Sexual Personae

Name: Sexual Personae
Price: 36.99 AUD
Availability: PreOrder
ISBN: 9781761382000

art and decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

Camille Paglia

$36.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
Pre-Order now

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English

Scribe Publications
04 August 2026

Philosophy: aesthetics; Society & Social Sciences; Popular culture; Feminism & feminist theory; Gender studies, gender groups

'Everything great in Western culture has come from the quarrel with nature ... The most effective weapon against the flux of nature is art.'

In this blazing work of brilliant originality, a phenomenon ever since it was first published in 1990, Camille Paglia outlines a new unified theory of Western art and literature and the primacy of sex and violence within it. Identifying the competing symbolic forces of Apollo and Dionysus ― reason and instinct, order and chaos, logic and passion, male and female, civilisation and nature ― Sexual Personae outlines key archetypes that embody different levels of Apollonian and Dionysian forces- the Great Mother, the beautiful boy, the femme fatale, the amazon, amongst many others, and traces how these archetypes have animated the pagan battle that underlies all Western art and culture. Audacious, vastly erudite, and wildly entertaining, Sexual Personae is art history that invites us to see the entire world anew.

'A fine, disturbing book. It seeks to attack the reader's emotions as well as his/her prejudices. It is very learned. Each sentence jabs like a needle.' -Anthony Burgess

'The ability to infuriate both antagonists in an ideological struggle is often a sign of a first-rate book ... Paglia is a conspicuously gifted writer ... and an admirably close reader with a hard core of common sense.' -The New York Times Book Review

'Sexual Personae an enormous sensation of a book ... there is no book comparable in scope, stance, design, or insight ... A masterwork.' -Harold Bloom

By: Camille Paglia
Imprint: Scribe Publications
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 1mm, Width: 1mm,
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781761382000
ISBN 10: 1761382004
Pages: 736
Publication Date: 04 August 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Camille Paglia is a scholar and culture critic who taught at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia for nearly 40 years. She is also the author of Sex, Art, and American Culture; Vamps & Tramps; The Birds; Break, Blow, Burn; Glittering Images; Free Women, Free Men; and Provocations.