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 Written during a key transitional moment in her life and work (2005-2012), the volume makes available primarily unpublished performance texts and writings that give an intimate insight both into Frueh's everyday life and the thinking of an artist and scholar well known for offering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,
Spine: 17mm
Weight: 376g
ISBN: 9781526189325
ISBN 10: 1526189321
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 01 December 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
ELT Advanced
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Editorial Introduction: A Correspondence with Critical Intimacy – Marsha Meskimmon Illustrations Editorial Note Figures INTRODUCTION PART ONE: PRACTICES OF BODY AND MIND I Responsiveness The Performer as a Work in Progress Presentness The Honesty of a “Provocateur” and an “Iconoclast” Perceptions from a Discerning Body Lovestruck Play and Lovestruck Unions Being Aphrodite Beauty, Economy, and Necessity Dress/Habits Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy Yoga (with Some Words about Bodybuilding) Everyday Life A Time Defined by Honey II Reading How I Used to Read How I Read Now A Very Select Bibliography from 2004–2010 with Some Comments III Theory: In Behalf of Muses Why I Love the Boys Two Pearls and Many Kisses Bless You, Boys, I Wish You Well IV Conversation: Salons Assumptions Be Perfect Be Perfect Be Perfect With Me The Ultimate Tenderness of Resurrection The Efficiency of Peace Not Driven Anymore The Exceptional Person Wild Sacred Space Dreaming the World into Being PART TWO: THE RESULTS OF PLEASURE V Performing Performing and Re-Performing: Debuts and Transformations Readings and Performances Audio and Video Pieces Photography The Activity and Experience of Performing, from Seductiveness to Comedy and Specialness to Serenity VI Performance Texts, 2005–2010 A Flowering of Vision 2005 Maiden Elder 2006 The Sphinx Unwinds Her Own Sweet Self 2007 Goddess of Roses 2007 Sexual Advances 2009 The Dark Lord and His Wily Mistress 2009 I AM Desire 2010 -- .
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.
