ATHENS, Ohio -- Art critic, historian and performance artist Joanna Frueh will read from her work on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m., in the Music Recital Hall. Admission to the reading, presented by the English Department's Program in Creative Writing, is free and open to the public.

Frueh is an international performer whose works encompass subjects that are both scholarly and sexual. Her forthcoming work, "The Aesthetics of Orgasm" -- a memoir from which she plans to draw for her reading -- binds poetry with the language of critical discourse. In Freuh's words, the memoir "articulates a philosophy of love."

Speaking of Frueh's most recent major publication, "Monster/Beauty: Building the Body of Love," author Alphonso Lingis says, "This book is monstrous ‹ full of gorgeous hypermuscular women, stepmothers and vampires; full of ravishing muscular sex, classroom eroticism and splendid aging."

Other Frueh titles include "Erotic Faculties" and "Hannah Wilke: A Retrospective." Frueh is the coeditor of "Picturing the Modern Amazon," "Feminist Art Criticism: Art, Identity, Action" and "Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology." Her scholarly works and reviews have appeared regularly in a number of publications including Art Journal, Art in America, New Art Examiner and High Performance.

Frueh, currently an art history professor at the University of Nevada, is the recipient of a Nevada Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Literary Arts, as well as the Susan Koppelman Award for her anthology, Picturing the Modern Amazon.

A brief reception and book signing will immediately follow the reading.