ARTH 383 Art and Philosophy

• Mondays, 2:45pm-5:15pm
• Online: Access through Moodle
• Instructor: Dr. Kat Simpson

Art and philosophy often approach similar issues – existential questions around identity and subjectivity, knowledge and ethics, self and society – from very different perspectives. Philosophers since Plato have wrestled with questions of not only aesthetic taste and judgment (e.g., in assessments of the beautiful, the ugly, and the sublime) but also the ontological, epistemological, and socio-political status of art. Moreover art history, as a discipline, developed out of German philosophy and psychology. Finally, Freud and psychoanalysts after him likewise contributed to philosophical discussions of art through their discussions of jokes and ugliness, anxiety and the uncanny, as well as the sex and death drives and their sublimation in art. In this course we will put aesthetic, philosophical, and psychoanalytic theory in dialogue with artistic practice, examining diverse artworks and writings from antiquity to the present day. Students should be prepared to engage consistently and critically with a range of philosophical and theoretical documents, including classical, modern, and contemporary texts.