Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

June 28, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Kenneth Walden Wins the Inaugural Danto/ASA Prize!

The American Philosophical Association and the American Society for Aesthetics are pleased to announce that Professor Kenneth Walden (Dartmouth College) has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Arthur Danto/American Society for Aesthetics Prize for his paper, “Art and Moral Revolution.” The Danto/ASA Prize, in the amount of $1,000, is awarded to a member of the APA and the ASA for the best paper in the field of aesthetics, broadly understood. In addition, a symposium in honor of the recipient of the prize is held at the APA Eastern Division meeting, normally the next such meeting following the selection of the prize winner. This prize is in honor of the late Arthur Danto, a past president of the APA Eastern Division. Walden is assistant professor of philosophy at Dartmouth College. His areas of expertise are ethics, epistemology, Kant, and aesthetics. He received his Ph.D. from MIT. Walden has published … Continue reading

June 14, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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ASA 75th Annual Meeting Preliminary Program Now Available

The 75th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics will be held in New Orleans November 15-18, 2017. Check out the preliminary program PDF: ASA Preliminary Meeting Program REGISTRATION: Early-bird registration is available on-line through October 15. To register on-line (with a credit card), click the red REGISTER button on this page. To receive the discounted ASA member rates, please log into the ASA site FIRST. To mail in registration (with a check), use this form. Early-bird deadline for mail-in registration: postmark by October 10 Everyone on the  program (as a presenter, panelist, commentator, or chair) MUST register for the meeting and MUST be a member of the ASA. The Wollheim Lecturer at this meeting will be Professor Derek Matravers, Open University, UK. The ASA will provide: Day Care Subsidies Registration waivers for local Minority Serving Institutions Highlights: New Orleans Museum of Art: https://noma.org/ Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans: http://cacno.org/ Ogden … Continue reading

June 7, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Congrats to the Winners of the 2017 APA Curriculum Diversification Grants

The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 Curriculum Diversification Grant competition: Chris Jenkins, Associate Dean for Academic Support, Oberlin Conservatory Project:  The Aesthetics of African-American Classical Music Erich Hatala Matthes, Assistant Professor, Wellesley College Project: Art and Cultural Heritage Rossen Ventzislavov, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Woodbury University Project: The Aesthetics of Performance Art CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF THE WINNERS!!! Each will receive a grant of $5,000 to prepare the proposed diversity curriculum. These will be posted on the ASA web site in September 2017. This is a project of the ASA Diversity Committee, chaired by Thi Nguyen. To see the final curricula of the 2015 and 2016 winners, click here.

May 17, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Arthur Danto ASA Prize – Deadline 5/31

The Arthur Danto/American Society for Aesthetics Prize will be awarded to a member of the APA and the ASA for the best paper in the field of aesthetics, broadly understood, in a refereed journal, or an original book chapter or original essay published in a collection with a multiplicity of contributors. This prize is in honor of the late Arthur Danto, a past president of the APA Eastern Division. The winner receives a $1,000 prize. In addition, a symposium in honor of the recipient of the prize is held at the APA Eastern Division meeting, normally the next such meeting following the selection of the prizewinner. The nomination deadline is May 31, 2017. Nominees must be members of both the APA and the ASA in the year of the nomination. For the inaugural award, nominated papers must have been published in 2015 or 2016. Nominations must be from a person who … Continue reading

May 17, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Workshop in Aesthetics and Cognitive Science

The American Society for Aesthetics is providing $4000 to support the Workshop in Aesthetics and Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, June 28, 2017. The Workshop is being held in conjunction with the 2017 meeting of the Society of Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) June 28-July 1. Funding for the workshop is also being provided by the Neuroaesthetics Initiative of Johns Hopkins’ Brain Science Institute (BSI) and by the Johns Hopkins Humanities Institute (JHU HI). The organizers are Steven Gross (Johns Hopkins, Philosophy) and Mohan Matthen (University of Toronto, Philosophy). The workshop will consist of three invited symposia (on art and skill, art and pleasure, and creativity), with four speakers each; a general roundtable discussion; a dance performance and discussion; a closing reception; and a poster session. Wednesday, June 28 – Saturday, July 1, 2017 Johns Hopkins University Keynote Speakers: Brit Brogaard, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Alison Gopnik, and Dan Schacter Invited … Continue reading

May 10, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Workshop: the Arts and Imagination

JULY 3rd – 6th, 2017  •  ADELAIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA @ the University of Adelaide & the Art Gallery of South Australia http://artsense.edu.au/workshop-2017/ The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to co-sponsor “Workshop: The Arts and Imagination: the role of metaphors, tropes and images in shaping experience and guiding action.” The initial segment of this project was conducted in San Francisco at the meetings of the American Philosophical Association-Pacific Division in April 2016. Principal funding for the conference has been provided by the Australian Research Council, with an additional $7,000 provided by the ASA. The 2017 portion of the project will occur at the University of Adelaide and Art Gallery of SA July 4-6, 2017. The ASA is supporting the costs of videostreaming of the events so they can be viewed worldwide. ASA funding also will support a travel grant of up to $2000 for the best paper submitted by a graduate … Continue reading

April 26, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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ASA Student Travel Grants to Conference on Race, Art and Aesthetics

The Board of Trustees of the American Society for Aesthetics has approved $7,000 in funding to support the conference on “Exploring Beauty and Truth in World of Color: Race, Art and Aesthetics in the 21st Century.” The conference, organized by Professor Charles Peterson, will be held at Oberlin College September 29-30, 2017. The ASA Trustees also approved an additional $1,000 to support travel by ASA student members to attend the conference. The conference will be free and open to the public. KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Kymberly Pinder (University of New Mexico) FASHION Siobhan Carter-David (University of Southern Connecticut) Monica Miller (Barnard College) Christina Moon (New School-Parsons) TECHNOLOGY Sam Liao (University of Puget Sound) Mariana Ortega (John Carroll University) AFRO-FUTURISM RaShelle Peck (Oberlin College) Meredith Gadsby (Oberlin College) HUMOR Gillian Johns (Oberlin College) Luvell Anderson (University of Memphis) Lissa Skiltolsky (Susquehanna University) VISUAL ARTS (Film) Dan Flory (University of Montana) Matt Strohl (University … Continue reading

April 25, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Narrowing the Field: the Fate of Genius in the Age of the Readymade

Philosopher John Rapko reviews recently published Art in the Making: Artists and their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing by Glenn Adamson and Julia Bryan-Wilson A peculiar characteristic of contemporary art is that it is accompanied by an enormous amount of talk from artists, curators, and academics about its distinctive features, both what they are and what they should be. A widely shared assumption of such talk is that contemporary art is marked by the acceptance of Marcel Duchamp’s invention of the readymade as an art-making strategy. A readymade is not so much made as chosen: the artist starts with an idea or concept, and then chooses some object to which the idea is attached. The artist’s creative activity is focused on articulating the idea and scanning the world for a suitable vehicle. How, then, could such a narrow conception of artistic activity give rise to the great range of practices in contemporary … Continue reading

April 19, 2017
by Rebecca Millsop
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Workshop: Art, Perception and History

The American Society for Aesthetics Board of Trustees has approved support for the Workshop on Art, Perception, and History, at the University of Toronto, May 5-6, 2017. The Workshop is organized by Sonia Sedivy, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto. ASA has awarded up to $4,600 in support, plus an additional $1000 to support attendance at the Workshop by ASA student members. Support is also being provided by several units of the University of Toronto. The workshop is free and open to the public. CONFERENCE WEB SITE NEW! Poster for the Workshop   Speakers at the workshop will include: From Art History Whitney Davis, University of California, Berkeley, Art History http://arthistory.berkeley.edu/person/1639581-whitney-davis Jason Gaiger, University of Oxford, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art http://www.rsa.ox.ac.uk/people/jason-gaiger Amy Powell, University of California, Irvine, Art History http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5553 Paul G. Smith, University of Warwick, History of Art https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/arthistory/staff/smith/ From Philosophy of Art or … Continue reading