The Winchester Guide to Keywords and Concepts for International Students in Art, Media and Design

PART ABACKGROUND

Contemporary theory is not a single intellectual tradition but rather a collection of approaches. Theorists are interested in ‘culture’ not as an autonomous realm of values – in the independence of the aesthetic from scientific, ethical and religious achievements, or its relationship to some transcendent dimension – but rather in ‘culture’ as something deeply involved in the realities of unjust and violent social conditions. Cultural productions, such as the arts, are judged to be a potential medium for critique and emancipation from social, political, cultural and psychological restraints, but also one of the primary means through which the status quo is reinforced, or the existing state of affairs regarding social or political issues is maintained.

Contemporary thought nevertheless has its roots deep in Western philosophical traditions. In the West, humanism emerged during the Renaissance in the fifteenth century. It attached the highest importance to human actions rather than to the divine or the supernatural. It promoted a secular vision of society – that is, it understood that attitudes, activities and things have no religious or spiritual basis. In the eighteenth century the Enlightenment occurred, and this put even greater emphasis on secularism and emphasised the importance of the rational, modernising scientific spirit. As a result, Western society made ...