Week 1	Topic	Reading	Assignment
W 01/21	Introduction & Some art history	None
Western Philosophy of Art throughout History
Week 2
M 01/26	A first stab	CC#1: Chapter 1 of Battin, et al (1989), Puzzles about art: An aesthetics casebook. Available on course website.
W 01/28	Plato	CC#2: Osborne, “The classical concept of art” CC#3: Osborne, "Mimesis" NoA: Plato, “Art as Imitation”
Week 3
M 02/02	Hume	CC#4: Osborne, "Eighteenth Century British Aesthetics" NoA: Hume, “Art as Object of taste”
W 02/04	Kant	CC#5: Osborne, "Kant's Critique of Judgment" NoA: Kant, “Art as Communicable Pleasure”
Week 4
M 02/09	Tolstoy	CC#6: Osborne, "Art as Emotional Communication" NoA: Tolstoy, “Art as Communication of Feeling”
W 02/11	Early 20th Century Thought	NoA: Bell, “Art as Significant Form” NoA: Benjamin, "Art as Auratic"
A Variety of 20th Century Topics
Week 5
M 02/16	The Paradoxical Pleasures of Horror	NoA: Aristotle, "Art as Cognition" AAA: Noel Carroll, “Why Horror?” AAA: Berys Gaut, “The Paradox of Horror”
W 02/18	Fakes & Forgeries	CC#7: Wimsatt & Beardsley, "The Intentional Fallacy" AAA: Alfred Lessing, “What is Wrong with a Forgery?” AAA: Denis Dutton, “Artistic Crimes"
Week 6
M 02/23	A day with actual artists	None	Exam #1 Due
W 02/25	Student-picked topic	Class will vote for a topic from AAA.
Week 7
M 03/01	Comics as art	Gaiman “Calliope” (script and finished work; to be handed out) McCloud, Understanding Comics
W 03/03	Comics as art	McCloud, Understanding Comics
Week 8
M 03/08	Comics as art	Gaiman, Prelude & Nocturnes
W 03/10	Exam Day	None	Art History Exam
Break
M 03/15	Spring Break
W 03/17	Spring Break
Contemporary Views
Week 9
M 03/22	The late 20th Century debate over the definability of art	NOA: Weitz, “Art as Indefinable”
W 03/23	Art and the Artworld	NOA: Danto, “Art as Theory”
Week 10
M 03/29	Art and the Artworld	NOA: Dickie, “Art as Institution” CC#8: Carroll, excerpt from “Introduction” in Theories of Art Today
W 03/31	Old wine, new bottles?	NoA: Beardsley, "Art as Aesthetic Production"
Week 11
M 04/05	Postcolonial views	NOA: Appiah, “Art as Postcolonial” CC#9: Berger, “Are art museums racist?” [Micheal Ray Charles video]
W 04/07	Feminism & Aesthetics	CC#10: Nochlin, “Why have there been no great women artists?” NOA: Hein, “Art as Feminism”
Week 12
M 04/12	Feminism & Aesthetics	AAA: Mary Devereaux, “Oppressive Texts, Resisting Readers and the Gendered Spectator: The New Aesthetics.” AAA: Curtis Brown, “Art, Oppression, and the Autonomy of Aesthetics.”
W 04/14	A day with an actual artists	TBA	Exam #2 Due
Art or Pornography? The Photographic Achievement of Robert Mapplethorpe
Week 13
M 04/19	The Challenge of Robert Mapplethorpe	CC#11: Danto, "Playing with the Edge"
W 04/21	The Challenge of Robert Mapplethorpe	[Two videos: Jonathan Berger on the Nude & Sally Mann]
Week 14
M 04/26	Is photography art?	AAA: Roger Scruton, “Photography & Representation.” AAA: William L. King, “Scruton and Reasons for Looking at Photographs”
W 04/28	Is photography art?	CC#12: Sontag, “In Plato’s Cave”
Week 15
M 05/03	Art vs. pornography	CC#13: Steiner, "Night words: High Pornography & Human Privacy" CC#14: Keiran, "Pornographic Art"
W 05/05	Conclusion	None
Finals		Friday, 14 May @ 2:00	Final Exam