A Practice of Pleasure

Joanna Frueh's Performances and Writings, 2005–2011

Joanna Frueh, Marsha Meskimmon

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Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Manchester University Press
01 December 2025

Performance art; Social issues & processes; Feminism & feminist theory; Sexual behaviour

A Practice of Pleasure is an intimate and panoramic entree into the life and work of Joanna Frueh (1948-2020), an art historian and performance practitioner for whom life and art were inseparable. Written during a key transitional moment in her life and work (2005-2012), the volume makes available primarily unpublished performance texts and writings that give an intimate insight both into Frueh's everyday life and the thinking of an artist and scholar well known for offering her personal experiences as a means of embodying and speaking about pleasure. A self-described 'pleasure activist', Frueh's book offers a highly original perspective on pleasure

frank, scholarly, philosophical, romantic, and conversational. Taken together, the texts comprising A Practice of Pleasure are an ode to pleasure in the widest sense: female pleasure, sexual pleasure, and the pleasures of prosaic and domestic beauties, such as enjoying the reality of her own body and the luxurious simplicities of the senses.

By: Joanna Frueh
Edited by: Marsha Meskimmon
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 138mm,
ISBN: 9781526189318
ISBN 10: 1526189313
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 01 December 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Joanna Frueh (1948-2020) was a performance artist, writer, scholar, and teacher. For more than twenty-five years, she performed one-woman shows throughout the United States and abroad. She was Professor of the Practice of Art at the University of Arizona and Professor of Art History Emerita at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her authored works include Swooning Beauty: A Memoir of Pleasure; Monster/Beauty: Building the Body of Love; Erotic Faculties; and Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective.