Do You Have Good Taste? A History of Aesthetic Judgment

Syllabus extract

What makes something “cringe”? Can anyone truly say one work of art is better than another? Is there such a thing as highbrow and lowbrow art, or is that snobbery? Can (or should) we separate great art from “cancelled” artists? Questions like these have led to fiercely contested debates on art and literature for centuries, from Plato to the New York Times’ recent list of the best novels of the twenty-first century. In this class, we enter those often-contentious debates about art and taste.

This is not a course on literary theory, but rather an inquiry into the history of how humans have judged art (by which we include, literature, visual art, music, architecture, et al.). By extension, this is a course on aesthetic experiences more broadly, and the Stimmungen (atmospheres, moods) they engage with. Readings will come from critics such as Longinus, John Ruskin, and Walter Pater. We will consider ideas by writers like Oscar Wilde and Zadie Smith, cultural historians such as Linda Nochlin, philosophers of aesthetics such as Immanuel Kant, court cases on censorship, and more. We will engage in a spirited debate on these ideas, mix them with our own subjective tastes, and use them to critique a mishmash (or should we say “plethora”?) of pop songs, classical music, paintings, buildings, poetry, advertisements, and TV—arguing their various merits and flaws from historic and personal perspectives. We will also visit museums and consider how atmospheres and moods alter our aesthetic experience. In doing so, questions about taste will engage broader issues of class, race, gender, morality, legality, and philosophical questions about objectivity and truth. They will also lead us, one hopes, to a more sensitive appreciation for the human experience of aesthetic phenomena.