Through an exploration of subjects such as Gandhi impersonators, performance artists, and ritual participants, Mimetic Desires makes an intervention toward understanding the phenomenon of impersonation and guising in South Asia and the world. This volume defines impersonation as the temporary assumption of an identity or guise in social and aesthetic performance that is perceived as not one’s own, and guising as sartorial and kinetic play more generally. Interrog...

Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) joins Judith Freeman and Rich Cohen in celebrating Raymond Chandler's classic detective novel, The Big Sleep.