The Cultivation of Taste: Aesthetics and the Senses

The study, criticism, and judgment of art is founded on a discourse around taste. How do we judge the merits of a work of art, whether it is good, bad, beautiful, ugly, or something else? Are aesthetic judgments universal, or subjective? Can individuals be trained in aesthetic systems to connect their own sensory experiences with other people’s encounters? How might taste distinguish people, separating them into different groups, as well as bring others together? What is the relationship between gustatory and aesthetic taste? In this class, we will focus on the writings of artists, philosophers, art critics, art historians, gastronomists, literary historians, anthropologists, and sociologists, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, to trace a history of taste in Europe and Asia.