Graduate Student Seminar: Art, Politics, Morality (reading The Limits of Art, 2011)
Tzvetan Todorov
CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), Paris
Date:聽October 6, 2011
Tzvetan Todorov and a small group of graduate students to discuss his book,聽The Limits of Art聽(2010), among other topics.
Co-sponsored by:聽The Consulate General of France,聽The Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy,聽The BC College of Arts and Sciences,聽The BC Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.
About the Book
Tzvetan Todorov explores the complex relations between art, politics, and ethics in the essays that make up聽The Limits of Art. In one essay, 鈥淎rtists and Dictators,鈥� Todorov traces the intimate relationship between avant-garde art and radical politics in pre-revolutionary Russia, pre-fascist Italy, and pre-Nazi Germany. Todorov sets forth the radical idea that the project of totalitarian dictators and avant-garde artists actually 鈥渆merged from the same womb鈥�: both artists and dictators set out to make it new鈥攂e it art or society.
Further troubling the role of art in the world at large, in 鈥淎rt and Ethics鈥� Todorov re-examines the age-old question of what can be expected from art and whether it should be emancipated from ethics. Must art be morally instructive, or should it be self-sufficient and concept-free? The answer is not an either/or to Todorov, who believes, like Baudelaire, that art has both cognitive and ethical aspects to it鈥攅ven if it is presented as art for art鈥檚 sake.
Throughout the essays in聽The Limits of Art, Todorov insists on the essential need for a
About the Author
Tzvetan Todorov聽is a philosopher, theorist, and literary critic. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, he has lived in France since 1963. Since 1968, he has been a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research, Paris, where he has been honorary director since 2005. He is author of numerous books, many of which have been translated into English, including聽The Poetics of Prose听(1977),听Introduction to Poetics聽(1981),听The Conquest of America聽(1984),听Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle聽(1984),听Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps聽(1996),听On Human Diversity听(1993),听Hope and Memory聽(2003), and聽Imperfect Garden: The Legacy of Humanism聽(2002), and聽The New World Disorder: Reflections of a European聽(2005). His most recent books include:聽The Limits of Art聽(2010) and聽The Totalitarian Experience聽(2011). He is member of many scholarly organizations and recipient of numerous prizes, including the Prix Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1991), the Spinoza (2004), and the Prince of Asturias (2008).
Event Photos
Brenna McMahon, Graduate Research Assistant at the Boisi Center, introduces Tzvetan Todorov, CNRS (Paris), on Oct. 6, 2011.
Tzvetan Todorov, CNRS (Paris), Oct. 6, 2011.
Tzvetan Todorov, CNRS (Paris), on Oct. 6, 2011.
Read More
B.R. Rees,聽, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 1998.聽A critical study of Pelagius to date, together with a selection of his letters.
Saint Augustine,聽聽Oxford, Oxford UP, 1991.聽In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine relates his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of power at the imperial court in Milan, his struggle against the domination of his sexual nature, his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage, and the recovery of the faith his mother Monica had taught him during his childhood.
Peter Brown,聽, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 2000.聽A classic biography of Saint Augustine's life and teaching, first published thirty years ago.
Fran莽ois Flahault,聽, Paris, Mille et une nuits, 2008.
RELATED BOOKS BY TZVETAN TODOROV
, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003.聽Identifying totalitarianism as the major innovation of the twentieth century, Tzvetan Todorov examines the struggle between this system and democracy and its effects on human life and consciousness.
, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2010.Todorov offers a reasoned and often highly personal analysis of the tension between Western democracies and Islam. His analysis is rooted in Enlightenment values and yet open to the claims of cultural difference.