FOUNDATIONS OF AESTHETICS

The course analyzes authors and themes in the history of aesthetics since antiquity, with particular regard to some key categories such as creation, form, symbol, artistic perception, expressiveness, imagination, imitation, fruition. The aim is to provide students with some notions related to the modern and contemporary historical-artistic debates, in order to understand and deepen the fundamental features of the discipline and develop autonomous judgments.

The aesthetic works covered in the course will increase students' ability to interpret aesthetic phenomena in general and improve their linguistic and argumentative skills. Students will be encouraged to arrange the contents in a critical and creative manner. They will be able to relate aesthetic ideas to other fields of knowledge.

According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the end of the course, will demonstrate:

1. knowledge and understanding skills such as to reinforce those achieved in the first cycle; ability to elaborate and / or apply original ideas, in a research context.

2. ability to apply knowledge and understanding and ability to solve problems to new or unfamiliar issues, inserted in broader (or interdisciplinary) contexts connected to one's field of study;

3. ability to integrate knowledge and to formulate judgments on the basis of information that is not necessarily complete;

4. ability to communicate one's knowledge clearly and unambiguously to specialist and non-specialist interlocutors.

5. ability to carry out research autonomously.

A – General Contents (4 CFU)

The course aims to highlight the main stances in the history of aesthetical thought, from Plato, through Aristotle, Pseudo-Longinus, Plotinus, Leonardo da Vinci, G. Vico, A. Baumgarten, E. Burke, Ch. Batteaux, I. Kant, F. Schlegel, G.W.F. Hegel, A. Schopenhauer, C. Baudelaire, up to B. Croce, W. Benjamin, M. Heidegger and M. Merleau-Ponty.

B - Monographic part (3 CFU)

 A specific focus will be given to the relationship between body, perception and fashion

C – Monographic part  (2 CFU):

Contemporary art themes and works will be dealt with.

P. D’Angelo, E. Franzini, G. Scaramuzza, Estetica, Raffaello Cortina editore, 2002, pp. 1-340.

E. Cassirer, La filosofia delle forme simboliche, vol. 3.1: Fenomenologia della conoscenza, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1961, pp. 273-372.

E. Fink, Moda. Un gioco seduttivo, Torino, Einaudi, 2024, pp. XI-XXIVe pp. 1-98.

Ch. Baudelaire, Il pittore della vita moderna, Marsilio, Venezia, 2002, pp. 167.

Walter Benjamin: L'opera d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica, Torino, Einaudi, 2014, pp. 1-68.

 E. Di Stefano, Estetica urbana, Mimesis, Milano 2023, pp. 7-114.