The Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley

SPRING 2003 CONFERENCE

"THE ARTS " IN QUESTION
Friday, February 7, 2003

The second annual ARC interdisciplinary conference on issues in contemporary art practice and
scholarship provided an opportunity to critically examine the category of "the arts" and assess
what the different artistic disciplines do or do not have in common and why a high degree of
commonality is so often assumed.

The conference consisted of a keynote address and response, two panels, and a roundtable
discussion with all participants. Panelists gave formal papers, and at the end, offered informal
comments and engaged in group conversation.

Links below lead to corresponding texts available online. The authors retain the copyright to
these papers, which may not be reproduced without permission.

Welcome and Introductory Remarks: Charles Altieri*, Director, Arts Research Center

Session One, Keynote: The End of Art (Again)\
Jay Bernstein, Chair and University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, New School
Respondent: Whitney Davis*, Chair and Professor of History of Art, UC Berkeley

Session Two: The Concept of ‘the Arts’
Susan Stewart, Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania
Gregg Horowitz, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University
Moderator: Anthony Cascardi*, Professor of Comparative Literature, Rhetoric, and Spanish &
Portuguese, UC Berkeley

Session Three: On Media Specificity
Anne Wagner, Professor of History of Art, UC Berkeley
Eve Meltzer, Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric, UC Berkeley
Julian Myers, Ph.D. candidate in History of Art, UC Berkeley
Andrew Uroskie, Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric, UC Berkeley
Heather Wiebe, Ph.D. candidate in Music, UC Berkeley

Session Four: ‘The Arts’ in Question
Roundtable with all conference participants
Moderator: Charles Altieri**Members of the core faculty of the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley.