The Aesthetics Seminar Week 8 HT17

Aesthetics Seminar

The Death of Socrates

Speaker: Anne Eaton (U. Illinois at Chicago)

Title: The Power of Pictures

Abstract: This paper is about pictures. My focus is not the usual questions about how pictures represent or how to conceive of their depictive content. Instead, I focus on what pictures can do. In particular, I am interested in how pictures shape their audiences’ sentiments (by which I mean: affect-laden object-directed mental states such as emotions, desires, and also some feelings and pleasures). To this end I outline a model of pictorial persuasion and consider its application in areas as seemingly diverse as pornography, advertising, high art, and propaganda.

Organising department: Faculty of Philosophy

Convenors: James Grant (University of Oxford)Yuuki Ohta (University of Oxford)

Part of: The Aesthetics Seminar