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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: In two essays in the ART/Artifact(1988) exhibition catalog, white American museum curator Susan Vogel and white American philosopher Arthur Danto pronounce that Africans do not distinguish between art and nonart. Although seemingly objective empirical statements, their assertions about Africa and its art are racially based ruminations of a white supremacist worldview. I argue that in theorizing within the category of race they produced racialized aesthetics that commit the Eurocentric fallacy of upholding systemic racist objectives. I argue that (1) their assertions fail to be about African art, but about hegemony and power; (2) as the longest enduring artistic activity of humanity, African art is an important check to racialized aesthetics; (3) art is produced outside the category of race and from a critically conscious awareness of the world; and (4) art bespeaks creativity and presupposes the artistic and moral values of a culture in the manipulation and transformation of physical reality.
Comment: Written in an engaging way, this paper invites the reader to re-evaluate some common assumptions about art from different cultures. Exposing the prevalent Western approach to African art as racialised, it can be a great tool in making students understand both the structural-societal, as well as own biases in approaching other cultures. Ngzewu defends a powerful thesis: that ‘the West’s conception of art and creativity presupposes white racial hegemony.’ She exposes the way in which Western art is tacitly assumed to be a yardstick against which all is measured, and the Westerners have become the ‘purveyors of knowledge’ who apply this yardstick to decide whether works of other cultures are art, all without any need to consult the creators of those works, or to revise own concept of art. As such, the paper can be very empowering to some students, while also being very uncomfortable to others – teaching it might require some skill in leading the discussion in a constructive way. The import of Ngzewu’s argumentis that while racism and white domination rest on the assumption of cognitive and moral superiority of white people, the approach to African art she criticises serves to reinforce this assumption. This can inspire further class discussion on the importance and value of aesthetics. Best used before assigning other texts on non-Western art, which should all be read in light of Ngzewu’s criticism.
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Added by: Andrea BlomqvistAbstract: I will argue that our capacity to directly read off truths from fiction, and the power of the novelist to testify to truths, is indeed limited. I will go on to argue that there are, however, further more indirect ways of coming to truths through fiction, but that even in those cases the author's power to manipulate should make the epistemically virtuous person proceed carefully. However, before I do that I want to raise three obvious kinds of response to our puzzle. These responses take issue with the claims by which the problem is set up, and I want to look at them briefly, really only to set them aside. My interest is primarily a resolution that hangs on to all three claims.Comment: This would be a good further reading for students who are interested in how we can learn from fiction, especially if they wish to write a coursework essay on the topic.
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: AnonymousAbstract:
This paper defends an intellectualist interpretation of Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium. I argue that Diotima’s purpose, in discussing the lower lovers, is to critique their erōs as aimed at a goal it can never secure, immortality, and as focused on an inferior object, themselves. By contrast, in loving the form of beauty, the philosopher gains a mortal sort of completion; in turning outside of himself, he also ceases to be preoccupied by his own incompleteness.
Comment: On Eros in the Symposium. Would be great in any course that has a unit on this.
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
Self‐presentation is a complex phenomenon through which individuals present themselves in performance of social roles. The success of such performances rests not just on how well a performer fulfills expectations regarding the role she would play, but on whether observers find her convincing. I focus on how self‐presentation entails making use of material environment and objects: One may “dress for the part” and employ props that suit a desired role. However, regardless of dress or props, one can nonetheless fail to “look the part” owing to expectations informed by biases patterned along commonplace social stereotypes. Using the social role of philosopher as my example, I analyze how the stereotype attached to this role carries implications for how demographically under‐represented philosophers may self‐present, specifically with regard to dress and decoration. I look, in particular, to the alienation from one's material environment that may follow on the frustration of self‐presentation through bias. One pernicious effect of bias, I argue, is the power it has to deform and distort its target's relation to her physical setting and objects. Where comfort and ease in one's material environment can be a significant ethico‐aesthetic good, bias can inhibit access to, and enjoyment of, this good.
Comment: In this essay, Olberding explores the ways in which a person's material and aesthetic identity will shape their experience of themselves as well as others' perception of their identity. Further, she applies this ethico-aesthetic analysis to the case of the stereotypical aesthetic norms of the philosopher and the broader community of academic philosophy. In particular, she is interested in investigating (and in some ways, challenging) standard philosophical aesthetic norms, and the way these intersect with marginalisation and bias towards members of the philosophical community who do not fit the traditional image of the old, white bearded man philosopher. Olberding's discussion bears obvious relevance to topic areas such as philosophy of aesthetics and themes in feminist philosophy, but her arguments also apply more broadly to questions about self-identity, human relationship to the material, and economic/political/social justice. Since personal aesthetic choices are always influenced by a broad range of factors beyond simply personal preference - such as socio-economic access, ethnic and social culture, political affiliation, etc. - the text would have a wide range of interesting applications in social and political philosophy beyond the subject matter it directly addresses.
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Added by: Simon FoktContent: Patridge discusses and rejects some of the main arguments for the exclusivist thesis that no pornography can be art: Levinson’s, Mag Uidhir’s, and one based on Rea’s definition of pornography. In doing so, she offers a useful overview of some other arguments already used against those authors. This leads her to conclude that at least some pornography can be art. A normative question follows: should we treat pornography as art? Given the high cultural status of art, and the often unethical nature of pornography, doing so might lead us to promoting unethical attitudes. She finds such treatment too unselective: at least some pornography isn’t morally problematic (and some of it can actually be morally laudable), while much of art, including erotic art, definitely is. But consumption of pornography cannot be taken out of our paternalistic and sexist cultural context. As most pornography is inegalitarian and expresses (and possibly promotes) harmful attitudes towards women, enjoying it constitutes a moral flaw. This is true even if the consumer is never inspired to actually harm women – in those cases enjoyment of pornography constitutes moral obliviousness, a ‘failure of sensitivity and solidarity with the victims of such imagery’ (54) similar to taking enjoyment in racist jokes.Comment: This text offers a good and brief overview of the main points in the art and pornography debate. This makes it a good ‘one-stop-shop’ for classes which do not wish to look at it more closely. Alternatively, it can be used as an introduction to the topic and followed by some more specific papers. It also engages the normative question and offers a discussion of moral issues related to pornography. This will likely prove to be a very interesting point for class discussions.
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Added by: Meilin ChinnAbstract: This essay presents an interpretation of Li Yu’s theory of drama that takes it to be a moderate moralism that is different from Confucian radical moralism, Daoist radical autonomism, and the moderate autonomism of fiction. In addition to practical considerations, Li Yu’s moderate moralism of drama is based on his awareness of the ontological difference between drama and music, poetry, and fiction. Drama was seen by Li Yu as a synthetic art that includes music, poetry, and fiction. If radical autonomism is appropriate for the evaluation of music, radical moralism for poetry and prose, and moderate autonomism for fiction, then moderate moralism would be most appropriate in the evaluation of drama.Comment: Peng gives an account of the development of Chinese drama according to a contrast between Confucian moralism, in which morality controls aesthetics, and Daoist autonomism, in which aesthetics are autonomous from morality. He argues for an understanding of Li Yu’s theory of drama as a moderate moralism that evaluates drama according to a possible, yet contingent and unnecessary relation between moral and aesthetic virtue. This text is appropriate for a course on aesthetics and/or Chinese philosophy. It is particularly useful in discussions of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics.
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Added by: Adriana Clavel-VázquezPublisher’s Note:
This book examines the work of Chicana artists, feminist Mexican-Americans who aim at interrogating their identity through art. In this chapter, Pérez examines what she regards as “the general intellectual vindication of Indigenous epistemologies that characterized much of the thought and art of the Chicana/o movement”. She argues that, in opposition to the male Chicano perspective that characterized the early movement, Chicana artists embrace their Indigenousness in a way that aims not simply at antagonizing Eurocentric culture, but that aims at “a genuinely more decolonizing struggle at the epistemological level”. The chapter focuses on writers Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros, and on artists Frances Salomé España, Yreina Cervántez, and Esther Hernández.Comment (from this Blueprint): Pérez’s analysis is interesting for the aims of the blueprint for three reasons. First, it is interesting to see the role she grants to spirituality in the fight for social justice, particularly when it comes to gender, race, and ethnicity in the U.S. Second, it is interesting to see whether the emphasis on the connection between aesthetic practices and spirituality might help avoid mestiza aesthetics falling into appropriative practices. Finally, it is important to analyse mestiza culture in the U.S. to see whether it might offer any lessons for mestizo cultures in Latin America.
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Added by: Adriana Clavel-VázquezAbstract:
This paper examines the relationship between the aesthetic frameworks of José Vasconcelos and Gloria Anzaldúa. Contemporary readers of Anzaldúa have described her work as developing an “aesthetics of the shadow,” wherein the Aztec conception of Nepantilism—i.e. to be “torn between ways”—provides a potential avenue to transform traditional associations between darkness and evil, and lightness and good. On this reading, Anzaldúa offers a revaluation of darkness and shadows to build strategies for resistance and coalitional politics for communities of color in the U.S. To those familiar with the work of Vasconcelos, Anzaldúa’s aesthetics appears to contrast sharply with his conceptions of aesthetic monism and mestizaje. I propose, however, that if we read both authors as supplementing one another’s work, we can see that their theoretical points of contrast and similarity help frame contemporary philosophical discussions of racial perception.Comment (from this Blueprint): In this paper, Pitts does two things that are relevant for the aims of this blueprint. First, she understands Anzaldúa to be in dialogue with, and as a continuation of, the Latin American philosophical tradition. In this sense, rather than seeing Latinx feminism as emerging simply from an opposition to the Anglo-American intellectual tradition, she sees it as inheriting and furthering a rich Latin American philosophical tradition that, although problematic at times, has plenty to offer to contemporary philosophical thought, and which has been unfortunately ignored for too long. Second, she brings forward the role that aesthetics plays in theorizing about race and mestizo identities in Latin America, and in the constitution of social identities, as well as the centrality of aesthetics in the Latin American philosophical tradition.
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Added by: Hans MaesSummary: Draws attention to the fact that portraits of slaves are rarely exhibited or discussed; and that not all images of slaves are portraits. Reflects on the dynamics of power involved in portraiture and on the relation between subject and viewer in particular. Includes extensive commentary on the historical development of portraiture and the place of portraits of slaves therein.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as power relations and art's role in them in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Francis Wheatley, A Family Group in a Landscape (c.1775)
A dark clad black boy stands motionless at the extreme left of the canvass, scarcely making into the group. He is literally in the shadows.
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Added by: Hans MaesSummary: Considers portraiture an unstable, destabilizing, potentially subversive art through which uncomfortable and unsettling convictions are negotiated. As such, it is primarily an instrumental art form, a kind of agency. Also argues that there is an element of the fictive involved in all portrait representations. Explains how portraiture is a slippery and seductive art.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture, as well as depiction and representation in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Garibaldi at Caprera, frontispiece of G.M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, May 1860 (1931 edition)
A reproduction of a photograph of a copy of a many times copied portrait of the guerilla leader. Devoid of monetary or aesthetic value. Not very likely that Garibaldi looked like this or posed for the artist. The portrait works to endow the historical narrative with its illusion of a unified subject.