2007 Handbooks

What is beauty? What is art? Has art come to an end? Aesthetics describes the modern philosophical inquiry into the nature of art, and how and why we experience aesthetic pleasure. Of special importance in modern aesthetics are the ethical and political dimensions of art and the meaning of aesthetic experience in modern culture. In this course we begin with the foundational aesthetic theories of Kant and Hegel, consider Nietzsche's radical challenge to modern culture, and examine Heidegger's confrontation with modern aesthetics, before turning to an exploration of the vigorous contemporary debates on the role and significance of art in modern and postmodern culture. Here we study seminal texts in contemporary aesthetic theory by Derrida, Danto, Lyotard, Adorno, and Benjamin, exploring in depth the controversial question of the 'end of art' in modernity. These philosophical theories will be examined in conjunction with a discussion of contemporary artists and art works in a variety of media from painting and photography to cinema and the digital arts.