The Philosophy of Art Syllabus:
Introduction to Aesthetics
200 Level Course
Art is often considered the zenith of human culture; the expression par excellence of the human condition; and in the face of the nearly unthinkable cruelties of humankind, it is an answer to why it is valuable to believe in humanity. The definitions of art are as myriad as the varieties of art itself and this course will explore some of these ideas through the philosophical notion of aesthetics. This survey of the philosophy of aesthetics will include the following topics: Western Aesthetic Origins, Feminist Art, German Idealist Aesthetics, Indigenous Aesthetics, Existentialism/ Phenomenology & art, Philosophy of Race & Aesthetics, Post-Modern Aesthetics, Spirituality & Art, and Art as a political act. Each topic will involve considering a variety of artforms and probing how the art we create also creates us. Of particular interest in this course will be the overlapping of philosophy and art. Students will be asked to consider how art and philosophy may (or may not) inform one another and shape our understanding of the world. The potential of aesthetics as world-making gives art an important ethical, political weight that will continually be examined alongside its beauty, wonder, and sometimes shocking revelations.
Course Grades
20% Weekly online content quiz
Weekly quizzes will consist of 10 multiple choice questions each week, which will be based on the week’s readings and posted on the class website.
30% Philosophy as Art Project
One aspect that we will explore in this class is the suggestion of philosophy as an artform itself. The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas claims that all of philosophy can be found in Shakespeare. A relatively small number of philosophical papers are widely read, whereas literature, paintings, poems, music, films, and other artistic manifestations of philosophical thought are widely consumed by the general public. Arguably, a philosopher can reach more people if she is willing to expand her medium.
Two Options for this project:
1. This project will require a written thesis topic and a corresponding artwork. This can take the form of a short story, a short film, a song, a painting, a play, etc.
5% Thesis statement- reflects an interesting idea that you feel would be best expressed through art.
20% Writeup about expressing your thesis through art. 1000 words (+/- 200). How does the manifestation of philosophy through art happen? Why is this shift important? How does the expression of the idea change? What is lost and what is gained in the shift from philosophical text to artistic expression?
5% Your artwork. You need not be an artist and the art need not be “good”. The point is that it is thoughtful, that you have taken time with it and that you are attempting to express your thesis in a different way than a philosophy text. I absolutely do not expect anyone to be an “artist” (although, I would suggest that we are all artistic in our own ways!)
2. If you do not feel comfortable creating your own artwork, you can choose to analyze the philosophical thesis of a work of art. Feel free to choose a work of literature, painting, poem, song, etc. Or to ask me for one if you feel stuck.
For examples of this type of art criticism, consider the articles (listed below) by Anne Eaton on Titian, June Scudeler on Kent Monkman, or Heidegger on Van Gough.
10% Thesis: Identify your own reading of the artwork and propose a thesis that critically engages with the artwork.
20% Argument: support your thesis with direct references to the artwork.
30% Final Paper
This will be a 8-10 page, double-spaced, times new roman, Chicago style philosophy paper with a thesis of your choice. It will take up 1 or 2 of the philosophers covered in this class and bring in 3 peer reviewed secondary sources to support your argument.
10% Midterm Exam
Short answer and multiple choice from the first half of the course.
10% Final Exam
Short answer and essay from the entirety of the course.
Class Schedule
Defining Art and Aesthetics:
Examples to consider in this section:
Art: Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino; Jeff Koons
Music: Ludwig Beethoven; Justin Bieber
Film: Casablanca; Transformers: Age of Extinction
Literature: The Divine Comedy by Dante; The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
Class 1 Readings:
“Against Interpretation” by Susan Sontag
“Tradition and the Individual Talent” by TS Eliot
Class 2 Readings:
“The Artworld” by Arthur Danto
“What is Art?” by Leo Tolstoy, excerpt
Class 3 Readings:
“High and Low thinking about High and Low Art” by Ted Cohen
“What is art?” by Benedetto Croce
Western Aesthetic Origins
Examples to consider in this section:
Literature: The Iliad; The Odyssey
Theatre: Oedipus; Antigone
Architecture: Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Acropolis; Temple of Apollo, Delphi
Class 4:
“Republic,” Book 10, excerpts by Plato
“Poetics,” excerpts, Aristotle
Class 5:
“The Sovereignty of the Good over Concepts” by Iris Murdoch
“Divine Love in Creation” from Intimations of Christianity among the Ancient Greeks by Simone Weil
Feminist Art:
Examples to consider in this Section:
Artist: The Guerilla Girls, Shary Boyle
Film: I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, Little Women (Greta Gerwig); Revenge (2018) [trigger warning: this film deals with rape and violence]
Literature: the witch doesn't burn in this one by Amanda Lovelace, and The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath [trigger warning: this book deals with depression and self harm].
Music: Fiona Apple’s “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”, Amanda Palmer, Bikini Kill
Class 6:
“Why are there no great female artists” by Linda Nochiln
“Where Ethics and Aesthetics Meet: Titian's Rape of Europa” by Anne Eaton
German Idealist Aesthetics:
Examples to consider in this section:
Artist: Caspar David Friedrich
Music: Wagner’s ring cycle
Literature: Hölderlin
Class 7:
“Analytic of the Sublime” in Critique of Pure Judgement by Immanuel Kant
Class 8:
“Aesthetics”, excerpts, Hegel
Class 9:
“The World as Will and Representation”, excerpt from Book 3, Schopenhauer
Indigenous Aesthetics:
Examples to consider in this section:
Artist: Kent Monkman, Ningeokuluk Teevee, Bill Reid, Norval Morrisseau
Film: The Body Remembers when the World Broke Open; Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes) by Leanne Simpson
Literature: Kamloopa by Kim Senklip Harvey; Wenjack by Joseph Boyden; The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King; Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway,
Music: Tanya Tagaq; Tribe Called Red; Buffy Saint Marie
Class 10:
June Scudeler (2015) “Indians on Top”: Kent Monkman's Sovereign Erotics. American Indian Culture and Research Journal: 2015, Vol. 39, No. 4, pp. 19-32.
“Navajo Aesthetics” by Gary Witherspoon
Article: https://howlround.com/indigenous-theatre-and-climate-crisis
Existentialism, Phenomenology and Art
Examples to consider in this section:
Literature: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett; No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre; The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir; The Maids by Jean Genet; Orlando by Virginia Woolf; The Waste Land by TS Eliot
Music: West End Blues by Louis Armstrong (for the music that inspired the existentialists), My Finest Work Yet by Andrew Bird (for music inspired by existential themes)
Artists: Francis Bacon; Egon Schiele
Film: I heart Huckabees; Magnolia; The Unbearable Lightness of Being (also a great book by Kundera); The Seventh Seal
Class 11:
“The Birth of Tragedy”, excerpts Nietzsche
Class 12:
“The Origin of the Work of Art” Heidegger
Class 13:
“The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical reproduction” by Walter Benjamin
“Proust” by Samuel Beckett
Class 14:
“Eye and Mind” by Merleau Ponty
Class 15:
“The Relevance of the Beautiful” By Gadamer
Philosophy of Race and Aesthetics
Examples to consider in this section:
Artist: Basquait and Kehinde Wiley
Film: Sorry to Bother You; Do the Right Thing; Get Out; She’s Gotta Have It
Literature: Beloved by Toni Morrison, If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin, The Colour Purple by Alice Walker
Interview: Historic debate between James Baldwin v. William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University on the question: "Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?"
Music: Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry, Aretha Franklin, Kendrick Lamar.
Class 16:
“The last king of scotland: The ethics of race on film” by Paul C Taylor
“afrosurreal manifesto: black is the new black”, Miller, D Scot. Mosaic Literary Magazine; Bronx Iss. 31, (Fall 2013): 46-51.
“Speculative Realism, Visionary Pragmatism, and Poet-Shamanic Aesthetics in Gloria Anzaldúa—and Beyond.” AnaLouise Keating. Women's Studies Quarterly Vol. 40, No. 3/4, ENCHANTMENT (FALL/WINTER 2012), pp. 51-69.
Post-Modern Aesthetics:
Examples to consider in this section:
Artist: Rene Margritte, Paul Klee, Christo Jeanne Claude, Tracy Emin, Jeff Koons, Judy Chicago.
Movie: Dogville, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Pulp Fiction
Literature: Wallace Stevens, Rhinoceros by Ionesco, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Music: John Cage; Philip Glass
Class 17:
“Manifesto of Futurism” by Marlinetti
“What is Postmodernism” by Lyotard, excerpt
Class 18:
“This is not a pipe”, Foucault
“The Creative Act” by DuChamp
“Death of the Author” by Barthes
Spirituality/ Religion and Art:
Examples to consider in this section:
Artist: Rothko, Karma Phuntsok
Literature: The Bhagavad Gita, Song of Songs
Music: Leonard Cohen
Film: Tree of Life
Class 19:
“The Art of Anatheism” by Richard Kearney
“Theopoetic/ Theopolitic” by John D. Caputo and Catherine Keller
Class 20:
“Art and the Zen Masters Tea pot” by Graves
“Concerning the Spiritual in Art” by Kandinsky
Art as a Political Act
Examples to consider in this section:
Artist: Diego Riviera, Banksy
Literature: The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood and Animal Farm by George Orwell
Movie: Battle of Algiers, The Lives of Others, The Manchurian Candidate (1964), Dr. Strangelove
Music: Pussy Riot, Bob Dylan
Class 21:
“Disinterested and Political Art” by Peg Brand
“Conversations about being forced into Empathy” by Brecht
Class 22:
“Decolonial Aesthetics” in “An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization” by Gayatri Spivak
“Aesthetics and its Discontents” by Ranciere