Joan Barbara Acocella (née Ross, April 13, 1945 – January 7, 2024) was an American journalist. From 1998 to 2019, she was dance critic for The New Yorker.[1] She also wrote for The New York Review of Books for 33 years and authored books on dance, literature, and psychology.
Joan Acocella | |
|---|---|
 Acocella at the National Book Critics Circle award nominations, 2011 | |
| Born | Joan Barbara Ross April 13, 1945 San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Died | January 7, 2024 (aged 78) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley Rutgers University |
| Occupation | Dance critic |
| Employer | The New Yorker |
| Spouse | Nicholas Acocella (divorced) |
| Children | 1 |
Education
Joan Barbara Ross was born in San Franciso on April 13, 1945, to Arnold Ross, a cement company executive, and Florence (Hartzell) Ross, a homemaker.[2] She grew up in Oakland, California and received her B.A. in English in 1966 from the University of California, Berkeley.[2] She earned a PhD in comparative literature at Rutgers University in 1984 with a thesis on the Ballets Russes.[2]
Career
In the 1970s, Acocella was a writer and editor at Random House, where she co-authored a psychology textbook that went on to be reprinted in revised editions for two decades.[2] In the 1980s, she served as senior critic for Dance Magazine, including authoring a piece about her son’s performance in The Nutcracker with the New York City Ballet.[2]
Acocella wrote for The Village Voice,[3][4] and was the New York dance critic for the Financial Times. For 33 years, her writing also appeared regularly in the New York Review of Books.[2] She began writing for The New Yorker in 1992 and served as its dance critic from 1998 to 2019.[1]
Her books include Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder (1999);[5] Mark Morris (1993), a biography of modern dancer and choreographer Mark Morris;[6] and Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (2007), which explores the virtues common among extraordinary artists.[7][1] Reviewing Twenty-Eight Artists in The New York Times, Kathryn Harrison called Acocella “knowledgeable without being a show-off, meticulous in her research and energetically conversational,” and said her “typical essay thus functions as a tantalizing biographical sketch, as well as a critical study, inviting us to pursue a deeper exploration.”[7]
Acocella also edited The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky: Unexpurgated Edition (1999),[8] André Levinson on Dance (1991),[9] and Mission to Siam: The Memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell (2001),[10] her grandmother.
Acocella's New Yorker article "Cather and the Academy," which appeared in the November 27, 1995, issue, received a Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York and was included in the "Best American Essays" anthology of 1996.[1] She expanded the essay into Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (2000), receiving a starred review in Publishers Weekly.[11]
Personal life and death
Acocella died of cancer at her home in Manhattan, on January 7, 2024, at the age of 78.[2] At the time of her death, Acocella was in a relationship with Noël Carroll.[2] She had one son from her marriage to Nicholas Acocella, which ended in divorce.[2]
Bibliography
- Acocella, Joan (1999). Creating hysteria : women and multiple personality disorder. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- — (2000). Willa Cather and the politics of criticism. University of Nebraska Press.
- Hartzell, Jessie MacKinnon (2001). Mission to Siam : the memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell. Edited with a biographical essay by Joan Acocella. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
- Acocella, Joan (2004). Mark Morris. Wesleyan.
- —, ed. (2006). The diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. University of Illinois Press.
- — (2007). 28 artists & 2 saints. Pantheon.
Awards and honors
- 2017 – Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters[12]
- 2017 – Fellow, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers[13]
- 2012 – Holtzbrinck Berlin Prize Fellow, American Academy in Berlin.[14]
- 2009 – Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, the National Book Critics Circle
- 2007 – Award in Literature, American Academy of Arts and Letters[15]
- 2002–20?? – Fellow, New York Institute for the Humanities[16]
- 1993–1994 – Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e "Joan Acocella". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Sandomir, Richard (January 7, 2024). "Joan Acocella, Dance Critic for The New Yorker, Dies at 78". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 8, 2024.
- ^ "My Kind of Town: New York". Retrieved July 20, 2016.
- ^ "(untitled interview)" (PDF). National Arts Journalism Program. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 16, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
- ^ Kramer, Peter D. (November 21, 1999). "I Contain Multitudes". The New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
- ^ Rockwell, John (January 23, 1994). "The Big Hairy Guy of Dance". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
- ^ a b Harrison, Kathryn (February 18, 2007). "Lives in the Arts". The New York Times. Retrieved March 20, 2015.
- ^ Deresiewicz, William (February 28, 1999). "Dancing With Madness". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
- ^ Vail, June (April 1993). "André Levinson On Dance: Writings From Paris in the Twenties, edited by Joan Acocella and Lynn Garafola. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1991, for Wesleyan University Press, ix + 163 pp., photographs, bibliography, index. $25.00". Dance Research Journal. 25 (1): 39–40. doi:10.2307/1478192. ISSN 1940-509X. JSTOR 1478192. S2CID 191366116.
- ^ James, Helen (2006). "Review of Mission to Siam: The Memoirs of Jessie MacKinnon Hartzell". Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 17 (2): 179–181. ISSN 0741-2037. JSTOR 40860827.
- ^ "Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism by Joan Ross Acocella". Publishers Weekly. January 31, 2000. Retrieved January 9, 2024.
- ^ "2017 Literature Award Winners – American Academy of Arts and Letters". artsandletters.org. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
- ^ "The New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Announces 2017-2018 Fellows". nypl.org. The New York Public Library. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
- ^ "Past Fellows – American Academy". American Academy. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
- ^ "Joan Acocella – American Academy". American Academy. Retrieved June 11, 2017.
- ^ "Joan Acocella". New York Institute for the Humanities. Retrieved June 11, 2017.