The LA Opera is in the midst of a three year Britten cycle, which will conclude with their performances of Billy Budd in February 2014.  In conjunction with the opening of Billy Budd, Robert Fink (Department of Musicology), Efrain Kristal (Departments of Comparative Literature and Spanish and Portuguese), and Kenneth Reinhard (Departments of English and Comparative Literature) are organizing a conference on “Benjamin Britten and Literature” at UCLA on Feb. 20 and 21, 2014.

Professor Neufeld will deliver a talk, “’So much is confusion!’ Britten and the public role of expressive ambiguity.”

For more information and the full program, see the conference website.

Congratulations to Jack Bassett and Mathew Rabon for each winning a competitive grant from the Summer Undergraduate Research Fund.  Jack will be mentored by Andrew Alwine of the Classics department and Matt will be mentored by Jonathan Neufeld of Philosophy. The project descriptions are below.

Jack Bassett: Aesthetic Innocence? Ancient Views on the Relationship between Art and the Political Animal

Last year the members of a band in Russia called, “Pussy Riot”, were imprisoned for making provocative statements during an unapproved concert in a Russian Orthodox Church. This act of “Aesthetic Disobedience” has been praised as a courageous political protest, but the question arises as to whether this is a legitimate use of artistic license. What is the role of art within the context of politics and society at large? This project seeks to investigate the nature of art’s effect on government and that government’s constituents. Aesthetic Disobedience’s bent toward political activism and protest is nothing new. In ancient Greece playwrights such as Aristophanes expressed political dissent openly, and it is my position that looking at his works and others, as well as the philosophical and political responses,such as those by Aristotle and Plato, to this type of art can cast a light on the potential problems and moral conflicts that arise. It is my intent in pursuing this topic to find parallels between early aesthetic dissidents and their modern descendants. The crux of the conflict on how art is viewed is based on two disparate ideas about man’s place in political society. On the one hand, the Greeks viewed art as inextricably intertwined with the political and social fabric of life, while on the other hand we moderns view art as occupying an autonomous sphere. And, in fact, maybe we moderns are the ones who need to modify our views on art and consequently man’s position in the public sphere.

Matt Rabon: Resonant Loop: A Definition of Art that Survives the Multiple Ontologies of Music

What IS an artwork? The reason for asking the question is also the cause of the question’s difficulty: there is a staggeringly diverse set of objects and practices that we group under a single concept Moreover, it is not clear how to distinguish artworks from ordinary objects that they (sometimes exactly) resemble. On the one hand, it is tempting simply to say there is no accounting for such a motley bunch. On the other, it often matters very much that we specify why something is art. For example, is this thing a sculpture or a piece of industrial material? If it is the latter, then it is taxed one way, if the former, another. Is this photograph art or not? If not, then we can call it obscene and prevent it from being displayed. If so, then we can’t. Is this community center the headquarters of a political party or is it a long-term performance project where actual members of the community (who participate in political actions) are part of the work? If it is the latter, then it can receive tax exempt donations from a non-profit museum. If the former, not. Each of these questions is based on a real example. The question of our project, then, is far from merely philosophical: is it possible to unite all of what we take to be art under a single definition that is flexible enough to explain them all? If not, how do we classify and identify diverse objects in practical settings?

Varner Flier[1]

Roundtable discussion with Jonathan Neufeld (Philosophy), Simon Lewis (English), and Ornaith O’Dowd (Philosophy)

In 1997, J. M. Coetzee’s delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values that would become his novella The Lives of Animals. Typically, the Tanner lectures are philosophical essays presenting arguments on specific ethical or political problems or concepts. Instead of presenting the usual set of arguments, Coetzee delivered two lectures that were two chapters from a novella. The novella’s central character, Elizabeth Costello, herself delivers two lectures on humans’ mistreatment animals (to put it mildly). While she presents arguments and counterarguments, as do other characters in the story, these arguments do not simply stand as arguments—they are also, of course, literary devices that constitute the book as the work of art that it is. Is Coetzee really just making an argument, and just adding color to it with the story? Or does the fact that it is a piece of literature change the status of the arguments in it? Why might we make certain kinds of ethical claims in artistic form rather than in some other form (the form of philosophical argument typically found in the Tanner Lectures, for example)? Is there something about talking about the lives of animals, in particular, that calls for a literary, rather than a philosophical response?

February 14, 12:15-1:30PM Alumni Center in the School of EHHP

Narrative Ethics & The Lives of Animals (pdf flier)