Re: 'For more evidence of the profitless straining for topics, read the ASA journal.'
For me it's more the deadening affect of analytic philosophy applied to art that makes the ASA journal - and the British equivalent - so painfully tedious to read. Art itself is rarely mentioned and when it is, it seems to wither like leaves under acid rain. Not that continental aesthetics is any better. Witness the Ranciere stuff under discussion at the moment. Which is just one of the reasons I have so much admiration for Malraux. He is the one art theorist of art in modern times who manages to develop a powerful theory of art while also bringing art alive for the reader - instead of killing it off. DA -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 19 March 2008 2:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: a suggestion Mike Brady writes: > You seem to think that the "sophisticated" > or "steeped" observer's associations are of a different kind or > quality from someone else's, which somehow impairs the scope or > relevance or import of their associations. That strikes me as a > remarkably weak assertion. > I'd claim that my remark is narrow rather than weak. I was claiming that many scholars, pressured to publish or perish, will focus on less and less interesting stuff, stuff that is less "important" -- for me -- because it has less and less to do with the enjoyability of the works they're considering. I noticed this when I was quite young, reading scholarly journals about literature and about philosophy. I figured PhD candidates in English studies had it hard in a way that scholars in science don't: The English students had to find their topic in the finite literature of the past. The scientist finds his topic in new stuff, in new experiments etc. -- he has an effectively infinite field to explore. Imagine having to find some area of British or American literature that hasn't already been culled to death. But the young scholar has to find a topic for his thesis that hasn't already been written about before. Granted -- new "takes" on the old stuff arise from time to time -- feminism, deconstruction -- but there are very few such renovating movements. So the scholar is stuck with hunting out some obscure 16th century poet who was obscure for the good reason that his poetry was hum-drum -- but, hey, no one has written about him before. The observation that a new source of yellow paints affected the work of nineteenth century painers is interesting, but my enjoyment of their paintings would not be increased or decreased one whit if I never knew of the invention of the new yellow. The remarkable resemblance of a lolling figure to an earlier lolling figure by another painter can certainly have its interest, but if I never knew of that earlier figure, if I were never satiated by that loll, I'd enjoy the current figure for what it is. I can certainly understand a connoisseur's being bored because he's seen it before -- but the non-connoisseur isn't likely to have the same reaction. That's all I meant to say. Connoisseurs find greater interest -- and perhaps dimished enjoyment -- in such facts than most of the rest of us do. In sum, I find the "not hitherto sufficiently appreciated" observations of much scholarship to be -- for me -- ho-hum. I confess the result is I can get irritated -- by the unwarranted self-celebration of the would-be "discoverer" of something profoundly trivial, and because he has wasted my time. For more evidence of the profitless straining for topics, read the ASA journal. ************** It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001) No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.21.7/1332 - Release Date: 17/03/2008 10:48 AM No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.21.7/1332 - Release Date: 17/03/2008 10:48 AM
