Paul du Quenoy (born November 15, 1977) is an American publisher, critic, historian, and philanthropist. He is President and Publisher of Academica Press, an international non-fiction publisher based in Washington, DC, and London.[1]
Paul du Quenoy graduated from George Washington University and received his Ph.D. from Georgetown University,[2] where he was the last Ph.D. graduate of the Russian History scholar Richard Stites. He has taught at multiple universities and was a Fulbright scholar in Russia. He has received fellowships and other awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, the American Historical Association, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University in Japan.[citation needed]
Paul du Quenoy's first book, Stage Fright: Politics and the Performing Arts in Late Imperial Russia, was published in 2009. The book attacks Soviet arguments and demonstrates the vital commercial elements in Russian culture, which du Quenoy argues was relatively free before the Revolution of 1917.[3] According to the Modern Language Review Stage Fright offers "a detailed counter-argument to teleological readings of the cultural and political situation in late imperial Russia."[4] The book was commended by Princeton University Russia scholar Caryl Emerson for "its devastating command of the historical record."[5] Professor E. Anthony Swift of the University of Essex described it as an "important new contribution to the field" that "should be read by anyone interested in the relationship of politics and the arts."[6][7]
Du Quenoy subsequently published Wagner and the French Muse: Music, Society, and Nation in Modern France (2011), an extensively documented narrative of the German composer Richard Wagner's reception in France.[8] Novelist, poet, and Welsh National Opera dramaturg Simon Rees's review in Opera magazine called it a "rattling good read" and "well-written analysis."[9] His third book, Alexander Serov and the Birth of the Russian Modern (2016, rev. 2nd edition 2022) was described by Russian Review as a "new angle" with "views that allow for a reexamination of some of the century's biggest controversies."[10] Music and Letters described it as "ably written, balanced, highly detailed, and documented with care ... As such it outdoes existing Russian efforts."[11] He has also published a volume of selected music criticism. The Royal Opera's chorus director William Spaulding hailed it as "knowledgeable and accessible," adding that "Paul du Quenoy’s brilliant reviews reveal the timelessness of opera’s core values."[12]
Du Quenoy contributes criticism and commentary on art, society, and politics to a variety of publications. His writing has appeared in the New York Times,[13] Newsweek,[14] the New York Post,[15] the Washington Times,[16] the Los Angeles Review of Books,[17] the Washington Examiner,[18] the Spectator,[19] the New Criterion,[20] Musical America,[21] Tablet,[22] City Journal,[23] the American Conservative,[24] The Critic (modern magazine),[25] The European Conservative,[26] New York Classical Review,[27] Al Jazeera,[28] and various academic journals, including the American Historical Review, the Journal of Modern History, International History Review, and Russian Review.[29][30] His music criticism has included bylines from New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, San Francisco, Rome, Milan, Venice, Naples, Tokyo, St. Petersburg, Barcelona, Santa Fe, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Houston, Miami, Palm Beach, Beirut, and the Salzburg, Bayreuth, Verona, and Glimmerglass Festivals.[31][32][33][34]
Since 2013, Paul du Quenoy has served as chairman of the Russian Ball, Washington, D.C., a major social event in the U.S. capital.[35][36]
