

3rd interview with the author

Podcast interview with James Delingpole

Fany Anzai interview

Details

Title: Culture War
Subtitle: Art, Identity Politics and Cultural Entryism
Author: Alexander Adams
Collection: Societas
Language: English
Publisher: Imprint Academic
Imprint: Societas

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