Aesthetics as Critique

The aims of this seminar are several fold:  to track the ways in which the goals of “critical theory” were from its earliest days associated with the project of an aesthetic critique; to assess the degree to which critical theory was (or was not) consistent with the major texts of Western aesthetics (Kant, Hegel, etc.); and finally to engage and evaluate the “return” of aesthetics since the 1970’s in light of cultural conceptual challenges to the paradigm of Western Marxism.  We will devote special attention to the problem of reflective judgment, to the nature and limits of materialism, and to the ongoing negotiations between romanticism and modernism, including postmodernism.

During the semester we will read some of the “founding” texts of modern Western aesthetics in detail, but the course will be construed as an investigation of the relationships between critical theory and aesthetics rather than as an introduction to or survey of the philosophy or theory of art.

We will work collaboratively as much as possible.  Students will be responsible for leading one class meeting in an *informal* way.  Papers treating some question raised directly by the materials read and discussed in the course will be due as follows: paper topics submitted for review and approval by November 5; final papers due in both electronic and hard copy by December 10.  Papers submitted after December 10 will be read as they are received but grades will be recorded as “I”.

In addition to the following books (on order), there will be a selection of readings from works by Hume, Habermas, Marx and Engels, Walter Benjamin, Terry Eagleton, Jay Bernstein, and Fredric Jameson.

Required Books

Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory

Immanuel Kant, ritique of Judgment

Friedrich Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind

Hegel, Introductory Lectures

Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy

Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment

Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle

Guy Debord, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle