A YouTube series features interviews with philosophers about their work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Continue reading

January 27, 2022
by Aesthetics for Birds
1 Comment
January 27, 2022
by Aesthetics for Birds
1 Comment
A YouTube series features interviews with philosophers about their work in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Continue reading
June 18, 2020
by Aesthetics for Birds
4 Comments
Removing statues is powerfully symbolic; how we treat them in their death is too. Continue reading
November 29, 2019
by Aesthetics for Birds
0 comments
Alex King interviews philosophers Jeanette Bicknell, Jennifer Judkins, and Carolyn Korsmeyer. Jeanette Bicknell, Jennifer Judkins, and Carolyn Korsmeyer recently co-edited a collection of new essays, Philosophical Perspectives on Ruins, Monuments, and Memorials. From the book description: This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. … The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. See the full list of contributing authors here. Below, Alex King interviews them about themes from the volume.
May 22, 2018
by Aesthetics for Birds
0 comments
What follows is a guest post from K. E. Gover (Bennington College). Monuments are inherently political in a way that other kinds of artworks are not. As the recent controversies surrounding the removal of civil war monuments has made painfully clear, monuments make a public statement about what citizens should value and remember. The Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel has recently proposed that Trump designate as a “national monument” the eight border wall prototypes located along the US-Mexico border, claiming that they have “significant cultural value and are significant land art.” By petitioning that the wall prototypes be preserved indefinitely as a kind of memorial to bigotry, Büchel implicates anti-immigration Trump supporters and the liberal elite art establishment under the same proposal.
August 16, 2017
by C. Thi Nguyen
0 comments
This is entry #68 in our 100 Philosophers, 100 Artworks, 100 Words Series.