Aesthetic Experience and the Powers of Possession: From Somaesthetics to The Man in Gold

Abstract

This talk revisits the oldest theory of aesthetics that defines art as the result of divine but irrational possession. After examining how this theory was effectively countered and replaced by rational accounts of art making but nonetheless found recurrent residual expression in astute theorists, Richard Shusterman proposes a naturalistic account of possession in artistic experience. The account derives from his research in somaesthetics and his experience in performance art with the Man in Gold, a product of possession.

Bio

Richard Shusterman is the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Educated at Jerusalem and Oxford, he chaired the Temple University Philosophy Department before coming to FAU in 2005. He has held academic appointments in Paris, Berlin, Hiroshima, Rome, Oslo, Vienna, Hong Kong and Shanghai. He has also received senior Fulbright and NEH fellowships.

His widely translated research covers many topics in the human sciences with particular emphasis on questions of philosophy, aesthetics, culture and embodiment. Authored books include: Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life (Routledge 1997), Performing Live (Cornell 2000), Surface and Depth (Cornell 2002) and Pragmatist Aesthetics (Blackwell 1992). His recent books in somaesthetics include a trilogy with Cambridge University Press: Body Consciousness (2008), Thinking through the Body (2012) and Ars Erotica: Sex and Somaesthetics in the Classical Arts of Love (2021), but also a bilingual graphic novella, The Adventures of the Man in Gold, based on his work in performance art. The French government awarded him the title of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques for his philosophical and cultural work.

Professor Shusterman will also be participating in a number of other events during his sojourn in Montreal, including two Shusterman Salons, where Concordia doctoral students present brief talks about their research and he responds.