I’m honored to be lecturing at Tsinghua University in Beijing on 11/23/23. More details can be found here.

Abstract: This presentation will provide an overview of my research to date on aesthetics and politics. It will begin by outlining the compositional model of ideology, which foregrounds the aesthetic dimensions of ideological experience by drawing on Antonio Gramsci’s important conceptualization of common sense (as opposed to good sense). It will then examine, more specifically, the bourgeois ideology of art, with a particular focus on the problems inherent in the work of some of the most prominent art theorists in the West (Jacques Rancière, Arthur Danto, and Herbert Marcuse). Finally, it will raise the essential question of how to challenge this bourgeois ideology by elucidating how culture is a central site of class struggle. Through the course of this overall trajectory, a number of concrete examples and specific artistic tactics will be shared in order to foster a rich conversation dealing with both theory and practice.