R. Jay Magill is a writer, editor, illustrator, and independent scholar in Berlin, Germany.
Magill has written about culture and ideas for the American Prospect, American Interest, The Atlantic, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Times, Print, Salon, and the Wall Street Journal, among others, as well as German-language publications such as Neue Zürcher Zeitung Geschichte, Spiegel Online, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tagesspiegel, and Weltkunst.
Magill is the author of two books of intellectual and cultural history: Chic Ironic Bitterness (2007) and Sincerity: How A Moral Ideal Born Five Hundred Years Ago Inspired Religious Wars, Modern Art, Hipster Chic, and the Curious Notion that We All Have Something to Say (No Matter How Dull), a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Wall Street Journal Top-Ten Nonfiction Book of 2012.
Books
Chic Ironic Bitterness
(University of Michigan Press)
The events of 9/11 had many pundits declaring an end to the Age of Irony. Yet irony went on to enjoy a cultural renaissance—from South Park and Borat to the The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Why?
Chic Ironic Bitterness argues that the ironic worldview, ever since it appeared on the world stage, has promoted a psychological distance that keeps hypocrisy and threats to personal integrity at bay. In so doing, it preserves the values of authenticity, sincerity, and seriousness that might otherwise be lost in a world of political marketing and consumerist jargon. Chic Ironic Bitterness traces the rich history of the ironic worldview—from ancient Greece to contemporary America, counterintuitively arguing for its fundamental importance to democratic life and civic trust.
Winner of the Eric Hoffer Notable Book in Culture Award and finalist for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
“This book is a powerful and persuasive defense of sophisticated irony and subtle humor that contributes to the possibility of a genuine civic trust and democratic life. R. Jay Magill deserves our congratulations for a superb job!”
—Cornel West, University Professor, Harvard University
“A well-written, well-argued assessment of the importance of irony in contemporary American social life, along with the nature of recent misguided attacks and, happily, a deep conviction that irony is too important in our lives to succumb. The book reflects wide reading, varied experience, and real analytical prowess.”
—Peter Stearns, Provost, George Mason University
“Somehow, Americans—a pragmatic and colloquial lot, for the most part— are now supposed to speak the Word, without ironic embellishment, in order to rebuild the civic culture. So irony’s critics decide it has become ‘worthy of moral condemnation.’ Magill pushes back against this new conventional wisdom, eloquently defending a much livelier American sensibility than the many apologists for a somber ‘civic culture’ could ever acknowledge.”
—William Chaloupka, Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University
Sincerity: How a Moral Ideal Born Five Hundred Years Ago Inspired Religious Wars, Modern Art, Hipster Chic, and the Curious Notion That We All Have Something To Say (No Matter How Dull)
(W. W. Norton & Company)
What do John Calvin, Sarah Palin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Bon Iver have in common? A preoccupation with sincerity.
With deep historical perspective and brilliant contemporary spin, Sincerity tells the beguiling tale of sincerity’s theological past, its current emotional resonance, and the lasting impact it has had on the Western soul. From Puritan conversion experiences to modern art’s obsession with the insane, from Machiavelli’s Prince to the Maxims of La Rouchefoucauld, from Montaigne to Morrissey, and from Romantics to hipsters and beyond—Sincerity limns our persistent desire to shed the superficial affectations of society and reveal the pure core within us all. Magill navigates history, religion, art, literature, and politics with wit and style to create a portrait of an ideal that, despite its faults, remains a strange magnetic north in our secular moral compass.
A Wall Street Journal Top-Ten Nonfiction Book, New York Times Editors’ Choice, and Library Journal bestseller
“Magill’s writing is sincerely addictive. Revelatory, intelligent, funny, and surprising, this is serious scholarship that’s also really, really fun to read.”
— Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and 2012 Pulitzer-Prize nominee
“Sincerity is a serious and engaging cultural history painted on an admirably large canvas, yet Magill is careful not to take himself too seriously, as evidenced in his snarky asides and chatty footnotes. He wraps up on an eminently reasonable note: society needs both sincerity and insincerity. You can’t go too far in either direction: neither the frothy superficiality of court society nor the deadly purposefulness of the French Revolution. Who can argue with that?”
— Laura Kipnis, New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating cultural survey and intellectual investigation. Mr. Magill's range is extraordinary, and his wit, erudition, and powers of observation give credence to [his] judgments. [Sincerity is] deeply pleasurable…delightful.”
— Daniel Akst, The Wall Street Journal
“Magill agilely traces his subject through the ages…elegantly assembles an enormous amount of material [and his] parsing of our contemporary attitude—starting in the 1980s—is particularly fascinating.”
— Rachel Shteir, The New Republic
“A wide-ranging and penetrating cultural inquiry.”
— Booklist (starred review)
“A sophisticated meditation…a rewarding read…[Magill writes with] scholarliness, humor, and humanity….Two recently deceased men who knew about sincerity and silliness, Christopher Hitchens and Maurice Sendak, would approve of the whole enterprise….Anti-intellectuals need not apply.”
— Library Journal
“Energetic…well-researched…Magill proves most lively as he brings the reader up to date; his Hipster Semiotic Appendix demonstrates his acuity and sense of humor.”
— Publishers Weekly