Institute of Continuing Education (ICE)
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Martin Parker Dixon trained as a composer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland before moving into music research. He read for his PhD in Critical Theory at Wolfson College, Cambridge, and was Lecturer at the School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow, between 2002 and 2019. He is now a Bye-Fellow at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Music where he teaches aesthetics. With 25 years of experience in education, he has consolidated a student-centred approach to learning which seeks out intrinsic motivations for study.
My research is invested in the philosophy of art. I am particularly interested in finding a middle way between 20th century Continental and Analytical traditions of aesthetic thought.
My current project is to substantiate a conjecture set out by the philosopher T.W. Adorno in 1969, to the effect that aesthetics can only develop as a discipline if it embraces the experience of the artist as maker. This problem turns out to be tougher than it first appears, and requires careful modelling of how concept and action combine in aesthetic creativity.
