Overview
Beauty, Plato said, is difficult, and it has not become easier over the centuries. Despite our intimate acquaintance with countless works of art, which we both make and enjoy, a convincing account of art's nature, beauty and meaning remains as elusive and tantalizing today as it was for the Greeks. Moreover, the close connection between art and the mystery of reality continues to raise crucial questions in today's world.
Sponsored by both the Schools of Philosophy and Communication, this conference is an interdisciplinary response to the perennial challenge that art poses for human understanding. It is designed to bring together philosophers and specialists in communications in order to reflect on art and its significance for us today.
The Poetics of Aristotle will serve as a point of departure for these reflections, not because it offers definitive answers, but rather because the familiar problems, insights and themes of Aristotle's analysis provide an ideal framework for our discussion, which will focus on questions - art's truth value and particular mode of meaning, its ethical dimensions, the importance of beauty, art's relation to religious faith - that remain key to our understanding of art and of ourselves.
The Poetics & Christianity Project is an international forum for studying the intersection of artistic culture and expressions of religious faith, with a special emphasis on narrative and dramatic arts. It offers a meeting place for scholars and artists of diverse fields of expertise.
