Camille Paglia: Cultural Critic, Provocateur

Since her bestselling debut Sexual Personae, Camille Paglia has been one of our most audacious cultural critics, probing sex and beauty in art, literature, and media. In her first book in seven years, Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars, Paglia takes on the visual arts. Acting as art historian and provocateur, Paglia threads together historical context with some of Western art's most important works, focusing on such vastly disparate mediums as an Egyptian tomb, French rococo interiors, and performance art. In classic Paglia fashion, her conclusions—that the avant-garde tradition is dead and that director George Lucas is the world's greatest living artist—astonish and challenge her audience.