R. Jay Magill Jr.’s new book, Sincerity: How a moral ideal born five hundred years ago inspired religious wars, modern art, hipster chic, and the curious notion that we all have something to say (no matter how dull) will be published by W.W. Norton in July 2012.

Magill is a writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, American Prospect, American Interest, Foreign Policy, The Believer, and Spiegel On-line, among others. He is the author of Chic Ironic Bitterness (Michigan, 2007), recipient of an Eric Hoffer Notable Book in Culture award. Magill holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Hamburg and lives in Berlin, where he works for the American Academy.

Illustration above also by R. Jay Magill

Stephanie Snider received her MFA from the Yale School of Art, and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Her work has been exhibited widely, including exhibitions at the Bronx Museum, NY, the Hudson River Museum in New York, Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin and others. She was the recipient of the Berlin Prize/Philip Morris Emerging Artist Prize in cooperation with the American Academy in Berlin. Her work namely takes the form of drawings, paintings and sculpture dealing with personal memory and history as well as social and cultural space through the lens of fictional architecture and design. It will be exhibited from January 9 to February 7 at Danese, 535 West 24th Street in New York.

Martina Nitsche is a Hamburg-born artist who spent twenty years in New York and currently lives in Berlin. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. She has exhibited widely in New York, Europe and in Asia. This work, a microscopic exploration of the inside of the body, both physical and emotional, is mixed media work of canvas, chemistry, photography and ink. For more information about this series or to see more of Nitsche’s work, please visit: mnitsche.com