Modern Aesthetic Theory
COL 269
Spring 2019 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
PHIL 269 |
| Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory, Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory |
As a philosophical discipline, aesthetic theory initially coalesced around a cluster of related issues concerning the nature of beauty and the norms governing its production, appreciation, and authoritative assessment. Beginning in the nineteenth century, however, both art and aesthetics undergo a conspicuous yet enigmatic shift, signaled by (among other things) Hegel's declaration that "art, in its highest vocation, is and remains for us a thing of the past." Rather suddenly, classical accounts of beauty, genius, aesthetic experience, and critical taste are beset by anxieties about the autonomy and significance of aesthetic praxis in human life and, subsequently, by a series of challenges to the tenebility of traditional aesthetic categories--author, text, tradition, meaning and interpretation, disinterested pleasure, originality, etc. Our aim in this course is to track these conceptual shifts and to interrogate the rationale behind them. (This course complements, but does not presuppose COL 266: History and Limits of Aesthetic Theory.) |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA COL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (COL)(CSCT)(PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus) |
Major Readings:
Excerpts from: Hegel, LECTURES ON FINE ART; Benjamin, THE WORK OF ART IN THE AGE OF ITS MECHANICAL REPRODUCIBILITY; Heidegger, THE ORIGIN OF THE WORK OF ART; Langer, FEELING AND FORM; Adorno, AESTHETIC THEORY; Cavell, AESTHETIC PROBLEMS OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY; Danto, THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE COMMONPLACE; Mothersill, BEAUTY RESTORED; Kristeva, APPROACHING ABJECTION; Barthes, THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR; Nehamas, THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS; Mulvey, VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA; Marks, THE SKIN OF FILM
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two shorter papers (4-6 pages) and one longer paper (8-10 pages). |
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