Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism, Western University, Speaker Series
“Participatory Ontology and the Aesthetics of Nature: The Artistic Tradition of Disrupting Anthropocentricism”
with Dr. Alexander J. B. Hampton, Assistant Professor, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto
March 3, 2022 – 4pm EST
Contact theory@uwo.ca for Passcode
Aesthetics has played a fundamental role in shaping the human-nature relationship. This consideration examines the resilient capacity of aesthetics, particularly aesthetic realism, to disrupt and critique anthropocentrism, the belief that human beings are the most important element of existence. In this consideration aesthetic realism is defined by the metaphysical position that ideals are real, transcendent ideas, and elaborated through three central, recurrent and evolving concepts: methexis, mimēsis and poiēsis. Taken together, these articulate and enact a relationship between humans and nature that recognises nature’s own inherent meaning and value apart from those imposed upon it by human minds. These dimensions of aesthetic realism are explored through examples from poetry, painting, music and architecture, taken from antiquity to modernity, each in its own way challenging anthropocentrism. In doing so, aesthetics presents itself as a creative resource for rethinking the human-nature relationship, and overcoming an anthropocentric, disenchanted, commodified and instrumentalised view of nature.
