October 19, 20, 26, 27, 2007

Led by John Baldacchino & Matt Carlin

This is a course of study that continues in the footsteps of Walter Benjamin’s struggle against fascism’s aesthetization of politics — proposing instead the politicisation of the aesthetic. More than that, this course takes on the responsibility of aesthetics to radicalise and effect change in (and by) education. Ultimately we want to arrive at what Augusto Boal calls ‘the poetics of the oppressed’ which he defines as ‘the conquest of the means of theatrical production’. By a radical aesthetics we therefore mean the conquest of the means of aesthetic production — or better still, the de-production of the aesthetic. In the pedagogical sphere this would also mean the unlearning and thereby the dereification of the arts.

Teachers College, Columbia University provides continuing education credit for this course. See registration form for details.