Aesthetic Communities, Histories, and Retrospective Consecration

Abstract

In this introduction to the special issue “Retrospective cultural consecration: The dynamics of remembering and forgetting,” we briefly sketch prior work and new developments in research on aesthetic communities and their collectively constructed histories. Such histories often involve the retrospective consecration of a select few exemplars. Contributors to this special issue examine the dynamics by which aesthetic communities remember as well as forget their past. In doing so, the articles address three intertwined themes in processes of consecration: aesthetic hierarchy, aesthetic mobility, and aesthetic evaluation.