Education Commons^™

Playing In Public Or Creatively Expressing The Aesthetic Dimension In Social Life, Duke Madenfort

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This philosophical study is in part a critical examination of Richard Sennett's sociological account of what it means to be out in public in the company of strangers and expressing oneself aesthetically in a playful, self-distanced encounter with them. His urging for a rediscovery of the classic mid-eighteenth century connection between actors on the stage and persons on the street in order to make social life aesthetic once again is seen as having significant implications for art educators concerned with putting into practice the aesthetic and social function of art and art education. The arguments developed in the paper take …