"Beauty: Looking into the Eyes of the Beholder"
Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference
November 5 & 6, 2004.
How does the concept of Beauty keep surviving in the wake of the repeated proclamations of its demise? Quite often at odds with many currents in literary and art criticism as well as artists' visions of art, it offers itself as a very controversial subject in a number of works, most recently Wendy Steiner's Venus in Exile, Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just, and Geremy Gilbert-Rolfe's Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime. The ensuing debate raises numerous questions: How do we approach a work of art? What criteria do we devise and how do we respond to art? How have approaches to aesthetics changed over time and what are the determining factors for these changes? How do social and political institutions generate aesthetic theories? In what way can aesthetic theories resist/change social paradigms? In this two day event we will revisit the debate over Beauty in different historical periods. Expecting submissions from students in a variety of fields (art history, literature, philosophy, music, film, architecture), the list of subjects is open to your proposals:
- Sublime
- belles-lettres
- Plotinus and Plato
- Apollo and Dionysus
- aesthetization of crime
- criminality of art
- Orpheus
- Kant
- subversion of Beauty in popular culture
- English Gothic Novel
- Plastic Surgery
- Art of Love
- Love of Art
- Decadence
- Narcissism
- Grotesque
- Fashion
- kitsch
- idyll
- beautification projects
The proposals (up to 300 words) for panels and 20 minute presentations should be forwarded to Alexander Moudrov at the e-mail addresses given below. We acknowledge the receipt of proposals within two-three days. If the presenter so desires, it can be accompanied by a complete essay. The submissions should be received by September 26, 2004, although we encourage you to send your proposal earlier. We are continuously reviewing the submissions to form appropriate panels.
You will be notified whether your proposal has been accepted no later than September 30, and we would like to hear from the accepted applicants no later than October 7. The program list will be posted promptly after that. There is no regisration fee and the conference is free to attend.
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