Aims:
Profound examination and critical reflection on the relevant topics of aesthetics in general and on Benjamin’s aesthetics in particular.
Didactical Methods:
The course is structured prevalently by frontal lessons and lectures from the texts; the major themes will be items for a discussion.
Title:
«Aestheticization of politics and politicization of arts». Aura and choc in Walter Benjamin
Contents:
The first part of the course deals with different relationships between mimesis and ratio focalizing on some of the fundamental passages in history (Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Rationalism, Empirism, Baumgarten). Furthermore, even fundamental concepts of contemporary aesthetics, such as the sublime and the genius in their Kantian and Goethean form, will be examined. This will be followed by an analytical treatment of some of the motives in Benjamin’s aesthetics (poverty of experience, destruction of the aura, choc, optical unconsciousness, technics and mimesis) with the aim of individuating vital moments for the construction of a modern aesthetics, which might be able, at least partially, to give answers to the questions that characterize both the practice of arts and the reflection on it. The course will conclude by analyzing Picasso’s Guernica as an example of how the problems discussed influence painting.
The exam consists in an oral discussion with the teacher.
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