RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Volume: 24 (2026)

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 other readers of CA.

Mariana Ortega and Helen A. Fielding, Eds., Life in Art: Phenomenology and World Making (Indiana University Press, July 2026), 314 pp.

ISBN: Paperback: 978-02-53-07568-0; Hardcover: 978-02-53-07567-3; E-book: 978-02-53-07570-3

Life in Art showcases how, at the intersection of art and phenomenology, sociopolitical issues can be examined anew. Thirteen diverse, international, established and emerging academics and artists reveal how art opens possibilities for breaking colonial logics, resisting injustice, and addressing climate catastrophe. Through their multilayered and multidisciplinary phenomenological analyses, these original essays reveal how a variety of artworks from diverse fields—dance, sculpture, performance, photography, literature, architecture, film, and virtual reality—can engage perception in ways that transform the self and the world. Some essays focus on specific artworks; others consider theoretical questions that frame the intersection of aesthetics and phenomenology; and still more expand on the ways art can lead to political and social action. Offering a multiplicity of diverse views on the intersections between phenomenology and aesthetics, Life in Art highlights how this entanglement fosters our desires to mend, repair, and make new worlds. Contributions by Martina Ferrari, Stefan Kristensen, Anna Barseghian, Amanda Boetzkes, Nader El-Bizri, Jorella Andrews, Monique Roelofs, Rajiv Kaushik, Sarah Stefana Smith, Dolleen Tisawii’ashii Manning and Mary Bunch.

 

Zoltán Somhegyi and Max Ryynänen, Eds., Trying Out New Paths in Aesthetics (Brill, 2025), 256 pp.

Series: Contemporary Issues in Aesthetics, Volume: 1; Historical and Philosophical Aesthetics, Volume: 1.

ISBN: Print 978-90-04-74738-8; E-book 978-90-04-74739-5

This book focuses on one of the all-time primary interests of all researchers—finding new perspectives and research topics—and expands it. What new routes could aesthetics, philosophy of art and the aesthetic take today and in the future? Thirteen authors open new doors for the discipline to new companion disciplines, new discussions, and new concepts. Heritage studies, Greek aesthetic concepts, found literature, power, safety and mythology, monuments, artificial intelligence, sensibility, hybrid spaces, textiles, aesthetics of AI, aesthetics of literature, aesthetic values, homo ludens and martial arts studies are approached in new ways in this volume, where the spearhead lies in thinking about the next step of the ancient discipline of aesthetics and what potential it could have for the world of research in the future.

 

Wolfgang Welsch, We Have Always Been Transcultural: The Arts as an Example (Brill, 2024), 232 pp.

Series: Transcultural Aesthetics, Volume: 5

ISBN: 978-90-04-69782-9 (PDF); 978-90-04-69781-2 (hardback)

Wolfgang Welsch demonstrates for the first time that transculturality – the mixed constitution of cultures – is by no means only a characteristic of the present, but has de facto determined the composition of cultures since time immemorial. The historical transculturality is demonstrated using examples from the arts. While transculturality was often viewed with reservation where political, social, or psychological levels were at stake, it was rather welcomed and appreciated in the field of art. The book therefore demonstrates the historical prevalence of transculturality via all areas of art and does so with respect to all cultures and continents of our world.
Volume: 24 (2026)