Kirstin Ringelberg, Assistant Professor of Art History, has an article in the newly published anthology “Considering Alan Ball: Essays on Sexuality, Death and America in the Television and Film Writings,” edited by Thomas Fahy (McFarland Press, 2006). Her essay, “’You Have to Develop an Eye For It’: Anti-Aesthetic Art in Alan Ball’s Vision,” explores the emphasis placed on contemporary avant-garde notions of the anti-aesthetic or “unbeautiful” in works like the film American Beauty and the HBO series Six Feet Under. Comparing American Beauty to Todd Solondz’ film Happiness, Ringelberg argues that although Ball’s work is itself quite aesthetically “beautiful” and not particularly avant-garde, its fundamental premise is that such beauty is shallow and false in comparison to more avant-garde images of the everyday and even “ugly.”