Symposia
Aesthetic activism
This symposium, convened by Mark Foster Gage, explores emerging positions that cast aesthetics as the primary discourse for social, ecological, and political engagement. In contrast to commonly held opinions that these issues are antithetical to the aesthetic, recent work in aesthetic theory across multiple disciplines suggests that such political and ontological problems may be best addressed as aspects of aesthetic experience. An interdisciplinary group of philosophers, scholars, media theorists, artists, curators, and architects will speculate on how a reignited discourse on aesthetics is prompting new insights into our relationships with not only objects, spaces, environments, and ecologies, but also with each other and political structures in which we are all enmeshed. Philosophical viewpoints foregrounding aesthetics, including Accelerationism, Afro-Futurism, Dark Ecology, Extro-Science Fiction, Disobedient Objects, Immaterialism, Object-Oriented Ontology, and Xenofeminism, will be explored and discussed through a series of lectures, presentations of work, and interdisciplinary roundtable discussions.
Symposium program
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Keynote address
Elaine Scarry, Harvard University
“Building and breath: beauty and the pact of aliveness”
Hastings Hall, 6:30 p.m.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Morning session
Hastings Hall, 9:00 a.m.
Mark Foster Gage, Yale University
Jonathan Massey, California College of the Arts
Keller Easterling, Yale University
Catherine Ingraham, Pratt Institute
Timothy Morton, Rice University
Afternoon session
Hastings Hall, 2:00 p.m.
Ferda Kolatan, University of Pennsylvania
Graham Harmon, Southern California Institute of Architecture
Ariane Lourie Harrison, Yale University
David Ruy, Southern California Institute of Architecture
Elaine Scarry, Harvard University
Tom Wiscombe, Southern California Institute of Architecture
Keynote address
Jacques Rancière, Université Paris-VIII
Mark Foster Gage, Yale University
“The aesthetic today”
Hastings Hall, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Morning session
Hastings Hall, 9:00 a.m.
Peggy Deamer, Yale University
Nettrice Gaskins, Boston Arts Academy
Diann Bauer, Artist
Catherine Flood, Victoria & Albert Museum
Jonathan Massey, California College of the Arts
Early afternoon session
Hastings Hall, 12:30 p.m.
Michael Speaks, Syracuse University
Hernan Diaz Alonso, Southern California Institute of Architecture
Lydia Kallipoliti, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Jason Payne, University of California, Los Angeles
Rhett Russo, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Albena Yaneva, University of Manchester
Late afternoon session
Hastings Hall, 2:00 p.m.
Michael Young, Yale University
Gregory Crewdson, Yale University
Caroline Picard, Curator
Pamela Rosenkranz, Artist
Roger Rothman, Bucknell University
David Ruy, Southern California Institute of Architecture
This symposium is supported by the J. Irwin Miller Endowment Fund.