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Abstraction Experience Modernism Being and Doing Buy A Book

To read more of Ray Carney's writing about life, art, and criticism, you may purchase any of the five following items:

Why Art Matters: A collection of essays, interviews, and lectures on life and art

Necessary Experiences—What art can show us about ourselves and our culture

What's Wrong with Film Courses, Film Criticism, and Film Reviewing—And How to Do It Right

A Modern Mosaic: Art and Modernism in the United States

The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture

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Ray Carney, Why Art Matters: A collection of essays, interviews, and lectures on life and art, softbound, approximately 150 pages (60,000 words). Available for $15.

A collection of essays, interviews, and lectures on art, life, and film that appeared in Visions and Moviemaker magazines between 1993 and 1999. The collection includes the celebrated “The Rules of the Game,” “Fake Independence and Real Truth,” “The Path of the Artist,” and many additional pieces. This packet reprints the complete texts of many items that are published only in excerpts on this web site.

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Ray Carney, Necessary Experiences—What art can show us about ourselves and our culture, softbound, approximately 140 pages (40,000 words). Available for $15.

A collection of essays and interviews on art, life, and independent film that appeared in Filmmaker, Moviemaker, The Daily Telegraph, and other places between 1999 and 2002. Ray Carney talks with Jim McKay, Cynthia Rockwell, Jake Mahaffy, and others about the lessons he learned while working on his Cassavetes on Cassavetes book, and with Shelley Friedman about independent filmmaking.

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Ray Carney, What's Wrong with Film Courses, Film Criticism, and Film Reviewing—And How to Do It Right, softbound, approximately 150 pages (50,000 words). Available for $15.

An unpublished book-length interview conducted in 2002 in which Ray Carney talks about his experiences as a writer and classroom teacher, and his views of the American media and American film reviewers.

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Ray Carney has the longest and most ambitious essay he has ever written about film and philosophy in the following book. The essay is more than 40,000 words long.

A Modern Mosaic: Art and Modernism in the United States,
Edited by Townsend Ludington
(University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 225 b&w illustrations, paperback, 472 pages.
This book is available directly from this site for $29.

The modernist movement has shaped our era as has no other. This insightful collection of original essays explores the impact of modernism on American culture and the ways in which modernism remains a key to understanding American art and society.

An impressive cast of scholars examines works and their creators across the whole spectrum of artistic expressionófiction and poetry, painting and sculpture, architecture, dance, photography, and film. In fresh and provocative essays they explore how the ideas of modernism helped shape such artistic expressions as the writings of the Harlem Renaissance, the paintings of Edward Hopper, New Deal public art projects, and George Antheil's Ballet Mecanique. Extensive use of color and black-and-white illustrations results in a book that is as appealing visually as it is stimulating intellectually.

The contributors are Casey Nelson Blake, Robert Cantwell, Ray Carney, Thomas Fahy, Lucy Fischer, John F. Kasson, William E. Leuchtenburg, Lucinda H. MacKethan, Randy Martin, Carol J. Oja, Miles Orvell, Joan Shelley Rubin, Jon Michael Spencer, and Maren Stange.

This book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, University of North Carolina Press, your local bookseller, or, for a limited time, directly from the author (in discounted, specially autographed editions). See below for information how to order this book directly from the author by money order, check, or credit card. Clicking on the above links will open a new window in your browser. You may return to this page by closing that window or by clicking on the window for this page again.

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For another discussion of American painting and culture by Ray Carney, see: "When Mind is a Verb: Thomas Eakins and the Doing of Thinking," in Morris Dickstein (ed.) The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays in Social Thought, Law, and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 5 photographs, paperback, 464 pages. This book is available directly from this site for $25.

Available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local bookseller, or, for a limited time, directly from the author (in discounted, specially autographed editions). See below for information how to order this book directly from the author by money order, check, or credit card. Clicking on the above links will open a new window in your browser. You may return to this page by closing that window or by clicking on the window for this page again.

 

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These books may be bought through the web sites listed above, or obtained directly from the author, by using the Pay Pal Credit Card button below, or by sending a check or money order to the address below. However you order the book or books, please provide the following information:

  • Your name and address
  • The title of the book you are ordering
  • Whether you would like an inscription or autograph on the inside front cover
Checks or money orders may be mailed to:

Ray Carney
Special Book Offer
College of Communication
640 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston University Boston, MA 02215

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Note:
If you pay by credit card using the PayPal button, please note in the item description or comments section of the order form the exact title of the item or items you are ordering (be specific, since many items have similar titles), as well as any preferences you may have about an autograph or inscription and the name or nickname you would like to have on the inscription.

If you are confused by the PayPal form, or unsure where to enter this information, you may simply make your credit card payment that way, and separately email me (at the address below) any and all information about what item you are ordering, and what inscription or name you would like me to write on it, or any other details about your purchase. I will respond promptly.

The PayPal form has a place for you to indicate the number of items you want (if you want more than one of any item), as well as your mailing address.

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These instructions apply to American shipments only. Individuals from outside the United States should email me and inquire about pricing and shipping costs for international shipments.

Clicking on PayPal opens a separate window in your browser so that this window and the information in it will always be available for you to consult before, during, and after clicking on the PayPal button. After you have completed your PayPal purchase and your order has been placed, you will automatically be returned to this page. If, on the other hand, you go to the PayPal page and decide not to complete your order, you may simply close the PayPal window at any point and this page should still be visible in a window underneath it.

If you have questions, comments, or problems, or if you would like to send me additional information about your order, please feel free to email me at: raycarney@usa.net. (Note: Due to the extremely high volume of my email correspondence, thousands of emails a week, and the diabolical ingenuity of Spammers, be sure to use a distinctive subject heading in anything you send me. Do NOT make your subject line read "hi" or "thanks" or "for your information" or anything else that might appear to be Spam or your message will never reach me. Use the name of a filmmaker or the name of a familiar film or something equally distinctive as your subject line. That is the only way I will know that your message was not automatically generated by a Spam robot.)

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© Text Copyright 2003 by Ray Carney. All rights reserved. May not be reprinted without written permission of the author.