Jenefer Robinson
Ph.D., 1975, University of Toronto

jenefer.robinson@uc.edu

Department of Philosophy
University of Cincinnati
P. O. Box 210374
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0374

Areas of Specialization

Jenefer Robinson teaches and writes on topics in aesthetics and philosophical psychology, especially the theory of emotion. Her views on emotion cast doubt on currently fashionable 'judgment' theories, and draw on psychological theories that stress the physiological aspects of emotion. She has applied this model of emotion to problems in aesthetics, such as the expression of emotion in art and the emotional experience of art by readers and audiences. Jenefer is Vice President of the American Society for Aesthetics.

Selected Publications

Deeper than Reason: Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music and Art, Oxford University Press, 2005.

Edited Collection:  Music and Meaning, Cornell University Press, 1997. (Includes introductory
chapter, "New Ways of Thinking about Musical Meaning".)

"The Art of Distancing: How formal devices manage our emotional responses to literature" Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62 (2004), pp.153-162.

"Emotion: Biological Fact or Social Construction?" in Robert C. Solomon, ed., Philosophers on
Emotion, pp. 28-43, (Oxford University Press, 2004).

"The Emotions in Art," in Peter Kivy, ed., The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, pp. 174-192
(Blackwell, 2004)

"Can Music Function as a Metaphor of Emotional Life?"  (abridged), Special Issue of Revue Francaise
d'Etudes Americaines 86 (2000), pp.77-89.

"Languages of Art at the Turn of the Century," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (2000),
pp.213-218.

Article on Style, artistic, for The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998).

"Theoretical Issues in the Role of Appraisal in Emotion: Cognitive Content Versus Physiological Change,
" in  Viewing Psychology as a Whole: The Integrative Science of William N. Dember, ed. R. Hoffman,
M. Sherrick and J. Warm (American Psychological Association, 1998),  pp.449-469.

"Sparshott on Art and Expression," Journal of Aesthetic Education, 31 (1997),  pp. 9-17.

Article on the History of Modern Aesthetics for The Dictionary of Art, Macmillan, 1996.

"Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony and the Musical Expression of Cognitively Complex Emotions,"
(with Gregory Karl), Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 53 (1995), pp. 401-415.

"L'éducation sentimentale," Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 73 (1995), pp. 212-226. Reprinted in
Stephen Davies, ed., Art and Its Messages (Penn. State University Press, 1997) pp. 34-48.

"Startle," Journal of Philosophy, 92 (1995), pp. 53-74.  Reprinted in Stephen Leighton ed. Philosophy
and the Emotions (Broadview, 2003).