CA welcomes notices of interest to our readers. These include
announcements and reviews of conferences, news items, forthcoming
events, etc. Please send them using the submission guidelines.
Call for
Papers
Values in the Environment – Relations and Conflicts
The Xth IIAA International Summer
Conference on Environmental Aesthetics
Lahti, Finland, 1-3 August 2013
Contact person: Kalle Puolakka, kalle.puolakka@helsinki.fi
Deadline: 15 February 2013
The International Institute of Applied Aesthetics (IIAA) will arrange the Xth Summer Conference on Environmental Aesthetics in Lahti,
Finland, August 1-3, 2013. The theme of
the conference is “Values in the
Environment – Relations and Conflicts.”
Environments
are arenas for different kinds of values.
Environments are valued for their beauty and the aesthetic experiences
they afford, but there are also moral and ecological values that need
consideration, such as decision-making concerning particular areas both in
human and in natural environments.
Different
values can come into conflict with one another.
The ecologically best environment is not necessarily the most valuable
environment from an aesthetic point of view.
How should the weight of the different values present in environments be
assessed? Is aesthetic value inferior in
some ways to other sorts of values? Or
could aesthetic value perhaps serve as a reason for preserving parts of the
environment?
There is also
an interesting question about the possibility of aesthetically appreciating
damaged environments. How does the
morally questionable background of an environment affect its aesthetic value? Can a mine or a quarry, for example, be considered
beautiful?
The value of
natural environments and green spaces in urban environments has also been
increasingly recognized as promoting human well-being. How should these results be taken into
account in urban planning? One challenge
faced by urban planning is the development of more environmentally sustainable
cities. Could aesthetics aid in
achieving this goal?
We invite
researchers from different fields of the humanities, social, and environmental
sciences to discuss these questions. People interested in exploring them are
asked to send an abstract of about 400 words to iiaa-info@helsinki.fi by the 15th of February 2013. The time allotted to each paper is 40
minutes (30 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion).
Balance-Unbalance is an International Conference
designed to use art as a catalyst to explore intersections between nature,
science, technology and society as we move into an era of both unprecedented
ecological threats and transdisciplinary possibilities. The previous events held in Argentina in 2010
and Montreal in 2011 provided a powerful platform for reflection, debate, and
ideas leading towards Balance-Unbalance 2013, which will be hosted in the
UNESCO Noosa Biosphere Reserve on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. The 2013
conference theme, Future Nature, Future Culture[s] is aimed to provoke
discourse around what our elusive future might hold and how transdisciplinary
thought and action could be used as tools for positive change. It aims to challenge our expectations of
Earth, provoke our understanding of nature, and inspire our actions for a
sustainable future.
We want to inspire explorations of how artists can
participate in this major challenge of our ecological crisis. We need to use creative tools and transdisciplinary
action to create perceptual, intellectual and pragmatic changes. We want to discuss our proposals for the
future from a diversity of cultural perspectives and socio-economic situations
with open minds.
Balance-Unbalance seeks to bring artists together with
scientists, economists, philosophers, politicians, sociologists, engineers,
management and policy experts with the intent of harnessing creative thinking
to facilitate a paradigm shift for a sustainable future. This future is not an indulgent utopia we
desire but a matter of survival.
19th International Congress of
Aesthetics
Aesthetics in Action
Krakow, Poland
21-27 July 2013
Deadline: 1 March 2013
The
International Congress of Aesthetics is held every three years under the auspices
of the International Association for Aesthetics and is a main event in
aesthetics worldwide. The 19th Jubilee
Congress will take place exactly one hundred years after the first congress was
held in Berlin in 1913. The main theme
of the Congress is “Aesthetics in Action,” and include the following topics:
Aesthetics: visions and revisions Changes
in Art:past and present Aesthetics
in Practice: aesthetic factors in
religion, ethics, education, politics, law, economy, trade, fashion, sport,
everyday life, etc. Aesthetics
and Nature: evolutionism, ecology, posthumanism Body
Aesthetics: soma and senses Art
and Science Technologies
and Bio-technologies in Aesthetics and Art Architecture
and Urban Space Cultural
and Intercultural Studies in Aesthetics The
Sphere of Transition: transections, transformations, transfigurations in
culture, aesthetics, and the arts
The deadline
for sending abstracts is March 1, 2013, and the deadline for registration is
March 15, 2013. An abstract related to
one of the above topics should be prepared in English, include title and the
author’s name, and be in a format that is ready to print. Send abstracts using the abstract submission
form, which is available on our website:
www.ica2013.pl
.
The conference
fee is 250 Euro (125 Euro for students and postgraduates). This fee includes
conference materials, a book of abstracts, two receptions, one of them organized
by the Mayor of Krakow, the concert at the opening ceremony, a trip to the Wieliczka
Salt Mine, three or four lunches, coffee breaks, and free Proceedings.
Studia Phaenomenologica XIV (2014)
Place, Environment, Atmosphere
Editors: Madalina Dianocu, Ion Copoeru
Deadline: 15 May 2013
Contact: place@phenomenology.ro
Studia
Phaenomenologica
invites phenomenologists, theorists of architecture and scholars committed to
the phenomenological body of thought to reflect on the legacy of phenomenology
in interpreting issues of lived space, building space, and commitment to the
environment at present.
The history
of phenomenology testifies a constant and multifaceted interest in the exploration
of lived space. In addition to this, the
phenomenological interpretations of dwelling, building, and producing spaces
exerted a fertile influence on architectural thinking after the failure of the
functionalist architecture and urban planning. In the wake of phenomenological thinking of
space, theorists of architecture rediscovered the geographic and historical genius loci which confers character to a
place.
The
phenomenological approach to qualitative, non-measurable and heterogeneous
places may raise a new interest after the "spatial turn" of the human
sciences. Sociologists and postmodern cultural
geographers investigate lived spaces that are entangled with embodied subjects'
social practices. At the same time, the
traditional phenomenology of space has to face multiple challenges at present,
when places compete with non-places and the inhabited physical space with the
virtual one. The modern antinomy between
private and public space and the traditional primacy of stability over mobility
have become subject to critique due to the spread of nomadic life forms and new
means of communication in a global and digital age. In addition, cultural and social practices of
emplacement, as well as new types of dwelling(s) are still awaiting
phenomenological descriptions and interpretation, which would call for taking
into consideration economic and socio-political developments.
Under such
conditions it is legitimate to raise the question of how the phenomenological
disclosure of particular local spatial characters, lived places and atmospheres
would be able to provide a viable alternative to the invasion of uniform and
sterile non-places and landscapes in a globalized world, and make humans
inhabit the virtual space without falling into escapism and alienation and
enhance the livability of natural and built environments.
We are
pleased to invite participants to the International Summer School “Aesthetics
and the Embodied Mind.” The Summer
School provides a unique opportunity for Masters students, PhD students,
postdoctoral researchers and senior academic researchers to take part in a
lively exchange of ideas within an international and interdisciplinary
community of experts in aesthetics and the embodied mind thesis. The language of the Summer School is English. Its aim is to bring together and integrate
the multiple and complementary ways of investigating, analyzing and discussing
the refutation of the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy and its consequences for
aesthetics beyond art theory.
The embodied mind
thesis that is traced back to the work, The Embodied Mind, by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch,
which denies a separation of mind and body and sees meaning, reason and
imagination as embodied and ties reason to emotion. In other words, experience and cognition are
bodily mediated and depend on the sensori-motor capacities of individuals
embedded in a biological, psychological and cultural context who interact with
the environment in a relation of co-determination.
Employing the
embodied mind thesis in his work, The Meaning of the Body, philosopher Mark Johnson
argues that aesthetics is not just art theory. Rather, it should be considered to be the
study of everything that goes into the human capacity to make and
experience the bodily pre-linguistic cognitive, emotional and
sensory-perceptual conditions of meaning constitution having its origins in the
organic activities of living creatures and in their organism-environment
transactions.
The School
will present and discuss cutting-edge research that highlights the link of the
following research fields to the embodied mind thesis in aesthetics:
pragmatist
aesthetics
neuroaesthetics
phenomenological aesthetics
empirical study of literary aesthetics
experimental aesthetics
psychology of aesthetics
analytical
aesthetics
computational aesthetics
robotics and aesthetics
HCI and aesthetics
Embodied emotions and aesthetics
Group work
sessions will give the participants the opportunity to present their works and
to discuss them.
Prospective
participants are invited to send their abstract (max. 300 words), a short CV
indicating their publications (where possible), main achievements, their
affiliation and a motivation letter to the following address: aestheticsandtheembodiedmind1[at]gmail.com Applicants will be chosen based on
their academic qualification, motivation and scientific interest.
International Conference
Aesthetics Towards Everyday Life: East
and West
Northeast Normal
University (Changchun, P.R. China) September 2-3, 2012 Contact:
Liu Yuedi Tel:
86-10-85195516(O), 13681400332 (cell phone) Email:
liuyuediliuyuedi@yahoo.com.cn
The international conference,
“Aesthetics Towards Everyday Life: East
and West,” will take place on September 2-3, 2012 under the sponsorship of
the Northeast
Normal University
college of arts in P.R. China. We invite
scholars to present papers for this conference to advance dialogue between east
and west. Papers should focus on some
aspect of the theme of the conference, which is to explore issues concerning aesthetics,
art and culture towards everyday life.
Abstracts
should be submitted by July 30, 2012. A
formal letter of invitation will be sent based on the abstract. Abstracts should be about 300 words prepared
in Microsoft Word or compatible format. Please
use the following format for your paper abstract: Paper Title; Name and professional title;
Affiliation; E-mail Address; Abstract of 300 words; Keywords, 3-5.
Submission
of complete papers is strongly encouraged. Selected papers will be considered for
publication after the conference. Manuscripts
for the publication should be 6000 to 7000 words. Final edited papers for the book publication
will be due by Feb. 1, 2013.
Possible
topics include:
-The relation between aesthetics and everyday life -The boundary of art and life -Environmental aesthetics and everyday life
aesthetics -Public art and everyday life aesthetics -Urban aesthetics and everyday life aesthetics -New media art and everyday life aesthetics -Eastern wisdom for everyday life aesthetics -Chinese history of everyday life aesthetics
Contact: Liu
Yuedi Associate
Professor in Institute of Philosophy at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and
Secretary-General of Chinese Society for Aesthetics, P.R. China Tel:
86-10-85195516(O), 13681400332 (cell phone) Email:
liuyuediliuyuedi@yahoo.com.cn
Conference
Aesthetics of
Popular Culture
29 November- 1 December, 2012
Academy of Fine Arts and Design
Bratislava, Slovakia
Deadline: July 31, 2012
Contact: Jozef Kovalcik kovalcik@vsvu.sk
& Max Ryynänen max.ryynanen@aalto.fi
We encourage scholars with an interest in philosophy of art and popular
culture to send a maximum of 250 word abstract for reviewing no later than September 10, 2012. All schools of philosophy and aesthetic theory (pragmatism, hermeneutics,
semiotics, phenomenology, analytic aesthetics, cultural studies, etc.) are
accepted. The conference language is
English.
As keynote speakers we are glad to have two distinguished scholars of
contemporary aesthetics, Ted Cohen (University of Chicago) and Jos de Mul
(Erasmus University Rotterdam). The site
will be the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia (www.vsvu.sk ), and the conference is organized in
cooperation with Aalto University, Finland (www.aalto.fi
).
List of possible topics (which should not be seen as restrictive, but
more as suggestions):
– avant-garde popular culture
– art from the point of view of popular culture studies
– aesthetic properties and concepts of popular culture
– popular culture, aesthetic education and art schools
– official popular culture (nazism, socialism, etc.)
– popular culture in post-communist countries
– the relation of aesthetics and cultural studies
– popular culture as a shared outsider (Americanization)
– European aesthetics of popular culture
– kitsch, trash, camp
Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics
Deadline: August 1, 2012
Contact: Dabney Townsend Dabney.Townsend@armstrong.edu
In memory of Selma Jeanne Cohen,
the American Society for Aesthetics established in 2008 a $1000 biennial prize
in dance aesthetics, dance theory, or the history of dance. The next prize will be for a critical article
or book of distinction published in English in the biennium from July 2010 to
June 2012.
The prize winner will be selected
by a committee of three members appointed by the President of the ASA and will
be notified by September 2012. The award
will be announced publicly during the national meeting of the ASA on October
24-27, 2012, in St. Louis, MO. The
winner will be encouraged but not required to attend the meeting. The prize may not be awarded if, in the opinion of the judges, no
nomination of sufficient merit and appropriateness is received.
The ASA selection committee
welcomes published work of distinction that contributes to dance aesthetics,
dance theory, or the history of dance. Publication
is understood to mean publication in venues with peer review recognized by the
scholarly community and that are permanently available to the interested
scholarly community of students and researchers. Nominations will be judged based on
significance of the topic or issue, quality of the research, quality of the
writing, originality, and contribution to the dance literature.
Submissions should be directed to
Dabney Townsend, ASA Secretary/Treasurer, at P. O. Box 915, Pooler, GA 31322
or Dabney.Townsend@armstrong.edu. The nominated article or book must be
submitted in full. Electronic submissions
of articles are preferable, if available, in PDF format replicating the
original publication. The deadline for
receipt of nominations is August 1, 2012.
Conference
The
2012 Summer Institute in American Philosophy
University of Oregon
July 16-21, 2012
CONFERENCE INFORMATION
This year's summer institute will feature a number of
plenary seminars including: ‘(Re)Reading
Dewey’s Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy’ (Larry Hickman, Tom
Alexander, Phillip Deen), ‘(Re)Reading Dewey & Addams’ (Marilyn Fischer,
Amrita Banerjee), ‘Critical Pragmatism’ (Leonard Harris, Jacoby Carter, Lee
McBride), and Crossing Disciplines: Pragmatism in Philosophy & Political
Science (Christopher Ansell, Gerry Berk, and others TBA). We are
excited to announce that our featured keynote speaker will be Charlene Haddock
Seigfried, Professor Emerita at Purdue University. Professor Seigfried’s two keynote lectures
will address the idea of the social self in the work of Jane Addams. Further information, including a conference
registration form, is available at: pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/siap/siap_2012.html. This
website will continue to be updated in coming weeks.
Call for Papers
International Conference Aesthetics and Art:
Tradition and Presence
Xu Zhou, Jiangsu Province
19-21 May 2012
The conference will be conducted under the rubrics of:
1. revisiting aesthetics
and artistic tradition in contemporary context
2. Chinese aesthetics and
art toward contemporary world
3. the significance of
aesthetics in promoting the development of art and culture
We appreciate research in these areas and strongly welcome your submission and
participation this May. We especially encourage papers which are concentrated
on specific case studies. Papers or proposals should include a title, an
abstract in 300 words and a short bio and be emailed to Dr. Sun Yanqiu at sunyanqiu_1981@163.com and Dr. Gao Yanping at auragao@hotmail.com before April 30, 2012.
Call for Papers
International Conference
Artification: Ideas and Practices
15-17 August 2012
Aalto University School of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland
Deadline: 31 January 2012
Contact: Matti Tainio, matti.tainio@aalto.fi
The
neologism ‘artification’ refers to situations and processes in which something
that is not regarded as art in the traditional sense of the word is changed
into something art-like, art-related, or into something that takes influences
from the arts. Often this means mixing
art with non-art and creating new kinds of hybrids. In recent years the phenomenon has been
widely discussed, using various terminologies, in many contexts such as
philosophical art theory and sociology of art, as well as in art-and-business
and art-and-health care discourses. Differing
ideas on why artification happens, whether it means compromising the autonomy
of art, and how does it affect the conceptual, institutional and practical
levels of art have been presented.
The
research project Artification and Its Impact on Art will arrange a three-day
conference on the theme of artification. (On the project please see www.artification.fi.) There
will be no conference fee. All other
expenses, travel costs, accommodation and meals, must be paid by the
participants.
We
would like to invite scholars and artists interested in the theme to share
their visions on these and related questions. Both traditional academic papers as well as
more experimental proposals are welcome.
There will only be one common program with no parallel sessions so that
all participants are able to see and comment on each presentation. Invited speakers are professors Aleš Erjavec,
Yuriko Saito, and Wolfgang Welsch. The
deadline for abstract submissions is 31 January 2012. Decisions will be made by the end of February
2012, and further information about practical issues such as accommodation and
meals will be sent to the accepted participants after that. Maximum length for abstracts is 300 words. Please send your abstract to: conference2012@artification.fi
Please
note that a special issue of the online journal Contemporary Aesthetics on artification
www.contempaesthetics.org,
edited by Ossi Naukkarinen and Yuriko Saito, will be published in the early
spring 2012!
Call for Papers
Special Issue of Art and Philosophy (Sztuka i Filozofia)
on Art, Judgment and Criticism
Submission deadline: December 31, 2012
Contact: Ewa Bogusz-Boltuc, ebogu01s@uis.edu
Art and
Philosophy (Sztuka i Filozofia),
the biannual academic journal, offers a forum for discussion about whether at
least a moderate version of objectivism of critical judgment is well-founded or
is judgment just limited to one’s own personal perspective. Papers are invited on all related aspects of
art, judgment, and criticism. This issue
of Art and Philosophy is scheduled to be published just before the
Nineteenth International Congress of Aesthetics in Krakow in 2013.
Various concerns and disagreements among philosophers and art critics about the
correctness of artistic judgment, the extreme pluralism of the contemporary art
world, and the nature of artistic properties (largely response-dependent and
seen as culturally embedded), prompt a broad range of philosophical questions.
Philosophical interest in art, judgment, and criticism has often highlighted
the importance of objectivity of artistic judgment and the role of criticism
that implements evaluation. In addition, some aspects of the artworld
indicate the hierarchical nature of art. As Philippe de Montebello confessed, “I
believe in hierarchies. I believe in good, better, best, and I believe the
museum’s role is precisely to help people make those distinctions.” However,
equally often, the idea of objective art judgment has been challenged and
attempts have been made to replace it by various subjective approaches.
Abstracts should be 200-300 words and the length of your paper should not
exceed 6000 words. All submitted
articles must be formatted for blind review. Deadline for submission is December 31, 2012. Please send your submissions to the editor of
this issue, Ewa Bogusz-Boltuc, at ebogu01s@uis.edu.
Call for Papers
International
Conference
“Constructive Postmodernism and Ecoaesthetics”
13-14 June 2012
Shandong University, Jinan, P.R. China
Deadline: 30 March 2012
Contact: Cheng Xiangzhan at sducxz@163.com, chengxzh@sdu.edu.cn
It has long
been recognized, especially since the creation of nuclear weapons, that unless
we human beings learn how to live in harmony with each other, we are likely to
become extinct. But in the 1970s, we started becoming aware that the
extermination of human civilization could also be brought about by “ecocide” –
by, in effect, committing suicide by making the planet ecologically unfit for
ourselves and other living forms on the Earth. The overall cause of the threat
of extinction is modernity, characterized by anthropocentricism and possessive
individualism, which has not only promoted aggressive competition among
individuals and nations rather than promoting harmony with nature and other
human beings, but also promoted unending exploitation of nature.
Topics suggested are constructive postmodernism and ecological awareness;
ecological postmodernism and traditional Chinese philosophies; ecoaesthetics
and ecological postmodernism; ecoaesthetics and somaesthetics; process philosophy
and eco-studies; and the artistry of ecoliterature and the future of
ecocriticism.
The
conference paper abstract should be submitted by March 30, 2012. A formal
letter of invitation will be sent based on the abstract. Abstracts should be
about 300 words prepared in Microsoft Word or compatible format. Submission of
complete papers is strongly encouraged. Selected papers will be considered for
publication after the conference. Please use the following format for your
paper abstract:
Paper Title; Name and professional
title; Affiliation; E-mail Address; Abstract of 300 words; Keywords, 3-5.
Contact:Cheng
Xiangzhan Professor and deputy director of Shany Research
Center for Literary and Aesthetics, P.R. China sducxz@163.com, chengxzh@sdu.e 86-531-88364252(O),
86-531-88375306(H), 1385 3185 913(C)
Announcement
Dak'Art 2012
The 10th Biennale of African Contemporary Art 11 May to 10 June, 2012
Dakar, Senegal www.biennaledakar.org
This International Exhibition is open to African artists, including African
Diaspora artists, as well. Application documentsmust reach the
General Secretariat of the Biennale as soon as possible and no later than the
20th of December 2011. Candidates should read carefully the explanation for
sending their portfolio and download the application form at: http://biennaledakar.org/2010/spip.php?article127&lang=en:
Call for Papers
Newsletter on Ecoaesthetics and Ecocriticism
Contact: sducxz@163.com
This
monthly newsletter aims to build up a platform for ecological studies in theory
and literature both in China and abroad. Such a platform will help release the
latest trends and academic information on ecocivilization, ecoaesthetics,
environmental aesthetics, ecocriticism, ecoliterature, ecoeducation and ecocivility.
The working language of the newsletter is Chinese and it will be published only
in Chinese. If the submission is in
English, we will translate it into Chinese.
The length of the paper should be around 1,500 words.
Suggested
topics are: histories of ecophilosophy;
ecoaesthetics and ecocriticism; new trends of ecocriticism; environmental
aesthetics; environmental justice and ecoliterature; ecoeducation and
ecocivility; and report about conference relevant to ecological issues.
Editors-in-chief:
Zeng Fanren, Lu Shuyuan Executive Editor:Cheng Xiangzhan
For
submissions and further information, please contact the Executive Editor atsducxz@163.com
Call for Papers
Marx and the
Aesthetic
University of Amsterdam
May 10-13th, 2012
The
aim of this conference is twofold: on the one hand, to analyze the role of the
aesthetic in the writings of Marx and, on the other, to examine works of art
and literature which are based on, or have been directly inspired by, Marx’s
writings. At the core of this conference, then, is an attempt to think the
immanent relation between the aesthetic and emancipatory conceptions of
politics. Please send your abstract
(max. 500 words including information about institutional affiliation and field
of scholarship) before January 31st to: mail@marxandtheaesthetic.org
Call
for Papers
Edited
Volume, Aesthetics and the Embodied Mind
In
his work, The Meaning of the Body, philosopher Mark Johnson argues that aesthetics
is not just art theory. Rather, it should be considered to be the study
of everything that goes into the human capacity to make and experience the
bodily pre-linguistic cognitive, emotional and sensory-perceptual conditions
of meaning constitution having its origins in the organic activities
of living creatures and in their organism-environment transactions.
With the purpose of evaluating,
exploring and putting into focus the impact of
the embodied mind thesis on aesthetics as well as its breadth and relevance
for the field, we are creating an edited volume with the title,
Aesthetics and the Embodied Mind.
We
seek contributions which are firmly based on the embodied mind thesis and use
it as a framework for investigating the role of aesthetics in the study of
how humans make and experience meaning. Papers from literary aesthetics, pragmatist
aesthetics, evolutionary aesthetics, neuroaesthetics, empirical aesthetics,
computational aesthetics, psychology of aesthetics are welcome.
Both
theoretical and empirical contributions will be taken into consideration. The language of the proposed publication is
English. Prospective contributors
are invited to send their initial proposals (500 word abstract) to the following email address: alfonsinascarinzi@googlemail.com.
Deadline
for abstract submission: 15 March 2012 Notification
of acceptance: 16 May 2012 Contact: Dr. phil. Alfonsina Scarinzi alfonsinascarinzi@googlemail.com
Report on Conference
Unsettled Boundaries:
Philosophy, Art, and Ethics East/West
12-14 October 2011
Marquette University
From October
12 to 14, 2011, Marquette University was host to seven philosophers and an
art historian from China, and to eight western philosophers and an art
historian all from the United States but Stephen Davies, who lives in New
Zealand. The occasion was a conference organized by Curtis L. Carter
entitled "Unsettled Boundaries: Philosophy, Art, and Ethics
East/West." The Chinese art historian was Wang Chunchen, professor
and curator at the Chinese Central Academy of Art in Beijing and winner of the
latest Chinese Contemporary Art Award for Criticism. His American counterpart was Ivan Gaskell,
Harvard university and, as of 2012, the Bard Graduate Center, who was, in the
fall of 2011, the Beinecke Fellow at the Clark Art Institute in
Williamstown.
Of the
fifteen papers, seven were on the art of Eastern cultures, six on China and one
on Bali. Stephen Davies spoke on Bali and how craftily it managed its culture
so as to withstand pollution by other cultures. Cheng Xiangzhan from Shangdong University
pointed to the construction of everyday aesthetics as an important development
in Chinese aesthetics, and Liu Chengji, from Beijing Normal University, spoke
of the image of the body in classical Chinese aesthetics. Corporality was
a theme in the paper of Eva Man from Hong Kong Baptist University on the
discourses of Chinese ink painting.
Wang Chunchen
spoke of the inevitable political dimension of contemporary Chinese art and of
an ethical paradox in which the art is caught. Ivan Gaskell outlined ways in which “Chinese-ness”
is staged in the contemporary art of China, and Mary Wiseman from CUNY pointed
to ways in which particular material things and events are the subject of the
art of independent Chinese artists.
The unsettled
boundaries are not only within Chinese art and aesthetics, however, and four
papers made comparisons between eastern and western philosophy of,
respectively, art, aesthetics, medieval sourcebooks, and art of pure gesture. Noel Carroll, CUNY Graduate Center, compared
Anglophone and Leninist-Marxist philosophies of art, and Liu Yuedi from the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences compared the ethics and aesthetics of Wittgenstein,
Dewey, and Confucius. Gao Jianping, also from the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, contrasted Villard de Honnecourt's Constructions: the Wheel of Fortune with the Chinese Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting
and, going outside of China, Garry Hagberg from Bard College read jazz
improvisation and Japanese brush painting on parchment through each other.
The final
four papers were more nearly general. Jason Wurth from Seattle University spoke on
the pre-philosophical assumptions of comparative thinking, and Peng Feng of
Peking University had as his theme issues of universality and identity,
generalizing from the question of where in “Chinese-ness” lies in the new art
from China. John Lysaker of Emory
University discussed the emphatic, not-to-be-ignored claims of much art. Richard Shusterman, Florida Atlantic
University, discussed the convergence of ethics and aesthetics.
The
communication among the participants makes good the claim that philosophers
from different parts of the increasingly global world can learn from each
other.
