Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Pleasure: Reflections on aesthetics and feminism
1993, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51 (2):199-206.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: For some time my own interests in aesthetics and in feminism appeared to run parallel yet mutually exclusive courses, but it seems to me now that philosophical aesthetics and feminist views of culture have begun to dovetail and to share certain concerns and orientations. Philo sophical aesthetics is not by and large taking note of this, however, and in the first section of this essay I argue that feminist perspectives pro vide a vantage from which the appearance of breakdown in unified theorizing can be seen to have an underlying order and pattern.2 Thus at first I shall emphasize a potential harmony be tween feminist critiques and recent directions in aesthetics. Then in the second section I shall focus on one of the subjects that has all but dropped from view in the reshuffling of the oretic concerns: aesthetic appreciation or plea sure. I argue that this concept is urgently in need of reexamination, a need that is especially evi dent when we consider feminist alternatives to the traditional idea of aesthetic pleasure.Irvin, Sherri. The artist’s sanction in contemporary art2005, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63 (4):315-326.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: Contemporary artworks raise a variety of ontological, epistemological, and interpretative questions that have not yet been adequately dealt with in aesthetics. Whereas traditional visual artworks have typically had a set of privi leged and (ideally) unchanging properties fixed at a particular moment early in their histories, a contemporary installation artwork may be installed differently each time it is taken out of storage, or even constituted out of different objects at each exhibition site. The resulting variation in its configuration and visual properties may simply be a function of the changing features of galleries or available materials, or it may be essential to the work's meaning. Or both: many contemporary works are site specific, essentially responsive to their environments in such a way that context is incorporated into the work's meaningComment:
Irvin, Sherri. Appropriation and authorship in contemporary art2005, British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (2):123-137.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: Appropriation art has often been thought to support the view that authorship in art is an outmoded or misguided notion. Through a thought experiment comparing appropriation art to a unique case of artistic forgery, I examine and reject a number of candidates for the distinction that makes artists the authors of their work while forgers are not. The crucial difference is seen to lie in the fact that artists bear ultimate responsibility for whatever objectives they choose to pursue through their work, whereas the forger's central objectives are determined by the nature of the activity of forgery. Appropriation artists, by revealing that no aspect of the objectives an artist pursues are in fact built in to the concept of art, demonstrate artists' responsibility for all aspects of their objectives and, hence, of their products. This responsibility is constitutive of authorship and accounts for the interpretability of artworks. Far from undermining the concept of authorship in art, then, the appropriation artists in fact reaffirm and strengthen it.Comment:
Irvin, Sherri. Scratching an itch2008, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (1):25-35.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: In recent years, momentum has been gathering in defense of the appropriateness of aesthetic discourse in relation to a number of domains other than art and nature. Philosophers have argued that food, sports, and sex can be viewed aesthetically. It has been claimed that the "lower senses" of smell, taste, and touch may play legitimate or even exclusive roles in some aesthetic judgments. And there has been sustained criticism of the view that aesthetic judgments must be disinterested or must transport us out of the concerns of everyday life. Can this extension of the realm of the aesthetic be taken even further, so as to accommodate the idea that even the most mundane incidents of everyday life have an aesthetic character, or that there can be aesthetic experiences of such incidents? With attention to two especially hard cases, itches and scratches, I will argue that it is appropriate and worthwhile to think of even the simplest moments of everyday life in aesthetic terms. It is appropriate, because on the most plausible accounts of aesthetic experience there can be legitimate aesthetic experiences of itching and scratching; and it is worthwhile, because aesthetic attention to this domain offers the prospect of unique and significant satisfaction.Comment:
Hungerland, Isabel C.. The Logic of Aesthetic Concepts1962, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 36: 43 - 66.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: There are two sorts of descriptions, or accounts, that we can give of works of art or of anything else that makes up our world of relatively stable objects. I can describe a painting, a chair, a mountain, or a man in terms of colors, shapes, spatial relation of parts, and so on. I can also describe the same four objects by talking about the dynamic ten sions of the first, or its lack of visual balance; the grace and elegance of the second; the gloominess or majesty of the third; and the trimness or gawkiness of the fourth. The first sort of description, or account, may answer a wide variety of general purposes, central among them that of identifying particular objects. A museum curator might so describe a painting for future reference in identifying the particular work of one painter; an auctioneer identifies pieces of furniture by such descriptions; a map-maker, a mountain; and a police department, a Man Wanted. The second sort of account of the same objects could not usefully serve such purposes. The second sort, usually if not always, is found in the context of the evaluating of objects. "This is a fine Sheraton chair-it is graceful, but sturdy." Here, relevant reasons are furnished for an aesthe tic rating of an object, and the first sort of description does not, and could not, serve this functionComment:
Hanson, Karen. Dressing down Dressing up – The Philosophic Fear of Fashion1990, Hypatia 5 (2):107 - 121.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: There is, to all appearances, a philosophic hostility to fashionable dress. Studying this contempt, this paper examines likely sources in philosophy's suspicion of change; anxiety about surfaces and the inessential; failures in the face of death; and the philosophic disdain for, denial of, the human body and human passivity. If there are feminist concerns about fashion, they should be radically different from those of traditional philosophy. Whatever our ineluctable worries about desire and death, whatever our appropriate anger and impatience with the merely superficial, whatever our genuine need to mark off the serious from the trivial, feminism may be a corrective therapy for philosophy's bad humor and self-deception, as these manifest themselves when the subject turns to beautiful clothes.Comment:
Goehr, Lydia. Political music and the politics of music1994, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52 (1):99-112.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: On September 24th, 1947, a composer with "an international reputation" became the first Holly wood artist to be called before the Committee on Un-American Activities [HUAC]. The charge against him was that his music had aided the Communist infiltration of the motion-picture industry.' A significant part of his defense con sisted in his claim that he was only a musician and thus not responsible for any part of a Com munist conspiracy. What is peculiar is that he almost got away with this unlikely defense, unlikely because he had spent much of his life developing a political music consistent with the ideals of Communism. In the end, the Commit tee caught him out on technical grounds: it found a history of inaccurate statements in his visa applications. The composer was deported. It was the second exile of his life: the first had been from Germany ten years earlier.Comment:
Friend, Stacie. The pleasures of documentary tragedy2007, British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2):184-198.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: Two assumptions are common in discussions of the paradox of tragedy: (1) that tragic pleasure requires that the work be fictional or, if non-fiction, then non-transparently represented; and (2) that tragic pleasure may be provoked by a wide variety of art forms. In opposition to (1) I argue that certain documentaries could produce tragic pleasure. This is not to say that any sad or painful documentary could do so. In considering which documentaries might be plausible candidates, I further argue, against (2), that the scope of tragic pleasure is limited to works that possess certain thematic and narrative features.Comment: This is a clearly written paper that can be used in teaching a wide array of topics in aesthetics, especially the literatures on emotional engagement with art, and documentary film. Friend does not presuppose much background knowledge on these issues. As such, this paper would make for an excellent addition to an introduction to aesthetics module, perhaps being used as a main reading for units on emotion and art. A more focused upper-division module on a subject such as philosophy of film could also benefit from this paper's inclusion.
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. Kantian and contextual beauty1999, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57 (1):11-15.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Introduction: Two conflicting but strongly entrenched intu itions about beauty hold sway in the hearts and minds of many. On the one hand, many people believe that attributions of beauty to objects or events are unmediated-that all that matters is one's direct, personal response. If something is beautiful, one just sees it; cognitive or ethical concerns matter little. On the other hand, many people are drawn to the view that the beautiful is not independent of other human values and atti tudes-that our attributions of beauty are related to beliefs or moral judgments. At the end of the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant represented the former view with such cleverness that his ar guments continue to disturb even those who re main unconvinced by them. At the end of the nineteenth century, partly as a result of the influ ence of Kant's theory of beauty, Leo Tolstoy felt forced to downplay the importance of beauty's role in explaining the value of art-a trend that continued for several decades. At the end of the twentieth century, increasing numbers of aes thetic theorists and practitioners are persuaded that beauty does matter in art, and although many, including me, believe that beauty is a con textual property deeply connected to factual be liefs and moral attitudes, the tug of Kant's arguments remains strong.Comment:
Eaton, Marcia Muelder. A strange kind of sadness1982, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 41 (1):51-63.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: HERE IS a Steve McQueen, Jackie Gleason, Tuesday Weld movie called Soldier in the Rain that I watch whenever it comes on the TV late show. I have seen it at least half a dozen times. The first time I saw it, I cried at the end. The next time I saw it I began crying just before the end. Now I choke up when it starts and cry more or less steadily through the whole thing. My husband and son find this exasperating. "Why are you going to watch that if it is just going to make you unhappy?" they ask. What they do not understand is that very few things bring me greater pleasure than watching this movie, crying all the way through. Or perhaps my son does understand when he disdainfully concludes, "You're crazy".Comment:
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