Unit name | Experiencing the Aesthetic |
---|---|
Unit code | AFAC20003 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Dr. Skinazi |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Arts Faculty Office |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit, while focused on the unique nature of aesthetic experience, also provides a broad introduction to the arts. The concern is with the nature, make-up and history of the arts, not in an attempt to provide full coverage, but to address issues of identity around specific instances and institutions. There will be two parts to the unit. The first considers specific methodologies for the analysis of aesthetic experience, including semiotic, phenomenological, and art historical, and introduces students to theories of aesthetics and embodiment. The second part introduces students to specific objects and aesthetic experiences, encouraging them to put the tools of analysis they have learnt into practice and begin theorising how they respond to and understand a diverse range of aesthetic encounters. Students will be introduced historical works of art and the resources through which we encounter them, for example in museums and archives, and will attend several Bristol-based events.
Unit aims:
On successful completion of this unit students will be able to:
Two 1-hour lectures per week, plus one 1-hour seminar per week (on readings done in advance).
1. Review of a piece of visual or performing art using a form of analysis covered in the unit (e.g. semiotic, phenomenological, art historical). (50%, 1500 words) [ILOs 1, 4, 5].
2. One 2,500-word summative essay (50%) [ILOs 2, 3, 4, 5]
Jerrold Levinson, ed. 2005. The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
S. Fish. 1980. Is There A Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretative Communities. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass.
Daniel Albright. 2000, Untwisting the serpent: modernism in music, literature, and other arts. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Günter Berghaus 2005 Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-Garde. Palgrave: New York.
Lara D. Nielsen and Patricia Ybarra, eds. 2012. Neoliberalism and Global Theatres: Performance Permutations. Palgrave: New York.