Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

Category Archives: Teaching

November 9, 2016
by Rebecca Millsop
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New Diversity Curricula in Aesthetics

The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce three new aesthetics diversity curricula prepared by ASA members. Asian Aesthetics by Meilin Chinn The Aesthetics of Portraiture by Hans Maes Aesthetic Othering—The Case of Photographic Representation by Mariana Ortega In addition, two curricula prepared in 2015 are available: What is Art? A Reading List by Simon Fokt Theories of the Aesthetic by Monique Roelofs Each received a grant of $5,000 to prepare a diversity curriculum. This is a project of the ASA Diversity Committee, chaired by A.W. Eaton. The ASA has a three-year commitment to this project. Three more awards will be made in 2017. Guidelines will be available in the spring of 2017. For future reference, all are available on this web site: http://aesthetics-online.org/?CurriculumGrants From the ASA web site, go to the red tabs in the upper right: ASA ==> Diversity

May 18, 2016
by Aesthetics for Birds
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ASA Curriculum Diversification Grants Announced for 2016

The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Curriculum Diversification Grant competition: Meilin Chinn, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Santa Clara University. Project title: Asian Aesthetics. Hans Maes, Senior Lecturer, History and Philosophy of Art, and Director, Aesthetics Research Centre, University of Kent (UK). Project title: The Aesthetics of Portraiture. Mariana Ortega, Professor of Philosophy, John Carroll University. Project title: Aesthetic Othering—The Case of Photographic Representation. Each will receive a grant of $5,000 to prepare the proposed diversity curriculum. These will be posted on the ASA web site in September 2016. This is a project of the ASA Diversity Committee, chaired by A.W. Eaton. To see the final curricula of the 2015 winners, click here. The ASA has a three-year commitment to this project. Three more awards will be made in 2017. Guidelines will be available in the spring of 2017.

December 20, 2014
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Socrates and the Pig

What follows is a guest post by Saam Trivedi. Saam was educated at universities in the US, England, and India, and is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He has published articles on such topics in Aesthetics as interpretation, musical expressiveness, ontology, Tolstoy’s aesthetics, and Indian aesthetics in such journals as Metaphilosophy, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, British Journal of Aesthetics, Journal of Aesthetic Education, and also in edited anthologies.   Not being an avid follower of all the exciting things going on in the blogosphere, I honestly do not know who regularly reads this blog (and my ancient laptop’s spell-checker actually suggests “bog” and “blot” in lieu of “blog”).  Still, as this blog is run by Christy Mag Uidhir, I assume that at least some regular visitors to it are his students. Accordingly, I offer below three minimal conditions for … Continue reading →

September 17, 2014
by Aesthetics for Birds
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The Problem of Elitism in Aesthetics

What follows is a guest post by Bence Nanay. Bence is Professor of Philosophy and BOF Research Professor at the University of Antwerp and Senior Research Associate at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. He is the author of Between Perception and Action (Oxford University Press, 2013) and editor of Perceiving the World (Oxford University Press, 2010) and he just finished his book on aesthetics, Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception (Oxford University Press, under contract), all very elitist, really. This picture shows him pretending to be down with the kids, but the truth is that he has no idea how to play drums (as you can probably tell from the picture)… Also, he looks about as dumb on this picture as Kelso from That 70s Show(to throw in a really elitist reference)… Let’s begin with a little quiz: Who are the characters depicted in these following three pictures: My conjecture is that even the sophisticated aesthetics-y audience of this … Continue reading →

July 6, 2013
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Towards a Gender-balanced Philosophy of Art Syllabus

by Christy Mag Uidhir ***UPDATED 07/31/13. I encourage readers to continue to send suggestions.***[minor update by Alex King in 2020] Lamarque & Olsen’s Aesthetics & The Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition is arguably the best general anthology in Contemporary Anglo-American Aesthetics. Unfortunately, this anthology distinguishes itself yet another way by having only 2 of its 46 articles written by women (in fact, the very same woman as it turns out). A friend of mine teaching philosophy of art for the first time recently discovered this and asked me to suggest some articles written by women with which to supplement the anthology. I’ve copied the list I sent him below so that it might be a useful resource for others in similar situations. I welcome and actively encourage readers to suggest additions in the comments section at which point I’ll update the list accordingly. However, please note that my interest … Continue reading →