“…The trigger for the debate was, presumably, Arthur Efland’s article ‘The entwined nature of the aesthetic’ (2004), in which he challenged what he considered visual culture’s submission to the ‘leveling tendency’ (Efland , 241) that pervades postmodern discourse. Efland (, 38) was deeply concerned that visual culture theory/practice, enabled by scholars like Bourdieu and Danto, removed intrinsic differences and legitimate hierarchy distinguishing fine art from popular visual culture objects, by representing the value attributed to both as totally socially constructed, culturally subjective and arbitrary. The ‘villain’ creating arbitrary hierarchy was modernist formalism, which required Kantian disinterestedness to work, which connoisseurs ostensibly possessed.…”
Section: Represent’n’ Representation and Aestheticsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Efland had to concede that formalism, as generally understood, disconnected art from social life, and that social life supplied all of art’s meaning. Relying on Paul Guyer’s (1996) reinterpretation of Kant’s concept of disinterestedness, Efland () argued that disinterestedness was misunderstood by modernist formalism to mean without any interest in the content of the world. However, disinterestedness in Kantian theory had a purpose – to provide an experience of freedom that could serve broader social purposes if, and only if, the arts were autonomous, that is, if in human cognition a space is provided for imagination and understanding to explore freely social or moral ideas without immediate social or political repercussions .…”
Section: Represent’n’ Representation and Aestheticsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…However, disinterestedness in Kantian theory had a purpose – to provide an experience of freedom that could serve broader social purposes if, and only if, the arts were autonomous, that is, if in human cognition a space is provided for imagination and understanding to explore freely social or moral ideas without immediate social or political repercussions . (Efland , 248)…”
Section: Represent’n’ Representation and Aestheticsmentioning
Art education in the USA has made great progress toward greater inclusiveness and is generally a force against resurgent fascism. Nevertheless, higher art education theory is dominated by Euro‐Western philosophical legacies, encumbered by dualism, which impede art education’s emancipative democratising potential. Recent debate about the uselessness of aesthetics illustrate this ethnocentrism. This article analyses the ethnocentrism that lingers in the postmodern legacies that undergird the debate; then shows how engagement with nondualist philosophies, predominantly non‐Euro‐Western, can make a profound difference to art education theory and practice. They are imperative to comprehending hybridity promoting global citizenship, resisting fascism and advancing global equity.
“…The trigger for the debate was, presumably, Arthur Efland’s article ‘The entwined nature of the aesthetic’ (2004), in which he challenged what he considered visual culture’s submission to the ‘leveling tendency’ (Efland , 241) that pervades postmodern discourse. Efland (, 38) was deeply concerned that visual culture theory/practice, enabled by scholars like Bourdieu and Danto, removed intrinsic differences and legitimate hierarchy distinguishing fine art from popular visual culture objects, by representing the value attributed to both as totally socially constructed, culturally subjective and arbitrary. The ‘villain’ creating arbitrary hierarchy was modernist formalism, which required Kantian disinterestedness to work, which connoisseurs ostensibly possessed.…”
Section: Represent’n’ Representation and Aestheticsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Efland had to concede that formalism, as generally understood, disconnected art from social life, and that social life supplied all of art’s meaning. Relying on Paul Guyer’s (1996) reinterpretation of Kant’s concept of disinterestedness, Efland () argued that disinterestedness was misunderstood by modernist formalism to mean without any interest in the content of the world. However, disinterestedness in Kantian theory had a purpose – to provide an experience of freedom that could serve broader social purposes if, and only if, the arts were autonomous, that is, if in human cognition a space is provided for imagination and understanding to explore freely social or moral ideas without immediate social or political repercussions .…”
Section: Represent’n’ Representation and Aestheticsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…However, disinterestedness in Kantian theory had a purpose – to provide an experience of freedom that could serve broader social purposes if, and only if, the arts were autonomous, that is, if in human cognition a space is provided for imagination and understanding to explore freely social or moral ideas without immediate social or political repercussions . (Efland , 248)…”
Section: Represent’n’ Representation and Aestheticsmentioning
Art education in the USA has made great progress toward greater inclusiveness and is generally a force against resurgent fascism. Nevertheless, higher art education theory is dominated by Euro‐Western philosophical legacies, encumbered by dualism, which impede art education’s emancipative democratising potential. Recent debate about the uselessness of aesthetics illustrate this ethnocentrism. This article analyses the ethnocentrism that lingers in the postmodern legacies that undergird the debate; then shows how engagement with nondualist philosophies, predominantly non‐Euro‐Western, can make a profound difference to art education theory and practice. They are imperative to comprehending hybridity promoting global citizenship, resisting fascism and advancing global equity.
“…In contemporary US child culture, for example, Dyson (2003) found that children engaged in 'sampling', including themes from popular art and media. Like Efland's (2005) notions about visual culture, this suggests that educative arts experiences include both images of viewer's everyday lives and fine art images that transcend the everyday, and that the juxtaposition of the two results in heightened perception.…”
Section: Period Eyes: Utilizing Interpretive Lensesmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Just what conception should we be encouraging? (p. 35) Efland (2005) suggested that visual cultural study include both the arts of everyday life and fine arts. 'Sometimes art is not obviously concerned with the everyday.…”
Section: School Art As a Cultural Sensibilitymentioning
This article explores a double-bind in early schooling: a persistent value placed upon presenting multicultural art forms to a child constructed as incapable of grasping what is not familiar. The author argues that this bind is situated within dominant developmental discourses that emphasize the appropriateness of concrete and sequential activities and within dominant school art discourses that have constructed early school art as 'process over product' and that have understood culture as heritage. Suggesting that all novices -adults and children -make meaning from complex cultural values intertwined with the arts in some similar ways, she presents a description of a personal encounter with a Japanese tea garden and ceremony in order to (a) explore notions of art, development, and school art as cultural sensibilities, and (b) illustrate a cyclical process of direct perception, personal-contextual meaning-making, and discursive analysis. She concludes by arguing that encounters with the unfamiliar present unrealized educative possibilities for aesthetic experience in early schooling and by discussing new directions for an aesthetic early childhood education.
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