Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module, students will have:
• A broad understanding of philosophical approaches to art in the continental tradition
• Developed their own capacity to interpret artworks as cultural objects produced at specific socio-historical moments
• Interrogated the relationship between art and political power.
Indicative Module Content:
Introduction:
Karl Marx – art and the human condition
Division I: Classic Aesthetic Readings
Freedom and progress – Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm Gottfried Hegel, Germaine de Staël
Division II: Phenomenology and the Experience of Art
Revelation and responsibility – Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Division III: Critical Theory
Technology and reproduction – Theodore Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin
Division IV: Politics and Art
Is all art political? – Alain Badiou, Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Rancière