virtual philosopher

7 Ways of Thinking About Art - Tate Modern

I will be leading a course on the Philosophy of Art at Tate Modern -  Seven Ways of Thinking About Art - on Monday evenings 6.30- 8pm,  4th February - 17th March this year (followed by a drink in the bar from 8pm). If you are interested in attending you should book soon as these courses sell out quite quickly. I'll be posting notes from the course on my other weblog Art and Allusion. This course is a mixture of classroom discussion and looking at works of art in the gallery after the public have left (a privilege in itself).

You can get an idea of the sorts of topics covered in this course and my approach by looking at my notes from the last time I taught the course here. We won't necessarily be looking at the same works for the upcoming course.

This course is also the basis of a book I am writing with the same name...but don't hold your breath.

Dreyfus mp3 lectures on Heidegger - the whole course

I'm not a great fan of Heidegger, but if you have to read him what better way than to have Hubert Dreyfus take you through Being and Time. Life is short. If you are going to approach this monumentally obscure book at all you need a guide. Everyone does. Or else, perhaps, it would be wiser to avoid the book altogether. I believe F.R.Leavis' line on certain books was 'The critic has his economies' - i.e. critics don't need to read everything. But if you feel that you really should grasp Heidegger's main themes...then you definitely will need some help.

If you are at Berkeley, then no problem. But now we can all sit in on Dreyfus' lectures as all 22 (so far) of his Fall lecture series are available on iTunes - in the iTunesU. If you have the iTunes software on your computer, this link should take you to the podcast lectures. Also Dreyfus has links that should get you to them here. If that doesn't work, go to iTunes,  then to iTunesU, then to UC Berkeley, then Arts and Humanities...Each lecture is about one and a quarter hours and is unedited - so it really does feel like sitting in on a course. Dreyfus is clearly a popular teacher - the lecture room is full to bursting.

Online Philosophy Course based on Stephen Law's Philosophy Gym

Oxford University Department of Continuing Education is now offering an introductory online Philosophy course based on Stephen Law's The Philosophy Gym.

Further details of this course.

The Open University's A211 Philosophy and the Human Situation is a longer and more wide-ranging distance learning course - I wrote the first section of this, Arguments for Freedom.

Tate Modern Course on Louise Bourgeois - Advance Warning

Transformations: Louise Bourgeois’ Art About Life

Led by Nigel Warburton. Venue: Tate Modern.
Monday evenings 19th Nov.- 10th Dec. 2007. Booking details now available from Tate Modern.

This 4-session course investigates Louise Bourgeois’ art from a philosophical angle. Rather than dwelling on art historical connections, participants will have the opportunity to explore and discuss her work through the key themes of Life into Art, the Ambivalent Body, Transforming Pain, and Artistic Style. Bourgeois has declared that her work is about life: this course will provide a framework within which to examine that claim in the presence of the wide range of her art assembled for the major retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern. Each session will focus on a single theme, triggered by Bourgeois work, but will also address wider issues about the nature of art and expression.

Notes from Session 5 of Beyond Seeing, Tate Modern

Notes from the penultimate session of Beyond Seeing, the course I'm leading at Tate Modern, are available here.

Notes from Session 4 of Beyond Seeing, Tate Modern - Touch Tour

Notes from the 4th session of the Tate Modern course 'Beyond Seeing' are available here. This was a 'Touch Tour' led by Marcus Horley.

Notes on Taboo from V and A course on Surrealism

Notes from the final session of Exploring Surrealism: Chance-Dream-Desire-Taboo are available here.

Notes on Taste and 'Taste' Session 3 of Beyond Seeing, Tate Modern

Notes from Session 3 of Tate Modern course Beyond Seeing are available here.

Notes from Session 3 of Surrealism course: Desire

Notes from the Session 3 of  the course I'm leading at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Exploring Surrealism: Chance-Dream-Desire-Taboo, are available here.

Notes on Session 2 of Beyond Seeing, Tate Modern

Notes from the second session of the course I'm leading at Tate Modern, Beyond Seeing, including short clips from an interview I made with artist Oswaldo Macia, are available here.

Notes from session one.

Course Outline.

Next week: Taste and 'Taste'...