Hegel for Radicals: On Art and Literature
The End of History is here! So proclaimed Francis Fukuyama in the 1990’s, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In the 1960’s the philosopher and art critic Arthur C. Danto proclaimed The End of Art, noting the ascendancy of Andy Warhol’s pop art. The idea can also be traced back to the early years of the 20th century with Marcel Duchamp, Dadaism, and Cubism.
The genesis of both concepts, The End of History and the End of Art are credited to Hegel.
The MEP’s recurring series Hegel for Radicals resumes with a seminar on Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics where we will study his understanding of art and literature. We will read the Introduction and several selected sections from the body of the lectures. As in virtually every area which he investigated, Hegel brought about a revolution in the way we think of art and literature. He anticipated the development of modernism before it arrived, as well as the enigmas raised by postmodernism. Agree with Hegel or not, it is no exaggeration to say that all contemporary discourse about art and literature takes his work as its point of departure.
This class series begins on October 31 and will introduce what is living in Hegel for those who want to change the world. Our goal is to make Hegel’s dialectic less mysterious as we go along and try to tease out the revolutionary implications in his thought and its significance for our time. Previous classes in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, The Science of Logic and/or The Philosophy of Right will be helpful but are not a requirement for this class. Every participant in the class will be expected to make at least one presentation during the semester.
Alex Steinberg is the facilitator of Hegel for Radicals. He is an independent scholar who has taught and published on topics such as the philosophy of Heidegger and Nazism, Marxism and humanism, Hegel’s philosophy of history and Hegel’s Phenomenology at various alternative educational institutions. Alex has also been involved with the governance of WBAI radio in New York and its parent organization, Pacifica, most recently as the Chair of the Pacifica National Board from 2020-2022.