Patronizing the Arts

Preface xi Chapter 1: The Paradox of Patronage 1 Chapter 2: Governing Assumptions 42 Chapter 3: Minding the Business of Art 97 Chapter 4: Arts or Sciences 140 Chapter 5: The University as Patron 178 Notes 197 Index 221

Marjorie Garber teaches English at Harvard University, where she also chairs the Visual and Environmental Studies Department and directs the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts. Her many books include "Shakespeare After All" and "Academic Instincts" (Princeton).

The title of Garber's erudite, incisive study contains the crux of her persuasive proposal: though financially supported by foundations, corporations and wealthy individuals, the arts are also deemed 'nonessential.'... Her stimulating analyses, both highly informed and refreshingly unpedantic, will be of great interest to the scholar and general reader who appreciates a salient cultural critique. -- "Publishers Weekly Patronizing the Arts ... offers useful information graced with intermittent insight. -- Jonathon Keats, Washington Post Book World In this captivating book, Garber considers the alternative meanings of 'patronize' in reference to artistic endeavors and raises many interesting questions along the way. The central question regards the relationship between patron and artist that most effectively enhances the creative environment... Garber addresses these issues and more in a lively style that takes the reader from a consideration of government funding, to private philanthropy, to a reexamination of the nature of art and how it is created, powerfully arguing art's linkages with science. She finally advocates greater university support of artists, where visions can theoretically be realized in a setting of academic freedom and exploration. -- "Choice Although replete with endnotes and intended for academics, Patronizing the Arts is no dry study. Garber peppers her work with literary passages, enlightening etymologies of key words, and derision. Garber is fighting an uphill battle in this book, advocating first for the arts' centrality to the research-driven university and second for their increased priority on university budgets already overwhelmed, especially as the current economic crisis deepens. -- David Kaye, The Common Review