In this course, we will closely examine a number of topics that
philosophers have debated in recent years about the nature of
artworks and our experience of them.  Topics will include:
--Is aesthetic experience purely sensory, or can we 'experience' the
meaning of an artwork?
--What role does imagination play in our engagment with and
appreciation of fiction?
--Can we feel real emotions towards fictional characters, since we
know they don't exist?  If we do, is it rational for us to do so?
--Is the aesthetic value of an artwork also dependent on its
cognitive value, i.e., what we can learn from it?
--Can an immoral artwork still count as a good artwork?

The course has no prerequisites.  But this is an intensive writing
course, and students will be required to write several philosophy
papers of different lengths, including one major paper that will be
go through multiple revisions.  So it would be advisable for
students to have at least one prior philosophy course, so that they
will already have some idea about how to read and write
philosophical texts.

Readings will be drawn largely from Matthew Kieran (ed.),
_Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art_
(Blackwell, 2005).