Carousel: An Essay on Seeing

by Sarah Minor

From an award-winning writer, a personal and critical reflection on the human desire to see and be seen

Carousel opens as a professor begins delivering a slide lecture in a darkened room. Her students are visible on Zoom, internet in their pockets, screens on their wrists, seeing more than students ever could before. But what, in fact, do they see?

In the spirit of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, Sarah Minor’s Carousel considers how the pursuit of panoramic vision frames power, distorts reality, and implicates both viewer and subject. Across short, immersive sections blending history and memoir, close looking and confession, educator and writer Minor masterfully fuses the slide carousel with the lyric essay. As professor-narrator she invites us to see across time, guiding us from the Bayeux Tapestry to surrealist paintings and Instagram reels, from hot-air balloons to drone warfare and the surveillance state. In language that captures the disorientation of that other carousel, the whirling carnival ride, Minor shows how the more we strive to see, the more we ultimately reveal ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

166 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 21, 2026

Reviews

[Lou Corn]

I was swept up by this essay on the panorama as both art form and technology for transforming the visual field. The book, written in vignettes, works against its topic by insisting on the intimate moments between immersive surrounds. At times this is to the detriment of a more pointed and meaningful argument, particularly when traversing between the personal, the art historical and the political. I appreciated learning about some moments in aerial seeing and in a wondrous coincidence, saw a hot air balloon right outside my Amtrak window shortly after reading historical anecdotes about hot air balloons in these pages.

[Kidlitter]

Superb and absolutely accessible to all. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a serious "look" (forgive me) at art and how we see it. I do think some pictures of the Bayeaux Tapestry would have been useful as not all of us have those images in our brain. But this made me want to take an art history class again but in the short term, I'll reread this terrific book of essays.

[Anna Snader]

A conceptually challenging read but also incredibly innovative and mind-boggling!

[Caroleine James]

Trippy and esoteric and heady and funny and about a lot of stuff at once. Is CNF good, actually? Only time will tell. My CNF streak continues.