Combining personal narrative, interviews, and literary analysis, Fool elaborates the potential for fool figures from throughout literary history to reconfigure subject-object relations and point toward new possibilities in creative and critical thought. Drawing on Johanna Skibsrud’s experience in clown classes in France and the US, Fool challenges and extends the correlation Theodor Adorno suggests between thinking and clowning. It considers a diverse range of literary and theoretical sources from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal to Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway. The book also refers to a varied cast of literary and historical clowns and fools, including the early Shakespearean actor Richard Tarlton, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and Cirque du Soleil’s Shannan Calcutt. Skibsrud elaborates the role of the ‘fool’ and ‘foolishness’ in literature not as an element of a particular work’s content, plot, or style, but instead as a creative mode of thought activated through the reading and writing of literary texts. This innovative book charts new ground in literature, philosophy, and performance studies, and is an invaluable resource for specialists in all three fields.

From award-winning writer Johanna Skibsrud, Medium uses language as a bridge across experience, sensibility, and time. These deeply resonant and performative poems share the lives and perspectives of women who - in their roles as biological, physical, or spiritual mediums - have helped to shape the course of history. Reckoning with the dominant historical narratives of each woman's era, Skibsrud underscores the power of poetry to bring about new formulations for understanding the relationship between past and present, self and other. Helen of Troy, Anne Boleyn, Shakuntala Devi, Hypatia of Alexandria, Marie Curie, Chien-Shiung Wu: Medium interprets the voices of women vilified by history, silenced by famous husbands, forced into sex work, or wrongly accused. Each exploration begins with a brief vignette inspired by the 'vidas' that once began manuscripts of the troubadours. Both vidas and poems provide lyrical reinterpretations of real and imagined elements in the lives of scholars, scientists, computer engineers, mystics, entrepreneurs, artists, nurses, and other leaders.

Your little arms and legs move just like you are a baby monkey climbing into the leafy branches of a tree. But you are not a monkey. Your nose twitches and your mouth moves as though you are a bunny sniffing the garden air. But you are not a bunny. Moving from animal to animal, leading to a wonderful surprise at the end, this charming story engages young readers with both the text and the adorable art. A wonderful gift for both young children and their parents, especially every new parent who can't stop marveling at their baby.