In this book, David Gall exposes Eurocentrism in higher art education, in philosophy and aesthetic theory, in art history and art criticism, and in K–12 teacher training discourse. Gall’s book challenges tendencies in academe that would have scholars “stay within their lane,” meaning that Art Education professors like him should stick to “K–12 teacher training concerns.” For the multiracial, multiethnic, hybrid context that characterizes our postcolonial world, ignoring the ethnocentrism and racism of higher levels of art education is not optional if, as a global community, we are to overcome resurgent fascism, and realize our more comprehensive humanity. Though not the only obstacle to that end, Eurocentrism remains its biggest.
This book examines Eurocentric legacies in modernist formalism, in the linguistic turn of postmodernist discourse, and argues that a different understanding of the aesthetics is needed; the current dominant understanding of aesthetics perpetuates an art/science polarization that mischaracterizes both art and science. Streams of thought, outside and within Euro-Western philosophies, offer alternative ways of viewing aesthetics and aesthetic experience. This text hopefully will help make them mainstream.
