January 2017

This month, I have read, watched, and liked these:

Films, documentaries, and TV series:

• The 39 Steps. (1935). Alfred Hitchcock. 
• Out of the Past. (1947). Jacques Tourneur. (A film noir masterpiece.)
• Sunset Boulevard. (1950). Billy Wilder. (Another film noir/mystery/drama masterpiece.)
• Dr. Strangelove. (1964). Stanley Kubrick. (A classic. And always fun to watch!)
• Mad Men, Season 3. (2009).
• Exit Through the Gift Shop. (2010). Banksy. (Interesting documentary on street art focused on the figure of Mr. Brainwash and on the process of 'validation' in the artworld. For those interested in thinking about the nature of art and artistic value, including the monetary value of art.)

Essays (academic):

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art

• Morris Weitz (1956). The role of theory in aesthetics. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Reprinted in Peter Lamarque and Stein H. Olsen (eds.). Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Blackwell Publishing
• Arthur Danto (1964). The artworld. The Journal of Philosophy. Reprinted in Peter Lamarque and Stein H. Olsen (eds.). Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Blackwell Publishing
• George Dickie (1975). What is anti-art? The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 
• Jerrold Levinson (1979). Defining art historically. British Journal of Aesthetics. Reprinted in Peter Lamarque and Stein H. Olsen (eds.). Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Blackwell Publishing
• George Dickie (1983). The new institutional theory of art. Proceedings of the 8th Wittgenstein Symposium, 10. Reprinted in Peter Lamarque and Stein H. Olsen (eds.). Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Blackwell Publishing. 
• Monroe Beardsley (1983). An aesthetic definition of art. Reprinted in Peter Lamarque and Stein H. Olsen (eds.). Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art. Blackwell Publishing. 

(All important contemporary papers on the definition of art.)

Ethics, Meta-ethics, Applied ethics

• Kwame Anthony Appiah (1990). Racism. In Hugh LaFollette (Ed.) Ethics in Practice. 2nd Edition. Blackwell Publishing. 
• Loretta Kopelman (1994). Female circumcision/genital mutilation and ethical relativism. Second Opinion.
• Miranda Fricker (2013). Styles of moral relativism. In Roger Crisp, Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics. Oxford University Press. 
• Jonathan Wolff (2002). Economic competition: should we care about the losers? In Hugh LaFollette (ed.). Ethics in Practice. Blackwell Publishing.

Essays (popular/non-academic):

• Pelagia Horgan (2014) Sacred Art. Aeon. (This is a nice short piece that ends with the question(s): can (and how) 'secular people' appreciate sacred art? I discussed these issues in my 'The Will to Make-believe'.)

Books (fiction):

• Angela Carter (1979). The Bloody Chamber (I didn't like all of the stories in this collection—for example, I didn't like 'The Erl-King'. However, 'The Bloody Chamber', 'Puss-in-Boots', 'The Lady of the House of Love', and the last two stories are delightful.)

Books (non-fiction):

• David Papineau (2002). Thinking about Consciousness. Clarendon Press. (I find his discussion of the phenomenal concept strategy quite convincing.)