Description: This seminar will introduce students to British art and aesthetic theory from roughly 1700-1900. Although the primary focus of the class will be on artists, writers, philosophers, and critics based in the metropole, the larger scope of the British Empire and the impact of British imperialism and colonialism on aesthetic production and debates will be an active concern for this class. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, this course will pay particular attention to the ways in which artists, philosophers, and critics responded to a wide array of social debates that were transforming British cultural production including: copyright and the controversy of artistic property; various monetary and financial crises ; changes in the law; and the decline in a model of civic humanism premised on land holding and property.
Graduate students are required to give two 30-40 minute presentations and a final 20-25 page paper, and they will have roughly 3-4 hours of reading per week. Cross-list: HART 331. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for HART 531 if student has credit for HART 331.