Hypatia, Inc.

Introduction: Feminism and Aesthetics

Author(s): Peg Brand and Mary Devereaux
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 18, No. 4, Women, Art, and Aesthetics (Autumn - Winter, 2003), pp.
viii-xx
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc.
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 Feminism
Introduction: andAesthetics
PEG BRAND AND MARY DEVEREAUX

It is with great enthusiasm that we present this special issue of Hypatiaon

feminismand aesthetics.It has been more than twelve yearssince guest editors
Hilde Hein and CarolynKorsmeyerput togetherthe firstspecialissueof Hypatia
on this topic (1990). Then in its initial stages, feminist theorizing about art
and aesthetics introducedconsiderationsof genderinto discussionsof creativ-
ity and genius, the nature of art and its appreciationand interpretation,the
imagination,and other traditionalquestions of philosophical aesthetics. The
resultwas an unprecedentedchallenge to the existing philosophicalliterature.
Pioneersof workin feminismand aestheticsraisedthe possibilityof a specifically
"feminine aesthetic,"identified the "malegaze"implicitly assumedby visual
representationsof the female body,called attention to the interestsembedded
in purportedlydisinterestedresponsesto art, and arguedfor the importanceof
attendingto African-Americanwomen'sliteratureand otherpreviouslyignored
aesthetic traditions.This earlyworkdirectedphilosophicattention for the first
time to women'sexperiences,includingwomen'sexperiencesof theirown bodies
and their sense of themselves as creators.One result of this theoretical work
was a flurryof interest in the body as an object of fashionableadornment,or
alternately,as a vehicle for political activism and/or embodiedsexuality.
Fromthe perspectiveof more than a decade later,we can chart the devel-
opment of the issues that preoccupied those first doing feminist work in
aesthetics. Some of the early questions have been answeredor set aside. So,
for example, many contemporaryfeminists now reject the idea of a uniquely
feminine aesthetic and the essentialist thinking about women and women's
art on which it relied.Other concerns retain their hold. Workon the question
of how gender affects traditionalphilosophical notions, for example, genius,
aesthetic autonomy,and disinterestedjudgment,continues, as does attention
to the social, economic, and institutional barriersconfronting women who
seek to have their art accepted in the mainstreamart world.The resultof the
past dozen yearsis an abundantand maturebody of scholarlywork-work that
continues to nourish and provoke.
As readerswill learn from this special issue, the past decade or so has
also witnessed an expansion of work into realmsfor the most part previously
unexplored:a concern with aesthetic pleasureand the pleasuresof the body,
the genderedaspects of beauty and the sublime,the relationof aesthetics and
ethics, the impact of feminist jurisprudenceon aesthetics, and the role of the
imaginationin political art.

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 Detail: Hypatia runnerfrom The Dinner Party
? JudyChicago 1979,mixed media.
Collection of The BrooklynMuseumof Art, Gift of The E
Sackler Foundation.Photo:? Donald Woodma

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x Hypatia

The annotatedbibliographypresentedin this volume providesa good start-

ing point for chartingthe ebb and flow of a decade or moreof feministworkin
aesthetics.Presentingonly a smallproportionof the availablepublicationsin this
area,authorJoshuaShawbeginswith the two pivotalvolumespublishedin 1990:
Hypatia(republishedas Aestheticsin FeministPerspective, 1993)andTheJournalof
Aestheticsand Art Criticism(republishedas Feminismand Traditionin Aesthetics
[Brandand Korsmeyer1995]).Shaw'semphasis,like that of Brand,Hein, and
Korsmeyer,is on workin analyticphilosophy.The resultingbibliographyreveals
the wealth of materialnow availableon women artists,feministre-visioningof
art history,and feminist theory,workthat originatesin feminist visual theory,
film theory,culturalstudies,and art history.Materialin this areahas blossomed
beyond expectations.Detailed and thoroughtexts now exist on an incredible
variety of women artists,past and present (see bibliographyfor texts by Fiona
Carsonand ClairePajaczkowska, MarshaMeskimmon,HelenaReckitt,and Ella
Shohat). Such studiesof individual artistsare greatlyenhanced by the sophisti-
cated theoreticalframeworksused to explain both their workand their place in
history,frameworks unimaginablein the early1970swhenwomenartistswerefirst
taking their rightfulplace at the forefrontof feministscholarshipand legitimiza-
tion (see bibliographicentriesby KatyDeepwelland GriseldaPollock).
The bibliographyalso details the innovative and expandedrange of topics
that have come to take center stage in feminist philosophical inquiryto date,
notions such as aesthetic autonomy(MaryDevereaux),the feminine sublime
(BarbaraClaire Freeman),evolutionarypsychology and beauty (Peg Brand,
Nancy Etcoff), horrorin film (Cynthia Freeland),melodrama,(Flo Leibowitz),
filmcomedies(Naomi Scheman),as well as emergingtopicssuch as the feminist
re-visioningof architectureand urban spaces (Joan Rothschild). Finally,the
bibliographyusefullydirects the readerto key feminist essaysin variousmore
general collections: The Encyclopediaof Aesthetics(Kelly 1998), The Oxford
Handbookof Aesthetics(Levinson 2003), The RoutledgeCompanionto Aesthet-
ics (Gaut and Lopes 2001), and Brand'sBeautyMatters(2000). Also included
is relevant work on aesthetics from PennsylvaniaState University Press'sRe-
Readingthe Canon series.
In additionto the bibliography,this volumecontains book reviewshighlight-
ing four additional volumes of importantfeminist work in aesthetics. Estella
Lauteranalyzesthe first comprehensivevolumes on this topic coming out of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland,respectively:Penny Florence and Nicola
Foster'sDifferentialAesthetics:ArtPractices,Philosophy andFeministUnderstand-
ings (2000) and Hilary Robinson's Feminism-Art-Theory: An Anthology
1968-2000 (2001). These two volumes make clear that while feminist work
in aesthetics expandsbeyond the boundariesof North America, international
dialogue on these issues is still in its infancy.
Flo Leibowitzreviewstwo additionalvolumes:Genderin theMirror:Cultural
ImageryandWomen'sAgency,by Diane Tietjen Meyers(2002), and Self-Portraits

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 Introduction xi

by WomenPainters,by Liana de Girolami Cheyney, Alicia Craig Faxon, and

Kathleen Lucey Russo (2000). As Leibowitzpoints out, both books explore
the concepts of female agency and identity that play central roles in how both
male and femaleartistsrepresentthe femalebody.Genderin theMirror(Meyers
2002) providesan illuminatingcomparisonof the waysthat women have been
gazedupon and depictedby male artistswhile alternativelybeing repositioned
and reconstructed-with new identitiesand modes of agency-by women art-
ists. Self-Portraits
(Cheyney,Faxon, and Russo 2000) providesan art historical
approach that organizesworkschronologically,yet we also learnof the intimate
self-concepts each artist chose to convey through self-portraiture.Central to
both these texts is the recurringnotion of the body and the waywomen artists
have sought to portraythemselvesin waysthat createnew formsof agency and
identity that promotepersonalempowerment.
It is not surprising,then, to see these same topics recurin the main body of
ourjournalessays,which fall moreor less naturallyunderthree broadheadings.
Section One focuseson women artistssuch as Adrian Piper,JennySaville, and
Janine Antoni, and on new ways of situating their work. Section Two inter-
rogates the role of bodies and beauty in women'slives, while Section Three
chronicles the overlapand interplaybetween aesthetics and adjacentfieldsof
ethics, political theory,and legal studies.Interestingly,this organizationpartly
mirrorsthe waythat feministscholarshipin the visualand literaryartsunfolded
in the late 1960sand earlyto mid-1970s:first,with the rediscoveryof womenart-
ists and writersfrompast history;second, with an analysisof the subjectmatter
of their works,focusingon the use of the femalebody and women'sexperiences
in the context of a dominanttraditionof historicaland philosophicalemphases
on women'sbeauty;and third, the naturalexpansion of feminist scholarshipin
aesthetics into adjacentfieldsof inquiry.
We begin our selection of twelve offeringswith a poem, perhapsmore aptly
labeled a poetic essay, written by PatriciaLocke. "Incommensurability" is a
fictionalnarrator'sresponseto the writingsof ImmanuelKant that takes as its
model the artworkof performanceartist and Kantian scholar Adrian Piper.
Locke'spoem expressesadmirationfor Piper'salternative to "the coolness of
Kant"by means of her "challengeto the purity of reason"(page).The poem's
narratorconsiders Piper a kindred creative spirit who also studied Kant in
graduateschool and was inspired to challenge his views philosophicallyand
artistically (1997). Interestingly,Locke'spoetic response to Piper'swork (and
to Kant's)itself serves to blur the line between art and philosophy,poem and
essay.In another sense, Locke'spoem providesa model for the next two essays,
both of which seek to re-contextualizethe workof women artists.
In the second essay in this section, art critic Eleanor Heartney analyzes
the work of some contemporarywomen artists, Hannah Wilke, Renee Cox,
Kiki Smith, Janine Antoni, Petah Coyne, and Lisa Yuskavage,all of whom
grewup Catholic. Heartneyquestionswhy women raisedas Catholics tend to

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xii Hypatia

create artworkthat deals with sexualityin waysthat the largerculturereadsas

transgressive.She borrowsa complex notion from theologians, the "Catholic
imagination,"which, fitted to her purpose, is characterizedas "aform of cre-
ative consciousness which is essentially 'incarnational'and that proceeds by
thinking through,ratherthan against, the body"(4). The figureof the Virgin
Mary figuresprominentlyin her analysis,providingthe touchstone of debate
for issues of identity and the representationof sexuality.Replete with several
contradictorynatures, the Virgin is associatedwith strength and submission,
motherhoodand virginity,humanityandgodliness.Heartneyexploreshow the
worshipof the Virgin (known as Mariology)influencesthe workof these art-
ists. Their artworksprovidea way of overcomingdivisions thought to separate
body from mind, feelings from thoughts, senses from cognition, and sexuality
from rationality.In this way, the work of Wilke, Cox, Smith, and the others
resonateswith themes in Piper'swork.
Following Heartney'sessay,Michelle Meagherexamines large-scalepaint-
ings of female nudes by JennySaville: workthat continues to exploremany of
the issuesof femaleflesh implicitin the worksof Catholic imaginationalready
surveyed.Meagher'sessay repositions the powerfulpaintings of the Scottish
painterwithin a new framework:a feministaestheticsof disgust.Saville, one of
the artists in the infamous 1997 Sensationshow of young Britishartists,paints
huge canvases of opulent female nudes. Her paintings contain richly colored
terrains of flesh, amplifiedby layersof texture from intricate brushwork.As
Saville describesit, this work forces the viewer to step back from the canvas;
even so, one is facedwith "largeexpansesof puckeredandfoldedskin,pendulous
breasts,and formidablethighs" (24) that elicit sensual-even visceral-reac-
tions. In a culturalcontext where we, as viewers,are accustomedto unending
imagesof thin bodies, of "perfect"flesh and bodily perfection,Saville'sbodies
confront and confound. They challenge culturalnorms, eliciting not admira-
tion and desirebut disgust.Meagher'sanalysisof this workseeks to answerthe
questionSaville herselfposes,namely,"Whydo we findbodieslike this difficult
to look at?"Appealing to currentdiscussionsof fat pride, Meagherdirects us
to the way in which this workaddressesthe problemof "experiencingoneself
as disgusting"(24). In a culture enthralled by narrow definitions of beauty,
Saville's women requirea radicallydifferent way of theorizing about female
beauty and its appreciation.
The authorsof Section Two turn fromanalyzingthe workof specificwomen
artists to a more direct examination of the fundamentaldichotomiesbetween
mind and body, spiritualityand physicality,and between the rational and the
sensual/sexualself at workin so much of WesternEuropeanart. On one level,
these fiveessayscan be readas a seriesof responsesto earlywritingson the body
by SandraBartky(1990) and Susan Bordo(1993).Some of these authorsfollow
through on examining the ways cultural practicesof displayingthe (female)

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 Introduction xiii

bodyconstrainwomen'slives. Others investigatethe myriadwayswomenabuse

their bodies for the sake of beauty. Interestingly,we also see in this group of
essays an emergingtendency to take issue with early feminism'sproclivity to
focus primarilyon the destructivedimensions of beauty and its demands on
women'slives. What emerges is an opening up of feminist attitudes toward
traditionalprocessesof feminine "beautification,"a search for approachesto
beauty that allow women to enjoy its positive, albeit controversial,virtues.
In "FeministPleasureand Feminine Beautification,"Ann Cahill analyzesa
particularprocessof feminine beautification:"dressingup."She usesan example
from her own life-preparing with her sistersfor a family wedding-to chal-
lenge the assumptionthat such rituals necessarilyobjectify women, turning
them into objects displayedfor the viewing pleasureof men. Cahill offers a
storyof femalecamaraderiechronicledthroughthe conversationof these sisters
duringhoursspent fixing hair,putting on makeup,getting deckedout in fancy
clothes, and generallyenjoyingboth the ritualsthemselvesand the companion-
ship these rituals allow. Locating herself between familiarfeminist criticisms
of beautificationpractices and simplistic celebrations of female adornment,
Cahill characterizesthese and other beautificationrites as a possible mode of
creating (and enjoying) a distinctly feminist (inter)subjectivity.For Cahill, it
is the communal,collective, and sharedaspects of these beautypracticesthat
providethe basisfor an alternativeaccount of pleasure,one that capturesboth
the embodiedand the aesthetic aspects of these experiences.
In contrastto Meagher'sanalysisof paintingsof robustbodies,Sheila Lintott
offersan examination of unnaturallythin bodies, in fact, those borderingon
starvation.In "SublimeHunger:EatingDisordersBeyondBeauty,"Lintottpro-
vocativelyexploresthe humanattractionto the sublime,as evidencedbywomen
whose extreme control over their bodies through excessive dieting results in
theirreportedexperienceof intense feelingsof the sublime.She believesthat her
argument,if persuasive,helps to explain why women abusetheir bodies in such
profoundways.They do so not only becausethey seek to be paradigmsof beauty
within a cultureobsessedwith thinness but also becausesuchbodilycontrol (far
beyond their reaching the beauty-ideal)bringsthem to felt experiencesof the
sublime-yet another type of pleasure,although one tinged with dangerand
fear.The personsufferingfroman eating disorderadoptsan aesthetic by which
she feels satisfactionfrom her internal achievement of control over body;she
is not necessarilyguided by the external ideals of beauty and weight. Lintott's
invocation of the original Kantian notion of the sublimeinformsher analysis
and lends credence to her conclusions.
In "The 'Batty'Politic: Towardan Aesthetics of the Black Female Body,"
JanellHobson begins with the descriptionof tennis pro SerenaWilliamsat the
2002 U. S. Open. Dressed in a black spandex body suit that highlighted her
muscularbody, Williams's"tackiness"and "inappropriatedisplayof sexuality"

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xiv Hypatia

caused a media frenzy (87). Hobson interpretsthis event as a reminderthat

the exhibition of the blackfemalebody-particularly its buttocks("batty")-is
steeped in a history of representationthat goes back as far as the nineteenth
century.Turningher attentionfirstto the case of SaartjieBaartman,an African
womanknown as the "HottentotVenus"and displayedforpublicconsumption
in Britain'sfreak shows, Hobson examines discoursesof sexual desirefor the
blackfemalebackside.She analyzeshow this desireframesthe body as sexually
grotesque:a deviation from the categoriesof (white) beauty.It is against this
historical and theoretical backgroundthat Hobson then turns to the workof
contemporarywomen artists:two photographers,CarlaWilliams and Coreen
Simpson, and the dance troupe Urban Bush Women. In their photographic
works, Williams and Simpson, Hobson argues, "struggleto re-presentblack
female bodies differently"(88), working against the grain of the culturally
imposed categories of the grotesque and the deviant. Urban Bush Women,
too, providea site of beautyand resistancewherethe repositioningof the black
female body,particularlythe "batty,"is successfuland influential.
The next two essays,RichardShusterman's"Somaestheticsand The Second
Sex: A PragmatistReadingof a FeministClassic"and JoannaFrueh's"Vaginal
Aesthetics,"turn awayfrom the external form of the body-as something to
be looked at or represented-to the body as experiential, the locus of lived
experience. Here as elsewherein his work,Shustermanfollowsthe pragmatist
traditionof William James(1907, 1976, 1983) and John Dewey (1981, 1987) in
celebratingthe embodiedself, the physicalbody,as the organizingcore of expe-
rience. In an approachto aestheticsShustermancalls "somaesthetics," the body
playsa crucial role. It is both a site of meaningful aesthetic expression"where
one'sethos and values arephysicallydisplayed"(107) and the locus of aesthetic
feelings, the pleasuresof listening, touching, looking, etc. So understood,the
body and its senses are "crucialto the aesthetic project"(109).
It is againstthis backgroundof pragmatistaestheticsthat Shustermanturns
to feminist workon the body, in particular,Simone De Beauvoir'sThe Second
Sex (1989). In Beauvoir'shugely influentialworkShustermanseeks supportfor
the emancipatorypotentialof the cultivationof the feeling,sensingself through
exercise,sport, and other bodily practicesdesignedto increasesomatic aware-
ness. Many may find Beauvoiran odd choice for such a project. Her negative
characterizationof the body,especiallythe tendency to see the female body as
an "obscure,alien thing," (Beauvoir 1989, 29), a fleshy prison, is well known
and pervasive.Yet one of the interestingthings about Shusterman'sanalysisis
his attention to the tension in Beauvoir'swork between this negative view (a
view he attributesto Jean-PaulSartre'sinfluence [1993])and the morepositive
view Beauvoirpurportedlyinherits from MauriceMerleau-Ponty(1986). From
this latterperspective,the body "isthe instrumentof ourgraspupon the world"
(Beauvoir1989,34) and in this sense may deservethe programmaticattention

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 Introduction xv

somaestheticsdemands.That in 1949Beauvoirherself ultimatelycame down

on the side of a more pessimisticpicture of the female body-as constraining
ratherthan expanding women'spossibilities-Shusterman regardsas not sur-
prising.Nor does he intend to arguethat personaleffortsat cultivatingstrength
and self-awarenessare any substituteforthe collective political action Beauvoir
regardedas so important.The value of Shusterman'sessay lies, rather,in its
directing us to those aspects of Beauvoir'sphilosophythat may bear fruitfully
on the changed circumstancesof contemporarywomen'slives.
"VaginalAesthetics,"Joanna Frueh'sessay, is an innovative hybrid:part
expositoryessay,partmemoir,part literaryperformance.Fruehseeks to present
the vagina and the femalebody as art, as an aesthetic object worthyof admira-
tion. An alternativeto a long traditionof viewing the vagina as "an abjectly
repulsiveorgan"(144)-as "unaesthetic"-Frueh'splayfulessay invites, prods,
and inspiresthe readerto think about the aesthetics of the vagina (and other
female genitalia) as something other than absence,"anemptiness,""ahollow,"
"ahole" (143).The torrentof imagesand referencesat workhere immersethe
reader in the language, sights, sounds, and feel of the female anatomy.The
result is a tourde force, an expedition through history, psychology,medicine,
and art that winds its way through Frueh'sown past and present connection
to the delights of the female body.
The contributions in Section Three by Anne Eaton, Amy Mullin, Ryan
Musgrave,and TeresaWinterhalterclose the volume by bringing aesthetics
into conversationwith feminist work in ethics, politics, and the law.The first
essayin this section, Eaton's"WhereAesthetics and Ethics Meet:Titian'sRape
of Europa,"begins with a now standardquestion, namely how best to balance
moral reservationsabout a work of art with our admirationof its aesthetic
merits.This issue has playeda prominentrole in discussionsof the canon (of
what should and should not be taught in the undergraduatecurriculum)and
has generateda significantliteratureamong both feminists and contemporary
aestheticians.The painting at hand, (TizianoVecellio) Titian'shighly regarded
Rapeof Europa,providesEaton with a complex and suggestivecase study for
examining separatismand other typical responsesto the problemof unethical
art. Eaton'sown position is a strongversionof ethical criticism:ethical defects
ought rightly be seen to diminish the work. Titian'sesteemed work is judged
"ethically defective" in that it depicts Europanot only as a willing victim
(implausibly,one for whom rape is pleasurable)but also in a way aimed to use
her helplessnessand fear to arousethe viewer'ssexual desire.In defendingthis
claim, Eatonappealsto David Hume'ssubtleaccount of how "wantof humanity
and decency" (Hume, 246) can diminish or lesson artistic merit. Whether or
not one ultimatelywishes to adopt the strongversionof ethical criticismEaton
endorses here, her essay is a model of close reading, marshallinga wealth of
visual detail in supportof its claims.

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xvi Hypatia

In "FeministArt and the Political Imagination,"Mullin takes up the topic

of political art. She takes issue with two common beliefs.The firstis that self-
consciously political art, for example, feminist art, is rarelyif ever as "good"
aestheticallyas its nonpolitical artistic counterparts.The second is the belief
that, while the combination of art and politics is unproblematic,analysis of
such artworkneed not focus on the artistic features of the work or on the
interactionof artistic and political features,but merelyon the work'spolitics.
Using a functionalistaccount of art adoptedfromRobertStecker(2003, 2000),
Mullin arguesthat both beliefs rest on a misunderstandingof political art. In
response,Mullin attemptsto developa conception of the political imagination
that allows us to perceive "that collaborativework with communities, socio-
political research,and reflectionupon the political dimensionof one's life can
stimulateand enrich the artist'simagination"(206). The resultis a principled
aesthetic defense of activist artworks-and political art in general.Like Eaton
and many others in this volume, Mullin uses a variety of examplesin support
of her philosophical analysis.In particular,she examines severalexamplesof
activistart:SuzanneLacyand CarolKuwata'sUnderground (1993),CarolConde
and Karl Beveridge'sPulpFiction(1993), and Peggy Diggs'sDomesticViolence
MilkcartonProject(1991-1992). Although the conclusions she drawsextend
beyond feminist art per se, they easily and fruitfullyapplyto feminist activism
and artmaking.
Musgrave's"LiberalFeminism:FromLawto Art"followswith attentionto an
areapreviouslylittle explored,the impactof feministjurisprudenceon feminist
workin aesthetics.As Musgravepoints out, when feminists (ratherlate in the
game) came aroundto discussingart and aesthetics they framedtheir agenda
in termsof classicpolitical liberalism.The vocabularyof equalityand "rights"
and strategiesof equal access developedto handle women'saccess to education
and employmentbecame a "fittingtool" to protestunfairpracticesin the arts.
Musgravetries to show,however,that the liberalassumptionsof feminist work
in aesthetics extend beyond concern with the status of women artists. The
liberalbent of feminist workin aestheticshas, she argues,resultedin a view of
art that has severaldrawbacks.Among these is a tendency to undervaluethe
art object itself in favorof once ignored,but now prominent,contextualfactors,
forexample,the circumstancesof the work'sproductionandreception.Another
is the riskof "disempowering" art, of settling for treatingart as mere individual
expression,equivalentto personalstyle. Lastly,Musgravemaintains,the liberal
strandof contemporaryaestheticsprivilegespolitics over aesthetics,valorizing
easilyaccessibleor popularartsfor their assumed"progressive" qualities.While
hardlyconfined to feminist aesthetics, these dispositionsemergefroma strand
of liberalismthat Musgrave'sanalysisdoes much to illuminate.
The last contribution in this section, Winterhalter's"'WhatElse Can I Do
But Write?'DiscursiveDisruptionand the Ethics of Style in VirginiaWoolf's

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 Introduction xvii

ThreeGuineas,"is a fascinatingstudy of the connection between Woolf's nar-

rativeand political strategies.Winterhalter'sargumentis that in ThreeGuineas
(1938),Woolf deliberatelymanipulatesthe rhetoricof her essay in favorof the
pacifist political position she herself endorses. Using multiple voices, Woolf
critiquesthe authoritarianismof fascism and patriarchyin ways designed "to
model the narrativepracticesshe arguesmust be envisioned to prevent war"
(237).While seeminglynarrowlyfocusedon one essay(albeitan importantone)
by a single (albeit important)author,Winterhalter'sessaycontains far broader
philosophical and feminist implications.It breaksnew ground in demonstrat-
ing how the aesthetic texturesof Woolf's text can be understoodnot as mere
writerlyorrhetoricalexcrescencebutas "purposivelyenact[ing]a moralposition
to which she is deeplycommitted"(237). As Winterhalterobserves,in Woolf's
"breakswith expositoryconvention, she can be seen to manipulaterhetorical
technique to move her plea for a pacifistworldbeyondmere social platforming
into a performativeprosethat emphasizesthe ethics of decentralizingauthorial
power"(237). Woolf'saccomplishment,as Winterhalter'sessayso compellingly
demonstrates,lies in having successfullycreatedan ethics of style. In so doing,
Woolf providesa model for feminist writing and the making of art of the kind
envisioned throughoutthe essayscollected here.
Beforeconcluding,it is worthnoting that the essayscollected here represent
only a small samplingof the broadrange of topics authorssuggestedto us by
way of their submittedessays.As guest editors,neither of us expected that our
call for paperstwo yearsago wouldelicit such overwhelmingresponse.We had
over fifty submissions,confirmingour belief that feminist work in aesthetics
continues to attract substantial interest among philosophers,art historians,
literarytheorists,film scholars,and many others.This workis rich and varied,
boding well for the futureof this areaof feminist inquiry.
We wish to expressour gratitudeto all those who contributedto this proj-
ect, not only our publishedcontributorsand our many reviewersbut also those
women (and most contributorswerewomen) who submittedworknot included
here. Finally,we are especially gratefulto the journal'seditors,Nancy Tuana
and LaurieShrage, and to the editorial boardwho approvedour proposalfor
publication.We wouldlike to dedicate this special issue to CarolynKorsmeyer
and Hilde Hein, who inspired-and continue to inspire-us in ourscholarship.
We hope that many feminist scholarswill follow the lead of these pioneers in
continuing to explore how genderaffects our understandingand appreciation
of art.
To that end, let us close bypointing to two importantareasstill little touched
byfeministinquiryin aesthetics.The firstis the historyof aestheticsitself.Aside
from the work of Kant (for example, see, 1987) and Hume (for example, see
1985),feministsworkingin aesthetics have shown little interest in the history
of their discipline.Plato's(1952)theory of artisticinspiration,Aristotle's(1947)

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xviii Hypatia

theory of tragedy,medieval theories of beauty (see, for example, Eco 1986),

Friedrich Schiller's (1967) theory of aesthetic morality, and Iris Murdoch's
(1950) work on the relationshipof morality and literatureall remain mostly
unexploredterrain.As the case of Murdochillustrates,women have playeda
prominentbut little acknowledgedrole in the historyof twentieth-centuryaes-
thetics. As one of us has arguedelsewhere(see Devereaux2003), the worknot
only of Murdochbut also Susanne Langer(see, forexample, 1942, 1957),Susan
Sontag (see, for example, 1978, 1982, 1990), Eva Schaper (see, for example,
1983),and MaryMothersill(see, forexample,1984)meritsfurtherinvestigation.
While few of these thinkers would have identifiedthemselves as feminists, a
feminist investigationof their contributionspromisesto revealnew dimensions
of this workand its relationshipto the "canon"of aesthetics. We wonder,too,
whether there may be other importantwomen who wrote and thought about
the processesof artisticcreation,theorizedaboutart and aesthetic response,or
engagedin critiquesof the institutionsand cultureof an artworldthat excluded
them and what they might have to contributeto our understandingof the his-
tory of the discipline and of where we are now.
A second under-investigatedtopic is the feminization of aesthetics itself,
that is, its marginalizationas a "soft"discipline within the larger,more "male"
province of philosophy.The question of how and why aesthetics came to be
characterizedin these terms and how, if at all, this genderedcharacterization
affects feminist work in the discipline, remainsto be asked.We hope that the
presentvolume will help to open the door to these and relatedinvestigations,
work likely to be of value not only to aestheticians but to philosophersand
others interestedin the study of the arts and their varied and importantrole
in human experience.

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