An Educational Perspective and a Poststructural Position on Everyday Aesthetics and the Creation of Meaning

In the wake of current attempts by aestheticians from the Anglo-American sphere to define the nascent field of everyday aesthetics against art, this essay questions this undertaking from a poststructural position. Two prominent, recurring debates are considered: first, the debate about the extraordinary (art)/ordinary (everyday aesthetics) distinction and, second, the question of whether discriminating between the senses is helpful in defining everyday aesthetics and establishing a niche for it. In opposition to my interlocutors who tend to define everyday aesthetics as unmediated, private, and, by implication, unteachable, this essay accentuates the transformability and the educability of the aesthetic dimension in all domains of aesthetic interest.