Please join the Philosophy Dept. for a presentation by Prof. Yuriko Saito Friday, Feb. 16, 12:30-2:00pm Weingart 117
Location:
Weingart 117
Event Date: Feb. 16, 2024
The Aesthetics of House Chores - Yuriko Saito
Doing house chores dominates our management of everyday life. We clean the floor, dust furniture, wash dishes, do laundry, put things away, and repair broken objects on a regular basis, or at least we try. But most of us would rather not perform these tasks because they are considered tedious, and sometimes backbreaking, drudgery, requiring no creativity or imagination. Thus, they were traditionally relegated to women and marginalized populations whose work remains invisible and receives little accolade.
This presentation argues against these presumed disqualifiers for according an aesthetic status to house chores and develops a proactive support for the aesthetics of house chores, without unduly romanticizing or glorifying them. Specifically, performing house chores offers opportunities for imaginative and creative engagement with the world around us through association of memories, expression of affections, multisensory experiences, and the practice of body movement. It also helps cultivate sensibility, respect, and humility toward the material world with which we need to work, appreciation of the material world’s service to us, and expression of our care toward others. Ultimately, the aesthetics of performing house chores reminds us of our intimate connection to the world around us and the relational mode of being- in-the-world.
Doing house chores dominates our management of everyday life. We clean the floor, dust furniture, wash dishes, do laundry, put things away, and repair broken objects on a regular basis, or at least we try. But most of us would rather not perform these tasks because they are considered tedious, and sometimes backbreaking, drudgery, requiring no creativity or imagination. Thus, they were traditionally relegated to women and marginalized populations whose work remains invisible and receives little accolade.
The aesthetics of house chores sounds like an oxymoron. Their generally negative aesthetic associations, such as being dirty, messy, smelly, and imperfect, seem to compromise their place in the aesthetic domain. The discourse on housework is also dominated by first-person accounts of those who perform these tasks guided by a practical goal. As such, house chores do not fit comfortably into the quintessential model of aesthetics which is object-centered, judgment-oriented, and disinterested spectator-driven.
This presentation argues against these presumed disqualifiers for according an aesthetic status to house chores and develops a proactive support for the aesthetics of house chores, without unduly romanticizing or glorifying them. Specifically, performing house chores offers opportunities for imaginative and creative engagement with the world around us through association of memories, expression of affections, multisensory experiences, and the practice of body movement. It also helps cultivate sensibility, respect, and humility toward the material world with which we need to work, appreciation of the material world’s service to us, and expression of our care toward others. Ultimately, the aesthetics of performing house chores reminds us of our intimate connection to the world around us and the relational mode of being- in-the-world.
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