Wayne Koestenbaum
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Wayne Koestenbaum (born 1958) is an American artist, poet, and cultural critic. He received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature in 2020. He has published over 20 books to date. Koestenbaum works as a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the
CUNY Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University ...
, where he teaches poetry, and teaches painting at
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
. He lives and works in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
.


Early life and education

Koestenbaum was born and raised in
San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...
. He is the son of writer Phyllis Koestenbaum and leadership consultant Peter Koestenbaum. He received a B.A. from
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and a Ph.D. from
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
and is a 1994
Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...
recipient. Koestenbaum lived in New York from 1984 to 1988 while a graduate student at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
. He notes that his early years in New York as the period when he discovered
opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
,
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
, and gay culture. Koestenbaum wrote book reviews for the New York Native and the
Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...
during these years.


Critical work

In ''Boston Review,'' Stefania Heim wrote that Koestenbaum's work —across genre— "obliterates any vestigial divide we might hold on to between play and thought. It revels in and broadcasts the risks and joys ( the risky joys and joyful risks) inherent in both." His best-known critical book, ''
The Queen's Throat ''The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire'' is a 1993 book by Wayne Koestenbaum. Summary Koestenbaum explores the relationship between gay men and opera, with frequent reference to his own experiences. In particular, ...
'', is an exploration of the predilection of gay men for
opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
. Koestenbaum's conclusion is that gay men's affinity for opera tells us as much about opera and its inherent questions about masculinity as it does about homosexuality. ''Humiliation'', Koestenbaum's book on the meaning of humiliation (both personal and universal), was reviewed by
John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...
as "the funniest, smartest, most heartbreaking yet powerful book I've read in a long time." Koestenbaum starred in a web series in support of this book, "Dear Wayne, I've Been Humiliated...", which was dubbed "the mother of all book trailers" by ''The New York Observer''. Koestenbaum's 2012 book ''The Anatomy of Harpo Marx'' was met with mixed reviews. Brian Dillon praised the book in ''Sight and Sound'' as "charming and rigorous" and lauded the book in ''Frieze'' as an "excellent example of a kind of delirious scholarship." Writing in the ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
'', Saul Austerlitz suggested that Koestenbaum "sexualizes Harpo beyond all recognition, creating a figure about whom the author can say, in all seriousness, that 'courtesy of the anus, we can imagine, Marxist-style, a path away from family and state.'" Joe Queenan wrote that Koestenbaum "peppers his story with just enough tidbits of fascinating information that readers may fleetingly overlook the fact that his theories are barmy." Koestenbaum has published essays on celebrity, classical music, contemporary art, literature, and aesthetics; some of these essays have been collected in the books, ''Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics'', and ''My 1980s & Other Essays,'' and ''Figure It Out: Essays.'' In 2021, Koestenbaum published his first collection of fables under Semiotext(e) titled, ''The Cheerful Scapegoat: Fables''.


Poetry

Koestenbaum's first book, ''Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems,'' was composed largely in syllabic verse and other fixed forms. In a review of ''Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems'' for ''Poetry Magazine,'' David Baker wrote that " oestenbaumis... willing to exert the pressures of traditional formality, yet he is also likely to let the voice and experience of a poem grate against his own formal gestures..." He returned to fixed forms for his book-length poem, ''Model Homes,'' which is composed in ottava rima. His two most recent books, ''The Pink Trance Notebooks'' and ''Camp Marmalade,'' are experiments in what Koestenbaum refers to as trance writing. Ben Shields described trance writing in ''The Paris Review'' as an approach that "allows language to move freely" and "does not often adhere to expected thematic, syntactic, or logical patterns." ''Publishers Weekly'' described the work in ''The Pink Trance Notebooks'' as "look ngand feel nglike the cut-and-paste fragments of a journal."


Other work

Koestenbaum began to paint in 2005 after he finished writing an essay for a group exhibition called "Contemporary Erotic Drawing" at the Aldrich Museum. He has had solo exhibitions at White Columns, the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and 356 Mission. In a 2016 ''Art News'' article, Ella Coon wrote that "his early work was figurative, and influenced by Warhol. He used a monoprint technique to trace images of male nudes, which he'd originally drawn from life, onto a black ground." Koestenbaum's first piano and vocal record, ''Lounge Act'', was released in 2017 by Ugly Duckling Presse Records. He has performed at The Kitchen, REDCAT,
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
, and The Walker Art Center.


Awards

*2023
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
*2020 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature *1994
Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...
*1989 Co-winner of Discovery/The Nation Poetry Award


Bibliography


Poetry

*''Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems'' (Persea, 1990). *''Rhapsodies of A Repeat Offender'' (Persea, 1994). *''The Milk of Inquiry'' (Persea, 1999). *''Model Homes'' (BOA Editions, 2004). *''Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films'' (
Turtle Point Press Turtle Point Press, founded in 1990, publishes new fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, memoirs, works in translation, and rediscovered classics. History Jonathan D. Rabinowitz established Turtle Point Press in 1990. During his tenure the press ...
, 2006). *''Blue Stranger With Mosaic Background'' (Turtle Point Press, 2012). *''The Pink Trance Notebooks'' (Nightboat Books, 2015). *''Camp Marmalade'' (Nightboat Books, 2018).


Criticism

*''Double Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration'' (
Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
, 1989). *'' The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire'' (Poseidon, 1993). *''Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting An Icon'' ( Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995). *''Cleavage: Essays on Sex, Stars, and Aesthetics'' (
Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. Ballantine was acquired by Random House in ...
, 2000). *''Andy Warhol'' (Lipper/Viking, 2001). *''Humiliation'' (
Picador A ''picador'' (; pl. ''picadores'') is one of the pair of horse-mounted bullfighters in a Spanish-style bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the ''tercio de varas'', which is the first of the three stages in a stylized bull ...
, 2011). *''The Anatomy of Harpo Marx'' (
University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
, 2012). *''My 1980s and Other Essays'' (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013) *''Notes on Glaze: 18 Photographic Investigations'' (New York: Cabinet Books, 2016). *''Figure It Out, Essays'' (
Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company that Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Shoemaker & Hoard, and Soft Skull Press. The company published books under b ...
, 2020).


Fiction

*''Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes'' (
Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company that Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Shoemaker & Hoard, and Soft Skull Press. The company published books under b ...
, 2004; reprinted as ''Circus'', Soft Skull, 2019). *''Hotel Theory'' (
Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company that Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Shoemaker & Hoard, and Soft Skull Press. The company published books under b ...
, 2007).


Fables

*The Cheerful Scapegoat: Fables (Semiotext(e), 2021).


Opera libretto

*'' Jackie O''


Lyric essay

*''(The Task of the Translator, Fall 2003)''


References


External links


Wayne Koestenbaum Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koestenbaum, Wayne 1958 births Living people 21st-century American Jews Writers from New York City Jewish American non-fiction writers American male poets Jewish American artists American literary critics Jewish American poets Gay Jews American gay writers Gay academics Harvard University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Princeton University alumni CUNY Graduate Center faculty American LGBTQ poets American male non-fiction writers Gay poets