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COURSES SPRING 2008

Histart 290.2

GRADUATE SEMINAR: SEXUALITY AND AESTHETICS (4 UNITS) Wednesdays 7:00-10:00 425 Doe, CCN: 05729 Whitney Davis

This seminar investigates the intimate conceptual relations between theories of sexuality, sexual identifications, and sexual cultures, on the one hand, and the development of philosophical or scientific aesthetics, art theory, and art criticism on the other hand.  While reference will need to be made to ancient traditions (e.g., Greek doctrines of perception, eros, and art), the course will focus on European and North American developments since the later eighteenth century, concentrating on major models or frameworks in aesthetics and the theory of sexuality in relation to cultural production.  These will likely include: the thread or theme of homoeroticism in idealist aesthetics and art theory (Winckelmann, Kant, Reynolds); counter-Kantian Enlightenment "phallicism" (d'Hancarville, R. P. Knight, Forberg); the impact of Darwinian theories of sexual selection on aesthetics, and the development of a homoeroticist Darwinism; aestheticism and the "Decadent" movement; neurological and psychophysiological models of reflex, erethism, sexuality, and corporeal responsiveness to stimuli; psychoanalytic aesthetics; Foucault's aesthetics and ethics of extreme sex; contemporary analytic philosophies of eroticism and art.  Students will investigate these and other formations in pursuing research projects for presentation.

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