Art History Versus Aesthetics

Raising interesting issues, and answering burning questions, this unprecedented collection presents over twenty of the world's most prominent thinkers who discuss the question: does philosophy have anything to say to art history?

In this unprecedented collection, over twenty of the world's most prominent thinkers on the subject including Arthur Danto, Stephen Melville, Wendy Steiner, Alexander Nehamas, and Jay Bernstein ponder the disconnect between these two disciplines. The volume has a radically innovative structure: it begins with introductions, and centres on an animated conversation among ten historians and aestheticians. That conversation was then sent to twenty scholars for commentary and their responses are very diverse: some are informal letters and others full essays with footnotes. Some think they have the answer in hand, and others raise yet more questions. The volume ends with two synoptic essays, one by a prominent aesthetician and the other by a literary critic. This stimulating inaugural volume in the Routledge The Art Seminar series presents not one but many answers to the question; Does philosophy have anything to say to art history?

Series Preface , by James Elkins 1. INTRODUCTORY ESSAY Robert Gero, The Border of the Aesthetic 2. STARTING POINTS Joseph Margolis, Exorcising the Dreariness of Aesthetics James Elkins, Why Don't Art Historians Attend Aesthetics Conferences? 3. THE ART SEMINAR Participants: Arthur Danto, Thierry De Duve, Diarmuid Costello, Martin Donougho, David Raskin, Anna Dezeuze, Richard Woodfield, Dominic Willsdon, Francis Halsall, Nicholas Davey, John Hyman, David Raskin 4. ASSESSMENTS Diarmuid Costello Anna Dezeuze Dominic Willsdon David Raskin John Hyman Francis Halsall Richard Woodfield Ladislav Kesner Joseph Margolis Crispin Sartwell Paul Crowther Mary Rawlinson Jan Bakos Alexander Nehamas Ciarán Benson Wendy Steiner Mathew Rampley Keith Moxey Christine Wertheim Eva Schürmann Harry Cooper Adrian Rifkin David Getsy Michael Kelly Margaret Iversen Michael Golec Michael Newman Gregg Horowitz Stephen Melville 5. AFTERWORDS Jay Bernstein, Modernism as Aesthetics and Art History Marc Redfield, Island Mysteries Notes on Contributors

James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Head of History of Art at the University College Cork, Ireland. He is the author of Pictures and Tears, How to Use Your Eyes, and What Painting Is and, most recently, The Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art and Master Narratives and Their Discontents, all published by Routledge.