Alter Ego : The Critical Writings of Michel Leiris

Alter Ego is the first monograph in English on the critical writings of Michel Leiris (1901-90). A groundbreaking autobiographer and pioneering ethnographer, Leiris also produced important criticism on art, opera, jazz and literature, which acts as a key commentary on twentieth-century intellectual movements and demonstrates vividly the constant refashioning and reformulation of contemporary ideas and aesthetics. Hand defines and situates Leiris s core themes, analyses his criticism in each of the art areas examined, and delineates the model that emerges of a contrapuntal and heterogeneous critical identity.