A short life of the author
Joan Acocella (born 1945) is an American cultural critic whose writing on dance, literature, and the creative process has set a standard for intellectually rigorous yet accessible criticism. As a staff writer at The New Yorker for over two decades, she brought the same analytical precision to a Mark Morris ballet, a Willa Cather novel, and the psychology of writer’s block.
Life and Career
Acocella earned a doctorate in comparative literature from Rutgers and taught at various universities before her criticism career took precedence. She became a dance critic for The New Yorker in 1998, covering ballet and modern dance with an expertise that combined historical knowledge, aesthetic judgment, and clear prose.
Her book Mark Morris (1993) was a critical biography of the choreographer that was praised for explaining dance in language that non-specialists could understand while maintaining the depth that specialists demanded. Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (2000) was a bold intervention in Cather studies, arguing against the trend of reading Cather’s work primarily through the lens of her likely lesbianism and insisting on the primacy of aesthetic judgment.
Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (2007) collected her best essays and reviews, covering subjects from Dostoevsky to Mikhail Baryshnikov, from Joan of Arc to Primo Levi. The collection demonstrated her range and her ability to connect apparently disparate subjects through shared themes of creativity, discipline, and the relationship between art and life.
Her essay “Blocked” (2004) — a New Yorker piece on writer’s block that traced the concept from the Romantics through psychoanalysis to contemporary neuroscience — became one of the most widely discussed pieces of cultural criticism of its decade.
Key Works
- Mark Morris (1993)
- Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (2000)
- Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (2007)
Collecting Acocella
First editions are modestly priced at $15–$30. Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (Pantheon, 2007) is the most collected title. Back issues of The New Yorker containing her major essays have separate collector interest. Acocella’s work is widely assigned in criticism and arts-writing courses.