Currently there's a big wave of #retro (1980s mostly) #aesthetics, #music, #movies & #tech, embraced by Gen Z/A. Some are baffled by that and try to understand why. To me, it's obvious why: that was the golden age of the modern world (1950s is too far removed at this point to be embraced by them).
So what we're seeing is a depressive #nostalgia of a promising & hopeful world that will never be witnessed by the young generations. They know it, and they're trying to get a bite of it.
it occurs to me that the most persistent prejudice among (contemporary) philosophers and people in general when it comes to philosophical #aesthetics, is NOT subjectivism (roughly: the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder). Rather, it is formalism, the eye that beauty is a matter purely of a thing's formal features (composition, structure, tone, feel) and nothing to do with its substantive features (what it signifies, what it is about, etc.)
@philosophy
a colleague recently mentioned that this idea, aesthetic formalism, is quite recent when it comes to thinking about the relevant way to interact with art/beautiful things.
the colleague in question mentioned Clive Bell as the main author who popularised the idea
@philosophy I might add that it is also, perhaps, a quite localised idea, deriving from a certain regime of perception prevalent in Western (European/American) societies and not necessarily helpful when it comes to understanding, for instance, Soviet art, African art, etc.
Just finished Outer Range (2002) and now I'm reading a few major-outlet reviews.
And it brings back my old amusement/skepticism about reviews -- the sense that there is no such thing as a qualified, well-informed POV that can give you a good aesthetic vantage point on art.
This feels like one of those forms of cynicism that's troubling, right up until you completely surrender to it, at which point perhaps it becomes... freeing?
The reason I feel this way is because these reviews will make authoritative statements... this actor gave a stand-out performance, this plot thread went nowhere, this bit of craft was impressive or undercooked or overdone...
And these statements just don't correlate across reviews! The opinions of these high-level reviewers, however well-informed they sound, have no consistency whatsoever. No better, in that sense, than opinions like "It's a good show because I like cowboy hats."
What is the reason that incoherent or fictional narratives about the past can be functional in socio-political dynamics? I have tried to give an answer in this article that you can download.
"The very attempt to narrativize and moralize fascism translates what is perceived as the object of this moral narrative, the event of fascism as a "lived experience," into representation, which consequently implicates such moral and political representations of fascism in the restaging, stylizing, or aestheticizing of such an event."
#CfP for the Yale German Graduate Student #Conference "Making Sense of #Experience: Analyses of #Sensation after Mach", which will take place on April 12-13, 2024.
My theory is that the deepest fundamental dynamic of art, underlying pretty much all principles in thinking about all media, is anticipation, with its attendant elements: deferral, refusal, and payoff.
I think this dynamic is implicated in pretty much every other way of theorizing creative practice, even ones that are otherwise mutually exclusive.
#CfP für "De #l’imitation à la fraude: perspectives sur le 'faux' dans les arts (Journée doctorale du LASLAR), der am 31. Mai 2024 an der Université de Caen stattfinden wird.
Yesterday was #WorldBookDay. I missed posting about it b/c I was preparing for a class discussion on #Morrison's #Beloved, a book I've read & taught many times. It always brings me to my knees (& tears). The students were blown away & we had such a good conversation about the names in the book, representations of the body (Baby Suggs speaks about loving one's body even as we read about it flying apart at the seams), & #aesthetics - the lyrical beauty of the narrator's voice.
I've been teaching the philosophy of science even though this is not at all my expertise, but today it struck me that the discipline is similar to aesthetics in several interesting ways.
For one thing, both are latecomers among philosophical fields of study; while both have roots going back to Plato and Aristotle, these sources are part of the disciplines' prehistory. Their real origins lie rather in the modern age.
#CfP für die Studentische #Tagung "Alles fließt. Fluides in #Literatur und anderen #Medien", die am 10. und 11. Oktober 2024 an der Universität Paderborn stattfinden wird.
#CFP für das "Gründungs- und erstes Jahrestreffen Arbeitskreis Politische #Ästhetiken am Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus" (#lfbrecht), das am 10. April 2024 stattfinden wird.
In "#Naked, #fat, and fabulous", A.W. Eaton argues that life model sessions can serve as a #SafeSpace for fat bodies, a place where fat people can achieve creative autonomy and feel celebrated.
