Societies in Crisis: Europe and the Aesthetic Concept

• Organised by: Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Bienes Culturales (General Directorate of Fine Arts and Cultural Assets) of the Ministry of Culture.
• In collaboration with: The Department of Aesthetics and Art Theory of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
• Held: The National Prado Museum (Casón del Buen Retiro and Auditorium).
• Dates: 10, 11 and 12 of November 2010. Mornings and Afternoons.
• Flyers: The short and the long version, plus the poster
• Conference website

(Note: the conference is not organised by the European Society for Aesthetics.)

Core Concept of the Conference

One of the important contributions made by Europe towards the foundation of Modernity was its conceptualization of the aesthetic experience and how it is connected to the value of freedom. Throughout this Modernity and the subsequent debate between Modernity and Post-Modernity, its contribution was central to thought on the profound changes occurring in the subject concept, to articulating certain utopian projects and to negative criticism of the systems of representations.

At this, the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the current situation of societies in crisis, we propose organising a European discussion forum to review the prevailing notions of the last decades: the politics and micro-politics of the systems of representation, transformation of aesthetic thought methodologies and visual studies, the structure of the artistic system and the review of artistic policies in order to construct the bases for possible new horizons.

Talks

In addition to the six plenary lectures, there will be five talk forums. Each of these forums shall in turn be made up of twelve morning talks spread over the three days of the Conference.

The subject areas of these talks shall be as follows:

• History of Aesthetics [coordinated by Miguel Salmerón]
• Aesthetics and the History of Arts [coordinated by Patricia Mayayo].
• Political dimensión of Art [coordinated by Miguel Cereceda]
• Crisis, Criterion and Criticism [coordinated by Javier Fuentes Feo].
• Crisis in the Artistic System [coordinated by Lucía Bodas].

Presentation of Talks

Talks may be presented from today’s date until 20 August 2010.

All talks sent shall be unpublished and shall not have been presented at previous Conferences.

The talks shall be 20 minutes long, followed by 15 minutes debate.

All talk proposals should be sent by e-mail to the following address: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The speaker’s name, postal address and contacty telephone number, and the panel for which the paper is presented should be clearly visible at the top of the proposal.

All talk proposals should have a title, five keywords, summary and brief curriculum vitae. The talk summary should have a minimum of 3000 (including spaces) and a máximum of 5000 characters.

All this material should be submited in Spanish or English.

When the proposals have been received, they will be studied by the Conference’s Scientific Committee and their choices will be notified by e-mail.

At the discretion of the Scientific Committee speakers may be informed that their talk has been programmed for a different panel to the one they requested.

Travel Grants

The Ministry of Culture shall make thirty travel grants available which may be awarded by the Scientific Committee to any speaker who requires one.

The grants shall be 600€ for those who live outside Spain, and 400€ for those who live inside Spain but outside the Region of Madrid. Both these amounts are inclusive of tax.

Although initially it was anticipated that fifteen grants of each type would be awarded, the Scientific Committee reserves the right to distribute the grants differently for each case if so merited by the quality of the Project.

It must be clearly indicated at the top of the talk proposal if this grant is required, in which case a thorough curriculum vitae should be included along with the talk proposal.

Requesting a travel grant does not necessarily mean one will be awarded even if the talk has been chosen for the Conference.

Publication

Presenting a talk at the Conference means foregoing the rights to publish it (either digitally or in print). If it goes ahead, the Scientific Committee shall decide which papers shall be published.

Information

For further information please contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it