Is Art Good for Us?

In this brilliant work, Joli Jensen speaks with the reach and range and assurance of the public intellectuals she has read so carefully. She shows that 'we have not been thinking or talking wisely or well about the arts.' Through original readings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Walt Whitman, Lewis Mumford, and John Dewey, she argues that the mass media are not so bad nor 'art' so good for us as public discourse assumes. In clear-headed, strong, and almost breathtakingly lucid prose, she helps us reconsider what we want and expect of art, criticism, and democracy. What a gift this book is! -- Michael Schudson, University of California, San Diego Stimulating read. * Financial Times * Its refreshing honesty and forthrightness require a solid argumentation, and Jensen delivers through a detailed examination and critique of the underpinnings of the instrumentalist position in social and art criticism through successive moments from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The integration of social criticism or analysis of artistic practice and communicative policies offers innovative and fresh insights and holds out a promise for a new direction in arts policy. This book should be required reading for those in the spheres of cultural-policy work and social criticism. Its clear and compelling message should be heeded by all of us who care about art, creativity, and democracy. * College Art Association * Joli Jensen pulls all of the right strings in this fascinating analysis. -- Andrew Taylor * Artsjournal.Com * The bluntness of Joli Jensen's title indicates the no-nonsense approach she takes to making a public case for the arts. . . . The resulting book is, quite literally, required reading. I'm assigning this volume as the opening text for my 'Cultural Policy and the Arts' graduate seminar this semester, because it frames, historicizes, and argues the essential questions so cogently. -- Ann Daly, University of Texas, Austin Joli Jensen makes an elegant case against the modern cult of art: It isn't what art purportedly does to us, but what we do with art that matters. Jensen reveals art's true significance by defending the universality of its experience. -- Charles Paul Freund, Reason Magazine

Joli Jensen is professor of communication at the University of Tulsa.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Is Art Good for Us? Chapter 2 Exemplary Voices: Tocqueville, Whitman, and Mumford Chapter 3 Arts for Renewal, Revolution, Conservation, and Subversion Chapter 4 Art as Antidote: The Mass Culture Debates Chapter 5 Art as Elixir: Contemporary Arts Discourse Chapter 6 Art as Experience: John Dewey's Aesthetics Chapter 7 Conclusion: The Value of Expressive Logic