In the ongoing critical discourse about education, the status of aesthetics has always played second fiddle to the main arguments about what constitutes a relevant curriculum. Aesthetics is seen by many educators as a frivolous experience---at best a weak substitute for serious learning. This is the issue that Dewey addressed in his philosophy of aesthetics, and this is also where my focus lies in this thesis. / The thesis is a personal and theoretical examination of John Dewey's aesthetic philosophy as it is principally expressed in Art as Experience . In exploring the personal implications of the aesthetic experience, the thesis investigates Dewey's argument that the aesthetic is an intrinsic part of life. It demonstrates Dewey's emphasis on the productive presence of the aesthetic in the cultural life of society.

John Dewey was a philosopher of experience; if there is a thread that ties his vast literary output together it would be just that--the tracing and understanding of the various forms of experience. Dewey developed and elucidated three distinct kinds of experience throughout his career. If taken "subjectively" one might term these experiences immediate, mediate, and consummate; the corresponding "objects" of each would thus be, in order, events, relations between events, and the work of art (which is itself a sublation of events and their relations). To speak loosely, we might call these unconscious experience, conscious experience, and aesthetic experience. My thesis is that consummate experience is best understood as a kind of dialectical sublation between immediate and mediate experience: I intend to use the work of John Dewey to describe each of these three types of experience and show how consummate experience might be understood as a sublation of the immediate and the mediate.

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Repertoire comprises the curriculum of school music ensembles, yet its selection by music educators is unsystematic, commonly influenced by publishers, and lacking in thoughtful critique (Budiansky, 2005; Forbes, 2001). Research reports that musical worth and pedagogical value are foremost criteria in repertoire selection (Devore, 1989; Ostling, 1978). This ethnographic research explored relationships between musical worth and pedagogical value in works and perspectives of Emma Lou Diemer and Alice Parker, two prominent female composers whose extensive catalogs include music written for educational settings. Data were collected via methods consistent with qualitative inquiry. Smith’s (2003) Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was employed to facilitate co-construction of the composers’ lived experience through personal interviews. Data analysis also incorporated previous texts written about and by the composers, and three choral works of each composer. In this study, Panofsky’s (1972) method of visual art analysis was applied to musical analysis. Findings were presented within single-case and cross-case narratives. Although the composers’ work and perspectives are distinctive, their perceptions of musical worth and pedagogical value transcend their individual qualities. Criteria for creating art for educational settings include: using text as a basis for creating musical meaning, recognizing and emulating the work of composers that they find exceptional; and engaging in an artful, synergistic treatment of musical elements. Diemer and Parker share the belief that longevity, originality, expressivity, and sustained interest are characteristics of music of worth. They offered authentic engagement, holistic learning, and matching skill with challenge as integral aspects of pedagogical value. The motivation that compels Diemer and Parker to compose is both external and internal, and is more oriented toward process than product. In creating works for educational settings, they internalize parameters applicable to specific learners and settings. A “spark” they experience in the creative process indicates the origin of musical worth. Pedagogy derived from and integral to the musical worth of a work allows musically engaged students to recreate the “spark” and thus realize pedagogical value. Within the works and perspectives of Diemer and Parker, musical worth and pedagogical value become unified as a composite whole, though the “spark” is realized in a cyclic process.

In my personal experience, I have discovered notable aesthetic problems that face many contemporary evangelical churches. In spite of these churches’ best efforts, they fail to bridge the culture gap and foster a meaningful worship service. But John Dewey’s aesthetic philosophy understands the shifting nature of our environment and the value of aesthetic experience, providing beneficial insights to assist unhealthy churches. To better understand the applicability of his philosophy, Chapter II is an exposition of John Dewey’s aesthetics that revolves around four central questions: What is Dewey’s starting point for aesthetics? What distinguishes aesthetic experiences from others? What is his criticism of the “museum conception of art”? What is the significance for Dewey of our activities having or not having aesthetic quality? Chapter III is a Deweyan investigation of four real churches: the elite church, which promotes an aesthetic that is reserved for its members; the broken church, which is divorced from community; the humdrum church, which is preoccupied with the routine; and the sensational church, which is characterized by indulgence. Chapter IV is a description of two recent attempts to bridge the culture gap and offer meaningful worship activities: the seeker-sensitive movement which contends that the church must be “culturally inviting” to the community, and the emerging movement(s), which seeks to dismantle traditional churches using deconstructionism and reconstructing worship services that are experiential, pluralistic, and sensory. My Deweyan argument in Chapter V is that both the “seeker-sensitive” and the “emerging” movements fail to adequately understand the shifting character of our environment and our relation to it. If problem churches acknowledge that discontinuity with environment is inevitable, seek to meet the needs of others, embrace adjustment as a core component, and value aesthetic experience, they will be in a better position to bridge the culture gap and offer an enriching worship experience in their services. Three Deweyan lessons are gleaned from this inquiry: value aesthetic experience and its contribution in bridging the culture gap, implement Deweyan insights drawn from our examination of traditional churches, and contribute to society by generating artproducts that will benefit the community.

John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934) declares art to be the “incomparable organ of instruction” on the third to last page of the book. This dissertation analyzes the place of children within the aesthetic philosophy Dewey expresses in the text and what the implications of Art as Experience could mean if applied to the art-making of children as the foundation for developing kindergarten and elementary curriculum. By exploring Dewey’s earlier writings on education and art, the dissertation develops a view of how art-making could be applied in a Deweyan pedagogy. The main influences on Dewey’s aesthetic development are explored including the frequently overlooked influence of F. Matthias Alexander. Particular emphasis is given to Dewey’s relationship with Albert Barnes and Dewey’s place in the Barnes Foundation as the Director of Education. The writings of Barnes and Dewey’s three associate directors of education are considered for their possible influence on Dewey’s aesthetic development as it applies to establishing a Deweyan philosophy of art-based education. A selection of the initial reviews of Art As Experience from 1934 and 1935 are analyzed to establish the reception of the book. The contentious arguments that Dewey and Benedetto Croce exchanged in print from the late 1940s until both men’s deaths are explored for what they reveal about Dewey’s view of intuition in art-making. A selection of contemporary writers’ views on Dewey’s aesthetics are considered as well as the conclusions of the 1989 University of Illinois Symposium on the influence of Art as Experience. The dissertation concludes by isolating twenty concepts from Art as Experience and considering their meaning as the foundation on which kindergarten and elementary curriculum could be formed. The guidelines are built upon 76 passages from Art as Experience and establish John Dewey as a dominant influence in the formation of Art Education. / text

A presente pesquisa propõe um olhar reflexivo sobre os papéis exercidos pela experiência direta e pela mediação cultural na relação entre a arte contemporânea e o seu público. Buscando, para isso, apoio em teorias e proposições que primem pela participação, e apresentando um recorte das investigações artísticas de Jorge Menna Barreto como terreno fértil para o florescimento de experiências que estimulem o pensamento sensível e reflexivo. Alicerçado por uma abordagem crítica dos pressupostos de John Dewey e Nicolas Bourriaud, o conceito de experiência será delimitado com base na interação atenta entre sujeitos, obras e contextos. Por seu turno, a ideia de mediação será expandida a fim de posicionar-se como um esforço educacional não diretivo, mas provocativo e vinculado à noção de experiência aqui defendida. / This research proposes a reflexive view on the role of direct experience and cultural mediation exerted on the relation between contemporary art and its public. Searching support in theories and propositions that prioritizes participation, and presenting a clipping of the artistic investigations of Jorge Menna Barreto as a fertile field to flourish experiences which stimulate sensitive and reflexive thinking. Supported by a critical approach of the assumptions of John Dewey and Nicolas Bourriaud, the concept of experience will be delimitated based on the concerned interaction among subjects, works and contexts. The idea of mediation, in turn, will be expanded in order to be placed as an educational and non directed effort, but provocative and linked to the notion of experience defended here.

A presente pesquisa propõe um olhar reflexivo sobre os papéis exercidos pela experiência direta e pela mediação cultural na relação entre a arte contemporânea e o seu público. Buscando, para isso, apoio em teorias e proposições que primem pela participação, e apresentando um recorte das investigações artísticas de Jorge Menna Barreto como terreno fértil para o florescimento de experiências que estimulem o pensamento sensível e reflexivo. Alicerçado por uma abordagem crítica dos pressupostos de John Dewey e Nicolas Bourriaud, o conceito de experiência será delimitado com base na interação atenta entre sujeitos, obras e contextos. Por seu turno, a ideia de mediação será expandida a fim de posicionar-se como um esforço educacional não diretivo, mas provocativo e vinculado à noção de experiência aqui defendida. / This research proposes a reflexive view on the role of direct experience and cultural mediation exerted on the relation between contemporary art and its public. Searching support in theories and propositions that prioritizes participation, and presenting a clipping of the artistic investigations of Jorge Menna Barreto as a fertile field to flourish experiences which stimulate sensitive and reflexive thinking. Supported by a critical approach of the assumptions of John Dewey and Nicolas Bourriaud, the concept of experience will be delimitated based on the concerned interaction among subjects, works and contexts. The idea of mediation, in turn, will be expanded in order to be placed as an educational and non directed effort, but provocative and linked to the notion of experience defended here.