Four Songs of Care and Constraint
by Maggie Nelson
An expansive, exhilarating work of criticism by one of the most significant writers of our day.
So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom's long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? On Freedom examines such questions by tracing the concept's complexities in four distinct realms: art, sex, drugs, and climate.
Drawing on a vast range of material, from critical theory to pop culture to the intimacies and plain exchanges of daily life, Maggie Nelson explores how we might think, experience, or talk about freedom in ways responsive to the conditions of our day. Her abiding interest lies in ongoing "practices of freedom" by which we negotiate our interrelation with―indeed, our inseparability from―others, with all the care and constraint that entails, while accepting difference and conflict as integral to our communion.
For Nelson, thinking publicly through the knots in our culture―from recent art-world debates to the turbulent legacies of sexual liberation, from the painful paradoxes of addiction to the lure of despair in the face of the climate crisis―is itself a practice of freedom, a means of forging fortitude, courage, and company. On Freedom is an invigorating, essential book for challenging times.
"Critic Nelson traces the limits of liberty and the call to care in this expansive and sharp-eyed study... While the literary theorizing is rich, this account soars in its ability to find nuance in considering questions of enormous importance...Once again, Nelson proves herself a masterful thinker and an unparalleled prose stylist." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A top cultural critic plucks the concept of freedom away from right-wing sloganeers and explores its operation in current artistic and political conversations...The subtlety of Nelson's analysis and energy of her prose refresh the mind and spirit." - Kirkus Reviews
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Maggie Nelson is a poet, critic, and award-winning author of The Argonauts, Bluets, The Art of Cruelty, Jane: A Murder and The Red Parts. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
There is no science without fancy and no art without fact
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