Middlebrow Aesthetics: An Explanation and Defense

ABSTRACT We offer a philosophical account of the middlebrow as a theoretical category to do explanatory and critical work in aesthetics. On our account, the middlebrow ought to be understood as aspirational popular art. That is, it is art which aspires both to be popular (in a distinctive sense), and at the same time to be something more than popular. Although, as we will discuss, there are many different sorts of “something more” to which middlebrow art may aspire, and this suggests that there are different kinds of middlebrow art, the aspiration itself provides the category with substantial unity.