The Use and Uselessness of Art - Prof. Nicholas Wolterstorff in NYC Feb. 23

Published on January 27, 2010 by Christy Tennant

The University of Virginia Club of New York City
The Yale Club of New York City
&
The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at UVA

Invite you to a lecture and discussion on

"The Use and Uselessness of Art"

Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff

February 23, 2010

6:30 pm – Cocktails (cash bar)
7:00 – 8:00 pm – Talk and Discussion
The Library, 4

What is the purpose of art? Does it have to do with community experience, individual enjoyment, or pure contemplation? Or does art in fact possess no intrinsic value and purpose? How have Westerners traditionally viewed their relationship to aesthetics, and where do we stand in the early twenty-first century?

Professor Wolterstorff will chronicle the development of the artistic imagination, highlight competing narratives about the role of art in the public square, and locate the role of art in a global context.

Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Emeritus Professor of Religious Philosophy at Yale University and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Over the course of his career, Wolterstorff has published extensively on the philosophies of art, religion and politics. He is interested in both theory and practice, having participated in not only academic treatises on justice but also within the realm of civil rights and reconciliation. Wolterstorff was educated at Calvin College and Harvard University and has held visiting lectureships at Oxford, Princeton, and Harvard Universities.