Dear friends,

I’ve just listed a new online series on Interintellect that is going to be a lot of fun.

How to Have Good Taste: Recognizing Beauty as the Human Superpower in the Age of AI

A six-part monthly online salon series running from July 12 until December 13.

Come along…!

If you want to attend the episodes for free, you now get a 20% discount on our memberships — offer open until May 20!

See you there x

Anna

Introduction: What is taste?

Are we born with a sense of taste? Is taste acquired? Is it an instinct? A form of knowledge?

How do we know what is tasteful? How do we know who has good taste? How do we know if we have good taste?

• Sat JULY 12, 12 pm ET

The Eye of the Beholder — Are painting and sculpture the ultimate art forms?

Does art have to be beautiful? Does art have to “say something”? How do we know when something is beautiful? How do we know when something is art (e.g., the painting is art but the frame is not)? Do artworks need to age well? Whom to listen to to know good art?

• Sat AUGUST 16, 12 pm ET

The Songs of Angels: On musical taste as a taste for the indescribable, the transcendent

Why do people make music? Is AI music real music? What is it that we feel when music overpowers us? What is the role of music in bringing people together? Can anybody make good music? Will classical music survive? What about electronic music — will that stay around? Can popular music be high art?

• Sat SEPTEMBER 13, 12 pm ET

The Journey’s Hero: Literature as the ultimate form of self-expression

Why are humans compelled to tell stories? Where does poetry come from? Are all classic poems good? Why do novels feel so personal? Does one have to go to university to write literature? Does one have to read literature chronologically, from older to newer? What’s the relationship between cultural politics and which novels count as good? Is theater always political? What is a “canon”?

• Sat OCTOBER 11, 12 pm ET

Moving in Pictures: Cinema as meta-art where it all comes together

Are movies even art? Where is the line between lowbrow and highbrow art anyway? Has the quality of movies peaked and now they will forever be bad? What’s the role of other art forms — design, music, writing — in how a movie comes together? Who gets to decide if a movie is good or not (is it the audience, the artist, the critic)? What’s wrong with just enjoying a movie?

• Sat NOVEMBER 15, 12 pmET

The Social Graces: Life as art, social sophistication as a kind of taste

What makes good conversation an art? How to cultivate better taste in what one talks about, where one eats, what one wears? The role of artistic taste in improving social life for everyone. What’s the difference between taste and snobbery? How to discover (or create) one’s own style? What’s the role of location and class in all this?

• Sat DECEMBER 13, 12 pm ET

Let’s learn the secrets of Good Taste….

On Interintellect.