Marxist Aesthetics

Catalog description

While conversant with the broad sweep of Western art and literature, Marx rarely addressed the social role of art directly. When he did, however, he was careful not to reduce the question of the aesthetic directly or entirely to economic or political determination. Despite this, Stalinist dogma in the 20th Century tended to explain the function of art entirely in terms of the class position of the artist. In this seminar, we will explore Marxist writings that resisted this reductive stance. From the Russian formalists through the work of the Frankfurt School, from Lukacs to Jacques Ranciere, Marxists have sought to think art?s critical as well as conformist capacities. They have been at the forefront of attempts to complicate familiar divisions within and between form and content, genre and style, text and context.