AESTHETICS
(PHIL 452, Sec. 1001)
    Reading Assignments

    Readings for this course are listed by author and title and are available on the WebCampus-Canvas page for the course, via the Course Content section of the Modules area.

  • For Jan. 27: Read Beardsley, "In defense of aesthetic value" and "Aesthetic experience regained".
  • For Jan. 29: Read Beardsley, "The aesthetic point of view". [Optional Reading: Child, "Monroe Beardsley's three criteria for aesthetic value: A neglected resource in the evaluation of recent music"].
  • For Feb. 3: Read Plato, Selections from Ion and from Books II, III, X of The Republic. Then read Aristotle, Section 1 from Poetics.
  • For Feb. 5: Read Kristeller, "The modern system of the arts: A study in the history of aesthetics part I". [Optional Reading: Porter, "Is art modern? Kristeller's 'Modern system of the arts' reconsidered".]
  • For Feb. 10: Read Carroll, "Formalism"; Zangwill, "Overview of formalism debates"; Crowther, "Beyond formalism: Kant's theory of art"; and Feldman, "Formalism and its discontents".
  • For Feb. 12: Read Casey, "Expression and communication in art" and Kemp, "The Croce-Collingwood theory as theory".
  • For Feb. 17: No class! [Presidents Day]
  • For Feb. 19: Read Danto, "The artworld" and Dickie, "Defining art". Then read Bachrach, "Dickie's institutional definition of art: Further criticism".
  • For Feb. 24: Read Levinson, "Defining art historically" and Danto, "The transfiguration of the commonplace".
  • For Feb. 26: Read Weitz, "The role of theory in aesthetics" and Mandelbaum, "Family resemblances and generalization concerning the arts". Then read Lopes, "Nobody needs a theory of art".
  • For Mar. 3: Read Heidegger, "The origin of the work of art" (a long work). Then read Thomson, "Heidegger's aesthetics" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  • For Mar. 5: Read Benjamin, "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" and Long, "Art's fateful hour: Benjamin, Heidegger, art and politics".
  • For Mar. 10: Read Horkheimer and Adorno, "The culture industry: Enlightenment as mass deception". Also check out the First Paper Topic. The paper is due before midnight on Sunday, March 23 via the link in the Assignments area of WebCampus-Canvas. And check out Woodbridge's Paper Requirements and Policies and Numbered Writing Comments Sheet (for guidance on what kind of writing glitches to avoid).
  • For Mar. 12: Read Adorno and Rabinbach, "Culture industry reconsidered" and Agar, "Mass culture or fascist propaganda? Using Adorno to understand QAnon's reliance on movie references".
  • For Mar. 24: Read Derrida (tr. Leavey), "Restitutions of truth to size, 'De la vé rité en pointure'".
  • For Mar. 26: Read Fisher, "What is hauntology?".
  • For Mar. 31: Read Baudrillard, "The precession of simulacra" and Krauss, "A note on photography and the simulacral". Then read Jameson, "Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism".
  • For Apr. 2: Read Rancière, "The aesthetic dimension: Aesthetics, politics, knowledge" and Rancière, Guénoun, Kavanagh, and Lapidus, "Jacques Rancière: Literature, politics, aesthetics: Approaches to democratic disagreement".
  • For Apr. 7: Read Atkin, "Icon, index, and symbol" and Ding, "Rethinking the Peircean trichotomy of icon, index, and symbol". Then read Hyman, "Depiction" and Hyman, "The meaning theory of pictures". Also check out the Second Paper Topic. The paper is due before midnight on Sunday, April 20 via the link in the Assignments area of WebCampus-Canvas.
  • For Apr. 9: Read Neander, "Pictorial representation: A matter of resemblance" and Hopkins, "Resemblance and misrepresentation". Then read Abell, "Canny resemblance".
  • For Apr. 14: Read Gombrich, "From light into paint" and "Truth and stereotype" (Chs. 1-2 from Art and Illusion) and Kim, "Ernst H. Gombrich, pictorial representation, and some issues in art education". [Suggested Reading: Gombrich, "Introduction" to Art and Illusion]
  • For Apr. 16: Read Alpers, "Describe or narrate? A problem in realistic representation" and Krieger, "The ambiguities of representation and illusion: An E. H. Gombrich retrospective".
  • For Apr. 21: Read Goodman, "Routes of reference" and then "Reality remade" (Ch. I from Languages of Art (pp. 3-43)).
  • For Apr. 23: Read Goodman, "The sound of pictures" and "Art and the understanding" (Chs. II and VI from Languages of Art (pp. 44-95 and 225-265)). Then read Walton, "Are representations symbols?".
  • For Apr. 28: Read Wollheim, "On pictorial representation" and Levinson, "Wollheim on pictorial representation". Then read Walton, "Depiction, perception, and imagination: Responses to Richard Wollheim".
  • For Apr. 30: Read Walton, "Pictures and make-believe" and "Précis of Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts".
  • For May 5: Read Walton, "Transparent pictures: On the nature of photographic realism" (Critical Inquiry) and "Transparent pictures: On the nature of photographic realism" (Noûs). Check out the Third Paper Topic. The paper is due before midnight on Thursday, May 15 via the link in the Assignments area of WebCampus-Canvas. [Note the official exam date for the course is Monday 5/12, so you are getting some extra time.]
  • For May 7: Read Walton, "Points of view in narrative and depictive representation" and "How remote are fictional worlds from the real world?".
  • For May 10: If you are rewriting the First or Second Paper, these rewrites are due by 11:59pm.
  • For May 15: Submit your Third Paper to Turnitin.com via the WebCampus-Canvas link by 11:59pm.
Last updated May 4, 2025

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This document was created on January 18, 2025.