28 abril - 16 mayo 2014
Workshop in Philosophy of Music
Universidad de Varsovia, Polonia
Profesor:
Jerold Levinson (University of Maryland)
The workshop is meant as an introduction to the field of philosophy of music - the philosophical domain of studies focused on the art of music and problems of its nature, structure and assessment. Moreover the area of Philosophy of Music focuses on musical time, space and the sound environment itself, researches the musicality behind other artistic phenomena and searches for the everyday musical quality of life.
Workshop in Philosophy of Music is an intensive course, consisting in the main lecture, 6 1,5-hour workshop sessions over 2 weeks together with discussion forum and online activities. In fact most readings and online activities will be available on the course website from February to June but the workshop meetings and all proper communication with lecturers will only take place during three weeks from 28th of April to 16th of May. During these three weeks there will be 6 workshop meetings introducing varied areas of problems, exploring questions and research topics. Lecturers will explain problems and invite student to presentations of the areas of research they themselves are passionate about.
The aim of this workshop is to explore the philosophy of music less as a historical field with major figures of the likes of Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hanslick or Collingwood, although these classical philosophers and their texts are still points of departure for many contemporary theories, but to familiarise participants with literature that has been accumulated during more resent years of studies on music, its structure, its beauty and availability for human experience.
For further information please contact:
Dr Małgorzata A. Szyszkowska at m.a.szyszkowska@uw.edu.pl
7-10 mayo 2014
International Lisbon Conference on Philosophy and Film: Thinking reality and time through film
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Conferencistas principales:
Noël Carroll
(CUNY)
James Conant
(University of Chicago)
Carlos Joao Correia
(Universidade de Lisboa)
Josef Früchtl
(University of Amsterdam)
Markus Gabriel
(Universität Bonn)
José Manuel Martins
(Universidade de Évora)
Colin McGinn
(University of Miami)
Robert Pippin
(University of Chicago)
Patricia Pisters
(University of Amsterdam)
Christine Reeh
(Universidade de Lisboa)
Zbig Rybczyński
(Wrocław Visual Technology Studios)
Mirjam Schaub
(Freie Universität, Berlin)
Peter Sloterdijk
(Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe)
André Ujica
(Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe)
Peter Weibel
(Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe)
During the last two decades film has been increasingly recognized as a medium of philosophical reflection, in an ontological and epistemological perspective. But what does it mean to understand film as philosophizing? Can we access specific, reliable knowledge of the world and our relation to it through the aesthetic form of moving images? Considering film’s claim of continuity with the world - what is the essence of film and what is exactly its connection with reality?
Usually time and space are considered the essential constituents of film – yet they are as well our ontic and ontological condition to understand reality. In this context classical film theory and its philosophical development (Kracauer, Benjamin, Bazin, Cavell, and Deleuze) are reassessed with transcendental and speculative questions. Benjamin, for example, has pointed out how through the invention of film reality has lost its status of uniqueness and authenticity. What are the consequences of the implicit assertion to face the world as a contingent possibility out of many? And what about the ‘Myth of total cinema’ evoked by Bazin – the perfect artistic creation of a virtual world that conflates with reality? Space-time is the way, how we structure the world and orient ourselves in it. Different philosophers have been dealing with the aporia of time and approached its apparent negativity in distinct ways. For all of them the question about time implies a question about space and being, or, in other words, requires a reflection on the relation of motion and matter.
Film also evokes the phantasmagorical presence of something, which is absent, an immaterial after-death reality. In this sense, Barthes defined the photographed moment as an anticipation of the instant of the death of the objects and subjects depicted. The film negative is assembled out of 24 static frames per second—applied to Barthes’ theory that would be 24 instances of death. The immediate succession of the next frame creates than an apparent continuity. We can therefore only indirectly assist a stepping-beyond of natural time into death, at each frame. The disclosure of death in film is obscured by moving the images, creating an illusion of life. Bergson understood the illusionary mechanism of film as a paradox metaphor for the usual relation of mind and reality: that which is moving is made graspable through its opposite. For Heidegger the continuity of time is bound by the nexus of life (Lebenszusammenhang) given by Dasein. Connecting life and film, Deleuze raised the question of the world literally to be film, similar to Pasolini who claimed life as cinema in nature. Is being-in-the-world a being-in-film?
Another line of enquiry could be designated as the fascination with the reality effect, opening up a threefold domain: the ‘hypperreal’ vertigo pursued by technical constructions of the filmic realm and of spectatorship, such as 3D movies, digital camera and computer-generated images; the Lacanian distinction between reality and the Real, instrumental in Žižek’s theorizing of film; the paradoxical technical construction of a kind of image corresponding to a seeming natural perception in some ‘realistic’ cinema such as the works of the Portuguese filmmakers João Canijo or Pedro Costa, among others.
Página Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/philosophyandfilmlisbon2014/home
19-20 mayo 2014
‘I know what art is when I see it.’ Reasons (not) to define art
Ghent University, Bélgica
Conferencistas principales:
Catharine Abell (University of Manchester)
Aaron Meskin (University of Leeds)
Nick Zangwill
This conference will examine the motivations behind the project of defining art. Recent voices in the philosophy of art have argued that the project has been wrongheaded and irrelevant. The most plausible of the contemporary attempts to define art provide us with no guidance with respect to the interpretation, evaluation, and appreciation of works of art, so it is argued. Moreover, the obsession with extensional adequacy has led astray the whole field of aesthetics, ignoring the core values of art and alienating other participants in the field of the arts from analytic aesthetics. Notwithstanding this scepticism regarding the project of defining art, there is still much work written on definitions of art and many questions in aesthetics and even in the broader field of the arts seem to hinge on how art is defined. The main aim of this conference is to shed light on the question whether or not we have adequate reasons to define art, a question that is often passed over in silence. This conference does not wish to add new definitions of art to the already existing bunch, but wants to reflect on the significance of actual or possible definitions of art. In this way, we aim to help reorient the project of defining art and make it more worthwhile for the artistic and philosophical community
29-31 mayo 2014
European Society for Aesthetics Conference 2014
Universidad de Amsterdam, Holanda
Conferencistas principales:
Maarten Doorman (University of Amsterdam)
Berys Gaut (University of St Andrews)
Martin Seel (Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main)
We are inviting papers from all traditions and on any topic in philosophical aesthetics, and both systematic and historical presentations are acceptable. This year we also welcome submissions addressing “The Age of Aesthetics”, i.e. the period between 1750, the publication of Baumgarten's 'Aesthetica', and 1831, Hegel's death, and in particular addressing why this period was so productive for aesthetics and/or what this suggests for the prospects of the discipline in our own time.
Página Web:
http://www.eurosa.org/esa2014/
2-6 junio 2014
Aesthetic Experience and Somaesthetics
Hungarian Philosophical Association, Budapest, Hungría
Conferencista principal:
Richard Shusterman (Florida State University)
Registration fee: 15 €
For further information, please write to the leader of the Organizing Committee:
Dr. Alexander Kremer (
kremeralexander5@gmail.com)
3-6 junio 2014
38h Annual Conference of the International
Society of Phenomenology and Literature & 19th Annual Conference of the International
Society for Phenomenology, Aesthetics, and Fine Arts
Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Topic:
Harmony in the Cosmos, the Bios, and the Human Being
Abstracts due: February 15, 2014
Full Papers due: May 1, 2014
Registration Fee: $200.00
Contact:
Professor Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka
The World Phenomenology Institute
wphenomenology@aol.com
6-8 junio 2014
The Times of Art
Galería Nacional, Tirana, Albania
Conferencistas principales:
Maeve Connolly
Boris Groys
(New York University)
Mihnea Mircan
Peter Osborne
(Kingston University)
The last three decades have witnessed a large increase in moving image artworks, particularly in exhibitions like the Venice Biennale, documenta, etc., but not only. The concept of repetition has played an important role in the production and the reception of these works. It has also taken many forms. Notable examples of the centrality and variety include Francis Alÿs’ work with the concepts of rehearsal and re-enactment as variations of repetition and Stan Douglas’ work with combinatorial mechanisms in works like
Inconsolable Memories (2005), where repetitions of a different order and scale simultaneously constitute and conceal one another.
Not least amongst the forms that repetition has taken in contemporary moving image art is that of cyclical repetition in time as embodied in the mechanism of continuous looping that almost always characterizes the display of these works. Continuous looping and the modes of reception (of the artwork) that it affords tend to undermine the evental character of contemporary moving image art
qua time-based art. On the one hand, it makes the work available at ‘all’ times; on the other hand, but related to the first, it opens up the relations between the images that make up the sequence that is being repeated to all manner of reconfigurations, so that any image could come before and after any other image. As such, its ubiquity in the gallery or museum environment raises a number of questions concerning the borders of the work of art and the imaginary of the “full” artwork, the concepts of time and historicity, the art space as non-space and looped time-based artworks as a point of departure of thinking non-time and recent attempts at theorizing what has been called ‘art-based time’.
Considered proposals may engage, but need not be limited to, themes such as:
- Repetition and (in) art and (the experience of) duration;
- Non-places and non-times, the disarticulation of time and space in gallery and museum environments;
- Time and history, the tension between revolutionary concepts of history and traditional conceptions of time;
- The limits of the work of art, engagement with the infinite and timelessness;
- The distributive unity of the work of art and the imaginary constitution of the “full” artwork;
- The everyday experience of time and the experience of time in time-based (particularly moving image) artworks/exhibitions of time-based (particularly moving image) art;
- The relationship between technology, medium-specificity, or lack thereof, and time in contemporary moving image art;
- Contemporary moving image art as a point of departure for thinking problems of temporality of contemporary art more generally.
The conference “The Times of Art,” to be held in the National Gallery inTirana, Albania on June 6-8, 2014, and will be accompanied by an exhibition.
24-28 junio 2014
Sixth Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics: Facts and Values in Aesthetics
Florencia, Italia
Conferencistas principales:
Marie-José Mondzain (Paris)
Fabrizio Desideri (Florence)
Pere Salabert (Barcelona).
The Sixth Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics will take place at Villa Finaly in Florence, Italy, from the 24th to the 28th of June, 2014, and will be concerned with the contemporary debate over the opposition of facts and values in aesthetics.
In a text entitled The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays (2004), Hilary Putnam argues convincingly against a classic opposition which does not serve philosophical reflection positively; in fact, this apparently unquestioned and unquestionable dichotomy, which is the nature of all dogma, leaves many unsolved, untreated, unseen and unexamined problems. Putnam’s analysis mostly focuses on the theory and practice of knowledge, but one can legitimately extend it to other fields, starting with that of aesthetics, which sooner or later is confronted with the question of whether one defends or rejects the dichotomy. Keeping or rejecting it implies reasons to do so, but often these reasons remains implicit, most especially in aesthetics.
Certain observable features in the fields of aesthetics, practice and artistic creation show that old evaluation criteria may now be obsolete. This is because upon further consideration, the definition of value remains opaque: should the artwork be judged according to its moral value, its market value, or its formal value? To side with or against the concept of value in art and aesthetics does not preclude a certain number of differences concerning the very nature of what is meant by value. If traditionally the ‘fact’ was the work, taken in all its tangibility, currently the materiality of the object no longer seems to play such a major role. Art is increasingly populated by so-called ‘immaterial’ or ‘ephemeral’ works and is therefore rarely, or badly, quantifiable according to old aesthetic and economic evaluation criteria.
Aesthetic judgement, the keystone of all philosophical thought on art, as well as the practice of criticism seem to be jeopardized. Can we pass judgement? If necessary, would the aesthetic be transformed? Would it be eradicated from its very origins as a science of the sensible? Practical-moral questions are gaining the upper hand over more conventionally formal questions. The social function of art therefore seems to be against a radical idea of artistic and aesthetic autonomy. Socio-political issues come to also integrate aesthetic questioning, now in an increasingly expanded sense, where the authority of the people involved, their social status, their nationality, their origins, can come to add (or sometimes subtract) an element to the very value of works they create or simply enable us to perceive.
The link between the economic and the cultural, notably with the increasingly important commitment to cultural policies, allows us to understand that the cultural value of art sometimes predominates over the old universal value it used to have. The progressively pragmatic contextualization of works within the social space puts forward a new definition of aesthetic value, no longer eternal and ideal, but rather anchored in the sensible and the politico-economic issues of a culturally specific situation.
At the time of this 6th Congress, the Mediterranean basin passes through an unparalleled crisis. How can we not ask the question of the role of art in such a context? What is the value of art, and how can we view this crisis from the perspective of aesthetics? The context and the current changes support the idea that the question of ‘value’ and its confrontation with the concept of ‘fact’ is urgent. What role do artistic practices and aesthetic theories play? A role of emancipation, of liberation, escape, or transformation? Or on the contrary, could art become another means to subject individuals to the status quo? As can easily be noticed, the question of maintaining or rejecting the dichotomy of facts and values is at the heart of the most pressing issues. This conference cannot ignore it.
Proposals may address the following topics, but are not limited to them:
– the pros / cons : what facts? what values? and for what purpose?
– aesthetic judgment (can we do without it?) and criticism
– ethical and practical moral questions
– socio-political questions
– the link between the economic and the cultural (including: cultural policies, their choices and their consequences)
– contexts and current changes
– facts and values in artistic practices
– issues of censorship and the law
– art and biotechnologies, what limits, what is allowed or not – and why?
– differences in the arts and practices (film, dance, performance, theatre, etc.) – issues of identity, gender
Preference will be given to proposals for papers on the relationship between aesthetics, philosophy of art and ethical, moral, and socio-political contemporary issues.
Proposals should include a title, an abstract of approximately 250 words (1,500 characters including spaces), and a short biography and bibliography of the author. They should be sent by email to Jacinto Lageira (jlageira@wanadoo.fr) and Evangelos Athanassopoulos (evangelos.athanassopoulos@sfr.fr) before March 1st 2014. The proposals will then be sent anonymously to a selection committee. A reply will be sent before March 15th. Selected participants will then receive information about Congress registration (through Paris 1 services) and accommodation arrangements (through Villa Finally services – see website).
26-27 junio 2014
'Shaped By Beauty': Art, Religion, and Ethics in Conversation
Heythrop College, University of London, Reino Unido
A Two Day Conference on Music and Visual Art in Relationship with Theology, Philosophy, Religious Practice, Spirituality, and Ethics
“Art and morality are, with certain provisos…one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love”--Iris Murdoch
“….music, for Hildegard, was not the province of a gifted elite, but a thing quintessentially human; mankind was never meant to live without it….to make dangerous music was immoral; conversely, to be immoral was to be unmusical.”-- Barbara Newman
“Art enables us to find ourselves and to lose ourselves at the same time.”-- Thomas Merton
Throughout history, the power and rhetoric of image and sound together with their corresponding art forms, the visual arts and music, have coexisted with religion and ethics in relationships ranging from the harmonious to directly oppositional and confrontational. At their most synchronistic, religion and the arts have spurred the creation of some of the world’s greatest cultural treasures, among them Chartres Cathedral, Hagia Sophia, Bach’s Passion According to St. John, and African-American spirituals. At their most oppositional, there have been iconoclastic crises, the suppression and vilification of artists, and in much of art in modern and contemporary times, a turn away from religion by the arts entirely.
Yet within this often uneasy frame, it is nonetheless human beings who make art; human beings who observe, listen, and respond to art; and human beings who, influenced by images and sounds, shape their religious, spiritual, and ethical lives. Indeed, the arts possess the potential to open up transformative space for human beings, widening the lens of perception and shifting grounds of meaning that can prove to be fertile for the generation of new ideas as well as new practices for life. Such an interdependent and rich nexus of relationships calls out for meaningful understanding and interpretation from the arts themselves, as well as from the domains of religion, theology, philosophy and ethics.
Features of the conference will include an accompanying musical performance and possibly visual art exhibition. The purpose of the conference is to foster dialogue among disciplines concerning the human being and society in relationship with religion, the arts, and ethics. Conference fee, including lunch and refreshments:
£60 for two days or £30 per day.
27-28 junio 2014
Music and Philosophy 2014. 4th Annual Conference of the Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group
King's College London, Reino Unido
Conferencistas principales:
Carolyn Abbate (Harvard University)
Philip Kitcher (Columbia University)
Dmitri Tymoczko (Princeton University)
Topics of interest might include (but are not limited to):• Intersections and tensions between different approaches to music studies (historical musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology) and to philosophy (continental, analytic)
• Sound and affect
• Differing musics
• Music, rhythm, and time
• Conceptual composing
• Performance, authenticity, and interpretation
• Musical meaning and language
• Music and ethics
• Music and ontology
• Empirical approaches to music
• Collaboration and the poetics of musical decision making
• Digital media and new forms of musical literacy
• Philosophy and sound recording
• Theories of music and mass culture in the twenty-first century
• Philosophy, music, and the future of the culture wars
• Music, transcendence, and spirituality
• Wagnerism in twenty-first century culture
• Film sound, film music, and philosophy
• The philosophical implications of corpus studies, quantitative methods, and geometric modeling
Reasonably priced university accommodation will be available.
Any questions, please e-mail conference2014@musicandphilosophy.ac.uk
Página Web:
http://www.musicandphilosophy.ac.uk/conference-2014/
2-4 julio 2014
Film-Philosophy Conference 2014: A World of Cinemas
University of Glasgow, Escocia, Reino Unido
Conferencistas principales:
Laura U. Marks (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Lucia Nagib (University of Reading, UK)
Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
William Brown (University of Roehampton, UK)
The Film-Philosophy Conference 2014 will be hosted by Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow. This will be the seventh annual Film-Philosophy conference, and as always we are open to paper and panel proposals on all aspects of film and philosophy. This year, we particularly welcome proposals which engage with the conference theme: A World of Cinemas.
In recognition of the consolidation of film-philosophy as a vibrant and steadily growing interdisciplinary field, F-P2014 will focus attention on the global context in which film-philosophical enquiry takes place. This will begin the process of broadening the scope of our research to greater encompass a world of cinemas (Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood et al.) and philosophies (Deleuze, Dussel, Spivak, Oruka, Soroush, Karatani et al.).
Página Web:
http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/index.php/conf/F-P2014
9-11 julio 2014
Autonomy Reconsidered: Ethics in Architecture, Urbanism, and Landscape Architecture
Universidad de Tecnología de Delft, Holanda
Conferencistas principales:
Noël Carroll
(CUNY Graduate Center)
Nathanel Coleman
(University of Newcastle)
Christian Illies
(University of Bamberg)
Robert Tavernor
(LSE)
Anthony Vidler
(Brown University)
Nick Zangwill
(Durham University)
This is the 2nd international conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture. The 2014 Conference addresses the intersection of ethics and the philosophical inquiry of architecture. It welcomes contributions from architects and philosophers alike. Philosophers specialized in ethics and/or aesthetics with an interest to apply (or revise) existing frameworks with a view to architecture are particularly encouraged to submit an abstract.
Página Web:
http://www.isparchitecture.com/
19-20 julio, 28 septiembre 2014
In-between. Interdisciplinarity and Theatre Studies
Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Alemania
This international research project for doctoral candidates aims to examine and practice varieties and methods of interdisciplinary work by graduate students of theatre studies and other subjects. The project is divided into two major phases: a workshop taking place from July 19th to 20th, 2014 and a conference that will be held on September 28th, 2014. Furthermore, the project will cooperate with the Twelfth International Congress of the 'Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaft' on the topic 'Episteme des Theaters' (September 25th - 28th, 2014, Ruhr-Universität Bochum). This will allow participants to present their work to an international and specialised audience. Thanks to the generous sponsorship of the RUB Research School, accomodation and travel expenses can be refunded.
The field of theatre studies has long since been aware that the research done within the scope of its subject matter finds correspondence in several other academic disciplines. Due to the multidimensional conception of theatre, whose various aspects have often been explored by other disciplines, theatre studies, from its inception, has had difficulties localising itself within the academic context. Just as at the time of its founding, the theatre studies of today faces the challenge of embracing approaches derived from the fields of history, literary studies, philosophy, media studies and further disciplines when facing contemporary issues.
Instead of raising the question what marks theatre studies as genuinely theatre studies - a question that does not satisfy either the demands of changing theatrical forms, cultural and academic institutions, or contemporary contexts or orders of knowledge - this international research project is to contribute to the opening of an interdisciplinary working environment and to the reflection of this shared space. A dialogue between doctoral candidates of theatre studies whose research projects refer to other academic disciplines and doctoral candidates of related academic disciplines whose research projects include problems typically examined by theatre studies will be conducive to finding affinities between the disciplines and how this contact, this space in-between the disciplines might be conceived and formed. This project is to be pursued in four sections:
1. In-between theatre studies and history
- How can 'historical events' be presented on stage? What new forms of theatre emerge in this process? Which historical theories are conducive to analysing these theatrical forms?
- In what way is the cultural memory of a society influenced by the institution 'theatre' if theatre is itself part of this very society?
2. In-between theatre studies and literary studies
- The founding of theatre studies is strongly shaped by its setting itself apart from literary studies. But how can theatre studies and literary studies enter into a dialogue today now that the discipline is well-established and the gesture of demarcation thus obsolete?
- How do analyses of dramatic texts differ in theatre studies and literary studies respectively? What can both disciplines learn from each other?
3. In-between theatre studies and philosophy
- Where do theatre studies and philosophy overlap in the etymological kinship of "theatre" (theatron: watching place) and "theory" (theoria: viewing, beholding)?
- What does it mean to think of the concept of representation not only as a procedure of artistic design but as a paradigm which describes the regime of occidental thinking on the whole?
- Where can the question of aesthetics be located today if it is most notably philosophy that is going in search of an artistic reality?
4. In-between theatre studies and media studies
- What is the status of mediality discourses within theatre studies? How do they relate to media studies?
- What significance does theatre studies have for media studies?
- How does theatre studies position itself towards other media? To what extent are those other media used in theatre contexts? How multimedia-based is theatre?
The following application documents should be submitted by March 31st, 2014: Curriculum vitae, short description of your dissertation project (1,200-2,000 characters) as well as a seperate abstract on one of the suggested sections respectively one of the questions suggested above (2,000 - 3,000 characters). This abstract may also be related to your dissertation project, although there is no requirement for it to explicitely do so. Doctoral candidates of theatre studies and related subjects are invited to apply for this research project. The working language of the project is English. It is not possible to submit an application for only one of the two major phases, i. e. only the workshop or only the conference. The application must cover the entirety of the project. Furthermore, only applications from advanced graduate students can be considered. Applications should be submitted to the following address: interdisziplinaritaet@rub.de.If you have been invited to part in this research project, you will be informed by April, 15th, 2014.
Contact: Seta Guetsoyan, Moritz Hannemann, Meike Hinnenberg, Hanna Höfer-Lück. If you have any other questions, please get in touch with us via the email address provided above.
27-31 julio 2014
Philosophy, Technology and the Arts. XXIVth International Conference of the OCPC
Olympic Center for Philosophy and Culture, Cacovatos, Grecia
We would like to invite you to the XXIVth International Conference of the Olympic Center for Philosophy and Culture (OCPC), which will take place from July 27-30, 2014, in Ancient Olympia, Elida and Cacovatos, Greece.
The organizers of the XXIVth International Conference hope participants will explore the variety of views on:
- Philosophy of Art
- Aesthetics and Technology
- Philosophy of Technology
- Modern Philosophy and Modern Art
- Fine Arts and Techniques
Deadlines:
February 28, 2014: Abstract is due (300-500 words)
May 31, 2014: Full Paper is due (2.500 words)
* In case your abstract or paper is not accepted you will be informed promptly.
Registration:
June 15, 2014: Early Registration Fee (100 Euros or the equivalent)
July 27, 2014: Late registration Fee accepted (120 Euros or the equivalent)
3-6 septiembre 2014
Varieties of Aesthetic Politics
Glasgow, Escocia, Reino Unido
Conferencistas principales:
Giuseppe Ballacci (CEHUM, University of Minho)
M. F. N. Giglioli (SciencesPo)
The positing of a link between aesthetics and politics is a recurrent idea in Western intellectual history, but its various instantiations have not been compared in a broad and systematic debate. In the past, aesthetic politics has for instance been conceived of as a type of political action that morphs into an art form, hence as politics transformed into performance, to be read (and valued) aesthetically, as a text. Other thinkers have theorized aesthetic politics under the guise of aesthetic judgment, to be employed analogically in order to understand political judgment. In a further formulation, the way in which we comprehend artistic representation has been thought to influence political representation. At a more basic level, ‘aesthetic’ has also been used to signify the realm of the sensory, as opposed to the ideal, so that aesthetic politics is seen to concern itself with the materiality of human experience, against utopia. Finally, the notions of style and taste have been considered fundamental in the development of collective preferences and the formation of empathy and enmity groups, and thus for the understanding of the politics of the spectacular. What do all these ways of thinking about aesthetic politics have in common? Are they compatible? Are they bound by the type of political phenomena in whose context they arose, or do they have broader interpretive validity? This panel intends to confront questions such as these. The methodological approach will be broadly pluralist, tackling aesthetic politics analytically, through development of reflection in the history of political thought, and/or by considering specifically relevant case studies. Particular interest will be focused on the seeming commonality between different varieties of aesthetic politics in representing themselves as an alternative to rational, means-ends utilitarian politics.
Please submit abstracts of no more than 150 words to:
gballacci@ilch.uminho.pt.
St Anne's College, Oxford, Reino Unido
Conferencistas principales:
Jenefer Robinson (University at Cincinnatti)
M. G. F. Martin (University College London, University of California, Berkeley)
Peter Greenaway (Empson Lecturer)
2-4 octubre 2014
Sixth Annual Meeting of The Pacific Association for the Continental Tradition (PACT): Narrative and Image
Loyola University, Los Angeles, USA
Abstracts of 500 words, or complete papers, should be submitted to Chris Lauer (
lauer3@hawaii.edu) no later than April 1, 2014.
Information: Brian Treanor, Loyola Marymount University (
btreanor@lmu.edu)
29 octubre - 1º noviembre 2014
American Society of Aesthetics Annual Meeting
The American Society of Aesthetics, San Antonio, USA
Papers on any topic in aesthetics and/or the philosophy of art are invited, as well as proposals for panels, author-meets-critics sessions, or other special sessions. We welcome volunteers to serve as session chairs and commentators. All participants must be members of the American Society for Aesthetics and must register for the conference. Papers should not exceed 3,000 words, should be accompanied by a 100-word abstract, and must be prepared for blind review. Panel proposals/author-meets-critics sessions and other special sessions should include a general description of the topic or theme, along with the names and affiliations of all proposed participants and brief abstracts of all papers. It is ASA policy that a paper cannot be presented at a regional meeting and the Annual meeting. You may either submit a paper or be a member of a proposed panel, not both. Full time students who are on the program at the annual meeting (presenting or commenting) are eligible for a travel stipend.
Submission deadline: March 1, 2014
Página Web:
http://www.aesthetics-online.org/events/index.php?events_id=604
10-11 octubre 2014
Aesthetic Normativity
Universidad de Uppsala, Finlandia
Conferencistas principales:
Simon Blackburn (Cambridge)
Paul Guyer (Brown)
Hannah Ginsborg (UC Berkeley)
Peter Railton (Michigan)
Jenefer Robinson (Cincinnati)
Nick Zangwill (Hull)
The normative force of aesthetic perception, deliberation and judgement has been a topic of discussion in philosophy for many centuries: Aristotle writes of the universal elements of aesthetic value; Hume discusses how we can account for wide-spread agreements about taste and establish criteria for aesthetic normativity; and Kant urges us to resolve the Antinomy of Taste and explains why aesthetic judgements “lay claim to universal assent” in terms steeped in his philosophy of mind.
More recently, however, the power of aesthetic normativity has been conceived along more modest lines and explained mainly in terms of emotional responses or preferences determined by our evolutionary past and physiological constitution. To that extent at least, many philosophers have often looked beyond the remit of philosophy to analyse the normativity of aesthetic judgement and value. In contrast, philosophical investigations of moral normativity have continued to develop at a steady pace and to explain such normativity in its own terms.
Have we isolated aesthetic normativity from other forms of normativity to such an extent that we are no longer able to fully understand its grounds and explanatory force? Are we right to have overlooked metaphysical and epistemological connections between aesthetic and moral value, or beauty and goodness, contra Plato, Shaftesbury, Schiller and Kant?
One of the main aims of this conference is to explore the relations between normativity in the philosophy of mind, ethics and aesthetics, hopefully extending to epistemic normativity. In that process we will remind ourselves of the theories developed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Our primary focus, however, will remain on the questions central to current philosophical debates in an attempt to expand the remit of our discussions in aesthetics.
Please send abstracts (400-500 words) for provisional 45-minute presentations to Elisabeth Schellekens Dammann (elisabeth.schellekens@filosofi.uu.se).
Submission deadline: April 1, 2014
5-7 diciembre 2014
Aesthetics in Mathematics: British Society of Aesthetics Connections Conference
University of East Anglia, Norwich, Reino Unido
Aesthetics and philosophy of mathematics are often perceived to be at opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum. Questions about the nature of art, beauty and aesthetic experience seem to have little connection with such problems as the logical structure of formal arguments or the ontological status of abstract objects. And yet the phenomenon of mathematical beauty and the pervasive appeal to aesthetic criteria in mathematics raise questions in both areas of the discipline. The conference is motivated by the belief that philosophical analysis of beauty in mathematics requires real dialogue between aestheticians and philosophers of mathematics. By bringing together specialists in the two fields, the aims of the conference are:
- to make sense of aesthetic judgments in mathematics and thereby shed light on a theme that has largely been neglected in contemporary philosophical debates,
- to explore the relation between mathematics and art, and
- to investigate the implications of the connection between aesthetics and mathematical practice for other areas of philosophy (in particular the philosophy of science insofar as it involves the application of mathematics).
Abstract Submission deadline: 1 July 2014
Notification of decisions: 1 August 2014
Conference dates: 5 - 7 December 2014
A small number of slots are reserved for contributed papers, each of which will be allocated 30 minutes for presentation, followed by a 15-minute discussion. Authors are invited to submit an abstract of 100 words together with an extended abstract of 1000 words. Please prepare your abstracts for blind review and save your extended abstract as a PDF file.
For submissions, go to: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bsam14
When logged in, click on the 'New Submission' tab. Include your 100 words abstract and upload the PDF file of your extended abstract.
Possible topics of contributed papers include, but are not limited to, the following:
- What is mathematical beauty? What, if anything, distinguishes it from other kinds of beauty?
- What is the status of aesthetic judgments in mathematics? Are such judgments grounded in cognition of the properties of mathematical objects such as their symmetry or simplicity? Or do they rely on merely subjective responses particular to the perspective of the mathematician?
- Is mathematical beauty a genuine aesthetic category? Or is it reducible to non-aesthetic criteria such as, for instance, epistemic virtues? If not, does the phenomenon of mathematical beauty pose any problems to the traditional view, accepted by many aestheticians, that appreciation of the beautiful is directed towards sensible objects and employs our sensible faculties?
- Can aesthetic considerations play any legitimate role in mathematical or scientific theorising? Is there a connection between the elegance of mathematical formalism, e.g. the use of differential forms to express Maxwell's equations or the use of group theory in quantum mechanics, and the truth of a scientific theory?
- Does the phenomenon of aesthetics in mathematics reveal any important analogies between mathematical and artistic practice? How, in particular, are we to construe the role of imagination in mathematics, and how does it compare with the role of imagination in the arts?
Contact the organisers with any questions you may have at: bsam14@easychair.org
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