Ellen Dissanayake (born Ellen Franzen), an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

and writer focusing on art and culture. She lives in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

, and is affiliated with the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

Biography

Dissanayake's birth name was Ellen Franzen; she was born in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

and raised in Walla Walla, Washington, where her father was an engineer and her mother a homemaker. She received a B.A. degree from

Washington State University Washington State University (WSU, or colloquially Wazzu) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest Land-grant uni ...

in 1957 (Humanities: Music and Philosophy) and an M.A. from the University of Maryland in 1970. (Art History)Crain, Caleb (2001)
"The Artistic Animal"
(a profile of Ellen Dissanayake and her work), ''Lingua Franca'', October, 2001. Online version retrieved November 27, 2007. For her work she has received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a Private university, private art school, art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, it is regarded as one of ...

(MICA), Baltimore, in 2013. She cites "lived experience" abroad where she observed first-hand the cultural differences and attitudes toward art and culture amongst this variety of peoples as the inspiration for her work. She spent time in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, and

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. She has taught at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...

, the National Arts School in

, and the

University of Peradeniya The University of Peradeniya (, ) is a Public research university, public university in Sri Lanka, funded by the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka, University Grants Commission. It is the largest university in Sri Lanka, which was origin ...

. In 1997 she was a visiting professor at

Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

, and the following year taught at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

Edmonton, Alberta Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

, Canada.

''Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why''

In her book ''Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why'' (first printed in 1992), Dissanayake argues that art was central to the emergence, adaptation and survival of the human species, that aesthetic ability is innate in every human being, and that art is a need as fundamental to our species as food, warmth or shelter. She views art as the product of "making things special", and these things may be objects as well as behaviors. That is to say, art evolved to make certain events, tentatively important for survival or social cohesion, more salient, pleasurable, and memorable. Artifacts of art are also said to result from efforts to deal with uncertainties of nature by exerting control over it. It is claimed that art experiences are physically pleasurable, and distinctively so because one appreciates how the creators of art have shaped the raw materials. However, Dissanayake also contends that some of these raw materials may be pleasurable in themselves, i.e. "protoaesthetic" (p. 54), as may be the process of creation or some percepts in themselves without symbolic meaning, e.g. by means of obeying the Gestalt Principles. In general, the process of "making things special" is described as drawing on those aspects of the world that evolution had led us to find attractive: visual signs of health, youth and vitality, as well as a balance between uniformity and asymmetries. The chapter ''The Arts as Means of Enhancement'' is a collection of cross-cultural evidence for instances that fall under Dissanayake's definition of art; a criticism of narrow European-centered notions of art in the 19th and 20th century. This criticism is developed further in the books' last chapter that advocates the necessity to promote art in education and everyday life, as it is said to be a universal, biologically rooted human behavior. The book has been favorably reviewed by

Denis Dutton Denis Laurence Dutton (9 February 1944 – 28 December 2010) was an American philosopher of art, web entrepreneur, and media activist. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was also a ...

in 1994 who states that it "calls for a counter-revolution in our thinking about art. Its message is timely, provocative, and immensely valuable.″Philosophy and Literature 18 (1994) also availabl
here.

Bibliography

Books

* * * * *''Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began'' (2000)

Articles

* "Art as a human behavior: Toward an ethological view of art", ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'' 38/4, 397–404. (1980) * "Aesthetic experience and human evolution", ''Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism'' 41/2, 145–55. (1982) * "Does art have selective value?" ''Empirical Studies of the Arts II'', 1:35-49. (1984) * "Art for life’s sake", ''Art Therapy: Journal of the

American Art Therapy Association The American Art Therapy Association (AATA) is a U.S. not-for-profit 501(c)(3), non-partisan national professional association of approximately 5,000 practicing art therapy professionals, including students, educators, and related practitioners ...

'' 9/4, 169–178. (1992) * "Chimera, spandrel, or adaptation: Conceptualizing art in human evolution". ''Human Nature'' 6:2, 99–118. (1995) * "The pleasure and meaning of making", ''American Craft 55'',2: 40–45. (1995) * "Reflecting on the past: Implications of prehistory and infancy for art therapy", ''ARTherapy'' 12, 1: 17–23. (1995) * "Darwin meets literary theory: Critical discussion", ''Philosophy and Literature'' 20:1, 229- 239. (1996) * "Komar and Melamid discover Pleistocene taste". ''Philosophy and Literature'' 22, 2: 486- 496. (1998) * "The beginnings of artful form", ''Surface Design Journal'' 22:2, 4–5. (1998) * "Aesthetic Incunabula", ''Philosophy and Literature'' 25:2, 335–346. (2001) * "Art in Global Context: An Evolutionary/Functionalist Perspective for the 21st Century", ''International Journal of Anthropology'' 18:4, 245–258. (2003) * "If music is the food of love, what about survival and reproductive success?", ''Musicae Scientiae'', Special issue, 169–195. (2008) * "The Artification Hypothesis and Its Relevance to Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Aesthetics, and Neuroaesthetics", ''Cognitive Semiotics'' 5:148-173. (2008) * "The Deep Structure of Pleistocene Rock Art: The 'Artification Hypothesis'". Papers from IFRAO Congress, September 2010 – Symposium: Signs, symbols, myth, ideology... (Pre-Acts) http://www.ellendissanayake.com/publications/index.php#journals (2010) * "Doing Without the Ideology of Art", ''New Literary History'', 42: 71–79. (2011)

References

External links

Ellen Dissanayake's websiteExcerpt from her 1995 book ''Homo Aestheticus'' (PDF 249K)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dissanayake, Ellen Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century American anthropologists American women anthropologists American anthropology writers Human evolution theorists Academics of the University of Edinburgh Ball State University faculty Academic staff of the University of Alberta Independent scholars Washington State University alumni American women academics 21st-century American women