‘Abject Eroticism in Northern Renaissance’ Art by Yvonne Owens, Ph.D.

Slowly but surely, reviews and mentions are accruing. I was told of this one, a mini-review by the famed critic, Merve Emre, by an art history PhD candidate, who discovered the book from its inclusion in a criticism newsletter (bottom of page), as featured in the ‘Cyberflâneur’ section of ‘The Syllabus,’ in which, “Our trusted guides — artists, intellectuals, academics, journalists, and more — use our research infrastructure to uncover fascinating pieces related to their practice”: https://www.the-syllabus.com/.../the-cyberflaneur-47...

The images alone would be enough to recommend Yvonne Owens’s study of Hans Baldung Grien, famous for his fleshly images of witches…Yet Owens’s patient feminist analysis also shows how Grien exploited medical and philosophical notions of female anatomy as “toxic” and “dangerously beguiling”…his woodcuts and paintings depicted how “a monstrous female sexuality victimized men and brought them low.” ~ Merve Emre

Dr. Emre is acclaimed for being a successful crossover academic/general audience critic in this article:

https://www.chronicle.com/.../merve-emres-critical-vision...

One paragraph in particular stresses this crossover appeal:

“So Emre is doing research for one book while playacting doing research for another. This kind of thing is typical for Emre, who, at 35, is already one of the most widely acclaimed literary critics at work today. An Oxford professor and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine, Emre has long straddled the academic and literary publishing worlds. Her command of these two spheres is one of her great strengths as a writer and thinker. But it is also the foundation of her predicament. To which side does she finally belong?”