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CS92PROD
The Beautiful and the Sublime

COL 306
Spring 2013 not offered
Crosslisting: PHIL 269
Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

What do we mean when we appraise something as beautiful? Do we mean that it is harmonious and pleasing? But what of objects that challenge our expectations of order and harmony, that instead offer an experience of the sublime? In this intermediate-level seminar, we will read some of the classic texts of 18th-century aesthetic theory in which philosophers developed a fundamental distinction between these two basic categories of aesthetic experience, the beautiful and the sublime. We will then follow the elaboration, transformation, and the rejection of these categories through the 19th century and into the 20th century, when modernist and postmodernist aesthetics began to experiment with experiences of the ugly and the shocking that challenge traditional assumptions about the very purposes of art.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA COL
Course Format: Lecture / DiscussionGrading Mode: Student Option
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (PHIL)(PHIL-Philosophy)(PHIL-Social Jus)

Last Updated on NOV-08-2024
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