George Cotkin, “Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility” (Oxford UP, 2015)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Jan 22, 2016 · 53m

George Cotkin is an emeritus professor of history at California Polytechnic State University. In his book Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility (Oxford University Press, 2015) he has given us cultural criticism through a set of provocative portraits of creative Americans at mid-twentieth century who defied convention, pushed the boundaries of aesthetics and forged a new sensibility of personal liberation. From John Cage, who in 1952 explored the musical possibilities of silence in the composition 4′ 33″ to Chris Burden’s 1974 performance piece Trans-fixed nailing him to a…