The Aesthetics Department 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 for considering art that defies categorization; they also serve as a guide when thinking about the history of design. Today, “art” has become increasingly hard to define. Its boundaries are being reformed continuously, and its contours remain undefined. Accordingly, the best way to think about art is from its periphery. Such an approach allows aesthetics to step into the peripheral field surrounding 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 literary science trends, which have arisen out of works of classical Western literature, like 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 itself the question: What should the study of literary science be? Individual research endeavors taking place under the banner of literary science help to develop the discipline, which is assiduously cultivated daily within the faculty.

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

Associate Professor (Lecturer)

NISHII, Sho (Ph.D)

Latin Literatur, Classical Philology, Greek and Roman Mythology