Performing Aesthetics, Dramatizing Ideals

full name / name of organization: 
Religion and Theatre Focus Group, Association for Theatre in Higher Education

CFP: Performing Aesthetics, Dramatizing Ideals

Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Conference

Thursday, August 11, 2016 to Sunday, August 14, 2016

Palmer House Hilton
17 E Monroe St
Chicago, IL 60603

Is aesthetic judgment necessarily bound to moral judgment? How do our changing performance aesthetics reflect our political and moral commitments? The proposed multidisciplinary panel asks whether or not aesthetic categories already perform philosophically and/or religiously as acts of moral evaluation. We are especially interested in so-called "soft" aesthetic markers (cute, charming, fun, irritating, boring, interesting) that lie between more extreme expressions of aesthetic evaluation (beautiful, ugly). How do such soft aesthetics also instantiate a moral world? And how do performances act within aesthetic evaluation? Is a "good" performance also virtuous? But is a performance that is merely "interesting" or "dull" (rather than captivating or offensive) somehow lacking in moral conviction? When, where, and how do theatre and performance scholars and artists allow aesthetic evaluation to cross into political or moral evaluation?

From the Neoplatonic tradition extends the idea that the earthly beauty one perceives through the learned discrimination of taste is analogous to the divine beauty one encounters through intellectual study. This echoes in Kant's claim that the beautiful is a symbol of the morally good, and Schliermacher's argument that the most profound aesthetic experiences are also essentially religious. For modern theologian Paul Tillich, art always potentially serves a sacramental function, which means that artistic practice and art appreciation can always act religiously. This tradition has produced religious categories of experience that are also aesthetic categories: namely, the Sublime (Kant) and the numinous (Otto). In relationship to the sublime or the numinous, where is "cool", the "interesting" or the "boring"? When a performance strikes us as entertaining and enjoyable but not necessarily life-changing or challenging, what are we saying about our moral or political convictions as well as our aesthetic sense?

Please send contact information and a brief abstract of 200-300 words to Claire Maria Chambers at clairemariachambers@gmail.com by Oct. 25th. This panel is very open to including visual, tactile, gustatory, or performed examples, and seeks interventions/presentations as well as papers.