Course for international guest/part time students
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Organization
- BTK Department of English Studies
- Code
- BMI-ANGD17-CI10aE.06
- Title
- English Literature: A Theoretical Approach - Foundations and Perspectives: Talking of Beauty: Readings in Aesthetics
- Usual semester
- Autumn
- Published semester
- 2025/26/2
- ECTS
- 3
- Language
- en
- Learning outcomes
- The course’s aim is to encourage students to broaden the scope of the theoretical component of their studies to include insights from not only contemporary literary and cultural theories but also classical aesthetics. To further that aim, we are going to be reading some of the standard classics of the discipline and attempt to clarify certain basic concepts and highlight the significance of some evergreen debates. A) Knowledge Familiarity with a selected reading list in the classics of European aesthetics. Confident use of the basic terminology of the discipline. Knowledge of the most important interpretative issues and points of contention regarding the works covered. B) Abilities Ability to read and interpret the texts covered in class. Ability to learn independently, and to carry out relevant research. Ability to place the discussed texts in their cultural and philosophical contexts. Ability to express themselves clearly about the topics with a correct use of English. Ability to offer oral presentations or written essays in the subject area. C) Attitude Openness towards the topics, methods and opinions raised in class. Accepting of opinions, even if they are contrary to their own. Openness to the possibility of a variety of interpretations. Independence in preparations. Striving to master various analytical methods. Readiness to engage in constructive discussion and debate with peers and instructors. D) Autonomy Ability to work independently with texts based on the material discussed in class. Formulating their own opinions and contrasting them with those of their peers and instructors. Carrying out independent research and formulating the results independently. E) Responsibility Patient listening to and respect for informed opinions. Developing educated and ethically responsible opinions, ready to communicate them to prospective students. Maintaining a critical and open-minded approach to the material presented.
- Course content
- The most important concepts under discussion will be mimesis/representation, the beautiful, the sublime, disinterestedness, taste, judgment. We will look at certain discussions of whether (or how) the aesthetic experience is related to other values, such as knowledge or morality. We will turn to questions related to whether indeed ‘there is no disputing tastes’. The readings will highlight two periods of central importance: ancient classics that have defined some of the terms of the discussion and the Enlightenment period, where the new discipline of aesthetics (and arguably a new, ‘aesthetic’ way of looking at the world) was born. We will be reading (mostly excerpts from) the works of Plato, Aristotle, Pseudo-Longinus, Joseph Addison, David Hume, Edmund Burke, and Immanuel Kant.
- Assessment method
- The most important thing for the course to be a successful seminar is regular reading and active in-class participation. Grading will additionally be based on either two short presentations or one seminar paper.
- Bibliography
- Set primary texts: Excerpts from Plato’s Ion, Hippias Major, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus, Timaeus and Sophist, in Oleg V. Bychkov and Anne Sheppard (tr. and eds.), Greek and Roman Aesthetics. Cambridge: CUP, 2010. Aristotle, The Poetics in Bychkov and Sheppard (op. cit.). Excerpts from ‘Longinus’ ‘On Sublimity’ in Bychkov and Sheppard (op. cit.). Sir Philip Sidney, ‘An Apology for Poetry’ in Walter Jackson Bate (ed.), Criticism: The Major Texts. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952 Joseph Addison, ‘Taste’ and the ‘Pleasures of the Imagination’ in Donald F. Bond (ed.), Critical Essays from the Spectator by Joseph Addison: with four Essays by Richard Steele. Oxford: OUP, 1970. Edmund Burke: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. Adam Phillips. Oxford: OUP, 1990. David Hume: ’Of the Standard of Taste’ in Essays, Moral, Political, And Literary. Ed. Eugene F. Miller. Indianapolis, US: Liberty Fund, 2012. Immanuel Kant, Critique of the power of judgment. Tr. Paul Guyer. Eds. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: CUP, 2000. Some recommended secondary reading Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method. Translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. London: Continuum, 1989. pp. 7–36. Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems. New Jersey: Princeton, 2002. Michelle Zerba and David Gorman (eds.) Aristotle: Poetics. The James Hutton translation. Ancient Contexts. Interpretations. Norton Critical Edition. London-New York: Norton, 2018. Robert Doran, The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant. Cambridge: CUP, 2015. Paul Guyer, A History of Modern Aesthetics. 3 vols. Cambridge: CUP, 2014.