Jungian Books

In Winging It, literary scholar and cultural polymath Randy Fertel returns to the interrogation of improvisation he began with his earlier work A Taste for Chaos (2015). In this new volume, Fertel explores the wider landscapes of popular culture and public affairs, ranging deftly from the unmediated experience in Fred Astaire’s tap dancing, Frans Hals’s brush strokes, hook-up culture, psychedelic trips, social media, and Hamilton’s hip-hop to—last, though not least—the performative and demagogic posturing of Donald Trump. The gesture all improvisations share—“I will create this on the fly,” or as Trump has it, “my gut knows more than many brains”—defies rationality and elevates embodied emotions, instinct, and intuition, challenging our assumption that everything of value depends upon long study, tradition, and hard work. Claiming to be free of serious purpose, improvisation only pursues pleasure. Or so it says.