Oppositional Aesthetics
Karen Simecek (University of Warwick)

 (Also streaming on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81813506541)

Inspired by bell hooks’ notion of the oppositional gaze, I argue that artworks can perform an important role of resistance by adopting oppositional aesthetics. Such artworks offer perspectives that challenge dominant ways of seeing that underpins social injustice and consequently, challenge ways of seeing in an audience. Oppositional aesthetics can be understood as works that: 1. foreground the oppressed; 2. are responsive to injustice; 3. open-ended (not didactic); 4. support different possibilities of interpretation. I will conclude by responding to a potential objection that failure in uptake in the audience undermines the political potential of such artworks.

Karen Simecek is Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. She is the author of Philosophy of Lyric Voice: the cognitive value of page and performance poetry (Bloomsbury). Her research focuses on the philosophy of poetry with particular emphasis on the value of reading and engaging with poetry in the live performance alongside issues in metaphilosophy, the emotions and the cognitive value of art, in particular, how art can enhance our moral education.
For further inquiries: Yuxin Su (yuxin.su.16@ucl.ac.uk).

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