CMS 573 A: Aesthetics

“A Discourse of the Body”: Aesthetics and Media Technology
This course considers aesthetics as sensory experience. Taking our lead from the Ancient Greek αἴσθησις (sense perception, sensation, perception), we will consider how media technology – digital images, film, music, television, video, film – effect sensory perception and are affected by sensory perception.  The emphasis will be on key terms in contemporary scholarship of media aesthetics – affect, embodiment, attention – as well as concepts once considered peripheral to the study of aesthetics – boredom, atmosphere, cuteness.  
This seminar mixes canonical and foundational figures such as Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan with emerging scholarship from Byung-Chul Han and Sianne Ngai.