I read that one, and it was nice enough overview though a bit idiosyncratic and obviously rather German-centric.
I would expect an english book to exist that serves a similar purpose.
One thing I got from the book was the concept of using ‘education’ as status signaling.
And the whole chapter on ‘what one shouldn’t know’ - makes me not talk about some of my favorite TV shows in the wrong place.
(side not: the pure version of Big Brother serves as a decent experiment for social interaction)
Maybe the next generation of scientists will have fewer trouble quoting Anime, or Mainstream movies in their work, than the one before.
People who actually know something about the stuff the author is writing about will probably have complaints though.
I’m guessing the second half of the text in the first quote block is a reply that should have been unquoted.
Movies have been cultural currency for around 50 years now, and some TV shows from the last decade like Sopranos and The Wire also seem to be considered reasonably respectable, unlike pretty almost all mainstream TV drama up until 2000.
Anime is still low status, and seems to be a bit worse now than it was in the 90s. The shows that aren’t mostly shallow and formulaic are obscure. There aren’t any similar widely recognized quality shows as there have been in TV recently, and the perception of anime has shifted from innovative and exotic popular culture into escapist entertainment for socially maladjusted shut-ins. The shows are quick to latch into exploitation patterns that reflect this.
Yes, i got the quote function wrong—already corrected.
According to Schwanitz there is a canon of art that is considered worth knowing. An educated person picks and can talk about some subset of it to show off his educational status.
Modern art forms are not yet part of that.
The canon is of course dependent on culture and subculture.
I suspect you mean “contemporary” or “current”, not “modern”. Unfortunately, “modern art” (at least for painting) got co-opted for Picasso and such, and it’s been a while since him.
I have a notion that canons aren’t an inevitable part of art, but appear if people happen to build them.
Part of this is that I lived through a transition (I’d put it sometimes in the 80s) when it was no longer possible to keep up with print science fiction. Before that, it was possible to have a shared knowledge base of both the second rate stuff and the first rate.
At least for the Western canon, part of what was going was the contradictory belief that there was universal art that people had to be educated to appreciate.
At the point, the quantity and availability of art has gone so high (and both are likely to increase), that I think it’s going to be harder and harder for any group to act as gatekeepers to say that liking some art is proof of worthiness.
I would expect an english book to exist that serves a similar purpose. One thing I got from the book was the concept of using ‘education’ as status signaling. And the whole chapter on ‘what one shouldn’t know’ - makes me not talk about some of my favorite TV shows in the wrong place. (side not: the pure version of Big Brother serves as a decent experiment for social interaction)
Maybe the next generation of scientists will have fewer trouble quoting Anime, or Mainstream movies in their work, than the one before.
They do.
I’m guessing the second half of the text in the first quote block is a reply that should have been unquoted.
Movies have been cultural currency for around 50 years now, and some TV shows from the last decade like Sopranos and The Wire also seem to be considered reasonably respectable, unlike pretty almost all mainstream TV drama up until 2000.
Anime is still low status, and seems to be a bit worse now than it was in the 90s. The shows that aren’t mostly shallow and formulaic are obscure. There aren’t any similar widely recognized quality shows as there have been in TV recently, and the perception of anime has shifted from innovative and exotic popular culture into escapist entertainment for socially maladjusted shut-ins. The shows are quick to latch into exploitation patterns that reflect this.
Yes, i got the quote function wrong—already corrected.
According to Schwanitz there is a canon of art that is considered worth knowing. An educated person picks and can talk about some subset of it to show off his educational status. Modern art forms are not yet part of that.
The canon is of course dependent on culture and subculture.
I suspect you mean “contemporary” or “current”, not “modern”. Unfortunately, “modern art” (at least for painting) got co-opted for Picasso and such, and it’s been a while since him.
I have a notion that canons aren’t an inevitable part of art, but appear if people happen to build them.
Part of this is that I lived through a transition (I’d put it sometimes in the 80s) when it was no longer possible to keep up with print science fiction. Before that, it was possible to have a shared knowledge base of both the second rate stuff and the first rate.
At least for the Western canon, part of what was going was the contradictory belief that there was universal art that people had to be educated to appreciate.
At the point, the quantity and availability of art has gone so high (and both are likely to increase), that I think it’s going to be harder and harder for any group to act as gatekeepers to say that liking some art is proof of worthiness.
These people are trying to build a new one.