Convened by Prof. Massimo Renzo & Dr. Elise Woodard
KCL Law, Fall 2024
This module will explore the relationship between Art, Politics and Morality. This relationship is complex and raises a number of questions that go back at least to Ancient Greece. For example, can art, at least in some of its forms, corrupt? And, if so, is censorship an adequate response to it? (Plato famously thought that poetry was dangerous and should have no place in the city.) The contemporary debate has paid relatively little attention to these questions, but recent discussions in the news of the immoral conduct of prominent artists (from Gaugin to Roman Polanski to Michael Jackson) have forcefully brought some of them to the attention of the public. Some of these questions are institutional. Is it appropriate, for example, for the state to bestow public honours on such figures? Other questions are social in nature. How, as consumers, should we respond to their work? Are we required to boycott it or is this a morally problematic form of “cancel culture”? Finally, some questions concern our private responses to the work of these artists. Is it appropriate to enjoy it? Could its aesthetic value be compromised when its content is morally problematic? And even when the content itself is not morally problematic, could its aesthetic value be compromised by the immorality of the author? These are some of the questions we will discuss in class.
Guest: Louise Hanson on Oct 18