Aesthetics and Artistic Studies - 1st semester
Code
722031091
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Filosofia
Credits
10
Teacher in charge
João Pardana Constâncio
Weekly hours
3 letivas + 1 tutorial
Teaching language
Objectives
1) To acquire advanced critical knowledge of the fundamental problems of Aesthetics and Artistic Studies.
2) To acquire advanced critical knowledge of how certain fundamental problems of Aesthetics and Artistic
Studies fit into the philosophical tradition.
3) To acquire the capacity to reflect on the relationship between the history of Aesthetics and the history of Art
and Culture.
4) To understand the relevance of the philosophical tradition for the understanding of contemporary issues of art
and artistic practices.
Prerequisites
Subject matter
The course consists in a reflection on art and subjecitivity, particularly on modern art as a mirror of the modern
project as a universalist project of selfdetermination (or emancipation) of an individual and collective subject.
The point of departure of this reflection are the plastic arts, but the reflection is aferwards extended to the other
arts. The reflection on art and subjectivity in modernism also leads to the discussion of whether contemporary
art is postmodern and belongs to an age of death of the sibject. The course will show that the terms of this
whole debate cannot be understood without the study of the history of Aesthetics, especially of such authors as
Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Thus the course discusses fundamental issues of the history of
Aesthetics: Hegel and the end of art; Nietzsche and the relation between art and nihilism; Heidegger and the
relation between art and technology in modernity; the critique of mimesis.
Bibliography
CLARK, T.J., The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1999 (revised edition)
CLARK, T.J., Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism, New Haven and London, Yale
University Press, 1999,
CONSTÂNCIO, J., Arte e niilismo: Nietzsche e o enigma do mundo, Lisboa, tintadachina, 2013
CONSTÂNCIO, J.,/ BRANCO, M.,/ RYAN, B., Nietzsche and the Problem of Subjectivity, Berlin/ Boston, De
Gruyter, 2015
CONSTÂNCIO, J.,/ BRANCO, M.,/ MARTON, S. (Org.), Sujeito, décadence, arte: Nietzsche e a modernidade,
Lisboa, tintadachina, 2014
HARVEY, David, The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford, Blackwell, 1990
PIPPIN, Robert B., Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, Second Edition, Oxford, Blackwell, 1999
PIPPIN, Robert B., After de Beautiful: Hegel and the Philosophy of Pictorial Modernism, Chicago and London,
University of Chicago Press, 2014
Teaching method
(a) most classes are dialogued lectures, (b) several of them work as a \"seminar\" (with reading, commentary,
and analyses of texts), (c) other classes (socalled \"practical\" classes) consist in critical discussions with
the students of previously presented themes and problems.
Within the context of a protocol signed with the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, the philosophical analyses of
works of art will fundamentally focus on examples from the collections of the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian and
the Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM). Maria João Branco will teach a set of classes on keyworks of the CAM and
their relevance for the courses themes.
Evaluation method
(d) students are evaluated by a mandatory 12 pages essay (60%); (e)
students are also evaluated by an oral presentation of their essay (20%); (f) a positive participation in the
classes is valued (20%).