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Course: CT 496 Seminar in Theatre, Dance and Speech

Notes on Aesthetics (for 4/12/99)

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Art, Aesthetics, and Artwork

Is dance / theatre art?

• How do you know?
• How does it differ from other kinds of human movement / presented behavior?

Intentional fallacy: Is it enough for someone to say he/she has created art?

• What other characteristics must it have?
• How do you determine if it is good?
• Is there a difference between well-executed work and art?

How do you know if a new work, which may challenge your definition, is art?

• At what point do you change your definition?

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-Generate criteria for art; also dance and theatre.
-Review lexical definition of art, aesthetics, beauty.

-Definition of definition:

• Necessary aspects: What must be present to qualify? Will all things that qualify meet these criteria?
• Sufficient aspects: Are these the only criteria required? Will all things that meet these criteria qualify?
• -Ref: Eldridge, Humble, Osborne
• -Review criteria above for necessary and sufficient aspects.

-Exhibited and unexhibited characteristics.

• -Discuss Duchamp’s LHOOQ, LHOOQ shaved
• -Ref: Danto
• -Review criteria for exhibited and unexhibited characteristics.

-Problem of artifact. What is the artwork?

• -Painting/sculpture, dance theatre, literature, film music
• -Is it possible to have a work of art in the telling?
• -Review criteria for artifact problems.
• -Review LHOOQ

-The Family Resemblance approach

• -Discuss revolutionary and evolutionary paradigms; Thomas Kuhn, etc.
• -Ref: Redfern on resemblances
• -Need for grounding in characteristics
• -Ref: Redfern on critical perspective

Aesthetic contemplation and perceiver participation.

• -Discuss Ingarden's theory
• -Ref: Dorter , Ingarden

New directions: Postmodernism

• -Ref: Sarratore
• -Generate list of postmodern artists.

Problems of the popular

• -Differentiating art from craft
  
  • -Ref: Collingwood
• -Definitions of high art, popular art, and kitsch
• -Ref: Hammel, Novitz, Kulka.

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