We will read various academic and literary essays (the first main “reader” will be _The Aesthetics of Risk_ anthology put out by SoCCAS and George Bataille’s _Visions of Excess_ as the second main “reader”) and discuss them, closely. We will also watch videos/DVDs of performance/s and body art pieces and discuss them in relation to certain texts from the “reader/s”.
The purpose of this course is to “trace” what (or better “how” and/or “when”) an “aesthetics of risk” is (and can be), and how it is textually and visually (viscerally) enacted.
A general understanding of Western aesthetic theories and philosophies would be helpful — as well as the more “contemporary” and/as political uses of the term, but this is NOT required in order to take the course.