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Product Description
Product Description
Both an exploration of the ways in which we fashion our public identity and a manual of modern sociability, this lively and readable book explores the techniques we use to present ourselves to the world: body language, tone of voice, manners, demeanour, 'personality' and personal style. Drawing on historical commentators from Castiglione to Machiavelli, and from Marcel Mauss to Roland Barthes, Joanne Finkelstein looks to popular visual culture, including Hollywood film and makeover TV, to show how it provides blueprints for the successful construction of 'persona'. She also discusses the role of fashion and of status symbols and how advertising sells these to us in our never ending quest for social mobility. Finkelstein's interest here is not in the veracity of the self - recently dissected by critical theory - but rather in the ways in which we style this 'self', in the enduring appeal of the 'new you' and in our fascination with deception, fraudulent personalities and impostors.
About the Author
Joanne Finkelstein is Professor and Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts, Ed. & HD, Victoria University, Australia. Her books include 'The Fashioned Self' and 'Slaves of Chic'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Whatever possessed Joanna Finkelstein to present this book to a publisher, and whatever possessed a publisher to present it to the public?
Replete with references to films and popular culture, this academic treatise is little more than a superficial survey of the notion of identity in what appears to be an entirely random reading of modern culture. Very few of the references to films or books are accompanied with any kind of analysis, and what there is rarely goes beyond the level of a Radio Times review. The chapter on Martin Guerre begins promisingly enough, but once Finkelstein has told the story, she seems to have run out of any desire to develop it.
If it were a lightweight book of popular observation, this might be acceptable, but it lacks the fundamental quality of being entertaining.
There are also some significant lapses of critical judgement in this book. Finkelstein flips between examples from real life and examples from literature and film without clearly drawing a distinction between the two. Given that the book purports to unpick different layers of representation, this failure is particularly problematic. Where Finkelstein should be clarifying, she is in fact obfusticating.
All in all, 'The Art of Self Invention' gives the impression of being a very, very long undergraduate essay. It may be of great value in reminding the author what she has seen and read, but it is too unscientific to be considered a survey, and the lack of analysis means it has little to offer other readers. We would usually expect an academic to move from survey to analysis to insights to conclusions. A scholarly journal might well publish survey with analysis, but a book owes it to the reader to at least move to some kind of insights and conclusions. Regrettably, the publisher's review (on which basis I ordered the book) makes the claim that it goes beyond even that to become a 'manual' of style and manners. It simply does not do this.
All this would be forgiveable if Joanna Finkelstein were breaking new ground. But she is not: there are already many books which go much further on the subject of image and identity. This adds nothing to mankind's overall knowledge of the subject.
Recommendation: if you are interested in this subject, buy one of the other shorter, more informative and more entertaining books.
Replete with references to films and popular culture, this academic treatise is little more than a superficial survey of the notion of identity in what appears to be an entirely random reading of modern culture. Very few of the references to films or books are accompanied with any kind of analysis, and what there is rarely goes beyond the level of a Radio Times review. The chapter on Martin Guerre begins promisingly enough, but once Finkelstein has told the story, she seems to have run out of any desire to develop it.
If it were a lightweight book of popular observation, this might be acceptable, but it lacks the fundamental quality of being entertaining.
There are also some significant lapses of critical judgement in this book. Finkelstein flips between examples from real life and examples from literature and film without clearly drawing a distinction between the two. Given that the book purports to unpick different layers of representation, this failure is particularly problematic. Where Finkelstein should be clarifying, she is in fact obfusticating.
All in all, 'The Art of Self Invention' gives the impression of being a very, very long undergraduate essay. It may be of great value in reminding the author what she has seen and read, but it is too unscientific to be considered a survey, and the lack of analysis means it has little to offer other readers. We would usually expect an academic to move from survey to analysis to insights to conclusions. A scholarly journal might well publish survey with analysis, but a book owes it to the reader to at least move to some kind of insights and conclusions. Regrettably, the publisher's review (on which basis I ordered the book) makes the claim that it goes beyond even that to become a 'manual' of style and manners. It simply does not do this.
All this would be forgiveable if Joanna Finkelstein were breaking new ground. But she is not: there are already many books which go much further on the subject of image and identity. This adds nothing to mankind's overall knowledge of the subject.
Recommendation: if you are interested in this subject, buy one of the other shorter, more informative and more entertaining books.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
i AM A MATURE fINE aRTS STUDENT AND HAVE FOUND THIS BOOK A GREAT RESOURCE FOR MY WORK AND COVERS THE BROADEST SENSE OF IDENTITY WITH ART. IT IS CLEARLY WRITTEN AND VERY READABLE TOO. iTS A GREAT SPRINGBOARD FOR DEEPER ENQUIRY TO 'IDENTITY AND ART' WITHOUT GETTING BOGGED DOWN IN CONVILUTING THEORIES WHERE YOUR BRAIN GETS TANGLED UP WITH ACADEMIC JARGON THAT IS OFTEN APPEARING LIKE ANOTHER LANGUAGE ENTIRELY...THOSE WHO FEEL THEY HAVE TO JUSTIFY THE EXISTANCE OF ART STAND BACK - COS THIS BOOK DOES IT IN TERMS THAT TOUCH'S BASE, MAKES SENSE, CREATES REFLECTION AND IS A GREAT WORKING SOURCE.... HOORAY :)
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