I've already mentioned my interest in aesthetics several times. In particular, I'm interested in the interplay between aesthetics and the body. As you'll learn if you follow these posts, I take a dim view of much of literary theory. (I'll save why for later.) I'm really interested, however, in a lot of the work done by evolutionary psychologists and cognitive psychology. These attempt to explain the biological basis of art and aesthetics. The guy who runs Arts & Letters Daily, Dennis Dutton, is also a philosopher of the arts. He just came out with a book (The Art Instinct) that explores these issues. I've got the book, though I haven't read it yet.
But here's a review of it: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/note.asp?note=20751503
I should say that these ideas are fairly controversial, especially in the humanities. Also, my own relatively uninformed impression is that the cognitive psychologists are doing very solid work while the evolutionary psychologists are doing provocative but yet still pretty tentative work.
Enjoy,
-Andrew
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I, too, have a great interest in art & aesthetics (I was married to an artist for 15 years). Last year I attempted to teach a "Comp II Aesthetics" class, which I felt was only a minor success with the students, but at least they were challenged in their thinking. My personal inspiration drew from much of the readings in Tom Festa's Lit Crit class (with apologies, given what you feel about lit theory), and from my own interest in the rhetoric of art criticism and ekphrasis. I've also been skimming through issues of the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, to which I subscribe but have little time to actually read.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend (ex-husband) just wrote a fascinating essay on art and the body, particularly the flesh, as pertains to the painter Francis Bacon. I'm interested in the book you recommended. I'll get it through Inter-library loan. Thanks!