'Aesth-ethics': Meeting the Other

Abstract

This is the story of a creative reading-writing workshop that I piloted in 2009 with three students on responding to a text and a life from an/other culture through the poem ‘The Story I would Have Wanted To Tell you You Had I Met You Yesterday’ (Reyes, 1990), which embedded ‘an aesth-ethics’ in meeting the other’s story. I reference philosopher George Steiner’s concept of aesthetic engagement as ‘the meeting of freedoms’ in artistic production and reception (1989) in conversation with my past and ongoing formulations on aesthetics and ethics that take off from Philippine indigenous beliefs. Show more