Aesthetics aims to understand aesthetic thought in terms of its various connections with the arts. One of the faculty’s current interests is how the discipline of aesthetics relates to everyday life. The discussions that have developed within the aesthetic discipline are effective tools when considering art that defies categorization, and also serve as a guide when thinking about the history of design. Art is becoming increasingly hard to define today; its boundaries are constantly being reformed, and its contours remain undefined. The best way to think about art is from the periphery, which allows aesthetics to step into the spaces that surround art, unbound as it is by pre-existing artistic genres.

The Science of Literary Arts program approaches literature (literary arts) and authors’ ideas as a field of literary science. The classics are considered in the course’s emphasis on the field’s literary trends, which have arisen from classical works of Western literature such as Aristotle’s Poetics . The program also allows students to explore an expansive range of research interests encompassing literature, thought, and literary criticism from all eras and geographies. Literary science is a discipline that asks the self-reflexive question: What should the study of literary science be? Individual research endeavors taking place under the banner of “literary science” help develop the discipline, as they are assiduously cultivated daily within the department.

Professor

TAKAYASU, Keisuke (Ph.D.)

Aesthetics, Design Philosophy, Design History, Visual Communication Theory

WATANABE, Kouji (Ph.D.)

Literary Theory, Classical Philology, Art Management

Associate Professors

TANAKA, Hitoshi (Ph.D.)

Aesthetics; History of Modern Aesthetics, Art and Politics in German Romanticism, Theories of Participation in Art

AZUMA, Shiho (Ph.D.)

Associate Professor (Lecturer)

NISHII, Sho (Ph.D)

Latin Literatur, Classical Philology, Greek and Roman Mythology