Next Week: Deleuze on Francis Bacon

20 Jun

For the first half of 2025 the Pittsburgh Continental Philosophy Reading Group will take on the philosophical problems of art. We’ll ask questions like: What is a work of art? Where does the impulse toward art come from? What is symbolism? What distinguishes art from craft? What is the role of genius? Is art possible in the capitalist world of modernity?

Up Next: 06/24 – Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, Chapters 4-6.

Pdfs of the readings can be found: HERE

Please bring a copy (digital or paper) copy of the reading with you to the meeting.

Location: Yinz Coffee in Bloomfield (Liberty Ave), most Tuesday evenings 6:30-8:30pm.

SCHEDULE:

  • 02/04 – Giedion, S. “Art a Fundamental Experience” and “The Symbol in Primeval Art” in The Eternal Present: the Beginnings of Art.
  • 02/11 – Plato. Ion.
  • 02/18 – Aristotle. Poetics.
  • 02/25 – Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment, §§46-53.
  • 03/04 – Hegel, G.W.F. “Religion in the Form of Art” in Phenomenology of Spirit.
  • 03/11 – Schopenhauer, Arthur. World as Will and Representation, Sections 36-41.
  • 03/18 – Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations.
  • 03/25 – Heidegger, Martin. “The Origin of the Work of Art” in Basic Writings.
  • 04/01 – Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Writing” in What is Literature.
  • 04/08 – Levinas, Emmanuel. “Reality and its Shadow” in Collected Philosophical Papers.
  • 04/15 – Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. “Cezanne’s Doubt” in Sense and Nonsense.
  • 04/22 – Duchamp, Marcel. “Regions which are not ruled by time and space.”
  • 04/29 – Albers, Anni. “Tactile Sensibility,” “Tapestry,” and “Designing as Visual Organization” in On Weaving.
  • 05/06– Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.”
  • 05/13 – Adorno, Theodor. “Toward a Theory of the Artwork” in Aesthetic Theory.
  • 05/20 – Foucault, Michel. This is Not a Pipe.
  • 05/27 – Bachelard, Gaston. “Introduction” in The Poetics of Reverie.
  • 06/03 – Sontag, Susan. “The Image-World” in On Photography.
  • 06/10 – Derrida, Jacques. “Passe-Partout” in Truth in Painting.
  • 06/17 – Henry, Michel. “The Essence of Art,” “All Painting is Abstract,” and “Art and Cosmos” in Seeing the Invisible.
  • 06/24 – Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, Chapters 4-6.
  • 07/01 – Danto, Arthur. Transformation of the Commonplace.
  • 07/08 – Henderson, P.L. “Fiber Sculpture” in Unravelling Women’s Art: Creators, Rebels, & Innovators in Textile Arts.

Pdfs of the readings can be found: HERE

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