Beauty

Catalog description

What is beauty? Is beauty an inherent truth or a social construct? Is beauty universal or culturally constructed, objective or subjective, divine or human-made? This course explores how beauty has been praised, policed, marketed, and made meaningful across cultures and centuries. Why do some features become desirable while others are erased? How do race, gender, power, and profit shape what we find beautiful? From ancient philosophies and sacred art to TikTok filters, plastic surgery, and protest aesthetics, students will examine how beauty operates as both a deeply personal experience and a global force. Mixing disciplines from philosophy, anthropology, literature, science, and marketing with art, fiction, mathematics and pop culture, we'll ask: who gets to be beautiful, what does it cost - and how do these ideas shape the world we live in