Theories of Aesthetic Autonomy
NB! Extended Deadline for CFP: January 5, 2016
STREAM B
Theories of Aesthetic Autonomy
This stream will focus on the philosophical concept of aesthetic autonomy, which enjoys a long history within aesthetic theory and philosophy, from the eighteenth-century writings of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Schiller up through the present critical debates concerning literature and the arts. The conception of art as an immanent formation governed by its own internal logic underpins a set of interrelated issues concerning artistic agency, textual meaning, mode of production and reception that are vital to the theoretical discussion of artistic and literary practice. Recently, the question of autonomy has taken on an additional polemical importance in a number of contemporary theorizations of literary and other forms of artistic creation. The philosophical projects of Jacques Rancière, Graham Harman, and Alain Badiou draw on the concept of autonomy from a wide range of renewed, and at times conflicting angles and more recently also, several commentators have embarked on reevaluating the shifting notions of art’s autonomy and their relation to broader historical phenomena. They have done so by exploring areas as diverse as postcolonial literature, modernist fiction, and contemporary collaborative and visual arts with respect to economic, institutional, and global structures. Their reassessments open up a discursive terrain by challenging the designation of aesthetic autonomy as merely the theoretical pretext for art’s (and the artist’s) immunity from material and worldly concerns. In light of the recent contributions to the field in the last decade, the panel seeks to consider the broader critical implications of revisiting the much-contested and theoretically significant concept of autonomy for contemporary discussions of literary and artistic production.
The conference organizers invite contributions that address the issues included in the brief description above. You can choose either to earmark your abstract for this stream, or send it in for general consideration (see CFP).