WARWICK NOMINATOR: PROFESSOR STEPHEN HOULGATE, PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

Lydia Goehr is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. She works on the Philosophy of Music, Aesthetics, Critical Theory, Philosophy of History, and European Philosophy, and is internationally renowned for her innovative, cross-disciplinary work on the relationship between music, politics, history, and philosophy. Her thesis that the very idea of a musical 'work' is a distinctive product of early 19^th century culture has been widely debated. She is the recipient of numerous awards including Mellon, Getty, and Guggenheim Fellowships. She has been a Visiting Fellow at Berkeley, Hamburg and the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. She is the author of The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works (Oxford, 1992, 2007); The Quest for Voice: Music, Politics, and the Limits of Philosophy (Oxford, 1998), and Elective Affinities: Musical Essays on the History of Aesthetic Theory (Columbia, 2008). She has published over 60 articles in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.

Goehr’s work cuts across the boundary between the Anglo-American and post-Kantian European traditions. This makes her an ideal visitor for the Philosophy Department at Warwick. Moreover, Goehr’s substantive and interdisciplinary approach to aesthetic theory mirrors that of those members of the Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts (CRPLA) who are supporting the bid, this being precisely what distinguishes the CPRLA from more narrowly analytic centres of aesthetics. Beyond the Dept and Centre, Goehr’s work on Adorno speaks directly to that of Helmut Schmitz (German), and Robert Fine (Sociology) on critical theory, her work on 19^th-century German philosophy, art and culture to that of Michael John Kooy (English) and James Hodkinson (German) on Romanticism. Her work on aesthetic modernism bears upon that of Christina Britzolakis and Daniel Katz (English), while her writing on Merleau-Ponty and Wittgenstein on art intersects with that of Paul Smith and Michael Hatt (History of Art). All have expressed their support for the bid. As this makes plain, Goehr has the capacity to speak to an unusually wide constituency at Warwick.

The programme of events for her visit is as follows:

Tuesday, 19 January 2010.

5.30pm, S0.11:  First Public lecture (Research Seminar in Post-Kantian Philosophy): 'Annie Get Your Gun: Contest, Mimesis, and Hubris in Politics and the Arts'

Respondent: Dr Jason Gaiger (Art History, Open University).

Friday, 22 January 2010

2.00 – 5.00pm (S0.08): Early Career / Research Student Workshop on Nietzsche’s The Gay Science.

Tuesday, 26 January 2010

5.30pm, S0.11:  Second Public lecture (CRPLA Seminar): 'Pictures at an Exhibition: Ekphrasis, Criticism, and Description in Philosophy and the Arts'

Respondent: Dr Diarmuid Costello, (Philosophy, Warwick).

Thursday, 28 January 2010

'Modernism and Aesthetic Transcendence' : A Workshop on Lydia Goehr’s Work and its Sources

 in the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) Seminar Room, Millburn House, University of Warwick

10.30 Tea & Coffee available

11.00–12.00 Prof. Peter Poellner (Philosophy, Warwick): 'Modernist Transcendence: The Case of Musil’s The Man without Qualities'

12.00–13.00 Dr Helmut Schmitz (German, Warwick): 'The Historicity of Aesthetic Experience in Adorno and Benjamin'

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00–15.00  Dr Gordon Finlayson (Philosophy, Sussex): 'Negativity and the Ban on Images in Adorno's Philosophy of Art'

15.00–16.00 Prof. Max Paddison (Music, Durham): ‘Art and the Ideology of Nature: Adorno, Hamsun, Sibelius’

16.00 – 16.30 Tea & Coffee

16.30–18.00 KEYNOTE Prof. Lydia Goehr (Philosophy, Columbia): ‘Essentially Contested Concepts: Learning from Agonistic Opera’  

18.00 drinks, followed by dinner