Philosophy of Art & Culture 2024-2025

Review of the readings in

“Bad Movies and the Good Life,” by Matthew Strohl

Subjectivity of taste; justification of the Good-Bad Movie; rebuttals against consumption of exclusively good movies.

“The Culture Industry,” by Theodor W. Adorno

The industrialization - replication, standardization, and commodification - of the arts.

“Neglect of Everyday Aesthetics,” by Yuriko Saito

The everyday aesthetics as overlooked over traditional artistic aesthetics. Appraisal of everyday and not the elevation.

“Of Beauty and Death,” by WEB Du Bois

Dialectics: There is ugliness in life (racism, bigotry) and beauty in death (limitation, ends, peace).

“Age, Race, Class, and Sex,” by Audre Lorde

Feminism and activism as intersectional. Challenge the distortions and miscommunication.

“Uses of the Erotic,” by Audre Lorde

Erotic power as a gut-feeling to follow. Feminine, restricted, and untapped.

“Environmental aesthetics: A synthetic review,” by Emily Brady and Jonathan Prior