School of Critical Studies

Themes of dominance and revolution are not so popular today. The idea of a comprehensive re-orientation of our world is claimed to be impossible, and the notion that there is a visible concentration of power that might be called dominant has been eviscerated by neo-liberal global capital as much as by the disaggregating mechanics of critical theory which has preferred to speak about horizontal forms of power as opposed to verticality.
 
Here we can ask about the role and force of the image in this project, the validity of speaking about the class struggle, the role of critique and reason for class consciousness, as well as race and equality; and notwithstanding the question of a politics that can re-think the human, the subject and the ‘we’. When today, these universal elements are extirpated in the subliminal negativity of identity politics’ neo-expressivism, as well as in critiques from the right and the left, we can ask what it is to understand, communicate and picture the political, one that can delve into the complex of negativity and constructive affirmation?

Live and Online

All events will be streamed via the Aesthetics and Politics Youtube channel, at youtube.com/c/AestheticsandPolitics. All events are free and open to the public. Visit the CalArts Calendar for full event listings.

Lecture Series Spring 2022

We are delighted to welcome Professor Katerina Kolozova, Institute of Social Science and Humanities, Skopje, N. Macadonia, with respondent Alice Rekab, artist, researcher and educator based in Dublin, Ireland, to kick off our series on February 24, 2022. 

This will be followed by Gean Moreno, Director of the Knight Foundation Art and Research Center at ICA Miami, with respondent Jaleh Monsoor, Associate Professor, Dept. of Art, Visual Art and Theory, UBC, Canada on March 17; and finally Tony Bogues, Professor of Humanities and Critical Theory at Brown University, with respondent James Trafford, Reader in Philosophy and Design at the University of the Creative Arts, UK, on April 7.

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February 24 at 12PM

Artifices, Arts and Artificiality: Revisiting Aristotle’s notion of Technē and Reinventing its Interpretative Potential

Speaker
Dr. Katerina Kolozova
Senior researcher and professor at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, Skopje, and visiting faculty at Arizona State University, Center for Philosophical Technologies. At the Faculty of Media and Communications, Belgrade, she teaches contemporary political philosophy. 

Respondent
Dr. Alice Rekab is an artist, researcher and educator based in Dublin. Their practice is concerned with expressions and iterations of complex cultural and personal narratives.

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March 17 at 12PM  

The Last Revolutionaries: Artists in Times of Rectification

Speaker
Gean Moreno is Director of the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center at ICA Miami, and part of the institution’s curatorial team. He has organized exhibitions dedicated to the work of Hélio Oiticica, Terry Adkins, Larry Bell, Ettore Sottsass, and others.

Respondent
Dr. Jaleh Mansoor is an associate professor of Art History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

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April 7 at 12PM     

Art and History: Reframing Aesthetics and Politics - A Reflection on Haitian art 

Speaker
Dr. Anthony Bogues is a writer, scholar and curator. He has published 9 books in the fields of political thought and critical theory, Caribbean intellectual history and Caribbean art. He is currently working on a book titled Black Critique and a book/sonic project on politics and music in Jamaica during the 1970’s.

Respondent
Dr. James Trafford is Reader in Philosophy and Design at University for the Creative Arts, London.