Dana Arieli-Horowitz, Tel Aviv University

Looking at the interrelations between art and politics is a very complicated matter, especially in the post-modern world. Two or three decades ago this assignment was not as complicated: One could have, at least from the political point of view, differentiate between first, second and third worlds, and between democracies, dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. In this seminar we will focus on political ideologies and their conceptions regarding the visual arts. The first half of the seminar will be devoted to Marxist and Neo-Marxist thinkers (Mainly connected to the Frankfurt School), ant to theories that placed some emphasis on visuals in politics, such as the symbolists. The second half of the seminar will be devoted to the visual implications of political ideologies. In order to demonstrate the possible reactions to the demand to mobilize the arts, we will concentrate on artists and art movements that were committed to political ideologies in the period between the two world wars. We will try to point the differences between committed and non-committed art and between engagement and autonomous art.

Biography
B.A. in Political Science and General Studies, M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science (Hebrew University, Jerusalem). Lecturer at the Department of Political Science of TAU. Was Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Research interests focus on the interrelations between Art and Politics, Political Thought, Intellectual History, Political Culture and Israeli Politics. Author of “The Jew as Destroyer of Culture in the National Socialist Ideology” in Patterns of Prejudice (1/1998). Publications in Hebrew include: Romanticism of Steel: Art & Politics in Nazi Germany (Magnes - The Hebrew University Press, 1999); The Labyrinth of Legitimacy: Referendum in Israel (Hakibutz Hameuhad, 1994) and -as editor- State and Religion Yearbook 1994-1995 (The Center for Progressive Judaism in Israel, Jerusalem 1996), She recently completed a book manuscript in Hebrew and English titled The Totalitarian Ideal: A Comparative Look at Politics and Art in Fascist Italy, Russia Under Stalin and Nazi Germany.