| Omschrijving |
This course will focus on the concept and history of the public sphere, and the role of the arts within it. The public sphere is understood as the physical and virtual spaces in which citizens meet to exchange and discuss their views on the true, the good and the beautiful. Emerging in the eighteenth-century coffeehouses, salons, and newspapers, the bourgeois public sphere turned out to be a crucial condition for modern democracies during the enlightenment era. We will look at the place of the arts within this sphere (e.g. the emergence of public museums, culture education and art criticism), but also to the way the public sphere has changed in recent decades. In particular, in a globalized world the traditional public roles of intellectuals and artists have to be reconsidered. How do artists consider their own role in this process? Through what strategies do artists intervene in the public sphere? We will discuss theoretical texts by Habermas, Arendt, Sennett, Fraser, Bishop, and Groys as well as contemporary examples: political theatre, the literary artist as public intellectual, and artistic interventions, participation- and community art. |
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English
Nederlands