Professors Robert Hughes and Steven Joyce explore how love and art function as events at the edge of form. Hughes examines how aesthetic experience registers in the body, where the art object’s play with genre provokes affective responses that mirror the subject’s own tensions between identity and instability. Joyce introduces “ambient romance,” a contemporary mode of love shaped by consumer capitalism and cultural drift, as seen in Judith Hermann’s portraits of dislocated millennials. Together, they reflect on how romance and art unsettle the self, revealing the limits of form in shaping emotional life and interpersonal connection.
Register for this Arts and Humanities Inaugural Lecture
Inaugural lectures celebrate Arts and Humanities faculty who have been promoted to the rank of professor. All lectures are held in the Faculty Club Grand Lounge from 4-6 p.m. and are preceded by a reception and followed by Q&A and discussion. All lectures are free and open to the public.