UFS Arts

Academic Statement

The Value and Distinctiveness of University Arts Disciplines

PREAMBLE

The following position statement was developed from discussions held by the UFS Arts Academic Advisory Board (AAAB) on 16 and 17 May 2024, where the distinctive value, methods, and needs of arts disciplines – both at the UFS and within universities at large – emerged as a pressing theme. Participants highlighted the urgency for a unified articulation of the value and role of the arts to engage our university’s management. It was emphasised that these discussions should not remain confined to departmental or faculty levels but should be leveraged for broader institutional support, both in the interest of growing the standing of the arts within the institution and ensuring that our arts disciplines are suitably accommodated across all levels of the UFS.

The following theses or statements encapsulate the main points that emerged from the discussions, intending to clarify our board’s position on the value and distinctiveness of arts disciplines within the broader UFS context. The board views this set of theses as a living document, subject to further development and additions in the future, as we do not doubt that the arts at the University of the Free State will continue to flourish and grow from strength to strength.

THESES

• Universities typically misunderstand and undervalue the role of the creative arts as disciplines, often perceiving them as mere entertainment.
• Arts education and research should recognise the arts as disciplines in their own right, each with unique methods, conventions, and histories, and should accommodate the specifics of these disciplines rather than constraining them within traditional scientific and educational approaches.
• The distinctiveness of the various arts as disciplines resists straightforward notions of education and vocationalism, as their essential value lies not in instrumentalised outcomes but in fostering free creation and unalienated labour.
• The arts disciplines offer a unique form of knowledge production – what may be called knowledge in the making – where the generation of knowledge is inherently tied to the methods and processes of artmaking, and the act of making itself thus is the vital component of intellectual inquiry and research.
• The relationship between the arts and the sciences may be viewed as complementary, especially insofar as both fields are invested in their own set methodologies that can illuminate and enrich each other.
• Although interconnected and mutually enriching due to their shared investment in methodology, the arts and sciences still rely on ultimately distinct methodologies that should be respected without reducing artistic practices to scientific paradigm methods.
• In keeping with a non-reductionistic view of the arts in relationship to sciences, any combination of the university’s arts departments should likewise respect each discipline's unique sphere of expertise and thus avoid homogenisation.
• The integral role of affect and emotion in the arts engages uniquely with human consciousness and, rather than being avoided or disparaged, should be recognised as marking a key contribution to the university's broader intellectual project.
• The university’s administration and policies should be informed by a deep understanding of arts methodologies to ensure that structures and decisions support the distinctive value and processes of the arts disciplines, such as creative research outputs and practice-based PhD programmes.

UFS Arts Academic Advisory Board
Compiled by Prof Martin Rossouw