Monday, September 26, 2016

Philosophies of Art & Beauty: Sophocles' Oedipus Rex

For Philosophies of Art & Beauty I am showing the 1957 Sir Tyrone Guthrie version of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. This was the version shown to me in the aesthetics class that I took as an undergraduate, and so I am proud and delighted to show it to my own students so many years later.

Come to think of it: the manner in which I am teaching the course is nearly identical to the reading list followed when I took it as an undergraduate. Essentially the classical texts from Hofstadter's and Kuhn's Philosophies of Art & Beauty. But rather than two in-class exams and two papers like I did, I am having my students accomplish three take home exams and two 5 minute presentations where they bring in some artwork that they think evidences immediately and tangibly an aesthetic theory discussed in the course. The exams and presentations in addition to six short reading comprehension homework assignments over the course of the semester.

I have embedded the video below for After Nature readers, as well.