Twenty Years of Contemporary Aesthetics Introduction Yuriko Saito Contemporary Aesthetics was established twenty years ago by Founding Editor, Arnold Berleant. As the first, exclusively online, open-access journal in aesthetics, it provided an academic space for intellectual discourse unencumbered by various restrictions observed by print and subscription-only publications. More importantly, it encouraged and continues […]
Year: 2022
Twenty Years of Contemporary Aesthetics
Special Volumes
Contemporary Aesthetics: What’s in a Name?
Contemporary Aesthetics – What’s in a Name? Kathleen Higgins Abstract Drawing on Ossi Naukkarinen’s analysis of the meaning of “contemporary aesthetics,” this article considers several layers of meaning that make the title of this journal appropriate to its mission. After two decades, the journal is doing much to fulfill the promise of its name. […]
Special Volumes
Going Global: A Cautiously Optimistic Manifesto
Going Global: A Cautiously Optimistic Manifesto Bence Nanay Abstract In this article I aim to identify a number of points at which Western[1] aesthetics is atypical in comparison to almost all other aesthetic traditions. If we take the pull of global aesthetics seriously, then we need to be extremely skeptical towards these often unquestioned […]
Special Volumes
Living Aesthetics in China: Confucian Aesthetics as a New Direction
Living Aesthetics in China: Confucian Aesthetics as a New Direction Liu Yuedi Abstract Living Aesthetics (生活美学, Sheng-huo-mei-xue) is a popular key term in Chinese society and culture today. The aestheticization of living, originally rooted in Chinese soil, is authentic Chinese wisdom and now is being fully revitalized. Confucian aesthetics can be classified as Living […]
Special Volumes
Place, Race, Gender and Materiality: Bisa Butler Making the Last, First and the First, Last in the Modern Museum
Place, Race, Gender, and Materiality: Bisa Butler Making the Last, First and the First, Last in the Modern Museum A.W. Eaton and Charles Peterson Abstract Bisa Butler is a contemporary artist who creates stunning portraits composed entirely of textiles. In this article, we argue that one significant aspect of Butler’s oeuvre is the […]
Special Volumes
Decoloniality, Identity, and Aesthetic Publicity
Decoloniality, Identity, and Aesthetic Publicity Monique Roelofs Abstract This essay explores how the decolonial practices of Latina poet Alicia Borinsky in Frivolous Women and Other Sinners (2009) and British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien in Lessons of the Hour (2019) occasion open-ended conceptions of the public that engage economic and technological developments in […]
Special Volumes
Reshaping Aesthetics and Aesthetic Sensibility in a Hybrid Environment
Reshaping Aesthetics and Aesthetic Sensibility in a Hybrid Environment Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Jakub Petri Abstract The contemporary environment in developed countries is highly urbanized and technologized. It is not only physical but also virtual, created with the use of cyber-techniques and the internet. The two layers of the environment are: the physical places, persons, […]
Special Volumes
A Big Disenchantment
A Big Disenchantment Wolfgang Welsch Abstract For millennia, aesthetic activities were expected to improve the world and ourselves. Aesthetics was to hone humanity. We find this conviction in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, and throughout Modern Times and Modernity, from Plato via Leonardo da Vinci and Schiller to Dewey and Rorty. […]
EDITORIAL
I wrote last year’s editorial in the heat of the pandemic. I expected then that the situation would improve by now. With vaccines available and mitigation protocols in place, I had hope, and still do hope, that we would put the virus behind us. The operations of Contemporary Aesthetics, as an exclusively online publication, have […]
NOTICES
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 Designing Everyday Experience Objects, Environments, Habits Maholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, Hungary 11-13 May 2023 Deadline: December 31, 2022 EVANET – Everyday Aesthetics […]
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Contemporary Aesthetics does not publish book reviews. However, to inform our readers of new publications of interest, we do publish brief descriptions extracted from information provided by the publishers. These notices do not necessarily represent the views or judgment of this journal. Readers are invited to send us such information about books they think will interest […]
SHORT NOTES
Machizukuri (Neighborhood Making): Collective World-Making in Traditional Japanese Neighborhoods
Machizukuri (Neighborhood Making): Collective World-Making in Traditional Japanese Neighborhoods Paul Haimes Machizukuri (literally “neighborhood making”) is a recent approach to community development in Japan, beginning in the 1960s, that aims to empower local communities in the development of their built environments through “more participation, independence in the decision-making process, and the establishment of […]
SHORT NOTES
Reflections on Beauty
Reflections on Beauty Miklos Nicolaus Legrady Beauty is a blessing and curse, at times superficial yet also bred in the bone. Beauty has a particularly bad reputation right now so merely to mention the subject might cost the writer some credibility in the art community: “What is the matter with you? Get with the […]
ARTICLES
Resonance and Atmosphere in Architectural Aesthetics
Resonance and Atmosphere in Architectural Aesthetics Joona Markus Hulmi Abstract The present paper is concerned with the experience of architecture as analyzed through the concepts of atmosphere and resonance. I suggest that the experience of architecture occurs by means of atmospheres that consist of numerous factors, including architectural qualities, interpersonal aspects, and the subject’s […]
ARTICLES
Three Dimensions of Intimacy in Literary Reading
Three Dimensions of Intimacy in Literary Reading Kalle Puolakka Abstract While numerous literary researchers, readers, authors, and philosophers have tried to articulate the peculiar feeling of intimacy they have sensed in literary reading, new angles can still be brought to bear on this issue. This paper develops an account of the intimacy of literary […]
ARTICLES
Aphorism and Anti-Aphorism: Language and Aesthetics
Aphorism and Anti-Aphorism: Language and Aesthetics Nicholas Romanos Abstract Karl Kraus, the great Viennese satirist, poet, and aphorist, is still little read in the Anglophone world. This article argues that Kraus’ innovative ideas about aesthetics and language, generated in response to the problems of modernity, are of great interest to the contemporary philosopher of […]
ARTICLES
Post-postmodernism and the Emergence of Heterolinational Literatures
Post-postmodernism and the Emergence of Heterolinational Literatures Mehdi Ghasemi Abstract Following the challenge by Linda Hutcheon inviting readers to name the era after postmodernism, several scholars have attempted to conceptualize the aftermath of postmodernism through introducing some successors. To join the challenge, I also introduce “heterolinationalism” as another successor to postmodernism and draw upon […]
ARTICLES
The Aesthetic Impact of the Garden of Eden
The Aesthetic Impact of the Garden of Eden David Fenner Abstract No garden in the history of the world has had a greater impact on gardens and gardening than the Garden of Eden, as expressed in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions, regardless of whether the Garden of Eden ever existed. Yet, given evidence […]
SYMPOSIUM
Against Theory—Again (Though with Reservations)
Against Theory—Again (Though with Reservations) Ivan Gaskell Abstract In Thinking with Images (2019), John Carvalho proposes an “aesthetics without theory,” a phrase to be taken rhetorically rather than literally, for he accepts that percipients of artworks bring a theoretical knowledge to their encounters. He seeks to balance appropriate theoretical knowledge, notably Gibson’s theory of […]
SYMPOSIUM
Thinking with Film: On John Carvalho’s reading of Godard’s Le Mépris
Thinking with Film: On John Carvalho’s reading of Godard’s Le Mépris Deborah Knight Abstract In Thinking with Images, John Carvalho is especially interested in situations where we do not know what to think about a work of art — where it perplexes us, where we cannot find answers to the questions it raises. I […]
SYMPOSIUM
John Carvalho’s Thinking with Images, An Enactivist Aesthetics
John Carvalho’s Thinking with Images, An Enactivist Aesthetics Sonia Sedivy Abstract John Carvalho’s Thinking with Images, an Enactivist Aesthetics argues that puzzling artworks can draw us into a special activity – thinking when we don’t know what to think – which is valuable because it takes us beyond our skills and understanding. Enactivism is […]
SYMPOSIUM
More Thinking About Thinking with Images: A Response to Ivan Gaskell, Deborah Knight and Sonia Sedivy
More Thinking About Thinking with Images: A Response to Ivan Gaskell, Deborah Knight and Sonia Sedivy John M. Carvalho Abstract I want to start by thanking my critics for reading my book and coming to so many insightful comments and challenging observations about it. I especially want to thank Deborah Knight for suggesting a […]