Donate to CA The free access to this article was made possible by support from readers like you. Please consider donating any amount to help defray the cost of our operation. On the Significance of Eco-Phenomenology for Theories of Sustainability Kira Meyer and Konrad Ott Abstract The Ecosystem Service Approach lays down […]
Category: Special Volumes
Imaginaries, Scenarios, and Materialities: The Arts as Part of Ecology
Donate to CA The free access to this article was made possible by support from readers like you. Please consider donating any amount to help defray the cost of our operation. Imaginaries, Scenarios, and Materialities: The Arts as Part of Ecology Peter J. Schneemann Abstract This contribution seeks to identify some of the […]
Virtue Appreciation and Sustainability in Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch
Donate to CA The free access to this article was made possible by support from readers like you. Please consider donating any amount to help defray the cost of our operation. Virtue Appreciation and Sustainability in Olafur Eliasson’s Ice Watch Nicole Hall Abstract This paper is a case study of Olafur Eliasson’s Paris […]
Back to Intermittence, or Rediscovering Web-Materiality: An Artistic Quest for a Sustainable Internet Aesthetics
Donate to CA The free access to this article was made possible by support from readers like you. Please consider donating any amount to help defray the cost of our operation. Back to Intermittence, or Rediscovering Web-Materiality: An Artistic Quest for a Sustainable Internet Aesthetics Diego Mantoan Abstract Through the digital and public […]
An Aesthetics of Minimal Resources: Affective Ecologies at the Encounter with Environmental Ethics in Alicia Barney’s Artistic Practice
Donate to CA The free access to this article was made possible by support from readers like you. Please consider donating any amount to help defray the cost of our operation. An Aesthetics of Minimal Resources: Affective Ecologies at the Encounter with Environmental Ethics in Alicia Barney’s Artistic Practice Vanessa Badagliacca Abstract […]
Special Volumes
Twenty Years of Contemporary Aesthetics
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 […]
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 Introduction
Aesthetics Beyond Philosophy: Exploring Berleant’s Concept of Engagement Editorial Introduction Bogna J. Gladden-Obidzińska As this volume’s authors explore, in depth, from many different angles, Arnold Berleant’s contribution to the field of aesthetics can be understood as twofold. First, through the prolific books and essays that he has published over the course of several decades, […]
A Philosophical Retrospective
A Philosophical Retrospective Arnold Berleant The question of what to contribute to this issue of Sztuka y Filozofia has ironically been made more difficult because of the generosity of its contributors. It would have been challenging, no doubt, and also stimulating to respond to questions, explain away misunderstandings, or develop new explanations of what […]
Disinterestedness, Disdain and the Reception of Berleant’s Major Idea
Disinterestedness, Disdain and the Reception of Berleant’s Major Idea Cheryl Foster Abstract Arnold Berleant’s philosophical theories have proven to be prescient in their identification of an aesthetic interface between human beings and the natural world – the interface he calls “engagement,” a form of participatory aesthetics. This essay presents the context out of which […]
Arnold Berleant’s Project of Post-Kantian Aesthetics
Arnold Berleant’s Project of Post-Kantian Aesthetics Krystyna Wilkoszewska Abstract Changes in art and culture toward the end of the twentieth century have become a challenge for aesthetics. Arnold Berleant is one of the forerunners of the revising of modern aesthetics, and has been from the very start of his research. He has especially examined […]
Arnold Berleant’s Environmental Aesthetics and Chinese Ecological Aesthetics
Arnold Berleant’s Environmental Aesthetics and Chinese Ecological Aesthetics Cheng Xiangzhan Abstract Professor Arnold Berleant has visited China academically several times since the early 1990s, becoming more and more popular in Chinese academia. Almost all of his books have been translated into Chinese, which produced a significant impact on Chinese scholars, especially on the development […]
Berleant’s Opening
Berleant’s Opening Crispin Sartwell Abstract Throughout modernity, aesthetics had been marked by a significant narrowing of its subject matter, the early peak of this trend being Kantian aesthetics of disinterestedness and modernist formalism based on distance. Arnold Berleant’s mission in aesthetics has been to re-open its domain towards all elements of every-day life, including consumer […]
The Role of Aesthetics in World-Making
The Role of Aesthetics in World-Making Yuriko Saito Abstract Arnold Berleant’s oeuvre spanning five decades is devoted to restoring aesthetics’ connection to the rest of our lives. In this paper, I shall join him by highlighting the crucial role aesthetics plays in shaping our lives and the world by interacting with objects, environments, and […]
Berleant’s Phenomenology of Sculptural Space: Brâncuşi
Berleant’s Phenomenology of Sculptural Space: Brâncuşi Alicja Kuczyńska Abstract The distinction between reason and senses, until recently maintained in philosophy, has now grown to cause serious doubts. The situation requires creating new forms of cognitive continuity revealed in various levels of emotional experience. Constantin Brâncuşi’s art is analyzed as an example of transgression of […]
Sculpture and its Meaning in the Context of Berleant’s Aesthetic Engagement
Sculpture and its Meaning in the Context of Berleant’s Aesthetic Engagement Anna Wolińska Abstract It is not my intention to provide a comprehensive analysis of Berleant’s notion of aesthetic engagement. My goal is modest. I hope to account for the key significance of the philosophical problematization of sculpture, in the context of engaged aesthetics. […]
The “Body in Motion” as the Substance of Dance Improvisation? Based on Motifs from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception
The “Body in Motion” as the Substance of Dance Improvisation? Based on Motifs from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception Lilianna Bieszczad Abstract In the beginning of my academic career, it was my personal experience of dance practice that provided a direct impulse for studying the phenomenon of dance as art from a philosophical perspective. […]
Visual Interlude I
Negative Aesthetics In Art, Environment, And Everyday Life: Arnold Berleant’s Theory And The Novels Of Kirino Natsuo
Negative Aesthetics In Art, Environment, And Everyday Life: Arnold Berleant’s Theory And The Novels Of Kirino Natsuo Mara Miller Abstract Arnold Berleant’s valuable analysis of ‘negative aesthetics’ in his 2010 book Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic Transformation of the Human World provides an analytic framework not only for general investigation of negative aesthetics but […]
Visual Interlude II
Reflections
Reflections Arnold Berleant It is gratifying to see this special issue of the Polish journal Sztuka y Filozofia, originally published in Polish in 2010, now accessible in an English translation. Along with Polish editions of several of my books, it demonstrated close attention to my work, an interest of which I had not been […]
Editorial Introduction to the Special Volume on Urban Aesthetics
Editorial Introduction to the Special Volume on Urban Aesthetics Sanna Lehtinen 1. Aesthetic interest in cities This Special Volume is dedicated to an increasingly central direction in contemporary philosophical aesthetics that has also been gaining interest in the dynamically developing multidisciplinary field of the philosophy of the city. In addition to these theoretical approaches, […]
What is an Urban Atmosphere?
What is an Urban Atmosphere? Adam Andrzejewski, Mateusz Salwa Abstract Atmosphere is one of the key ideas in contemporary aesthetics. The concept proves to be exceptionally useful whenever particular spaces, including interiors or urban spaces, are discussed regarding their unique features. The goal of the paper is to reconsider how an urban atmosphere may […]
Urban Kinaesthetics
Urban Kinaesthetics Tea Lobo Abstract The question how a city can be an aesthetic object or a beautiful object can be posed in a more fundamental manner: how a city can be perceived in the first place. By city, I mean both a built environment and its less tangible social and political reality, such […]