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19th International Congress of Aesthetics in Krakow, Poland (21 – 27 July 2013)
19th International Congress of Aesthetics Krakow.
Poland (21 – 27 July 2013)
Report from the organizing committee.
First of all, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, I would like to thank aestheticians across the world: both for your interest in the 19ICA in Krakow and for your involvement in the preparation of the congress.
The organization for the Congress is progressing very well.. The stage of accepting abstracts has just ended. We received almost 500 applications from 53 countries: most from the USA, Japan, China and of course Poland.
Plenary presentations:
Presidential Lecture (Curtis L. Carter, President of the IAA) Aesthetics and the Arts in Action
Four plenary panels:
Aesthetic Engagement (Arnold Berleant (USA)
Participants: Madalina Diaconu (Romania/Austria), Xiangzhan Cheng (China), Nathalie Blanc (France), Jale Erzen (Turkey);
Aesthetics and Politics (Aleš Erjavec (Slovenia)
Participants: Tyrus Miller (USA), Miodrag Šuvaković (Serbia); Gabriela Świtek (Poland)
Somaesthetics (Richard Shusterman (USA)
Participants: Else Marie Bukdahl (Denmark), Tanehise Otabe (Japan), Krystyna Wilkoszewska (Poland);
Aesthetics Beyond Aesthetics (Wolfgang Welsch (Germany)
Participants: Peng Feng (China), Eduardo Kac (USA)
Two ‘round table’ discussions:
History and Future of the International Congresses.
Chair: Aleš Erjavec (Slovenia);
Participants: Curtis L.Carter (USA), Gao Jianping (China), Miško Šuvaković (Serbia), Bohdan Dziemidok (Poland), Chong-hwan Oh (Seoul, Korea), Arnold Berleant (USA), Zsolt Batori (Budapest, Hungary).
Aesthetics in 20th Century Poland.
Chair: Alicja Kuczyńska (Poland)
Participants: Joseph Margolis (USA), Zdenka Kalnicka (Czech), Zofia Rosińska (Poland) ), Gao Jianping (China), Bohdan Dziemidok (Poland) .
Panel sessions
Noël Carroll’s Theory of Interpretation (Ewa Bogusz-Bołtuć, Poland/USA, with Noël Carroll’s participation);
The Open of Interpretation (Joseph Margolis, USA);
Aesthetics in the Philosophy of Culture (Zofia Rosińska/Marcin Rychter, Poland);
Ordinary Life, Art Practice, Concrete Experience: Art Beyond Aesthetic Dogmas (Kenneth Stikkers, USA);
Aesthetics and Politics of Biotechnological Art (Polona Tratnik, Slovenia)
Towards a New Transaesthetics: Aesthetics and Ontology in Current Bio Art Practices (Ingeborg Reichle, Germany; Nicole C. Karafyllis, Germany; Suzanne Anker, United States; Jos de Mul, The Netherlands).
Global Aesthetics and Chinese Aesthetics (Eva Wah Man, Hong Kong);
Applied Social Art: The Potential of Art and Criticism after March 11, 2011 (Akiko Kasuya, Japan);
Aesthetic Accounts on Japanese Pop-culture (Hisashi Muroi, Japan);
The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution (Participants: Stephen Davies, New Zealand; Mohan Matthen, Canada; Wilfried van Damme, Belgium; Joseph Carroll, US; Moderator: Jerzy Luty, Poland)
Aesthetics and Landscape (Raffaele Milani, Italy, Yuko Nakama, Japan);
Spatial Perception and Aesthetics of Court and Garden (Jeongil Seo, Korea);
Cyberaesthetics – the Phenomena of Electronic Art (Michal Ostrowicki, Poland);
Art in Action (Maja Piotrowska Tryzno, Poland);
Participatory Art: Ethics and Politics (Michael Kelly, USA);
Artification (Yrjӧ Sepӓnmaa, Finland);
The Perfomativity of Images in the Social Context (Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Alcaraz, Poland); Between Loss and Repetition. Creativity as Response to Death as the Negative Muse (Bogna J. Obidzinska, Poland);
Polish Music and Modernity (Teresa Malecka, Poland);
Rediscovering Susanne Langer’s Relevance for Contemporary Aesthetics and Theory of Art (Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin, UK).
From three to six people take part in each panel session, with about 80 participants in total. Every panel session is intended to last 1.5 hour with discussion.
Individual presentations
We received 370 abstracts for individual presentations. Among the 10 topics offered for selection, “Aesthetics – Vision and Revision” (100 abstracts) and “Aesthetics in Practice” (63 abstracts) received the most interest.
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Preliminary Schedule of First Day of the Congress
Here is a preliminary schedule of the first day of the Congress.
The registration will start 21st July in the evening and will be continued July 22nd morning.
The Opening Ceremony will start 22nd July, at 10.00, followed by the Presidential Lecture and the ‘round table’ discussion concerning the 100th anniversary of ICA. In the afternoon the first plenary panel and a concert will take place.
The complete schedule will be ready by May and every participant will be informed about the time and date of his/her presentation. The venue of the congress is Auditorium Maximum. Additional presentations will take place in nearby Collegium Novum and Museum of Contemporary Art.
The host of the congress is the Jagiellonian University. Additional support for the Congress is provided by other institutions in Krakow: The City of Krakow, the Academy of Music, Pedagogical University, Krakow Frycz Academy, Academy of Fine Arts, Museums (Mocak, Manggha, Bunkier of Art).
Dear Friends, thank you once more for your interest in the ICA in Krakow. We are looking forward to having you here in Poland.
On behalf of the Organizing Committee
Krystyna Wilkoszewska
The 2013 Annual Conference of the Nordic Society of Aesthetics
GESTURE
The 2013 Annual Conference of the Nordic Society of Aesthetics
The Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Arts and Ideas welcome you to the 2013 Annual Conference of the Nordic Society for Aesthetics. The theme of the conference is “Gesture” and it will take place at the University of Oslo from May 30 – June 1, (Thursday noon through Saturday evening).
The use of gesticulation has always been a means by which human beings have expressed themselves. Being bodily rather than conceptual, its logos lie outside language. Within the fields of art and aesthetics, gesture implies an opening process as a distinctive way of cognition as well as an approach to the particular qualities of artworks. While Jean-François Lyotard associates the artwork with the processuality of gesture, Roland Barthes thinks gesture in terms of the event, and its production of effects, thus seeing gesture at once as a part of the artwork and as transgressing the work “itself”. For Theodor Adorno the gestural in music was a central topic and Ludwig Wittgenstein spoke of architecture as a gesture. Part of our aesthetic experience and of our “answer” to artworks is always gestural.
Read more: The 2013 Annual Conference of the Nordic Society of Aesthetics
The X IIAA International Summer Conference on Environmental Aesthetics
CALL FOR PAPERS
“Values in the Environment – Relations and Conflicts”
The X IIAA International Summer Conference on Environmental Aesthetics
Lahti, Finland, 1.8.-3.8.2013.
The International Institute of Applied Aesthetics (IIAA) will arrange the X Summer Conference on Environmental Aesthetics in Lahti, Finland, 1.8.-3.8.2013. The theme of the conference is “Values in the Environment – Relations and Conflicts “
Environments are arenas for different sorts of values. Environments are valued for their beauty and aesthetic experiences they afford, but there are also moral and ecological values that need to be taken into consideration, for example, in decision-making concerning particular areas both in human and in natural environments.
Different values can also 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 in some ways inferior 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 on promoting human well-being has also been increasingly recognized. How should these results be taken into account in urban planning? One increasing challenge faced by urban planning is the development of more environmentally sustainable cities. Could aesthetics in some ways 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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by the 15th of February 2013. The time allotted to each paper is 40 minutes (30 minutes for presentation and 10 minutes for discussion).
Read more: The X IIAA International Summer Conference on Environmental Aesthetics
Young Scholars Award
YOUNG SCHOLARS AWARDS
The Executive Committee IAA approved making available to young scholars awards of 500 USD for attending Krakow congress on condition that her or his paper was reviewed and accepted. We herewith extend invitation to the applicants from all members of IAA, and please send your conference paper to the email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by the end of March of 2013. We will organize a group of scholars to review the papers and announce the result by the end of April of 2013
Curtis L. Carter, President
Gao Jianping, Secretary General
RIHA Journal
Joint project of 27 institutes offers free access to current research
RIHA, the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art, is pleased to announce the launch of RIHA Journal, the new international online-journal for the history of art, on April 14, 2010 (www.riha-journal.org).
A joint project of 27 institutes in 18 countries, the journal provides an excellent medium for fostering international discourse among scholars.
RIHA Journal features research articles in either English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish, and invites submissions on the whole range of art historical topics and approaches. Manuscripts undergo a double blind peer review process and are published within few months from submission.
A not-for-profit e-journal committed to the principles of Open Access, RIHA Journal makes all articles available free of charge.
Funding is provided by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, BKM).
RIHA Journal welcomes submissions at any time. Please contact the RIHA institute in your country and/or field of expertise (www.riha-journal.org/contact), or the managing editor at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.
Contemporary Aesthetics
CALL FOR PAPERS
Contemporary Aesthetics is an international, interdisciplinary, online journal of contemporary theory, research, and application in aesthetics.
Contemporary Aesthetics (CA) is an international, interdisciplinary, peer- and blind-reviewed online journal of contemporary theory, research, and application in aesthetics. Contemporary Aesthetics has begun its tenth annual volume and invites submissions of articles that bear directly on contemporary aesthetic theory and concerns, as well as current reassessments of traditional issues. Articles that are primarily historical or that focus on particular art works or individual artists are not appropriate to the mission of this journal. The discussion should be accessible to an audience across disciplines and promote conversation across fields and practices. We welcome the use of visual images, auditory, or video clips to illustrate the text. The length of articles is normally no greater than 5,000 words but should not exceed 7,000 words, including an abstract and notes. Please go to http://www.contempaesthetics.org/pages/guidelines.html for more information about requirements, formatting, and guidelines for submission.
Contact: Arnold Berleant, Editor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Call for Articles from the Journal of Literary Theory
Call for Articles: JLT, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2013)
Edited by Fotis Jannidis, Gerhard Lauer and Simone Winko
Published by de Gruyter
The Journal of Literary Theory invites contributions for Vol. 7, No. 2 (2013)
SPECIAL ISSUE: AUTHENTICITY
Read more: Call for Articles from the Journal of Literary Theory
ESA Conference 2013
European Society for Aesthetics Conference 2013
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, 17 – 19 June 2013
Submission deadline: 31st of January, 2013
The European Society for Aesthetics would like to invite you to submit a paper for presentation at the ESA Conference 2013. The conference will be co-organised by the ESA and the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague and will take place in Prague from the 17th of June (morning) until the 19th of June 2013 (evening)
1stPolish-Japanese Meeting:·Aesthetics and Cultures
By Krystyna Wilkoszewska, Polish Society of Aesthetics, Krakow, Poland
The 1stPolish-Japanese Meeting: Aesthetics and Cultures took place on May 23-24, 2011 in Cracow’s Jagiellonian University. The idea for the conference was initiated by the Polish Association of Aesthetics and firmly supported by the Japanese Society for Aesthetics. Nine prominent Japanese scholars came to Cracow to discuss the problems of intercultural aesthetics in a bilateral formula. The conference was opened by the Dean of the Philosophical Faculty, the former Polish Ambassador to Japan, and the Honorary Consul of Japan in Cracow.
Read more: 1stPolish-Japanese Meeting:·Aesthetics and Cultures
Small is Beautiful, Less is More
By Jale Erzen, First Vice President IAA, Ankara, Turkey
Recent uprisings in the Arab world make me think about power and aesthetics. As the Arab leaders appeared on the TV we saw that the accumulation of years and wealth had transformed these persons, who initially may have been
well-intentioned, into Frankensteins. Yet, like pornography which is pushed by desires that cannot be fulfilled, their show of power had a sad aspect. Shut-off in their false consciousness, they seem like creatures of an illusion or of an artificial world.
