I came across Tara's novel Social Creatures this weekend, started it, and love it. She captures a certain timeless type of New York kid I know well in her character Lavinia. Demimondaines!
I started intrigued, and by the end of the article was convinced to go and read all of this author's work, but I think this was the moment where I tipped from "interested" to "all in": "you start with how irresistibly hot Albrecht Dürer was — and how his hotness basically changed the course of history" ... Great interview, and I'm looking forward to learning more!
Yes! I will buy Self-Made. First, what this interview with Tara Isabella Burton brings to mind is how she handles intellectual history with precision and energy. Her frame — self-making as secularized hagiography — connects phenomena from Dürer's Christ-like self-portrait to Brummell's style of aristocracy, from New Thought "manifesting" to transhumanist goals. Her refusal to collapse the story into culture-war arguments keeps focus on the theological and imaginative roots of modern selfhood. The idea that discernment — weighing desire rather than worshipping it — could temper the individualism she traces feels both current and ancient. This book promises historical depth, conceptual clarity, and narrative pull.
I came across Tara's novel Social Creatures this weekend, started it, and love it. She captures a certain timeless type of New York kid I know well in her character Lavinia. Demimondaines!
And I enjoyed the interview.
I started intrigued, and by the end of the article was convinced to go and read all of this author's work, but I think this was the moment where I tipped from "interested" to "all in": "you start with how irresistibly hot Albrecht Dürer was — and how his hotness basically changed the course of history" ... Great interview, and I'm looking forward to learning more!
Yes! I will buy Self-Made. First, what this interview with Tara Isabella Burton brings to mind is how she handles intellectual history with precision and energy. Her frame — self-making as secularized hagiography — connects phenomena from Dürer's Christ-like self-portrait to Brummell's style of aristocracy, from New Thought "manifesting" to transhumanist goals. Her refusal to collapse the story into culture-war arguments keeps focus on the theological and imaginative roots of modern selfhood. The idea that discernment — weighing desire rather than worshipping it — could temper the individualism she traces feels both current and ancient. This book promises historical depth, conceptual clarity, and narrative pull.