I Love My Selfie

by Ilan Stavans PhD

Overview

What explains our current obsession with selfies? In I Love My Selfie noted cultural critic Ilan Stavans explores the selfie's historical and cultural roots by discussing everything from Greek mythology and Shakespeare to Andy Warhol, James Franco, and Pope Francis. He sees selfies as tools people use to disguise or present themselves as spontaneous and casual. This collaboration includes a portfolio of fifty autoportraits by the artist ADÁL; he and Stavans use them as a way to question the notion of the self and to engage with artists, celebrities, technology, identity, and politics. Provocative and engaging, I Love My Selfie will change the way readers think about this unavoidable phenomenon of twenty-first-century life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822363491
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author, editor, and translator of numerous books, including Reclaiming Travel, also published by Duke University Press. Adál Maldonado is a visual, performance, installation, and video artist; playwright; cofounder of the first all-artist political party in Puerto Rico; the recipient of a Pollock-Krassner Fellowship; and the author of several books, including Out of Focus Nuyoricans.

Table of Contents

1. Chillin'  1
2. The Plight of Narcissus  10
3. "Decisive Moments"  18
4. Out of Focus  28

Go F_ck Your Selfie: A Portfolio / ADÁL  39

5. Alone with Others  91
6. Rembrandt's Instamatic  98
7. Tropic Noir  113
8. And Then Comes Darkness  122

Acknowledgments  129
Index  131

What People are Saying About This

Julián Zugazagoitia

"Seizing that rare moment when a cultural phenomenon is invading the art world, I Love My Selfie is timely, groundbreaking, and sure to influence many."

Julián Zugazagoitia

"Seizing that rare moment when a cultural phenomenon is invading the art world, I Love My Selfie is timely, groundbreaking, and sure to influence many."

Editorial Reviews

"A book of absolute contemporary relevance, I Love My Selfie reminds us that nothing has ever been as hard as having a self, and that perhaps to better be true to it, one has to learn to conceal it, in a game of hide and seek that here gains a political dimension."

TLS - Carlos Fonseca

"A book of absolute contemporary relevance, I Love My Selfie reminds us that nothing has ever been as hard as having a self, and that perhaps to better be true to it, one has to learn to conceal it, in a game of hide and seek that here gains a political dimension."--Carlos Fonseca "TLS" (6/9/2017 12:00:00 AM)

"Rather than seeing selfies as a symptom of modern decay and pathology, Stavans encourages us to see the explosion of selfies as a kind of collective art project, in which everyone's individualism squeezes into the frame next to everybody else's individualism."--Noah Berlatsky "Quartz" (2/22/2017 12:00:00 AM)

"Stavans' key intuition that selfies might be understood in dialogue with self-portraiture is significant, as putting pressure on the definitions of selfies and self-portraiture--whether in the present moment or across the history of photography--can yield rich insights."--Nicole Erin Morse "boundary 2" (2/18/2018 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

2016-12-25
A bit of light academia on society's latest narcissistic trend, equal parts philosophical exploration and art criticism.Stavans (Latin American and Latino Culture/Amherst Coll.; Borges, the Jew, 2016, etc.) glosses what could evolve into an entire semester class on the selfie, as quick mentions of Benjamin, Warhol, and Spinoza conjure a syllabus of supplementary material. The author offers pointed remarks on the nature of art, photography, and identity, but he is more comfortable exploring than he is solidifying any definitive ideas. His charming, wandering narrative proves that with the right sort of intellectual wheelhouse, something as innocuous as the selfie can be approached with academic rigor. Unfortunately, the text is marred by Stavans' devotion to ADÁL, a Puerto Rican artist who specializes in surrealist autoportraiture. A large portfolio of ADÁL's work is wedged into the center of the book, resulting in an abrupt tonal shift, and Stavans attempts to elevate ADÁL's oeuvre with a bubbling but unconvincing passion. Without knowledge of its cultural subtext, the photography is silly at its best (a Magritte-style portrait where a banana hovers in front of ADÁL's face) and flippant at its worst (ADÁL igniting a fart or wearing a condom on his nose). This divisive work will distract readers from Stavans' thesis. In one chapter, a visit to ADÁL's studio initiates an interview with the artist about his practice. Later in the book, a chapter on "felfies" (a word from the Urban Dictionary referring to classic photos that have been altered to look like selfies) lacks the focus of a previous section on Rembrandt and his recurring self-portraits. The author's personal interests often get in the way of his conceptual discoveries. Bright but uneven, inspiring but occasionally misguided, the book is a curious intellectual snapshot with a finger over the lens: a broad cultural landscape pulled unnecessarily into portraiture.

Kirkus Reviews

"Stavans’ key intuition that selfies might be understood in dialogue with self-portraiture is significant, as putting pressure on the definitions of selfies and self-portraiture—whether in the present moment or across the history of photography—can yield rich insights."

boundary 2 - Nicole Erin Morse

"Rather than seeing selfies as a symptom of modern decay and pathology, Stavans encourages us to see the explosion of selfies as a kind of collective art project, in which everyone’s individualism squeezes into the frame next to everybody else’s individualism."

Quartz - Noah Berlatsky