Discussions

Reading Questions

1. For John Dewey, what should we pay attention to if we want to understand the aesthetic value of a work of art, and how is that aesthetic value conveyed?
2. For Dewey, what is the connection between “art” to everyday life?
3. For Dewey, what is the value of “high art” or “fine art” compared with popular art?
4. For Dewey, how is art related to the imagination?
5. For Dewey, what makes something an act of “artistic expression?”
6. For Dewey, what factors should be considered in trying to understand an art object?
7. What does Achebe mean when he claims Africa is often thought of as a “foil” for Europe?
8. For Achebe, how is the “humanity” of Africans portrayed in Heart of Darkness?
9. For Achebe, why is Conrad’s Heart of Darkness disqualified as “art?” 

• Methodology: Sayre, Henry M. “Using Visual Information: What to look for and how to Describe what you see” Chapter excerpt from Writing About Art (PDF)
• Wikipedia article on John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934) (Links to an external site.)
• Dewey's Aesthetics (Links to an external site.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Siblings in Cyberspace
• Chinua Achebe. An Image of Africa. From The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trend (PDF), 3rd Ed. D.H. Richter, Ed. (This is a very long article and you do NOT have to read it all carefully. Please just focus on Achebe's argument about what makes something "good art" vs. "bad art") (PDF)