Books published by Verlag Peter Lang

Contemporary cultural practices have blurred and eroded traditional disciplinary boundaries of art and its discourses, and the ways in which they are taught. They have called into question the ideological premises and cultural assumptions on which traditional academic subjects were founded and which have underwritten the segregation between practice, pragmatic and speculative thought. The Scottish Theoros ¿ Forum for Interdisciplinary Debate was jointly initiated by the Department of Philosophy and the School of Fine Art at the University of Dundee to create a space for dialogue between and across the various disciplines that are concerned with the study of visual arts: practice, aesthetics, theory, history and criticism. Theoros has initiated a series of international conferences bringing together professionals who are engaged in the research and teaching of art from different disciplinary perspectives. This volume contains selected contributions to the first Scottish Theoros conference on ¿Aesthetics, Historicity and Practice¿, held in Dundee in 1998. Historicity marks the temporal nature of our existence and experience. It forms a central aspect in the making of and reflection on art. Here historicity is explored as a common ground for the integration of practice, critical thought and historical enquiry in the spaces of higher education and professional engagement.

Public education has received increasing criticism since the beginning of the nineties. Four major areas of concern can be discerned: the technical backwardness of the schools, the disappearance of political legitimization, financial limitations and the conservative school development. Worldwide, educational systems are being reorganized and developed beyond the traditional forms. These efforts are accompanied by increasingly complicated and complex research which assumes an international form. The international symposium Futures of Education, which took place in Zurich from 28 to 30 March 2000, was dedicated to these questions. The lectures held at the symposium were concerned with the relationship between research and development and above all, encouraged discussion and brought new ideas into play.