Presidential Lectures: Discussion Questions

THE QUESTIONS

NEW QUESTION

New discussion: Culture? (April 6, 1999)

Traditionally, the humanities have been seen as a cluster of academic disciplines whose task it is to analyze and to teach what we call (quite vaguely) "Culture." But does or should this concept of "Culture" include the humanities themselves?

If so, do the humanitites occupy the same level of canonization and dignification as do the objects that they analyze and teach?

Finally, would you be willing to define an academic lecture as a "Cultural Event" in its own right?

0 responses to these questions.

CONTINUING DEBATES

Aesthetic Experience: Questions inspired by the lecture of Karl Heinz Bohrer (November, 1998):

I. Do you believe that there is a tension between academic teaching and aesthetic experience? If so, what do you think are the reasons for this tension, and should one try to overcome it? If you believe that the academic institution should indeed try to overcome an existing tension with aesthetic experience, what would be appropriate strategies to solve this problem?

II. Independent of its relation with the academic institution, do you think that aesthetic experience should be purely hedonistic, i.e. completely centered upon the enjoyment of its own potential? Or should it always be combined with/subordinated to other goals which, in and by themselves, do not belong to the dimension of the aesthetics, such as "ethics" or "politics"?

III. Do you believe that economic success corrupts the artist? Is a (however indirect) economic relationship between the artist and the consumers of his/her works a problem for aesthetic experience?

9 responses to these questions.

No More Arts? Should the Arts (the practice of music, drama, painting etc.) continue to be a part of the academic institution?

12 responses to this question

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