Learning how to die : affective practice, death and popular art

Abstract

This thesis explores how art might prepare people for death through affective practice. The introduction explores the history of affective practices, tracing them from their origin in medieval devotional techniques fuelled by Augustinian notions of habituation, to their decline during the Reformation in favour of an ethos of spontaneity, their reinvention through the romantic tradition of bildung, on to their continual evolution in the present day as aesthetic rituals of self- cultivation. The first chapter seeks to establish a method for evaluating the formational potentialities of art. It offers a summary and critical analysis of three prominent models of aesthetic formation typified in the work of Jeremy Begbie, James K.A. Smith, and Eve Sedgwick, arguing that each model fails to account for the diffuse ways in which art can form its audience, often veering either into overly representational conceptions of art or appealing to predetermined anthropological convictions. An alternative method is therefore proposed: a hermeneutic of affordance drawing on gestalt psychology and James J. Gibson’s theory of perception, which emphasises the participative and invitational nature of aesthetic experience. The last three chapters evaluate three contemporary test cases of affective practice centred on the theme of death: the popular novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, the musical album Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens, and the NBC television series The Good Place created by Michael Schur. Paul Ricouer’s model of biblical theodicy is applied to the test cases to determine what posture these works of art invite audiences to adopt toward death. Harry Potter aligns with Ricouer’s notion narrative theodicy, integrating death within a coherent narrative, while Carrie and Lowell and the The Good Place model a cathartic confrontation with death.