6.

Good afternoon. Today, I will talk about the new curriculum of Theory and History of the Arts in the University of Chile. To begin with, I must confess that I have a critical perspective on the latest curriculum reform. Unfortunately, I entered this university career in the process of implementing the new study plan, so I have suffered the effects of the technocratic turn that motivates this reform.

Before the curricular reform, theory and history of art was a university career that motivates the aesthetic reflection. In it, there was room for philosophy, literature and cinema, with sufficient academic flexibility to develop their own theoretical projects. After the curricular reform, this university career was schooled, subscribing to the mercantile criteria of neoliberal university education. In concrete terms, this explains the emphasis on subjects such as cultural management, heritage, museums and curatorship, to the detriment of philosophy, aesthetics and literature. The idea that undergraduate degrees should only introduce the topics, and graduate degrees develop them, makes undergraduate extensions of secondary education.

Outside of that, I have no further observations. In my opinion, university courses such as Theory and History of the Arts do not need great technological resources. Neither, a great infrastructure to develop the classes. The only criticism I could add, which complements the previous criticism of the new curriculum, is the indiscriminate use of pedagogical techniques in classes. Some teachers thinks that were are children unable to reflect. That doesn't help stimulate learning. On the contrary, it reduces it. But this problem it is inseparable of the neoliberal schooling of the university.