糖心TV

Matthew Decoursey will present: 'Aesthetics and Education: Four Walks in the Woods' as part of the CES Research Seminar Series on Wednesday May 25th at 1pm.

Aesthetic experience can be a puzzling idea. This notion can seem absurdly broad, and can apply to experience of nature as much as of art. And yet, it has importance. Aesthetic experience in the classroom can promote motivation and even contribute, in the long term, to a meaningful life for students. First, though, we need to know what it is. This seminar uses the images of four different ways of being in the woods to explore what kind of thing aesthetic experience is. It draws on recent findings in neuroscience, and especially on philosophical reflection about them. We are able to focus our attention in different ways, or choose not to focus it, in different ways too. We are able to project imaginatively onto our environment, intentionally perceiving things that we know quite well are not there. This presentation builds a view of aesthetic experience grounded in the recent work of Mark Johnson, Jenefer Robinson, and Jean-Marie Schaeffer. It goes on to place aesthetic experience in the classroom, looking at what forms of aesthetic experience, using examples from literature and drama, may be productive for teaching different kinds of material.