Aesthetics Work Group at the College of Charleston

09/20/2023

Friday! 4:15! Alumni Center.

On Wednesday, to start thinking about Friday's talk, Jonathan Neufeld will lead a discussion of professor Latour's article, “How Stoicism Influenced Music from the French Renaissance to Pink Floyd" at The Conversation. 14 glebe, 4:15. Everybody's welcome to join.

09/09/2023

AWGers! Here's an event you might be interested in happening on Sept 14:

01/26/2023

It's CofC day! That's the official annual giving day at the College. If you are interested in giving to AWG and everything it does, today is a great day to do it. Here's a link (and you can use the dropdown menu to pick AWG): https://give.cofc.edu/philosophy

Today is CofC's annual giving day. The Philosophy Department at CofC would like to do do even more to support its students. While we have extraordinary faculty who dedicate serious time to help students develop their research interests, the financial resources provided at a South Carolina state institution often fall short of the work our students put in. We've set up a Student Opportunity Fund aimed directly at supporting the work of philosophy students. We would appreciate any support you might throw their way! Thanks! https://cofcday.cofc.edu/campaigns/philosophy-department

01/25/2023

AWGers!! We will be having at least three events this Spring: one on the aesthetics of "third places" (bars, cafes, pubs...), one on the ontology and politics of Taylor's Versions (Taylor Swift's rerecording of her back catalog), and one on a topic as yet to be determined by a scholar of literature and art in the Hispanophone Caribbean. Keep an eye out for announcements!

04/20/2020

This started as one of the most lunatic of Morgan Koerner DaF-Dozent's ideas. He once claimed that he likes theater best when things go wrong on stage--that's when things really happen. The world has obliged. How can you not want to watch when the central question has become, "What could go right?"

And, I have to say, this is probably the best/nerdiest title/subtitle ever, for one of these. You should take a look.

This Wednesday at 7pm, German 468 will present their final project "2Faust2Furious: Das Unzulängliche, Hier word's Ereignis!" on livestream on youtube live! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYA2wI6Ld6UzPi1d9MBeaPA/live

Originally planned as a live show in RITA auditorium, the performance has become a DIY multimedia zoom production thanks to the resilience and ingenuity of the 15 course participants! English subtitles will be provided for most of the production!

04/19/2020

Our Zoom meetings are going well! Last week, Molly Hampton (WGS/PoliSci major) discussed her paper in progress, “Applying a Feminist Lens to Latrinalia: Bathroom Stalls as Counterpublic Pocket Utopias." Molly argued that the unique space of the women’s bathroom stall, neither quite public nor really private, has not yet been well captured by the latrinalia literature. Like street art, where the street is internal to the meaning of the work (as Nick Riggle argues), so too is the stall internal to the meaning of women’s latrinalia. But what does this mean? Molly argues that the space is better characterized in terms of feminist counterpublics and pocket utopias. By considering latrinalia in feminist terms, we learn something important both about bathroom graffiti and about public reason.

Next week, Irina Erman will discuss her paper "Sympathetic Vampires and Zombies with Brains: The Modern Monster as a Master of Self-Control."

04/09/2020

We will be doing a Zoom Aesthetics WorkGroup today at 4:15 EST. If you are interested in joining, message Jonathan Neufeld here or shoot him an email. Sorry for the late notice--it only now occurred to me to advertise this more broadly, since Zoom is universally accessible.) Here's the abstract of the short talk by Julia McReynolds-Pérez (Sociology, CofC) (images chosen by Neufeld more or less at random):

“This article analyzes the use of the fetal engineer meme by online abortion rights activists in Argentina’s abortion legalization debate of 2018. The fetal engineer started out as an image of an approximately 10-week fetus on an anti-abortion protest sign, which was captioned with the phrase, “I want to be an engineer.” Abortion rights activists circulated memes and various images ridiculing the fetal engineer online in order to criticize the hypocrisy of anti-abortion activists. The fetal engineer meme raises important questions about the nature of online social movement strategies and how they differ from face-to-face interactions. This case is useful for theorizing the specific uses of humor as an affective strategy for responding to the grotesque and cultivating a particular type of social movement collective identity.”

05/12/2019

Here's a good article about AWGer Bethany Fincher who not only just graduated with a perfect 4.0, but also received top honors in the philosophy department and the school of Humanities and Social Sciences. (One of the other perfect 4.0s was achieved by another AWGer, Harper Richards! We are a small but academically mighty group!)

Collegeof Charleston student Bethany Fincher had to overcome personal issues to flourish as a double major in philosophy and art history.

05/01/2019

Thanks to everyone for contributing to a fantastic year of AWG discussions. Our student participants presented at, or will be presenting at, conferences. Bethany Fincher will be presenting at the American Society for Aesthetics conference in Santa Fe and, thanks to generous contributions by AWG members, is now only about $150 short of having full support for her trip. If you can spare even a little for student support, or for programming next year, there is a link to donate below. Make sure you indicate in comments that your contribution is for AWG!

We have a number of new participants, some of whom will lead discussions next year. Keep an eye on this space as the schedule for the 2019-2020 season unfolds. As a reminder, here's what went on in 2018-2019:

--“Entitled: Artistic Legitimation and the Democratization of Taste,” Jennifer Lena (Sociology/Arts Administration, Columbia University, Teachers College)
--“Propaganda and the Moving Image,” Sheryl Tuttle Ross (Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse)
--"A Machine in the Garden," Aaron Palmore (Classics ,CofC)
--Chinese Aesthetics Roundtable, Julianne Chung (Philosophy, University of Louisville); James Harold (Philosophy, Mt. Holyoke).
--"Collective Memory and the Acousmatic Experience," Phillip Greene (Music/Art History major, CofC)
--“Towards a Participatory Future of Privacy: A Study of Angela Richter’s Supernerds,” Sarah Koellner (German, CofC)
--Disability and Performance in German Theater (tentative), Caroline Weist (German, University of Richmond)

--“Monuments and Counter-Monuments” (tentative title), Jay Miller (Philosophy, Warren Wilson College; Public Arts Commission, Asheville)
--Performance/discussion: “Arabic and Sufi Music, Poetry, Song and the Art of Maqâm,” Aïcha Redouane (musician, Paris), Habib Yammine (musician, ethnomusicologist, Paris), and Anne Rasmussen (Ethnomusicology, William & Mary).
--"From Soccer Chant to Sonic Meme," Michael O'Brien (Music, CofC)
--“Aesthetic Public Reasons,” Jonathan Neufeld (Philosophy, CofC)
--“Why Play the Notes? Indirect Aesthetic Normativity in Performance,” Guy Rohrbaugh (Philosophy, Auburn University)

03/18/2019

Congratulations to AWGer, Philosophy and Art History student Bethany Fincher who was just accepted to present at the meeting of the Rocky Mountain Division of the American Society for Aesthetics in Santa Fe! Bethany presented her work last year at AWG will now be taking it to a professional conference!

Please consider contributing to AWG so that we can cover some of Bethany's expenses. $31 covers a student membership to the ASA. $75 covers student conference registration. Any amount would help to cover travel and hotel expenses!

Giving back to the College of Charleston

01/05/2019

Hello all! Our Spring 2019 schedule is looking fantastic. Our first meeting will be led by Caroline Weist (German, University of Richmond) on January 17 at 4:45pm. I will send out details soon. In the meantime, here's what the schedule looks like so far:

-1/17: "Drama and Dementia: Stabilizing the State through Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade," Caroline Weist (German, University of Richmond)
-2/1: "Collective Memory and the Acousmatic Experience Through the Work of Susan Philipsz.” Phillip Greene (CofC Arts Management major)
-2/14: Roundtable on East Asian Aesthetics, Julianne Chung (Philosophy, University of Louisville), James Harold (Philosophy, Mt. Holyoke College)
-2/28: TBA, Sarah Koellner (German, CofC)
-3/28: Technology and Nature in Latin Poetry (tentative title), Aaron Palmore (Classics, CofC)
-4/11: "Propaganda and the Moving Image," Sheryl Tuttle Ross (Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse)
-Date TBD: Entitled: Artistic Legitimation and the Democratization of Taste," Jennifer Lena (Sociology and Arts Administration, Teachers College and Columbia University)

Looking forward to a great term!