Kant's Aesthetics: Tattoos, Architecture, and Gender-Bending
Tom Leddy
n his discussion of dependent be'auty in the Critique ofJudgement Kant writes, "much that would be liked direcdy in intuition could be added to a building, if only the building I were not [meant] to be a church. A figure could be embellished with all sorts of curlicues and light but regular lines, as the New Zealanders do with their tattoos, if only it were not the figure of a human being. And this human being might have had much more delicate features and a facial structure with a softer and more likable outline, if only he were not AMERICAN SOCIETY [meant] to represent a man, let alone a warlike one" (Kant '987, 77)' Kant is difficult to teach to beginners, but this is one good passage to focus on. Indeed FORAESTHETICS one can have fuh deconstructing it. The passage comes in section 16, which is titled "AJudge AN AsSOCIATION FOR NSTHETICS, ment ofTaste by which We Declare an Object Beautiful under the Condition of a Deter CRITICISM AND THEORY OF THE ARTS minate Concept." We are introduced here to the famous distinction between free and ac VOLUME r9 NUMBER r SPRING 1999 cessory beauties. The latter are dependent on concepts and on our notion of the purpose of the thing being considered. This is the section in which Kant commends flowers, birds, crus taceans, designs afa grecque, wallpaper, and music-not-set-to-words as free beauties. He then Remembering refers to the beauties of human beings, horses, and buildings as presupposing a concept of 3 Three Philosophers perfection and hence as merely adherent or dependent. The point in the quoted passage is that objects of merely adherent beauty are judged according!o their purpose, and that therefore it is inappropriate to add to them elements of Aesthetics News pure beauty, which is to say, elements that can be liked in the direct intuition. However, it is Conference Reports not immediately obvious why this should follow. Why not have representations of flowers, 7 birds, and crustaceans in church architecture? Why not include arabesques and designs a fa grecque? Certainly all of this has been done, and to good effect. It seems that Kant is just allowing his Pietist prejudices to come to the fore. 10 Calls for Papers The same would seem to hold with respect to his attitude about Maori tattoos. Kant is criticizing the Maori for decorating human beings with designs which, ironically, he considers examples of pure beauty elsewhere. He seems to think that since the beauty of human beings is adherent beauty, we should not combine it with the free beauties found in nature. Upcoming Events But why? 11 The fun comes with the contemporary relevance of some of these issues. Many of our students today wear tattoos and are eager to discuss issues related to tattooing. This is an opportunity for livening up a class. One could even show a clip of the film OlUe Were Warnors. 12 Active Aestheticians Tattoos play an impottant role in this film about the contemporary Maori. The professor could ask whether parents who disapprove of tattoos might have some justice on their side. Perhaps the beauty of the human body is most properly consideted unadorned. But then if this were true it would seem to follow that beauty should be appreciated without any adornment, including clothes and make-up. One could ev.en bring up the Greek conception of the nude in this context. A modified thesis might be that non-natural changes in skin pigmentation mar the unadorned body, although this poses problems for salon tanning.1bis might also be www.aesthetics-online.org an appropriate time to discuss whether tattooing is an art form, and whether it meets any of the current definitions of art. Another stage of the discussion could center on architecture. The example Jesus in some ofCaravaggio's paintings (see Berger I977)' attack on decoration in architectural theory is notorious. AdolfLoos, for Earlier in section 14 Kant insists that there are appropriate purposes example, believed that decoration was crime. This was one of the found and perfections not only for humans in general but also for males, fe ing assumptions of modernist architecture. Clearly, Loos was in line males and children specifically. Thus, for Kant, female gender traits with Kant. Posttnodern architecture, by contrast, went in another direc would be perfectly appropriate in a female figure. Still, by taking the male tion. Kant would count its use of decorative elements from different figure as more central, Kant has, by implication, associated female gen cultures as adding material to buildings that appeal directly to intuition. der traits most strongly with the pure beauties of nature. This is also a Roger Scruton, by contrast, holds that architecture is essentially a deco possible subject for discussion. rative art. Hence, he does not seem to have any problem with decora Finally, this passage could be useful as a way of introducing Richard tive elements in architecture. A description and analysis of Scruton's Shusterman's notion of somaesthetics as developed in his recent book theory of architecture might be tied in to this discussion (Scruton 1979). Practicing Philosophy (Shusterman 1977)' As he argues, "philosophy A consideration of the quoted passage may also be connected with needs to pay more critical attention to the variety of somatic practices the discussion of ornamentation in section 4, made famous by Derrida. through which we can pursue our quest for self-knowledge and self By contrast to section 16, Kant here describes ornamentation as adding creation." Students who engage in tattooing often say that this practice to our taste's liking. It does this byway of its form. Nor is architecture is importantly connected with their own quest for self-knowledge and excluded, since Kant explicitly mentions colonnades around self-creation. magnificent buildings. Omamentation is here significantly differentiated Once students are intrigued by the issues raised here, the instruc from finery. The latter commends the work to our approval by way of tor may wish to direct the discussion to the more traditional question mere charm. Only finery, and not ornamentation, impairs genuine of whether Kant can consistently speak of two kinds of beauty, and why beauty. One would think that that would be true for tattoos as well! he needs to introduce the notion of adherent beauty at all (see Guyer Perhaps Kant disapproves of tattoos because they permit a charm 1977, 2IS-27)·rJ3 of sense to be linked with the human figure. In section 17 he refers to the human figure as the ideal of beauty. Could tattooing interfere with this ideal in some way? But remember that, for Kant, tattoos are in the References same category as objects of pure beauty, and therefore are not mere matters of charms of sense, except insofar as they feature bright colors. Berger,John (1977) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin. ~Some tattoos have elaborate designs and thus meet Kant's requirement for beauty quite well. They too can set the imagination and the under Guyer, Paul (1977) Kant and the Claims of Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge standing into free and harmonious play. Kant must, therefore, have University Press. thoug~t that a tattoo somehow interferes with the e>pression of th,:.e'---_vc-:--.-:= ccc. ;----mC"o,..ral which is characteristic 0 the ideal of the eautiful, and which he Kant, Immanuel (1987) Critique ofJudgement. rans ~ W~er S. Pluhar. associates with the human body and its representation. He just never Indianapolis: Hackett. says how. The final sentence in the quoted passage is perhaps the most in Scruton, Roger (1979) The A~sthetics of Architecture. Princeton: Princeton teresting from a contemporary perspective. Kant can be seen here as University Press. undercutting his earlier point about the New Zealanders. After all, they used the tattoos originally to enhance their warlike look. It is question Shusterman, Richard (1977) Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philo able that simply adding formally attractive ornamentation to the body sophical Lift. New York: Routledge. detracts from the purposiveness of the form under the concept "war rior" when that ornamentation is added to enhance that look. The quote is also relevant to issues ofgender identity. Kant is saying that men, especially warlike ones, should not be represented as having gender traits associated with women, for instance delicate fearures and Aesthetics On-Line soft facial structure, even though (it is implied) this would make them SECURE SERVER more beautiful. The idea here seems to be that female gender features are to a male figure (or a representation of a male figure) as tattoos are Aesthetics On-Line, the ASPls web site, now has a secure to that same figure. server. Use it to pay ASA and BSA dues and to register for Yet, the example of female-typed gender traits works differently ASA meetings using your credit card. from the example of tattooing. The former might interfere with a war rior-like look, whereas the latter enhances it. The former would trans The secure server is safe to use. It encrypts all communica form the basic strucrure of the face (one could illustrate this with com tions with you, and the data it collects are accessible only to puter morphing), whereas the latter may simply enhance the underlying the ASA National Office. structure, for example the fearsomeness of an angry look. This might be an occasion in the classroom for some imaginative
2 ASA NEWSLETTER American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. In 1946 and 1947 he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Award. Among his many distinguished lectures and lec ture series were: Sherman Lecture, University ofLonclon, 1953; Alfred Remembering Three North Whitehead Lecture, Harvard University, 1962; John Locke Lec tures, Oxford University, 1962; Miller Lectures, University of Illinois, Philosophers 1974; Immanuel Kant Lectures, Stanford University, [976; and the Howison Lecture, University ofCalifomia, Berkeley, '985. His honorary doctoral degrees ase from the University of Pennsylvania, Adelphi Uni versity, Technische Universitat, Berlin, 1996, Universite de Nancy, France, Nelson Goodman '997. The American Society for Aesthetics honored Goodman with a seminar on his work at the 50th Anniversary of the Society, Philadel phia, 1992. He has been honored in Europe with various international Curtis Carter Colloquia during the past decade: Author's Colloquium, Zentrum Fur Interdisciplinare Forschung de Universitat Bielefeld, Germany, 1991; he American philosopher Nelson Goodman died on November "Colloquium on Representation," University of RomelUniversity of 25, 1998, in Needham, Massachusetts, at the age of ninety-two. Tuschia-Viterbo, Viterbo, Italy, '99'; "Nelson Goodman etles Langages THe was buried in a family grave site in Everett, Massachusetts. de l'Art," Musee National de l'Art Moderne, Centre Georges His wife, Katherine Sturgis Goodman, preceded him in death in 1996. Pompidou, Paris, 1992; "Maniere de Faire les Mondes," Universite de Born on August 7, 1906 in Somerville, Massachusetts, Goodman Nancy, Pont a Mousson. France, 1997; Weisen der Welterzeugung, became a leading proponent of analytic philosophy in the United States H eidelberg, Germany, 1998. and his theories are now studied throughout the world. Goodman was Goodman's philosophical theories embrace nominalism, a Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1968-77. constructivism, and a form of radical relativism. He perhaps best sums Previously he served as Harry Austryn Wolfson Professor of Philosophy up his approach to philosophical concerns in the foreword of his book at Brandeis University from 1%4-67,Professor of Philosophy from Ways ofWqrldmaking. "Few familias philosophical labels fit comfortably 1951-64 and Associate Professor from 1946-1951 at the University of a book that is at odds with rationalism and empiricism alike, with ma Pennsylvania, and Instructor in Philosophy at Tufts College, 1944-45. terialism and idealism and dualism, with essentialism and existentialism, vania, and Instructor in Philosophy at Tufts College, '944-45. with mechanism and vitalism, with mysticism and scientism, and with Prior to these appointments Goodman was Director of the Walker most other asdent doctrines." He thought of his work as belonging to Goodman Art Gallery in Boston from 1929 to 1941. From '942 to 1945 he the mainstream of modern philosophy, yet he proposed to substitute his perfonned military service in the United States Artny. He received his own structures of several symbol systems for the structure of the world, B.S. in 1928 (phi Beta Kappa, Magna cum laude) and his Ph.D. in 1941, the structure of the mind, and the structure of concepts. The symbol both from Harvard University. systems of the sciences, philosophy, the arts, perception, and everyday Goodman's interests ranged from philosophy to collecting art. Within discourse thus constitute the "ways of worldmaking." For Goodman, philosophy, Goodman's writing and teaching were far-ranging with "The movement is from unique truth and a world fixed and found to topics including aesthetics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and a diversity ofright and even conflicting versions of worlds in the mak philosophy oflanguage. His books include A Study ofQualities (1941), ing." The Structure ofAppearance (1951), Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (1955) , In the field of aesthetics, Goodman's Languages ofArt offers a new Languages ofArt (1968),Problems and Projects ('972), Ways ofWoridmaking program for aesthetics, grounded in his theory of symbols. His attempt (1978), OfMind and Other Matters (1984), Reconceptiom in Philosophy and to analyze the various art forms according to their symbolic features Other Arts and Sciences, with Catherine Elgin (1988), L'Art en tMorie et alfords the possibility of greater discrimination among the art forms of en action ('996), a translation of two chapters from OfMind and Other painting, music, literature, dance, architecture, and the other arts. Un Matters including conversations with Frans Boenders and Mia derlying this approach is Goodman's beliefin the cognitive nature of art, Gosselin. Beyond these books, Goodman wrote many articles for schol which invites consideration of the arts as partners with the sciences in arly journals. the pursuit of understanding. Pictures, musical performances, literary Among the major publications on Goodman's work are Logic and texts, dance performances, and buildings shape our experiences, just as Art: Essays in Honor ofNelson Goodman (1972), edited by Richard do linguistic and scientific representations. Within this formulation, rep Rudner and Israel Scheffier, The Philosophy ofNelson Goodman (1997), resentational, expressive, and exemplificational forms ofsymbols govern by Catherine Elgin, and La Philosophie de l'art de Nelson Goodman ('996), the features and functions of the arts . Goodman's approach substitutes by Jacques Morirot. A partial bibliography through the 1980s is pub for the question, "What is art?" that of"When is art?" He finds without lished in volume 25 of theJoumal ofAesthetic Educatum. Goodman was significance the attempt to determine uniquely aesthetic qualities, a frequent subject in the European press, where articles concerning his preferring instead to look for certain clusters of symbolic features that work regularly appeared in Le Monde, Frankforter Allgemeine, and evoke understanding characteristic of art works. Gone too is the attempt other leading news papers. to proffer spurious distinctions between scientific understanding and Throughout his lifetime, Goodman was the recipient of many aesthetics. For Goodman, they are but two complementary means for honors and awards. He served as President of the American Philo making and understanding our worlds. sophical Association, Eastern Division, in 1967 and as Vice President Goodman's activities extended beyond philosophy. Activating the of the Association for Symbolic Logic, '950--52. He was a Fellow of the arts in museums, performance, and especially in multi-disciplinary
SPRING 1999 3
/ contexts, was a major theme in his life and work. He was the founder, needs. As a lover of animals, he was deeply concerned with animal and director of Project Zero at Harvard, '96n, an interdisciplinary re welfare. He was a member of the World Society for the Protection of search program investigating aesthetic education, which continues today Animals and other societies dedicated to this cause. His generous con under the direction of Howard Gardner and David Perkins. He was also tributions supported the rescue of animals in war zones or endangered producer of the Arts Orientation Series, '969fI, Consultant in the Arts by natural disasters. For instance, he funded animal rescue projects in for Summer School, 1971-r7, and Director of the Dance Center, all at Kuwait during the Gulf War, in Bosnia, during volcanic eruption at Harvard. Montserrat and fires in Borneo. Goodman conceived and actively participated in three notable per In the months before his death, Goodman suffered a stroke and formance events. His Hockey Seen was created in collaboration with the became unable to continue his regular travels and other activities. choreographe, Martha Gray, the composer John Adams, and the artist Characteristically, until a few days prior to his death, he was expecting Katharine Sturgis, was performed at Harvard in '972 and Knokke-le to travel to an international conference to deliver a paper. Sadly, this was Zoute, Belgium in '980, and was filmed at Harvard in '984. Rabbit Run not to be. The Philosophy Department at Harvard is reportedly plan was adapted from John Updike's novel in collaboration with choreog ning a colloquium in his honor, possibly in the spring or full of '999. Until rapher Martha Gray and composer Joel Kabakov. Variatiom, An Illus then, his passing has received surprisingly little attention in the United trated Lecture Concert, with music by David Alpher and slides showing States, although he was one of the major original thinkers of the Twen Picasso's painted variations on the Velasquez painting Las Meninas, was tieth Century, whose ideas may well have altered philosophical thought first performed at a philosophy of Music Conference at the Helsinki and deliberation on the arts for generations to come. G Music Festival in I985 and then at Harvard in 1986. His interest in "" Obituary prepared by Curtis L. Carter, Secretary Treasurer. American Society activating the arts also extended to Museums as indicated in his writ for Aesthetics with the cooperation of Catherine Elgin and Robert Schwartz. ings on museums such as "The End of the Museum" a lecture to the American Association of Museums (see OfMind and Other Matters, '984) and ''Art In Action," ('992). For the Birds: Goodman's professional role as a gallery director and his private art collecting were sources of great satisfaction. His life-long pursuit of Nelson Goodman collecting art began in his srudent days. He was well known in the art ~ world for his discriminating aesthetic perception and equally for his astuteness in negotiating the price of an object. A visit to his home in Catherine Z. Elgin Weston, Massachusetts would reveal a collector with enthusiasm and in-depth knowledge over a wide range of art. Virtually every corner and was summer in the early 80S. Nelson Goodman and I were working ____closet helciyet ~other ~--2f. art~es. It w~no~unusual to see hanging on opposite walls an important Flemish Old Master by Jan -- -on Reconceptions. As always, Nelsorradamantly insisted that what Van Kessel and an exquisite naIve work by an unknown Twentieth t e was working on was to be given the highest priority. All other Century Italian immigrant farmer, Peter Petronzio. His collections in matters were to be shelved until his project, whatever it happened to cluded Seventeenth Century Old Master paintings and drawings, be, was done. He spent his summers in a cottage in Rockport, Massa Modern art from Picasso to Demuth, ancient Asian sculptures, and chusetts, but arranged to meet me in Cambridge to confer about the Native American arts of the Northwest Coast and the Southwest, even book. When I arrived, I found a message. Owing to an emergency, he would not be in. Naturally, I was alarmed. He was, after all, an old man. Pre-Columbian. As a generous lender and donor, he benefited various museums Was he sick? Was he injured? including the Fogg Museum at Harvard, the Worcester Museum in When I telephoned him in Rockport, he seemed surprisingly un Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Haggerty Museum at Marquette ruIRed. Evidently my view of what qualifies as an emergency and his University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. diverged considerably. He told me that a robin had built her nest and His most cherished discovery relating to his art endeavors was the laid her eggs in an apple tree outside his window. This, he remarked in artist Katharine Sturgis Goodman, his wife and companion of over an aside, enabled him to realize the objective, first bruited in Fact, Fic fifty years. They met when she brought her watercolors of New tion, and Forecast, of doing ornithology without going out in the rain. England subjects for exhibition at his Boston gallery. Sturgis, That morning the eggs had hatched. This all sounded rather pleasant "Cambridge spinster and heiress," and Goodman were both over forty in a bucolic sort of way, but what, I demanded, was the emergency? when they married. Goodman continued with great devotion the "Cats have been sighted," he replied. That said it all. He stayed at his advancement of her career throughout their years together. On the cottage and patrolled the perimeter until the nestlings flew away. Then occasion of an exhibition of her work, Goodman would be found he returned to work, insisting as adamandy as ever that all other matters attending to minute details of the installation and arrangements. One had to be shelved until our project was done. rl> of his last official matters of business was to establish a permanent repository for the care and display of the works of Katharine Sturgis at the Cape Ann Historical Association in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Nelson Goodman pursued his interests with energy and great in tensity, whether writing, lecturing, or in pursuit of a new work of art. To his friends he was a warm and stimulating person, with high expecta tions and a great deal to contribute to a friendship. He had little patience with incompetence and anything less than full attention to his perceived
4 ASA NEWSLETfER ('953), followed by The Sovereignty ofGoodin '970, and The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists, based on the 1976 Romanes Lec ture, in 1977. Acas/os: Two Platonic Dialogues appeared in 1996. The predominant influence on her philosophical thought is Plato, but Kant, Iris Murdoch Freud, Sartre, Wittgenstein and Weil have been important at various stages of her development. While she was primarily a moral philosopher, engagement with is Roman Bonzon sues in aesthetics and the philosophy of art was never far from the center of her theoretical concerns. She first advanced her thoughts on these matters in two essays that appeared in I959, "The Sublime and riS Murdoch, British novelist and philosopher, died on February 8, the Good" and "The Sublime and the Beautiful Revisited". Her initial 1999, in Oxford, England, at the age of seventy-mne. She had suf preoccupation was with Kant and Tolstoy, in relation to whom she first rfered from Alzheimer's disease since the mid-1990, and died at a stated her view: "Art and morals are, with certain provisos ... one. Their nursing home with her husband by her side. "She is not sailing into the essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love .... Love is the dark': he wrote in the moving account of her illness and their life extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. together published in the United States early this year as Elegy for Iris. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality." W ith various "The voyage is over and, under the dark escort of Alzheimer's, she has extensions, qualifications, and clarifications this is the vision she at arrived somewhere." The last of her novels. Jack5on's Dilemma, tempted to communicate in all her subsequent work. appeared in 1995, and a collection of her essays on philosophy and lit She explicidy introduces and locates beauty in the scheme in "On erature, Existentialists and Mystics, was issued in 1997. Her major philo 'God' and 'Good'" and it plays a larger role in "'The Sovereignty of Good sophical work, Metaphysics as a Guide to Moral~ based on the 1982 over other Concepts". These essays, which were published together Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, was published in 1992. with a third essay as The Sovereignty of Good, are probably her most Dame Jean Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin, Ireland, on July '5, influential pieces of philosophy. She maintains that beauty "appears as '9'9. 'The family moved to London in her childhood, and she attended the visible and accessible aspect of the Good". It is "the only spiritual Badminton School in Bristol. She won the Harriet Needham Exhibition thing which we love by instinct", Proper attention to a great work of art to Sommerville College, Oxford in '938, gaining a first in Greats in '942. will lead us out of ourselves into a clear vision of reality, and beauty is From '944 to '946 she worked for the United Nations Relief and Re the means that mediates this. habilitation Administration in Belgium and Austria. Although she The Fire and the Sun is her fullest and most concentrated treat thought she might become an art historian or an archaeologist, she ment of these matters, in which her long preoccupation with Plato came across Sartre's L 'Etre et ie niant in a Brussels bookstore, and read bears fruit. She distinguishes fantasy from imagination, and links ing it convinced her to turn to philosophy. Denied a visa to enter the them to art by identifying bad art with art that aids the artist's and United States in 1946 to pursue further studies because of her fortner audience's daydreaming self-contained fantasies and good art with membership in the Communist Party, she took up the Sarah Smithson art that exercises the imagination and leads out of the selfish ego to Studentship in Philosophy at Newnham College, Cambridge the fol an apprehension of reality. This allowed her to propose a Platonic lowing year (contrary to some reports, she never formally studied under conception of art fashioned from materials in the Philebus, the Wittgenstein). She was elected a fellow of St. Anne's College, Oxford Phaedrus, and the Symposium that contrasts with, at the same time as in '948, working as a tutor of philosophy until '963, when she retired as it explains, the condemnation of poets in the Republic. She extended Honorary Fellow. She lectured at the Royal College of Art from '963 to her Platonic account in a discussion of mimesis and the problems '¢r presented by music and abstract paintings in "Art is the Imitation of She is most widely known for her varied and dazzling twenty-six Nature" (1978). Acastos is a lucid and relatively elementary presenta novels, the first of which, Under the Net, appeared in '954. Among the tion of the view in mock-Platonic dialogue form (it was staged as a more notable are: The Bell ('958),A Severed Head ('96" subsequendy National Theatre Platform Performance in 1980 under the direction adapted as a play with J. B. Priesdy and as a movie), The Nice and the of Michael Kustow). Her final thoughts on the subject are contained Good ('968),A Fairly Honourable Deftat ('970), The Black Prince (1973), in the first five chapters of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. The Sacred and Profane Love Machine ('974), The Sea, the Sea ('978), The As a philosopher of literature she wrote a number of essays that Philosophers Pupil ('983), The Book and the Brotherhood ('987), The have particularly interested literary critics and theorists: "The Sublime Message to the Planet ('989), and The Green Knight ('993), She also and the Beautiful Revisited" and "Against Dryness" propose a theory published plays (most adapted from the novels) and a volume of poetry, of the novel which allowed her to divide twentieth-century novels into A Year ofBirds ('9]8, with engravings by Reynolds Stone). Meticulously the "crystalline"-the kind of novel that is "a small quasi-allegorical ob plotted, with sharp characterizations and serious themes, the novels ject portraying the human condition and not containing 'characters' in have been hailed as a major contribution to English literature of the the nineteenth-century sense--and the "joumalistic"-a "large shape second half of the twentieth century. They were written under the less quasi-documentary object, the degenerate descendant of the nine acknowledged influence of the great '9th century novelists Dickens, teenth-century novel, telling, with pale conventional characters, some George Eliot, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Henry James, and constitute straightforward story enlivened with empirical facts". Neither kind, she a sustained meditation upon dense and complex configurations ofchaos believed, addresses the problems about human personality posed by and contingency, goodn~s and evil, power, fantasy, enchantment, truth the Enlightenment. More explicidy on the relation between literature and love. and philosophy is an interview with Bryan Magee in Men ofIdeas (r9]8), Her philosophical works began with Sartre: Romantic Rationalist in which she addresses the possible relation (none, she claimed) be-
SPruNG 1999 5 tween her philosophical views and her fictions. Theory's Outstanding Publication Award for her article "The There was a conference on her work at the Divinity School of the Subjectivities of'Erbarme Dich,'" which appeared in Music AnalysiJ University of Chicago in '994 which brought together· scholars from ('997). This study of the aria from Bach's St. Matthew Passion was philosophy, literature, and theology, including Charles Taylor, Martha praised as "one of the most comprehensive accounts of how we inter Nussbaum, and Cora Diamond (the proceedings were subsequently pret and, at times, identifjr with implied subjectivities in both vocal and published as Iris Murdoch and the Search for Human Goodness, 1996). But instrumental music." Dr. Cumming also published widely on such topics the secondary literature on her is dominated by literature professors as musical metaphor, the theories of Leonard Meyer, the music of Steve and theologians. Though Nussbaum, Taylor, Diamond, and Sabina Reich, and bodily aspects of personal identity in musical performance; Lovibond have cited the influence of her essays, her magnum opus she wrote also on grief, and was interested in music therapy. She par Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals has not yet received the notice it de ticipated in numerous conferences, including a session on serves from philosophers. It is an attempt to articulate a deep unifYing postmodernism and absolutist aesthetics at the ASA meeting in basis for her thoughts on art, morality and reality, an intellectual voyage Bloomington in November 1998. Shortly before her death she com that begins with a discussion of the powers of art and of different kinds pleted her first book, The Sonic Self which is scheduled for publication of art (Chapters 1-5), continues with an investigation of the mind, of con in 2000 by Indiana University Press. sciousness, thought, will, and imagination (Chapters 6-u), and ends with Dr. Cumming was born in London in I960. She trained as a violinist an exploration ofrealities: the political, the religious, and the transcen and received her Ph.D. in music theory at the University of Melbourne dental (Chapters 12-19). Along the way are interspersed valuable ac in I987. She continued on to post-doctoral work at the University of counts ofSchopenhauer, Derrida, Wittgenstein, and Martin Buber. (She Adelaide, was awarded a Rothmans Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow was reportedly working on a book on Heidegger when her illness set in.) ship in '990-92, and held a Fulbright Fellowship at C olumbia Univer Iris Murdoch received numerous honors and awards. She was made sity in '992-93. In '994 she took up a <2.\leen Elizabeth II Research Commander of the British Empire in 1976 and Dame of the British Fellowship in the Faculty of Music at the Universiry of Melbourne, aod Empire in 1987. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the transferred to the Department of Philosophy in November 1996. She American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1982. Among her literary had arrived in Brisbane only a few days earlier, accompanied by her awards were: the J arnes T ait Black Memorial Prize, 1973; the Whitbread husband Anthony, to begin her new position when she suffered a Prize, 1974; the Booker McConnell Prize, 1978 (for which 6 of her novels sudden stroke. She died at the age of thirty-eight. A Requiem Mass had been shortlisted). She was also made a Companion of Literature was held on January I5 in Dandenong, near Melbourne. by the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and awarded the National To all who knew Naomi, her luminous intelligence and generosity Arts Club's (New York) Medal of Honor for Literature in '990. . were an inspiration. We are impoverished by her untimely passing. She She is survived by her husbaod of forty-three years, the literary critic, set an example for us all, and will be sadly missed. rl3 novelist and Oxford professor John Bayley.!:l -.,;;;0 __ -~
Naomi Helen Cumming Teaching Aesthetics Call for Submissions
Mark DeBellis The Newsletter invites papers and other materials that address aesthetics teaching.
ith sadness we report that Naomi Cumming died unex pedagogical essays pectedly of a stroke on January 6, 1999,. in Brisbane, .:. Australia. She had Just begun a new posltIon as Semor W syllabi Lecturer in Music at the University of Queensland. .:. Dr. Cumming's contributions to musical aesthetics were original and case studies profound, philosophically sharp and musically sensitive, incorporating ideas from a wide range of philosophical and critical traditions. Much reading lists and bibliographies of her work dealt with issues of musical signification, and in recent years .:. she developed a specialization in the semiotic theory of Peirce. She was discussions of individual artworks also entirely at home in contemporary philosophy of mind and psychol ogy. Those of us who were at Columbia when Naomi visited as a Fulbright Fellow recall well the intellectual life she breathed into the book, film and exhibition reviews music department, in many hours of wonderful, stimulating conversa tion; and her warmth, humor, and joy in all things musical and philo sophical. In December I998, Dr. Cumming received the Society for Music
6 ASA NEWSLETIER from across the nation and international destina the logic of interpretation, on the significance of tions. Special aesthetic features, cultural or natu cognitive science for aesthetics, on pragmatism, ral, and opportunities for links with the arts are on the relations between gender, representation, a plus. Interested parties are invited to contact and power, on artistic definition, on the relations Aesthetics the Secretary-Treasurer with their proposal for between aesthetic and ethica l questions, on dis future annual meeting sites. ability and the construction of identity, and on News the interrelated concepts of imitation, depiction, Curtis L. Carter and resemblance. And we heard sessions de From the National Office Sec retary-Treasurer voted to the work of individuals, including Emerson, Wittgenstein, Ge rhard Richter, and ses Election Results sions on new books by Stanley Cavell and Peter The Trustees and Members of the ASA welcome Kivy (the former on the Hollywood melodrama as President of the Society for a two year term of the unknown woman, the latter on the distina Noel Carroll, who succeeds Ted Cohen. Conference differences between the philosophies of the In the 1999 elections Jerrold Levinson was various arts), as well as sessions exploring too-lit elected vice president. Newly elected Trustees Reports tle examined areas in recent work: these in are Garry Hagberg, Cynthia Rostankowski and cluded multiple sessions on tragedy and aes Julie Van Camp. 1997 ASA Annual Meeting thetic issues aris ing from the theater; landscape, - fhanks to out-gOing trustees Gary Iseminger, October 29-November 1, 1997, Santa Fe, New Mexico memory, and pa inting in Asian art; and the fairly Jennifer Judkins and Tom Leddy for their guid unusual topics of the aesthetics of blood (extend ance and counsel during the past three years. It was at the 55th Annual Meeting of the ASA ing into post modern mortification and cultur that philosophers had to literally adjust to a very ally-endorsed self-mutilation) in contemporary Editor of the JAAC high altitude. Beginning with an opening recep art (some participants were at least minimally At the November 1998 meeting the ASA Trus tion at the Joshua Baier and Company Gallery prepared for this by Halloween the previous tees voted unanimously to appoint Phi l Alperson a gallery specializing in native American arts and night) and, in a different sess ion, the va rying to a second term as Editor of the Journal of Aes artifacts-the tone was set for the intersection of employments of blue (including discussions of thetics and Art Criticism, ending in 2003. Congratu cultures. During the four days of the conference Kristeva, of Keislowski's Blue, and of other chro lations are due for a job well done. The appoint a good number of themes on the borders of tra matically-inspired artistic manifestations). ment followed a review by a committee consist ditional aesthetics were explored: these in Sessions explicitly relating aesthetics to poli ing of Lydia Goehr, Hilde Hein, Joseph Margolis, cluded sessions on the artworld in cross-cultural tics were heard (including a session on and Kendall Walton. Thanks to the committee for context (including a talk by a representative of Auschwitz and eVil), and more traditional ongo its review and report to the Trustees. the Santa Cla ra pueblo); a session on the aesthet ing investigations in the field were also repre ics of outsider art (relating expression theories sented in numerous sess ions, including matters Annual Meeting to contemporary folk art, questioning the very of artistic appreciation, the aesthetics of music, The 57th Annual Meeting of the ASA will take definition of outsider art, and assessing the rela eighteenth-century aesthetics, aesthetic educa palace in Washington, DC at the Washington tions between native American crafts and Euro tion, and another installment of our ongoing So Plaza Hotel, October 27-30, 1999. Program Chair American aesthetics); and a session with the art cratic self·examination on the status and role of Stanley Bates and the Program Committee ist Judy Chicago and the critic Lucy Lippard at aesthetics in the modern academy. Members are currently selecting the papers and the Cline LewAllen Gallery. And in conjunction All in all, it was a conference in which we saw topical sessions that will comprise the meetings. with a visit to the newly-opened Georgia the many and varied participants Simultaneously John Brown of the University of Maryland is 10· O'Keeffe Museum, we heard from two leading expand the boundaries of the field, extend 'and cal arrangements chair. Information on registra Q'Keeffe scholars on her workproviding an occa deepen the more traditional or abiding issues tion will be available on the ASA web site sion for reflection on the distinction between a within aesthetics, call our collective attention to where on·line registration will be available in a painter's association with place and a painter's heretofore insufficiently examined genres and few weeks. Th e program materials will be sent evocation of place, refleaion on the relation be the questions particular to them, and respond to out to members in July. tween the representation of landscape and the manifold questions arising from the very distinc The University of Nevada-Reno, will host the representation of the body-in short, the space tive cultural location of the conference.The sense 58th Annual Meeting in Reno, Nevada in the fall between geography and physiognomy. O'Keeffe's of place and its cultural expression was only of 2000. Chris Williams will serve as Local ar art, complexly intertwined with the photography strengthened in our final session, performances rangements Chair. of Alfred Steiglitz (whose photographs of of "The Eagle;"The 8uffalo; and "The Butterfiy" by O'Keeffe can themselves be taken as one grand The Tewa Dancers from the North, a native Sites For Future Annual Meetings persona-constructing project and whose photo American dance group that has taken the indig The Trustees invite proposals for sites for future graphs themselves underscore O'Keeffe's anthro enous Southwestern aesthetic around the world. annual meetings. The 2001 meeting location will pomorphic vision of the landscape by photo Closing this session, the Tewa leader, Andy Garcia, be selected from sites in the middle section of graphically capturing the geography of the in describing his fundamental motivation to find the nation. The meeting for 2002 will be in the body), moves paint and flesh in a conceptual a viable and sustainable way of preserving his eastern sector of the nation, and the 2003 meet sense closer together, just as Steiglitz narrows culture'S artistic heritage in late twentieth-cen ing from the western sector. The requirements the gap between lens and epidermis. tury America, implicitly showed one sense in for annual meeting sites are as follows: host In But the conference was by no means focused which it is true to say that ethics and aesthetics stitution willing to help subsidize the costs of exclUSively on the themes arising from or asso are one. the meeting, a local arrangements chair from the ciated with the Southwest; we also heard far host institution, affordable housing for the reaching sessions on the role of constraint in Garry Hagberg attendees, and reasonable access by air transport creativity, on metaphor in poetic expression, on Bard College
SPRING '999 7 1998 ASA Annual Meeting but argued that unless Goehr fleshes out the dia and in the informal discussions that occur as November 4-7,1998, Bloomington, Indiana idea of the unsayable the sweep of her thesis is music is taught, rehearsed, or responded to in at risk. He invited her to say that a musical per- social and personal life_ The 56th Annual Meeting of the American Soci- formance constitutes, rather than, as she says, ex- Naomi Cummings argued that ascriptions of ety for Aesthetics took place November 4-7, presses the self, that significance is recognized in, "meaning" in music can be analytically sup 1998 on the campus of Indiana University in not, as she says, through, a performance. ported through a study of concatenations of Bloomington, Indiana. Peg Brand served as Local Lydia Goehr replied to both commentaries by signs, so long as the domain of signification is Arrangements chair, and Indiana University emphasizing her reliance on the priority of per- conceived with sufficient breadth. She illustrated proved to be a marvellous host. offering facilities formances and expressive acts to musical texts her way of grounding claims about musical and personnel for a banquet, a reception at the within musical practice. When we grasp this pri- meaning by focusing on a Bach solo violin sonata, president's house, a recital by Janos Starker, and ority correctly, then we can understand how mu- noting how it draws on and develops specific a performance of scenes from Mozart's Idomeneo, sical performances are situationally constrained historically established connotative musical de among other delights. One hundred and ninety- explorations of the possibilities of free subjectiv- vices. one persons registered for the conference. The ity. (Mary Wiseman) David Schwarz focused on the signification at following reports on many of the conference ses- Authorial Intentions. The two main speakers, taching to the development of the musical sur sions were provided by the chairs of the sessions, Saam Trivedi and Raja Halwani raised issues that face (orchestration, timbre, intensity,etc.) in Anton whose names appear after their contributions. are central to any discussion of intentionality, fol- Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra. He suggested They are, however, not responsible for additions lowing contemporary criticisms of intentionali- that this piece portrayed the shape of the expe and editing carried out by Richard Eldridge, the ty's complicity in power and the production of rience of a distinct modern subjectivity. (Jennifer Program Chair, who collated the reports. knowledge. Trivedi took up Noel Ca rroll 's discus- Judkins) Lydia Goehr's The Quest for Voice. Marc Weiner sian of the place of intentionality within a theory The Metaphysics of Fiction. In "In Fictional applauded Lyd ia Goehr's insistence on the of communication. He argued that such a focus Shoes: Mental Simulation and Fiction" Deborah -doublenes s- of musical works, i.e., their being helps us locate-actual intentionality-in ascribing Knight argued that while mental simulation both constructs of sounds and expressions of meaning to artworks. might well help us to understand others' feel what transcends the sounds, and he endorsed Halwani, on the other hand, took up issues of ings and beliefs and predia their actions, it does her account of the discursive space opened up the reception of artworks, some of which have not adequately explain our interaction with fic in the'gap'between terms such as -materiarand serious consequences, and raised issues about tional characters. Simulation fails to take into ac "transcendent,"'musical- and -extra-musical: He the moral responsibility of artists. Paul Taylor, in count what Knight later calls the "formal, criticized her, however, for attending to only one his elegant response, spoke mainly to Trivedi's narratological, stylistiC, and thematic dimensions of the pairs of terms whose joint application essay and expressed some reservations about his of fictional narratives." Knight concludes with the makes musical works double. He challenged her use of the terms ~communication· and ~conver sa- Aristotelian observation that fictional characters distinction between the political and the ideo- lion: A lively discussion followed. (Pradeep A. exist in narratives driven by "entelechial causal logical=where.J..he..po.Litical is ~ open ... regulated _DhiI19r"!L _~ _ ity."Thus they don't act freely,and this constitutes by underdetermined formal ideals, and the ideo- Nietzsche. Thomas Leddy's paper, "Nietzsche, a prime disanalogy with- everyday life. logical is closed by the content that fills out the Matriarchal Aesthetics and Defining Art," offered In "F rom Work to Text: The AnalytiC Twist,· ideals-and argued that because the poli!ical is a challenging new interpretation of the Katerina Reed-Tsocha argued that the analogy deemed superior it is imbued with content, and -Dionysian" element of Nietzschean aesthetiCS, as classifying i:xnh literature and painting as mul the distinction collapses. Musical practice, Goehr developed in The Birch of Tragedy. Leddy argued tiple arts based on their similar reprod uct ive claims, because it is a human performance is al- for an identification of -the Dionysian" and -the methods 'printing and super-xeroxing, respec ways expressive, and the what that is expressed feminine- and noted some parallels between tively) is mistaken and misleading. She maintains underdetermines the how. Couple this with Nietzschean aesthetics and recent feminist work that painting is subject to absolute multipliCity Goehr's claim that music can show what cannot on aesthetics. Philip Pothen, in his paper/ Taste resulting from exaa reptication, while multiplic be said, and Weiner's criticism is that The Quest as Character: Nietzsche Contra Kant on Disinter- ity in the literary arts is different in kind, requir for Voice is a celebration of the (discursively) in- estedness and the Judgment of the Beautiful: ing medium translatability. Reed-Tsocha pro expressible and, hence, itself an exercise in ide- presented a challenging contrast as well as posed in the end that a work's method of pro ology. comparison between Kantian and Nietzschean duction properly determines its singular or mul Garry Hagberg also approved Goehr's not re- views of aesthetic judgment, emphasizing their tiple status. (Stephanie Ross) ducing the at times antagonistic relation be- differences with regard to the "universality" of The En cylopedio of Aesthetics. Whitney Davis, tween the social and the aesthetic that sustains the latter. Sa lim Kemal took issue with the the- Susan Feagin and Gregg Horowitz provided the evolution of musical pra ctices and gives ses of both speakers in his ~ Remarks " and offered three perspectives on the new Encyclopedia of them pri macy over theory. He asked, however, some inSightful comments of his own regarding Aesthetics (Oxford, 1998), Michael Kel ly re about the nature of a musical meaning that is Nietzsche's "Kant ian ism: (Daniel Breazale) sponded, and Anita Silvers summarized and ex both autonomous and a comment on the world. Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge. panded on their views. How can pure music do this? The assumption Lawrence Kramer set forth a rationale for the Feagin noted that encyclopedias of fields of that the music-world relationship is referential work of the so-called ~new mUSicology,· with its inquiry are needed when the discipline be is as pernicious here as the assumption in the concern to articulate broadly intelligible, his tori- comes too large and varied to be compre philosophy of language that all meanIng is ref- ca lly speCific musical meanings not restricted to hended by all the professionals who practice it. erential, and the question should be answered the expression of feeling or the unfolding of But even for an encyclopedia, being compre~ by looking at actual musical practice. Is a grasp form. Critical musicology (his preferred caption) hensive is a foolish or impossible goal. Feagin of the details of the musical work sufficient to grounds musical meaning in the same cultural was pleased that the Encyclopedia makes no at show how music can show what it cannot di- and social contexts that ground the construction tempt to predigest topics but instead functions rectly say? Is something unsayable because pri- of subjectivity.The ascrrption of meaning in criti~ as an antidote to specialism by offering a broad vate? Hagberg objected on Wittgensteinian cal interpretation is continuous with the process reading of aesthetics. grounds to the thesis that meanings are private, by which music assumes meaning in mixed me- Davis observed that the Encyclopedia not only
8 ASANEWSLETIER recognizes, but indeed embraces, the heteroge of Mary upon the news that she is to be the instrumentalities. Carroll replied that mass art neity of aesthetic phenomena. By doing so, the mother of Christ: serene resignation and ap comes in many strikingly different instances, and Encyclopedia challenges philosophical aesthetics' pa lled recoil. He speculated that the different that it often requires active attention and pro traditional commitment to universality. Further, images of femininity that these represent are vokes political and moral thought. He is less in acknowledging heterogeneity provokes anxiety repeated in contemporary feminist discourse. terested in analyzing what all individual works of in traditionalists because it underscores the im Joyce Brodsky commented on both papers, mass art necessarily do in common (since they portance of cultivating an immensely diverse raising questions about essentialism that arise often do little or nothing in common) than he is scholarship. when one discusses -the feminine,- and about in describing the ontological specificities of Horowitz similarly saw the Encyclopedia as a variations of ideas of femininity dependent on mass art involved in its use of technologies of site of cultural anxiety. It breaks out of the idea historical and cultural contexts. (Carolyn reproduction and transmission. of aesthetics as a discipline and successfully es Korsmeyer) Richard Shusterman's paper wondered why capes retrograde efforts to fetishize art. It creates Beyond Structural Listening. Andrew Carroll preferred the expression "mass art" to the a geneology of the connectedness of aesthetics Dell'Antonio, Joseph Dubiel, Fred Everett Maus, more colloquial (to him) ·popular art" or "popu with cultural description, explanation and analy and Martin Rudolf Scherziger each responded to lar culture." In reply Ca rroll emphas ized the im sis. an essay of Rose Subotnik's on the importance of portance of modern mass technologies to mass Encyclopedia editor Michael Kelly replied that achieving musical understanding through at art, rather than folkishness. the Encyclopedia is probing for some kind of tending to musical surfaces, lyrics, and music as Kant and Schlegel. Daniel Arenas' paper in the identity for aesthetics. Aesthetics has been in dis cultural text, as well as to formal harmonic or session on Kant and Schlegel was entitled "Na order for some time, and the strategy of the En ganization. Dell'Antonio and Maus illustrated ture and Spirit in Kant's Theory of Genius." After cyclopedia is to bring the different perspec how this might be done by attending to pieces reviewing some of the central passages in Kant's tives-including views antithetical to aesthet of recent rock and punk music. Dubiel empha account of genius, Arenas proposed a larger role ics-into dynamic proximity. sized that what counts as musical form is a con for spirit, as bringing together imagination and Anita Silvers summarized the panellists' analy tested matter. Subotnik replied by stressing that understanding. This new role for spi rit requires ses of how (well) the Encyclopedia achieved its she has always urged a variety of modes of mu a new view of nature in Kant, whereby it is na goals-namely, to trace the genealogy of aes sical understanding, not either formal analysis or ture as spirit that -gives the rule to art." Finally, thetics so as to integrate its philosophical and style analysis alone. Arena opposed this view of genius as spirit to cultural roles, and to contribute to a discursive After Political Criticism. In the session, -After the idea of genius is irrational and unconscious. public sphere in which multiple perspectives Political Criticism?,"Tony Cascardi considered Fred Rush's paper, "Ironies:The Kantian Roots of are articulated, dialogue fostered. and common the politically transformative potential of a sen Early German Romanticism," took up an impor ground constructed. Silvers also suggested ways sus communis aestheticus, in relation to the pos tant piece of the paradox of Ka nt's influence on in which the contributions of the Encyclopedia sibility of a Habermasian discourse ethics. Dan German Romanticism. Rush provocatively ad could be given visibility and the intellectual is iel Herwitz argued that reconciliation in South dressed the difficulties involved in findi(lg both sues it raises be pursued. (Anita Silvers) Africa requires two kinds of reversal, a continuity (showing a genuine piece of Kantian Th e Presidential Address. FollOWing an el Montaignesque reversal producing uncertainty, influence on Schlegel and his generation) and egant introduction by Noel Carroll, Ted Cohen and a Hegelian reversal leading to mutual rec discontinuity (showing the genuine originality of addressed the topic -Metaphors of Personallden ognition. Marjorie Perloff criticized the trend in the Romantics vis a vis the Kanttan problematic). tification.- How does one imagine oneself to be cultural theory toward commodifying artworks His paper worked to revise the distinction be another, and how does another imagine herself and using them merely as illustrative tools of tween criticism (hence reception) and produc to be me? Cohen stressed that any successes in theory. Shane Phelan discussed the motivations tion and to rehabilitate the notion of irony, as these efforts are problematic moral achieve behind the desire to "end- political criticism and something more than merely a rhetorical device, ments, depending on senses of likeness and dif argued for a self-conscious embrace of the role and to suggest its power as a genuine alterna ference that are not well settled and that ought of power and human needs in criticism. (Eileen tive to nihilism. not to be well settled by any theory of lan John) Richard Velkley's commentary sharpened the guage or metaphor.These imaginings are explo Recital and Reflections: Janos Starker. Janos issues neatly and intensified the paradoxes and rations of the possibility and limits of relationship. Starker offered his thoughts about the role of tensions at the heart of each paper: that of nature Indiana University President Myles Brand and the cellist in shaping the musical work pre and spirit in the first case and that of criticism Local Arrangements Chair Peg Brand hosted a sented in performance. He noted that some de and productivity in the second case. The discus reception at Bryan House for the Soc iety 's mem cisions are made momentarily in the course of sion was lively and instructive. The irony of an bers following the talk. playing on a particular occasion; others arise in academic reception of the category of irony was The Female Body in Art. Angela Bolte's paper, collaboration with the composer in completing not a dismal acquiescence in formality but a "Bodies, Spectators, and Dance ~ offered a critical or revising the score. The effort is to produce as provocation to further work. (Tim Gould) perspective on ballet, emphasizing the appear musically intelligent and full presentation as The session on Artistic Autonomy and Social ance of frailty and feminine dependence on the possible of what the composer and music ask of Criticism involved the presentation of two pa part of the dancer that classic ballet roles pro the performer. Professor Starker then played pers and a lively discussion. The papers were, first, mote. Bolte expressed a preference for modern Bach's 1st Suite for Unaccompanied eel/o,G major. ·Paradoxes of Autonomy: or Why Won't the Prob dance forms in which female strength is permit Questions from the floor and a lively discussion lem of Artistic Justification Go Away?" by Casey ted more eVidence, and which depends less on followed. Haskins and, second, -Cr iticism of Art and Cul a traditionally feminine body type. Noel Carroll's Philosophy of Mass Art. Invoking ture· by Stein Haugom Olsen. The problematics John Carvalho directed our attention to the Frankfurt School analysis of mass culture, Cynthia presented by both speakers were complimen presentation of two types of femininity that ap Willett argued that Carroll was insuffiCiently at tary but never the less opposed to each other. pear in paintings of the Renaissance in -Annun tentive to mass culture as an instrument of po Haskins offered arguments to the effect that so ciations: Figuring the Ideal Female in Renais litical domination that induces docility and dis cial reductionism would never dissolve ques sance Painting." With slides of artworks familiar traction, and insufficiently attentive as well to his tions concerning the autonomy of art. Olsen con and unfamiliar, he demonstrated two expressions own role as a theorist in furthering these tended that cultural ana lysis arid social criticism
SPRING '999 9 in effect undermined the very possibility of au of the kiss in Japan: Committee on the Status of Aesthetics tonomous criticism. In a spirit of open modera This being the last session of the conference, tion, Margolis offered perceptive endorsements several participants were observed bestowing The Committee held a lunch/business meeting, and critical commentaries on both positions. The polite, European-style kisses on the cheeks of chaired by Mary Devereaux, at the 1998 Annual balanced remarks gave expression to the gen colleagues as they prepared for their journey Meeting. Committee members received copies eral reactions of the meeting's floor. Opinions home. of the 1997-98 Committee Report to the Board balanced between those who contended that Roger W. H. Savage argued that the-new· mu ofTrustees and a report by Dom Lopes on the on being in favour of social interpretations of art and sicology-a post positivistic, interpretative ap going survey of the status of aesthetics in North culture does not necessarily lead to depriving proach exemplified by Susan McClary's feminist American philosophy departments. The survey art of its autonomy and those who argued that music criticism-is indebted to Adorno's critical has now been distributed to all doctoral pro autonomous criticism is possible since the sub aesthetic theory. Savage suggested that this criti grams in philosophy as well as a representative ject-matter of art is not completely reducible to cal turn be followed by one toward sampling of undergraduate and MA programs at the social or cultural modes of explanation of any hermeneutics, Susan Hahn, in -Authenticity and public and private institutions. Response has so one epoch,The session was rich and thought Impersonality in Adorno's Aesthetic Theory" ar far been good (with over one hundred institu provoking. (Nicholas Davey). gued that lyric poetry escapes Adorno's near tions already replying). The Committee plans to Bodily Aesthetics and The Kiss. David Hoekema wholesale rejection of·affirmative· art because it present the results of the survey and a series of opened the session by describing the circum satisfies the apparently conflicting demands of recommended anions to the Society at a special stances of the 1948 publication of the first Kinsey authenticity and impersonality, a tension which session at the Washington, DC meeting. report, which combined elements of serious Adorno purposely generates. Hahn went on to The Committee also decided to move ahead scholarship, iconoclastic attack on bourgeois mo reconstruct Adorno's Hegelian-Marxist solution with plans for a future NEA summer seminar, rality, and a level of media manipulation prob for resolving the tension. possibly on the topic of the relationship be ably unequalled in academia. He also reminded In response to Savage, Tom Huhn argued for a tween aesthetics and philosophy. Also agreed attendees of the correlative exhibit of photo greater distinction between ·society· and ·social was to establish an on-line Committee mailing graphs and other images from the Kinsey collec sig nificance, '" asking whether a · hermeneutics of list. The list is now up and running. Members of tion on view in the gallery of the School of Fine new mUSicology,· as he terms it, will bring us the ASA who are interested in being added to Arts. closer to the artwork than does traditional for the CSAA-L mailing list should contact Dominic Eva Kit Wah Man offered a wide-ranging sur malist musicology. Huhn found Hahn's characteri Lopes
IO ASA NEWSLE'ITER Criticism, Theory, Scholarship should be about 10- 12 pages in length and JAAC Symposia and Special Issues take no longer than 20 minutes to read. Send Symploke is seeking submissions discussing how three copies of your submitted paper prepared The Journal welcomes proposals for special issues membership in particular social, political and for blind review. Flo Leibowitz, Department of and symposia. Symposia typically consist of three professional communities inflect reading, writing Philosophy, Oregon State University, Corvallis or four comparatively short invited papers. The and teaching practices as well as other aspects OR 97331; fax (541) 737-2571; total length of a symposium should not be much of academic performance such as canon forma email < [email protected]> longer than one and a half times the length of tion and critical methodology. Jeffrey R. Oi Leo, Deadline: December 1, 1999 an average journal article. Special issues typically Editor, Symploke, Department of English (MC involve a combination of invited papers and es 162), University of Illinois at Chicago, 601 South says selected from an open call for papers. Both Morgan Street, Chicago IL 60607-7120; fax (312) Into the New Millennium symposia and special issues are planned in coop 413 -1005; email
SPRING '999 II American Society fo r Aesthetics ~on-Profit Organizatio U.S. POSTAGE 404 Cudahy Hall PAID Marquette University MILWAUKEE WI Milwaukee WI 53201-1881 Permit No. 1664
Environmenta l Aesthetics on Innovation in Arts Education on April 16-17 in Uta h State University Philosophy Colloquium College Park, Maryland. ASA NEWSLETTER October 8-10,1999, Logan, Utah EDITED BY LYDIA GOEHR will be spending next year as a Dominic Lopes & Sarah Worth Featured Speakers: Bruce Foltz, Andrew Light, senior fellow at the Getty Institute working on a and Holmes Rolston III. Diane P. Michelfelder, book on modernist opera. She also has a IssN 1089-1668 Department Head, Department of Lan guages Guggenheim award for 2002 -3 to continue work and Philosophy, 0720 Old Main Hill, Utah State on the book entitled: The Concept of Musicality in The Newsletter is published three times a year University, Logan UT 84322-0720. ModernistOpera. by the American Society for Aesthetics. Sub I scriptions are available to non-members for MICHELLE N. MASON has been award ed a Char $15 per year plus postage. For subscription or Philosophy, Culture & the Arts lotte W. Newcombe Fellowship for the comple membership information: AS A, 404 Cudahy January 5- 12, 2000, Naples tion of her doctoral dissertation, Reasons and Vir Hall, Marquette University, M il w aukee WI tues. Michelle is a graduate student in philosophy 53201-188 1; 414-288-7831 ; fax 414-288-7889; A special conference wil l be held in January at the University of Chicago. email
Dom inic l opes 5arah Worth A ctive Indiana University Kokomo Philosophy Department Kokomo IN 46904-9003 Furm an University A estheticians Greenville Ie 29613 fax 765-455-9528 CLAIRE DETELS's book Soft Boundaries: Re < dl [email protected]>