Just from reading the introduction of the article I was thinking "Wow, those are impressive, massive questions!" As the article continued she referred to her original assumptions as naive and intuitive, that makes me feel better because I feel like most of what I do is naïve and intuitive or it certainly begins that way. As she is talking about descriptions of aesthetic understanding, I had no idea that there were three ways of describing it. Some of the questions that she asks are brilliant like, “What are the moment-to-moment thoughts in aesthetic experience?” When I was reading her summary of her vantage point and what it involved I kept thinking, “How long did it take her to get to this point?” My students last semester were definitely Stage II viewers. Overall it is such an impressive body of research and I completely agree with it.
Housen's research is quite impressive and even more so when one considers how painstakingly she analyzed and reanalyzed the data to arrive at her stage theory. And she continues to test it. At the time of publication of "Eye of the Beholder" in 2001, she had analyzied more that 6000 Aesthetic Development Interviews from 15 cultures. Talk about research rigor, not to mention enthusiasm and commitment! Quite impressive!
ReplyDelete