THE SUBLIME: A RE-EVALUATION

THE SUBLIME: A RE-EVALUATION

Place: The Refectory, Main Quad, at the University of Sydney.

Time: 9am-6pm Feb 21-22, 2011.

This is the first conference sponsored by SHAPE (Social, Historical, Aesthetic, Political and Environmental Philosophy), a group dedicated to explorations in the philosophy of value in the broadest sense. This conference brings together members of the Philosophy Dept at Sydney University who have a research interest in aesthetics (David Allinson, Rick Benitez, David Macarthur, Talia Morag, Paul Redding, and Paul Thom) with renown scholars from overseas interested in research collaborations with members of SHAPE: Eli Friedlander (Tel Aviv Uni., Israel); Andy Hamilton (Durham Uni., U.K.); Doug Moggach (Uni. of Ottawa, Canada) and Stephen White (Tufts Uni., U.S.A.).

Conference Topic
The topic of the sublime, which was one of most widely discussed matters in C18 aesthetics, has received scant attention in Anglo-American philosophy, at least when compared with beauty. And when we turn to Kant scholarship we find the same asymmetrical treatment undefined despite the fact that, for Kant, the sublime is akin to the beautiful in so far as it involves the disinterested response that he saw as the core of aesthetic experience. But recently there has been a revival of interest in the sublime stimulated in large part by its apparently embracing various stimulating paradoxes (e.g. taking pleasure in pain; gaining insights by way of an apprehension of limitation; the understanding in a fraught relation with the imagination). In this conference we aim to re-examine the sublime and its importance for aesthetic experience and our appreciation of art.

Attendance is free.

All welcome!