Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture
PIC

PIC 604G/Phil 604G/480J/COLI 608E/ARTH 504B
Spring 2005 -- Wednesday 3:30-6:30

The World as Image

Stephen David Ross

SYLLABUS

the world is . . . an aesthetic phenomenon (Nietzsche)
the image . . . does not resemble . . . (Blanchot)

The image, with its likenesses--the imagination, the imaginary, and mimesis--presents a recurrent theme through which human beings express themselves and understand themselves and the world. Many of these understandings have been disparaging, yet the image returns, affirmatively and radiantly. Images--visual, sonorous, performative, linguistic, bodily, etc.; also artistic, commercial, fashionable, ornamental, private, public, everyday, etc.--pervade the world, especially in an advertising, consumer, and technological culture, but also as expressions of wonder and abundance. This course will explore the production, proliferation, and expression of images of all kinds, together with reflections on them, again of all kinds. Materials will be drawn from philosophy and religion, east and west, north and south, arts and aesthetics, cultural studies and feminism. Approximately half the course will be concerned with traditional images around the world and how they are understood. The other half will be concerned with contemporary images--advertising, consumer, technological, everyday images, etc.

Students are responsible for 15-minute presentations initiating small group discussions, raising questions rather than supporting theses. At least one such presentation is required at each discussion. Students are also responsible for 30-minute presentations at a class miniconference at the end of the semester.

Each presentation is to employ and present images from the following sensory or expressive modalities and media: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell; painting, sculpture, music, drama, dance, film, photography, dress, body ornamentation; images, sounds, aromas, textures; etc. etc.

Readings/authors such as: Blanchot, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Plato, Goodman, Foucault, Spinoza, Whitehead, Bergson, Bachelard, Lyotard, Deleuze, Guattari; plus topics such as: wonder, consumer aesthetics, comics, appearance, dress, law, simulation, bourgeois art and aesthetics, eating, consumption; abundance: quantum aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, Buddhism, feminist aesthetics, performativity, domestic aesthetics, eating, urban aesthetics, culture, borderlands, african/african american art, zen; giving, for-giving.

Provisional Schedule
of Images

The materials and practices of the course mirror its content, it swarms with images of all kinds and from all over: sight, smell, sound, touch, word, etc.; african, asian, australian, north american, south american, etc.; artistic, contemporary, everyday, historical, household, philosophical, etc.; advertising, dress, consumer, comics, fashion, food, industrial, etc.; books, galleries, magazines, movies, museums, television; in the streets, on the buildings, in the mirrors, etc. etc. The list of books here is another swarm of images, some worth lingering over, some too brief to dwell upon. The readings listed below are too much, too many--like images--to become attached to. (And attachment is a subject to be explored in the course.) Everyone in the course may decide--and even not decide--what to become attached to and detached from, which images to proliferate and how. The books (and images) I wish to proliferate and linger over are indicated in bold.

1/26 Preliminaries

Bennett, Lerone, Jr. The Challenge of Blackness [CB]. Chicago: Johnson Publishing Co., 1972.
Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, The Work of Mourning, and the New International [SM]. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Int. Bernd Magnus and Stephen Cullenberg. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic [IA]. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
Harris, Daniel. Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism [CQHR]. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Heidegger, Martin. "The Age of the World Picture" [AWP]. In Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
-----. Basic Writings [BW]. Ed. David Farrell Krell. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
-----. "The Origin of the Work of Art" [OWA]. Reprinted in part in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance. In Poetry, Language, Thought.
-----. Poetry, Language, Thought [PLT]. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
-----. "The Question Concerning Technology" [QT]. In Basic Writings.
-----. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays [QTOE]. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Hyde, Lewis. The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property [G]. New York: Random House, 1979.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Birth of Tragedy [BT]. In Basic Writings. Reprinted in part in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance.
-----. Basic Writings of Nietzsche [BWN]. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, Modern Library Giant, 1968.

2/2-9 World Image

Binswanger, Ludwig. "Dream and Existence" [DE]. In Hoeller, ed., Dream and Existence.
Blanchot, Maurice. The Space of Literature [SL]. Trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Translation of espace littéraire [el]. Paris: Gallimard, 1955.
-----. The Step Not Beyond [SNB]. Trans. and Int. Lycette Nelson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992. Translation of Le Pas Au-Delà.
-----. "Two Versions of the Imaginary [TVI]. In Space of Literature.
Derrida, Jacques. The Politics of Friendship [PF]. Trans. George Collins. London: Verso, 1997.
Foucault, Michel. "Dream, Imagination, and Existence" [DIE]. In Hoeller, ed., Dream and Existence.
-----. "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" [NGH]. In Language, Counter-memory, Practice.
-----. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences [OT]. New York: Vintage, 1973.
Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols [LA]. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976.
-----. Ways of Worldmaking [WW]. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978.
-----. "What is Art" [WA?]. In Ways of Worldmaking.
Plato. The Collected Dialogues of Plato [CDP]. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. All texts from Plato are from this edition unless otherwise indicated.
-----. Republic, Timaeus, Phaedrus, Philebus, Sophist

2/16-23 Body Image

Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory [MM]. Trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1911.
Spinoza, Benedict de. Collected Works of Spinoza [CWS], vol. 1. 2nd printing with corr. Ed. and trans. Edwin Curley. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
-----. Ethics [E]. In Collected Works, vol. I.
-----. Ethics [EG]. Trans. William Hale White. Rev. Amelia Hutchinson Stirling. Ed. and int. James Gutmann. New York: Hafner, 1949.
-----. Ethics and Selected Letters [ESL]. Trans. Samuel Shirley. Ed. and Int. Seymour Feldman. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1982.
-----. A Theologico-Political Treatise [TPT] and A Political Treatise [PT]. trans. and int. R. H. M. Elwes. New York: Dover, 1951.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [TLP]. Trans. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality [PR]. Corrected edition. Ed. D. R. Griffin and D. W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.

3/2 Art

Blake, William. The Complete Poetry of William Blake. In The Complete Poetry of John Donne and the Complete Poetry of William Blake [JDWB]. New York: Random House, 1941.
Griffin, Susan. Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her [WN]. New York: Harper & Row, 1978.
Hegel, G. W. F. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art [A]. Trans. T. M. Knox. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. Introduction reprinted in part in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance as "Philosophy of Fine Art" [PFA].
-----. The Phenomenology of Mind [PM]. Trans. and int. James Baillie. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1910.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment [CJ]. Trans. J. H. Bernard. New York: Hafner, 1951. Translation of Kritik der Urteilskraft. In Kritik der Urteilskraft und Schriften zur Naturphilosophie. Wiesbaden: Insel-Verlag Zweigstelle, 1957.
----. Critique of Pure Reason [CPR]. Trans. J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Buffalo: Prometheus, 1990. Trans. Norman Kemp Smith [CPR (NKS)]. New York: St. Martin's, 1956. Translation of Kritik der reinen Vernunft [KRV]. 2 Band. Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, 1936.6
-----. Observations on the Beautiful and the Sublime [OBS]. Trans. John T. Goldthwait. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von. The Ages of the World [AW], Fragment from the Third Version. Trans. and int. Jason M. Wirth. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2000.
-----. The Ages of the World [AWB], Trans. and int. Frederick deWolfe Bolman, Jr. New York: AMS Press, 1967.
-----. Philosophy of Art [PA]. Trans. and ed. Douglas W. Stott. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
-----. System of Transcendental Idealism [STI]. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1978.

3/9 Masks

Bachelard, Gaston. The Psychoanalysis of Fire [PF]. Trans. Alan C. M. Ross. Pref. Northrop Frye. Boston: Beacon, 1964.
Bergson, Henri. Laughter [L]. In Sypher. Comedy.
Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, The Work of Mourning, and the New International [SM]. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Int. Bernd Magnus and Stephen Cullenberg. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Heidegger, Martin. "The Origin of the Work of Art" [OWA]. Reprinted in part in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance. In Poetry, Language, Thought.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment [CJ]. Trans. J. H. Bernard. New York: Hafner, 1951. Translation of Kritik der Urteilskraft. In Kritik der Urteilskraft und Schriften zur Naturphilosophie. Wiesbaden: Insel-Verlag Zweigstelle, 1957.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. "Attempt at a Self-Criticism" [ASC]. In Basic Writings. Reprinted in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance.
-----. Basic Writings of Nietzsche [BWN]. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, Modern Library Giant, 1968.
-----. Birth of Tragedy [BT]. In Basic Writings. Reprinted in part in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. 2 Vols. Trans. E. F. J. Payne. New York: Dover, 1968.
[Deleuze, Hegel, Levinas, Nâgârjuna]

3/16 Calling Images

Deleuze, Gilles. Différence and Répétition [DR]. Trans. Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Translation of Difference et repetition. Paris: P.U.F., 1968.
Heidegger, Martin. "The Age of the World Picture" [AWP]. In Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays.
-----. "The Origin of the Work of Art" [OWA]. Reprinted in part in Ross, ed., Art and Its Significance. In Poetry, Language, Thought.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. Le Différend [D]. Paris: Minuit, 1983.
-----. The Differend: Phrases in Dispute [DPD]. Trans. Georges Van Den Abbeele. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche [PN]. Ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1954.
-----. Thus Spake Zarathustra [Z]. In Portable Nietzsche.
[Derrida, Nancy, Plotinus]

3/19-28 break

3/30-4/6 Wonder

[wonder, consumer aesthetics, comics, appearance, dress, law, simulation, bourgeois art and aesthetics, eating, consumption]
Baudrillard, Jean. "Consumer Society" [CS]. In Selected Writings.
-----. Simulacra and Simulations [SS]. Trans. Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
-----. Simulations [S]. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton. and Philip Beitchman. Semiotexte.
Carrier, David. The Aesthetics of Comics [AC]. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2000.
Derrida, Jacques. "'Eating Well,' or the Calculation of the Subject" [EW]. Trans. Peter Connor and Avital Ronell. In Points.
Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic [IA]. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature [SCW]. New York: Routledge, 1991.
Harris, Daniel. Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism [CQHR]. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Lingis, Alphonso. "Appetite" [A]. In Scapp, ed. Eating Culture.
-----. Foreign Bodies [FB]. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Naukkarinen, Ossi. Aesthetics of the Unavoidable: Aesthetic Variations in Human Appearance [AU]. Saarijarvi: Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy, 1998.
Manderson, Desmond. Songs Without Music: Aesthetic Dimensions of Law and Justice [SWM]. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
Roach-Higgins, Mary Ellen, Joanne B. Eicher, and Kim K. P. Johnson, eds. Dress and Identity [DI]. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1995.
Scapp, Ron, and Brian Seitz, eds. Eating Culture [EC]. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
[Plato, Descartes, Heidegger, Irigaray]

4/13-20 Abundance

[abundance: quantum aesthetics, everyday aesthetics, Buddhism, feminist aesthetics, performativity, domestic aesthetics, eating, urban aesthetics, culture, borderlands, african/african american art, zen]
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza [BF]. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999.
Armstrong, Isobel. The Radical Aesthetic [RA]. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.
Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy [AS]. Trans. Richard Hurley. 2 vols. New York: Zone Books, 1988 and 1993. Translation of La Part maudite, L'Histoire de l'érotisme, and La Souveraineté (Consumption [1]; The History of Eroticism [2]; Sovereignty [3]). In Georges Bataille, Oeuvres Completes. Paris: Gallimard, 1976.
Buddhism (C): Dogen, Gard, Hisamatsu, Nagarjuna, Rosemont, Stambaugh, Suzuki
Caro, Manuel J., and John W. Murphy. The World of Quantum Culture [WQC]. Westport, CN: Praeger, 2002.
Derrida, Jacques. Of Hospitality [OH]. Trans. Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000. Translation of De l'hospitalité: Anne Dufourmantelle invite Jacques Derrida à répondre. Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1997.
-----. The Politics of Friendship [PF]. Trans. George Collins. London: Verso, 1997.
Dion, Mark, and Alexis Rockman, eds. Concrete Jungle: A Pop Media Investigation of Death and Survival in Urban Ecosystems [CJ]. Juno Books, 1996.
Felski, Rita. Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change [BFA]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Press, 1989.
-----. Felski, Rita, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture [DT]. New York: New York University Press, 1956.
-----. Why Feminism Doesn't Need an Aesthetic (and Why it Can't Ignore Aesthetics). In Doing Time.
Hatcher, Evelyn Payne. Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art [AC]. 2nd ed. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1999.
McCracken, Janet. Taste and the Household: The Domestic Aesthetic and Moral Reasoning [TH]. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Mignolo, Walter D. Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking [LH]. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000
Roach-Higgins, Mary Ellen, Joanne B. Eicher, and Kim K. P. Johnson, eds. Dress and Identity [DI]. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1995.
Scapp, Ron, and Brian Seitz, eds. Eating Culture [EC]. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Suzuki, Daisetz T. The Essence of Buddhism [EB]. Kyoto: Bunko, 1948.
-----. Zen and Japanese Culture [ZJC]. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Trinh, T. Minh-ha. "An Acoustic Journey" [AJ]. In Welchman, ed., Rethinking Borders.
Trippi, Laura. "Untitled Artists' Projects by Janine Antoni, Ben Kinmont, Rirkrit Tiravanija" [UAP]. In Scapp and Seitz, eds., Eating Culture.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. Passing Strange and Wonderful: Aesthetics, Nature, and Culture [PSW]. New York: Kodansha America, 1995.
Welchman, John C. Rethinking Borders [RB]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Young, Bernard, ed. Art, Culture, and Ethnicity [ACE]. Reston, VA: National ARt Education Association, 1990.
[Irigaray, Wittig]

4/27-5/4 For-giving

Derrida, Jacques. Given Time [GT]. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Guattari, Félix. Chaosmosis: an Ethico-aesthetic Paradigm [C]. Trans. Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995.
-----. The Three Ecologies [TE]. Trans. Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton. London: The Athlone Press, 2000.
Vaughan, Genevieve. For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange [F-G]. Austin, TX: Plain View Press, 1997.