Studies in Philosophy and Literature

This seminar will focus on the shifting identities of aesthetic theory from the early modern period to the present day. We will begin with a series of 18-th century readings and we will proceed through some of the “paradigm” texts of the 19th and 20th centuries, concluding with some 20-th century redefinitions of aesthetics in the contemporary period. Among the central questions of the seminar will be the ongoing identity-crisis of aesthetics as a discipline, its relationship to practical criticism, its status vis-a-vis various branches of philosophy, and its ambition to produce a reconciliation of sense and concept.  Principal readings will be drawn from Hume, Burke, Kant, Hegel, Schiller, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Adorno, among others. There will be ample opportunity for the seminar participants to pursue independent interests within the framework of the course.