PhD-Course at the CNUP in Paris, October 29–31, 2018
Course leaders: Eirik Vassenden (eirik.vassenden@uib.no) and Christine Hamm (christine.hamm@uib.no)
Contact: Fredrik Parelius (fredrik.parelius@uib.no)
Course credits: 2/5 ects
Taste and Class in the Age of a Confused Public Sphere
The public sphere is currently undergoing fundamental changes, not only with regard to medial forms, structure and organization. The debate, in particular when it comes to book reviewing, art criticism and general discussions on aesthetic matters, seems also to be subject to substantial transformations. In the field of aesthetic judgment, the expert seems not only to be losing legitimacy, she or he is also becoming an almost suspect figure.
How can we best characterize current debates on art, literature and architecture? Where are the different forms of art discussed, and in what ways? What is the role of public media, and how do the different traditional and “new” media function as frameworks for critical discourse? How are discussions of art legitimized, and what happens when the concept of class is once again brought into the effort to answer such questions?
Taste and Class in the Age of a Confused Public Sphereis an interdisciplinary course which seeks to understand the role of judgments of taste in different public spheres, combing philosophical theories of judgment with theories of the public sphere and cultural sociology. The course should be of interest to PhD students in literary studies, sociology, media studies, art history and other aesthetic disciplines.
Introducing a wide range of material, the course follows up on an ongoing discussion between literary scholars, scholars of literary critique and sociologists, where one aim is to find new ways to combine these disciplines’ insights into negotiations of value. We will discuss different types of judgment with an emphasis on the production of aesthetic value and the connection to (the production and distinction of) class. Theoretically and methodologically, the discussions will both try to map the fields where literary and sociological scholarship intersect, as well as they will show where the disciplines mentioned above do not share a common understanding of epistemological and ontological issues.
Among the questions which will be discussed, are the following:
1: What do public discussions on taste look like, and what is the role of the so-called experts as they are established on specified aesthetic fields?
2: How are judgments of taste portrayed in works of art, such as literary fiction? In what way are judgments of taste described in novels depicting working class families, and in what way is taste seen and negotiated as a part of everyday life?
3: What is the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu and Bourdieu-inspired analysis of taste and cultural distinctions, and how is it discussed, in the current Scandinavian debate on class, class affiliation and identity?
The course will be organized around two (possibly three) keynote lectures, a series of case studies presented by senior academics working on the field and works submitted by the participating PhD-students.
Preliminary program (incomplete, more titles TBA)
Keynote lectures:
Professor Ove Skarpenes, Kristiansand: “Educational Experiences and the Perceptions of Occupational Hierarchies: The Case of the Working Class in Norway”
Professor Magnus Nilsson, Malmö: ”Class and Taste in 1930s Swedish Working-Class Literature”
Presentations of case studies (more to follow):
Professor Christine Hamm, Bergen: ”Reading fiction; or: What can Literature tell us about Class and Taste?”
Professor Eirik Vassenden, Bergen: ”The Expert, the Public and the Patron: Art in Public Spaces and the Fight for Definition of Power in Debates on Aesthetic Matters”
Professor Anders Vassenden, Stavanger: ”Ridiculing your house while respecting what you read –distinction and morality in two contrasting fields of cultural consumption”
Researcher Merete Jonvik: TBA
Håkon Larsen: TBA
Further information (more will come):
Please e-mail one of the course leaders before October 1, 2018. You should send us a short description of yourself and your affiliation, your current research interests and eventually an outline of a paper you want to submit.
The course will start on Monday, 29thOctober, at 1 p. m. and conclude on Wednesday, 31stOctober at 1 p. m. A reading list will be send to all participants in good time before the course starts.
There is no course fee, but participants will have to cover travel expenses and accommodation themselves.
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