Course detail

Aesthetics 2 – Outline of the 20th Century Aesthetics

FaVU-1EST-2Acad. year: 2025/2026

The Aesthetics 1-4 course series aims to equip learners with the concepts and strategies to understand their own and others' artistic motivations, intentions, and assumptions. The lectures are conducted in dialogue with the students so that the lecturer can respond to their attitudes and interests, and thus be all the more able to place the attitudes in the context of the tradition of European aesthetic thought, as well as non-European traditions of thought.

Many of the key concepts and schemes of thought commonly used in contemporary professional and lay thinking about art and culture took shape in the twentieth century. Aesthetics 2 will introduce the historical and theoretical background of these concepts and schemes, while exploring their implications for contemporary thinking. The course will proceed thematically, but will also focus in each lecture on an analysis of the main traditions in the interpretation of cultural and social phenomena of the last century.

Language of instruction

Czech

Number of ECTS credits

3

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

Mgr. Jakub Bulvas Stejskal, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Entry knowledge

None.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

The following conditions are set for the granting of the examination:

  • active participation in class (3 unexcused absences allowed);
  • final written exam.

 

Teaching takes place in the classrooms of the FFA BUT in the hours determined by the schedule. Attendance is compulsory (3 unexcused absences allowed). Higher number of absences will be reflected in the number of questions on the final exam.

Aims

Students will gain insight into the assumptions and liabilities associated with the use of terms they encounter daily, but whose use is not innocent because it carries with it connotations acquired through history. This will enable them to gain the distance from these terms necessary to use them critically or, where appropriate, to seek alternatives.

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Guido MORPURGO-TAGLIABUE, Současná estetika. Praha: Odeon, 1985.
Mario PERNIOLA, Estetika 20. století, Praha: Karolinum, 2000.

Recommended reading

Boris GROYS, Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin. Komunistické postskriptum, Praha: AVU 2010.
György LUKÁCS, Umění jako sebepoznání lidstva, Praha: Odeon 1976.
Herta NAGL-DOCEKAL, Feministická filozofie. Výsledky, problémy, perspektivy, Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství 2007, kap. 2 „Umění a ženskost“, s. 101–175.
John BERGER, „Způsoby pohledu“, in: Pavel ZAHRÁDKA (ed.), Estetika na přelomu milénia. Vybrané problémy současné estetiky, Brno: Barrister & Principal 2010, s. 431–443.
Josef FULKA, Psychoanalýza a francouzské myšlení, Praha: Herrmann & synové 2008.
Miroslav LAMAČ (ed.), Myšlenky moderních malířů, Praha: Nakladatelství československých výtvarných umělců, 1968.
Peter LAMARQUE – Stein Haugom OLSEN (eds.), Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: the Analytic Tradition: an Anthology, Malden: Blackwell, 2004.
Petr A. BÍLEK, „Socialistický realismus a avantgarda“, in: Josef VOJVODÍK – Jan WIENDL (eds.), Heslář české avantgardy. Estetické koncepty a proměny uměleckých postupů v letech 1908–1958, Praha: Univerzita Karlova v Praze – TOGGA 2011.
Terry EAGLETON, „Ideologie estetična“, in: Pavel ZAHRÁDKA (ed.), Estetika na přelomu milénia. Vybrané problémy současné estetiky, Brno: Barrister & Principal 2010, s. 301–311.
Theodor W. ADORNO – Max HORKHEIMER, Dialektika osvícenství, Praha: OIKOYMENH 2009.
Theodor W. ADORNO, Estetická teorie, Praha: Panglos 1997.
Tomáš KULKA – Denis CIPORANOV (eds.), Co je umění? Texty angloamerické estetiky 20. století, Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart 2010.
Walter BENJAMIN, „Umělecké dílo ve věku své technické reprodukovatelnosti“, in: Výbor z díla I. Literárněvědné studie, Praha: OIKOYMENH 2009, s. 299–326.

Classification of course in study plans

  • Programme VUM_B Bachelor's 1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory
    1 year of study, summer semester, compulsory

Type of course unit

 

Lecture

26 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Mgr. Jakub Bulvas Stejskal, Ph.D.

Syllabus

  1. Vitalistic and psychologizing conceptions of art at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. Nietzsche. Expressivism – Tolstoy, Collingwood. Psychoanalysis and art. Freud, Jung.
  2. Formalist conceptions of art forms and modernism. Hanslick, Herbart, Bell, Fry, Russian literary formalism. Greenberg and the specificity of the medium.
  3. Art and the aesthetic through the lens of structuralism and semiotics. Conceptual foundations (Saussure, Peirce) and their application to art and aesthetics (Mukařovský, Barthes).
  4. Phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics in philosophy and aesthetics. Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Gadamer.
  5. Aesthetics and art in Anglophone pragmatic and analytic philosophy. Dewey, Santayna, Sibley, Goodman.
  6. The debate over the definition of art in analytic philosophy and institutional art theory. Weitz, Danto, Dickie, Levinson, Gaut.
  7. Anti-art in the aesthetics of Western Marxism – avant-garde vs. culture industry. Benjamin, Adorno, Bürger, Eco, Huyssen.
  8. Feminist and postcolonial critiques of the canon of European aesthetics. Visual Studies. Berger, Nochlin, Korsmeyer, Said, Hall.
  9. Poststructuralism in philosophy and its influence on art theory and aesthetics. Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Derrida, October.
  10. Theories of Postmodernism. Lyotard, Jameson.
  11. Beyond Postmodernism. The thematization of art and the aesthetic in turn-of-the-millennium philosophy. New materialism, speculative realism, posthumanism.
  12. Student presentations and discussions of topics discussed during the semester.