Burke

Let me just preface this by saying that I still haven't gotten a hold of Shusterman-- stupid half.com/ Amazon keeps canceling my orders. Sigh.

In A Rhetoric of Motives, Burke calls on classical interpretations of rhetoric to explore its ethical implications. He writes that considering rhetoric as connected to persuasion (and other offices) helps us to refigure its purpose in ethical discussions. In CounterStatement, Burke creates a taxonomy based on form (which he argues in the Preface is against prevailing trends) to show the interrelation of rhetoric and aesthetics. Underlying both of these pieces, I think, is the idea that the body and mind are not separate, but intimately connected -- especially when responding to form.

Burke's writing style is another breath of fresh air. While still academic, the "we" and "you" is not only interesting, but a move toward establishing a connection with his audience. A famous rhetorician, Burke assumes knowledge of rhetoric and classical texts, but at the same time, I think, tries to offer his readers this vast knowledge as well. I think his project focuses on the relevance of rhetoric to contemporary times (around 1940s) and suggests that rhetoric has connections to the present, even if we might not think it does.

I'm wondering about Burke's discussion of form and how it maps onto aesthetics. I kept thinking of Baumgarten as I read this. How does rhetoric mirror, or align with, aesthetics? Let me explain that a bit. When Burke talks about form, he's focusing on poetry and drama (Aristotle, anyone?) and suggests that bodies respond to rhythms in particular ways. These are ideas that the sophists toyed with, of course. Clearly, from this, we can see how questions of the body do come up again in discussions of aesthetics. So, are rhetoric and aesthetics actually more aligned than we think? (Note: this idea is something I've been toying with after the activity Anne asked us to do in class where we mapped out our own questions).

It's interesting, though, that Burke brings these discussions up as a "counter-statement." Who, exactly, is he "countering"? And why?

Finally, I'd like to talk more about the question of motive -- since it seems to me that it's not quite "intent" but something more than that.

Steiner

Wendy Steiner's Venus in Exile traces the elusive beauty through the female form, the avant-garde, and history. Steiner attempts to answer why beauty dropped out of vogue, so to speak, and why its recent reappearance occurred. Finally, Steiner argues that beauty is important for social and political reasons.

This is the first text written by a woman, and a woman academic whose work usually tries to be accessible. (I've read brief stuff by her in the past, taken, I think from her last book). Steiner assumes a variety of knowledges, though she makes them quite accessible to her reader. Her writing is clearer than most texts we've read, and though she uses an academic register for the most part, I think her book reaches across academic boundaries somewhat. She assumes that her audience cares about art, and knows that beauty has been "exiled," if you will. This audience is likely hoping for beauty's victorious return, though without all the baggage it has carried. Thus, Steiner's book offers hope for those of us who want to give beauty its due.

I'm interested in the focused attention Steiner gives to works of art, performances, and literature. In fact, I saw the literature chapter as a bit out of place -- though I get her point. It was quite refreshing to read some critical analyses of actual pieces, if only because it gave me something concrete to think about (and sometimes look at). As I write this, I wonder why it was important to Steiner to closely read these works, especially since so much has been done that theorize art more abstractly. Is this part of her project, then? (To closely read art objects so that we can better understand them?)

The previous question also leads me to wonder about the form of the book. That is, why have the images as an insert in the middle -- which, at times, I found annoying to have to flip back. Why not have a layout that showed the image next to the text? Surely, this technology could be done at the time, as the book was quite recent. What, then, motivates the choice to include images as peripheral, in a book about art and beauty?

For the sake of argument, I'm interested in what Steiner's version of aesthetics looks like. For me, at least, it was hard to pin down, since it seemed that she was searching more for the elusive beauty, than to craft a theory about aesthetics and what all that means. It's quite difficult, however, to do one without the other. So, what are Steiner's aesthetics? And what's at stake for her?

Stuff I Want to Read

Inspired by my prelim lists coming up, here's a brief list of things I want to read.

Culture and the Arts in Education
Teaching for Aesthetic Experience
Picture Theory W.J.T. Mitchell
Embodied Literacies: Imageword and a Poetics...
Teaching Visual Culture: Curriculum, Aesthetics, and the Social Life of Art
Visual Rhetoric in a Digital World
Art in Mind Ernst Van Alphen
Aesthetic Experience eds Richard Shusterman and Adele Tomlin
Reflections Walter Benjamin
Mythologies Roland Barthes
Breaking Up At Totality D.Diane Davis
Image-Music-Text Barthes


...and around three hundred more...

Ranciere

In a series of interviews, Jacques Ranciere links aesthetics with history, politics, work, and subjectivity. He calls aesthetics "the regime of aesthetics" to separate it from art and ideology, and to expose how it has developed as a mode of thought. As I understand it, Ranciere's point about aesthetics can be summed up as contingency; that is, as historical discourses change, so does aesthetics.

Ranciere assumes knowledge of his own previous works and ideas (since these are interviews and his interlocutor is familiar with them). In addition, he assumes savvy with current issues and conversations regarding aesthetics, history, literature, and politics, in particular --as well as with theorists like Kant, Schiller,Marx, Hegel, and Schelling. It seems that Ranciere values the aesthetic as a category, and he definitely sees the potential of art in forming change in society. His main contribution, in my view, is how Ranciere reframes discussions of form and content within the historical and political "regimes."

That said, I'm not entirely clear on whether Ranciere is arguing for the separation of form and content, or that they are linked in certain circumstances. When he discusses film, for example, he seems to suggest that we need to pay attention to the relationship between form and content, especially if we're going to understand how it operates in terms of power. Can we clarify this in class?

I'd also like to discuss how Ranciere conceives of the commonplace and anonymous. He suggests that when we have an anonymous or commonplace figure, we find beauty in it. But he doesn't say clearly (for me!) how this happens and why.

It seems interesting that both Bourriaud and Ranciere discuss the avant garde, though Ranciere's discussion appears more peripheral. Why the avant-garde, then (aside from its historical relevance?) How did the avant garde force such a widespread change in aesthetics and art?

Finally, I'm also interested in Ranciere's notion of "collective bodies." That totally went over my head!

I liked the allusion to Chris Marker (a favorite director of mine), and when Ranciere discusses technological reproduction, I couldn't help but think about Harun Farocki. Sigh. I miss visual studies sometimes.

Bourriaud's _Relational Aesthetics_

Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics introduces, via a series of essays, how modern art reframes aesthetic theories. According to Bourriaud, the aesthetic experience of modern art is relational, emphasizing the relationships among people in particular spaces. At the heart of this book lies the hope for a better society, achieved through art that allows people to carry its critiques into everyday life.

I think Bourriaud is rather clear; he assumes that his audience has knowledge of art (modern art in particular), aesthetic theory, and a wide range of contemporary artists. He also seems to assume that his readers will recognize those artists he discusses -- yet I, for one, had only heard of Duchamp and Breton. It seems as if Bourriaud is trying to save modern art from its critics, especially when he discusses specific exhibits or reframes traditional concepts. I got the sense that he was trying, as well, to reanimate the Marxist understanding of aesthetics' utopian vision (though he seemed more in line with Adorno). At times Bourriaud is critical of the utopian vision, while at others he seems to endorse it.

This leads to one of my main questions regarding this book: I know that these essays were published in a magazine (journal?), and so they were not written to be collected, as far as I know. Therefore, I can understand some slippages or gray areas in the argument. But if it's the case that Bourriaud is actually ambiguous on whether art can promise a utopian vision, then how does he think it can happen? I saw a lot of influences of deCerteau in Bourriaud; so would Bourriaud's theory mesh Adorno and deCerteau?

I'm also confused about Bourriaud's discussion of Felix Guattari -- I'm not up on him as much as I'd like to be. It seemed that Bourriaud was lauding Guattari for introducing a theory of aesthetics that accounts for contemporary theory and allows us to have our cake and eat it too.

Which is yet another question: Does Bourriaud want us to have beauty at all? Put another way, can we have our cake and eat it? Or, has beauty gone by the wayside in favor of relational aesthetics' form?

I loved this book, surprisingly. I am trying to work out how it could be used to think about invention. (Anyone surprised? Didn't think so...)

Meditation on Class; Or, Notes from the Other Side

What I've come to call the "academic trifecta" -- race, class, and gender -- has been pervading almost all aspects of my life lately, and I'm not sure why. Ever since I got to graduate school in August 2005, I've felt a certain unease with the pervasiveness of such questions at the expense of others. I'm not saying, and I've never said, that the academy shouldn't be a place for everyone. But I feel like I have to qualify my statements -- as I just did -- because of what people think they know about me. To put it another way, I suspect people think that I'm "putting on" my liberalism. They believe, for reasons unbeknownst to me, that I can't possibly be a true liberal because I've had a life of privilege. And as we all know, rich people can't possibly be Democrats (even though my grandparents and parents have been their whole lives; and I wouldn't exactly call my parents "rich," either). They think that money comes out of the vents at my apartment (if that can happen, please turn the switch on). And, they think that because I don't write about r/c/g that somehow, I'm faking my liberalism.

Perhaps I am. I do feel that often, I've had to conform to the paradigms of race/class/gender when discussing texts or conceiving projects. It's almost as if being working class has become "cool," at least in the academy. I have chosen not to become an academic feminist for several reasons (and this choice was made quite a few years ago) and I don't feel I should have to be one. (Yes, you heard me correctly. That "not" in there is intentional). Nor do I believe that I ought to be obligated to always consider race/class/gender in every project. Again, a qualifier: I do believe that these things are useful to think and write about. But I've got very little to say about any of them.

And maybe I've got little to say about them because my class position has effectively been silenced. Now, you all are probably going to think this is whiny and smacks of unawareness of the truly privileged position I occupy, which goes along with the equally privileged life I have had. And that statement alone should alert you to the fact that I am, indeed, quite aware. Nonetheless, I feel that my voice isn't heard, because it's become (somehow) "not critical enough." One example among many: I was giving a paper at a grad student conference where I performed a close reading of Thackeray's Vanity Fair. This close reading was intended to demonstrate how the structure of the novel and its main characters, were both working with and against accepted social ideas. After I was finished reading, many audience members seemed dissatisfied. Their comments for me went along these lines: "But, Sarah, what about Becky Sharp's racism? What about gender?" And my personal favorite: "I haven't read the novel, and I'm not familiar with Victorian novels in general, but I really think you elided some crucial issues at work here." When I asked this person to elaborate, the reply came: "Well, you didn't talk about feminism or how gender was restrictive in the period." (The last time I checked, you had to read a book before you talked about it).

I remember this so vividly because it was my first -- and, by far, not the last -- experience with this kind of comment. Do I have an obligation to always consider the trifecta in every analysis? Further, must I conform to beliefs I don't hold or pretend to engage with things I don't see? And must I succumb to the machine that has essentially erased my views because they're "not critical enough"? (This viewpoint, I think, comes from my class position).

How are we silencing others by not allowing all voices to be heard? Isn't this what we say we are doing? My position, and in many cases, my voice, has been erased or dismissed because it comes from this mythical land of privilege. Just because my dad used to be a CIO of a company doesn't mean he slashed his fellow colleagues' benefits and dreamed up money-laundering schemes to line his pockets. I think, if you went through his pockets, you'd find some loose change, a gum wrapper, and a Swiss-Army knife. And maybe a mint or two. Definitely not money. And this was his choice. He chose to spend the money he earned/earns on my college education (and my sister's), which, I might add, he financed by borrowing against the mortgage he had already taken out on our house. People have told me, when I say this, that he could do this because of "class."

I respectfully disagree. He did this because he chose to do so. Now, I recognize that not everyone has the opportunity to make these choices -- and I lament that fact. I dream of the day when no one has to choose between sending their children to college or paying the rent. Or health care bills, etc. But on the other hand, how are we essentially invalidating the hard work my father (for one) put in, and continues to put in, every day, to make that possible? My father borrowed against the already ridiculous mortgage knowing he'd have to work for at least ten years beyond retirement age, and I've never once seen him complain.

Regardless, is my father's hard work and my mother's unremitting sacrifice to her family and their well-being no longer valid because they emerge from a position of privilege? And I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but my parents didn't always have this position -- things weren't handed to them on silver platters. My father's first job after college was essentially crunching numbers and grunt work in NYC. My mother put herself through college by working two jobs (waitress and sales clerk) --- and no, she didn't have a spacious apartment, either. Yes, they're white and therefore not subject to the racism that unfortunately pervades America. But no one, knowing my mother's story in particular, would say she came from a place of privilege.

As I've written this I realize that I, too, have succumbed -- I've played up the "working class values" of my family in order to demonstrate my membership in this elite club. I feel hypocritical; I never set out to do this. All I set out to do in this post was to question the obligation to a project of r/c/g, and to show that my voice has been essentially erased as uncritical, unenlightened, and just plain wrong, all because of my background. Isn't that what we're trying to work against?

Please, dear readers, do not take this as my attempt at a sob story, aligning myself with the truly disenfranchised. I recognize all too well that I'm extraordinarily privileged and lucky. But I do think it's worth reexamining how we're silencing the voices that come to the table.

Terry Eagleton's _The Ideology of the Aesthetic_

Eagleton's The Ideology of the Aesthetic wants to refigure aesthetics as a dialectical, ambiguous discourse. He stresses both the liberating power and the oppressive power of aesthetics; indeed, for Eagleton, aesthetics links up with important questions related to history, politics, and ethics, but deployed in bourgeois society aesthetics can destroy ideals.

Eagleton definitely assumes vast knowledge of aesthetics, Marxism, literature, and academic texts. He also assumes that the reader has some familiarity with German aesthetics/philosophy, and their influence in shaping Western culture. I would argue that Eagleton expects his audience to be aware that aesthetics has been misinterpreted and misread; hence, his attempt to reroute it back on track. He believes, and rightly so I would say, that his work will reinvigorate the dialectic.

What interests me the most in these chapters we've read are two things: First, Eagleton's notion that aesthetics must be understood in terms of the dialectic. I admire that he is trying to understand how the apparent "misreading" happened (like Williams and Marcuse, too), and I don't think we should forget how complex the aesthetic can be. The second thing that interests me, however, is Eagleton's dismissal and critique of postmodernism. Now, I am definitely not an expert on postmodernism -- and particularly not on Jameson, Lyotard, and the others Eagleton mentions. I would not even suggest that Eagleton has misread these postmodernists; I don't think he has. But I wonder how we might reconcile the concerns of postmodernism (that, as I understand them generally, want to destabilize the status quo) with Marxist dialectics. Yes, postmodern wants to smash binaries (is this the same as dialecticism?), but it wants to do so because binaries are a vestige -- and, undoubtedly, a huge part -- of bourgeois classism. So aren't these theoretical projects two sides of the same coin?

As I've been reading these last few weeks, I'm intrigued with the connection of aesthetics to ethics. Not because it surprises me (historically or otherwise) but because I think it might be interesting to read someone who does not align the two. How much does our belief that aesthetics must align with ethics compartmentalize or thwart its potential excesses? Another lame question: Can't we just enjoy something? ;) (I know, I know, I know...)