Rethinking Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics

In eighteenth-century Britain, the category of "the aesthetic" arose to address questions about the function of art. However, conceptions of the aesthetic operated in part as a response to problems in a broader set of historical and political concerns and interests, including but not limited to: the study of rhetoric, ethics, political economy; empiricism and science; epistemological problems of the relationship of mind to body; and the growth and uses of literacy and the print market. What can we learn about literary production and its "value," if we historicize aesthetics in this way? Proposals to Patricia.Comitini@quinnipiac.edu by April 30th, 2012.