Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0281 - Paradoxes of the Aesthetic

Philosophers, cultural critics, and artists often invoke Friedrich Schiller's 1794 letters, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in accounts of the relation between art and politics. Schiller's view of aesthetic life and its political powers turns out to be highly paradoxical. How do the tensions Schiller navigates reverberate in contemporary approaches to the relations between freedom and constraint, power and powerlessness, autonomy and the social, universality and difference? What do his notions of love, play, and beauty suggest for current perspectives on everyday aesthetic existence and for our capacities for critical participation in public and cultural life? Studying Schiller along with images, sound, and literature, we will read texts by writers such as Anna Julia Cooper, Du Bois, Benjamin, de Man, Kristeva, Ranciere, Lorde, Spivak, Enwezor, Kester, Ahmed, Ngai, and Lispector, among others. Division II and III students only.

Independent Work Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research Prerequisites: Division II and III students only. In this course, students are expected to spend 7-8 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time.