Description: Seminar, one hour. What is beauty? Who decides? Exploration of human experience of aesthetic appreciation. Analysis of different facets of beauty through biological and cultural lens as means of examining universality and variability in its perceptions. Focus on holistic discussion of beauty. Discussion of human beauty. Focus on its more abstract forms such as art, performance, and nature. Draws from different disciplines such as history, biology, psychology, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology for multifaceted approach to subject. Case studies from diverse range of cultures to demonstrate variability that exists within cultural framework of beauty. P/NP grading. Facilitated by Doris Vidas, with Alan Page Fiske as faculty mentor.

Units: 1.0