Beauty and the Brain: Neuroaesthetics and Neuroarthistory. 0 Credit Hours

Catalog description

Does your brain help you appreciate the Monalisa? What about the Taj Mahal? This elective course explores the role of the brain in the human experience of art as well as how artists have manipulated these effects to design and orchestrate aesthetic experiences. Heavily focusing on, but not limited to, visual perception, this course investigates the way that neuroscience can be used to examine contemporary and historical human experiences of art. We begin with a critical survey of existing neuroaesthetic literature guided by the question: what assumptions about art and art viewership do researchers bring to their study of art objects and are these assumptions valid? We will then observe how collaborations between art historians and scientists have historically situated neurological phenomenon and effects of perception to examine human experience with art and the built environment. Students will then lend their own medical expertise to the examination of artistic case studies that engage the body within the sensory environment. What neural, physiological, and cognitive systems might be coming to bear on engagement with or the appreciation of a work of art and how might medical professionals begin to investigate the connection between beauty and the human brain? Open for Cross Enrollment on Space Available Basis.