"Selling" Ayn Rand's Ideas

Atlas Summit 2015 -- In the decade and a half since the publication of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand, Louis Torres and Michelle Kamhi have been actively engaged in promoting the basic principles of Ayn Rand’s theory of art in the often-hostile world beyond that of her admirers. This session explores the lessons learned from that experience, lessons that can be applied to other areas of her thought. Includes discussion of cultural historian Jacques Barzun, his praise of Torres's and Kamhi's work, and his questioning of Rand's ideas.

Independent scholar and critic Michelle Marder Kamhi is the author of Who Says That’s Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts (Pro Arte Books, 2014) and co-author of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand (Open Court, 2000). She co-edits Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts) with her husband and colleague Louis Torres, who founded Aristos in 1982 as a print journal inspired by Rand’s theory of art. Articles by Kamhi have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Art Education, Arts Education Policy Review, and the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, among other publications.

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