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SUMMARY:Rust Belt Ruins - Renee Conroy
DTSTART:20150304T170000Z
DTEND:20150304T190000Z
UID:TALK58124@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Professor Matravers
DESCRIPTION:American political satirist P. J. O’Rourke observes\, “Det
 roit’s industrial ruins are picturesque\, like crumbling Rome in an 18th
  century etching”. I argue that O’Rourke’s claim should be taken lit
 erally: the crumbling pockets of urban decay that famously dot major citie
 s in America’s so-called “rust belt” belong to the aesthetic categor
 y ‘ruins’. While sites of recent urban devastation have a distinctive 
 aesthetic character\, they are nonetheless of an appreciative piece with t
 hose iconic structures from ancient times we relish in virtue of their inc
 ompleteness and their capacity to incite sustained reflection on things pa
 st.\n \nThe body of literature in this corner of aesthetics remains unfort
 unately small\, but one shared thesis emerges clearly from extant work in 
 this area\, viz.\, that age-value is central to our aesthetic regard for r
 uins. Hence\, according to the traditional model\, sites of contemporary r
 uination in places like Detroit\, Michigan do not count as genuine ruins. 
 They are\, at best\, ruins in a metaphorical or analogical sense. By consi
 dering carefully Carolyn Korsmeyer’s recent account of ruins as objects 
 of aesthetic regard (Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism\, Fall 2014)\
 , I argue that philosophers of art have overlooked an important appreciati
 ve category – that of “rust belt ruins” – and that this category c
 an be subsumed under traditional theories of ruin appreciation.
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, 1 Newnham Terrace\, Darwin College (enter by main 
 door).
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