ESA 2026 Conference Programme

Space

Last update June 05 2026 23:30

Contact: conference(a)eurosa.org

Local contact: esaconference26(a)jyu.fi

All times are in EEST (UTC +3:00)

Space

Conference Venue: University of Jyväskylä, Seminaarinmäki Campus
Main Building (C)
Seminarium Building (S)

Space

08.06.2026 / Monday

8:00 Registration
Main building (C) lobby

9:00–9:30 Opening
Pauline von Bonsdorff, President of the European Society for Aesthetics
Esa Ala-Ruona, Head of Department of Music, Art, and Culture Studies, University of Jyväskylä
Awarding of the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize 2026
Room C1

9:30–11:00 Keynote Session
Monique Roelofs
The Strange and Its Publics
Chair: Jochen Schuff
Room C1

11:00–11:30 Coffee Break
Main building (C) lobby

08.06.2026 Monday	Essay Prize Panel Chair: João Lemos Room S110	Aesthetic Matters I Chair: Ancuta Mortu Room S203	Aesthetic Matters II Chair: Kaisa Lassinaro Room S204
11:30–12:15	Essay Prize Winner Keegan Nichols How Feeling Obligates: On the Sensus Communis and Aesthetic Normativity in Kant Response: Serena Feloj	Anna Talasniemi Sauna and Care: Exploring Everyday Aesthetics and Everyday Heritage in Finnish Sauna Culture	Erik Wöller Author’s Authority
12:15–13:00	(the panel continues)	Ming Yang Authenticity as Aesthetic Governance: Heritage and the Normativity of Re-Enactment in Contemporary Kunqu	Lucy Psaila Art, Imagination, and Understanding Others

13:00–14:00 Lunch Break

08.06.2026 Monday	Histories of Aesthetics I Chair: João Lemos Room S110	Moving Images Chair: Johan Kalmanlehto Room S203	Aesthetic Matters III Chair: Kaisa Lassinaro Room S204	Ontology Chair: Michalle Gal Room S303
14:00–14:45	SJ Cowan Reflection at the End of Art: Danto, Kant, and the Transformation of Appearance	Vincenzo Cerulli Negative Filmmaking: On the Non-Intentionality of Art and the Aesthetic Affordances of the Film Set	Lisa Katharin Schmalzried All Sweetness and Light? Rethinking the Sweet–Sour Kitsch Distinction Through Gendered Emotions and Gender Stereotypes	Elisa Caldarola Contemporary Artwork Hylomorphism
14:45–15:30	Qingchen Meng and Daozhong Zhang Sensibility’s Emancipation and Its Aesthetic Aporias: Hegelian Sensuous Form Reconsidered through Menke’s Force Aesthetics	Pol Capdevila Dialectics of Temporal Subjectivity in Moving Portraiture	Jerzy Luty Invisible Origins, Visible Affects: How Beliefs About Effort and Morality Shape the Perception of Visual Art	Chao-Shan Hsu When Do Pioneers Become Art? Buck-Passing and Time-Sensitive Membership

15:30–16:00 Coffee Break
In front of S110

08.06.2026 Monday	Aesthetics of the Contemporary Chair: Jochen Schuff Room S110	Literature Chair: Kalle Puolakka Room S203	Judgment I Chair: João Lemos Room S204	Aesthetic Matters IV Chair: Ancuta Mortu Room S303
16:00–16:45	Edvardas Sumila From Negativity to Urgency: Art, Temporality, and the Form of Permanent Crisis	Martino Manca An Aesthetic for Rereading	E. Hande Tuna and Jakob Norberg Aesthetic Pre-Judgment	Errol Boon One Last Miracle. On the Metaphysics of Creativity in the Age of Artificial Omniscience
16:45–17:30	Karen Simecek Oppositional Aesthetics as Artistic Resistance	Francisca Pérez-Carreño Inner Voices in the Experience of Literature	Francesca Camilla Mattioli Rationality of Emotion: The Affective Taking in Aesthetic Judgement	Maud Pouradier In What Sense is Aesthetic Experience Immersive? Conceptual Clarifications and Philosophical Stakes

17:30–18:00 Coffee Break
S building, 2nd floor lobby

18:00–19:30 ESA Assembly for all participants and members of the ESA
Room C1

09.06.2026 / Tuesday

09.06.2026 Tuesday	Adorno Chair: Jochen Schuff Room C310	Photography Chair: Anna-Kaisa Koski Room S203	AI Chair: Susanne Ylönen Room S204
9:00–9:45	Conrad Mattli »Imageless Images«: Adorno’s Definition of the Artwork and its Critical Relevance for Post-Autonomous Art	Rene Jagnow How Photographic Technologies Shape Aesthetic Experience	Zsolt Batori Authorship and Creativity in AI-Generated Photo-Based Images
9:45–10:30	Leonie Felicia von Lieben Referring to an Other: Aesthetic Enigmaticalness in Adorno and Hegel	Orsola Stancampiano Experiencing Architectures through Photographs –  Sense and Reference in Photographic Experience	Zachary Johner After Pierre Menard: Generative AI and the Ontology of Literary Works
10:30–11:15	Niccolò Izzi Adorno and Haraway on the Critical Potential of Art between Aesthetic Autonomy and Relationality	Ben Campion Playing Against the Camera: Flusser on Creativity in Photography

11:15–11:45 Coffee Break
S building, 2nd floor lobby

09.06.2026 Tuesday	Aesthetic Matters V Chair: Lisa Schmalzried Room C310	Embodiment Chair: Ben Campion Room S203	Politics II Chair: Kalle Puolakka Room S204	Representation/Perception Chair: Ancuta Mortu Room S303
11:45–12:30	Onerva Kiianlinna The Forgotten Roots of Finnish Everyday Aesthetics	Johan Kalmanlehto On the Aesthetic Value of Practical Difficulty and Skill	Vitor Moura Aesthetic Aporia and Epistemic Injustice	Jussi Saarinen From Period Eye to Niche Eye: Re-situating Renaissance Painting in a Landscape of Affordances
12:30–13:15	Pietro Allegretti Toolkits, Mosaics, and Niches: A Phylogenetically Plausible Scenario for the Evolution of Arts	Maryam Vahedi The Kinesthetic Turn: Reconsidering Rationality through the Primacy of Movement	Magdalena Zolkos Artistic Engagements with Difficult History and the Aesthetics of the Imprint	Julian Lee-Sursin On Fashion’s Perceptual Content

13:15–14:15 Lunch Break

14:15–15:45 Keynote Session
Diarmuid Costello
Self-Presentation and External Validation: Vulnerability and Trust in Rineke Dijksta’s Portraiture
Chair: Michalle Gal
Room C1

15:45–16:15 Coffee Break
S building, 2nd floor lobby

09.06.2026 Tuesday	Panel Discussion: Aesthetics in Finland Chair: Pauline von Bonsdorff Room C310	Fiction Chair: Tereza Hadravova Room S203	Environmental Aesthetics I Chair: Anna Talasniemi Room S204	Aesthetic Experience II Chair: Susanne Ylönen Room S303
16:15–17:00	with Sanna Lehtinen, Johan Kalmanlehto, and Ossi Naukkarinen	Tibor Bárány Epistemic Normativity of Fiction-Directed Emotions: What’s Wrong with the Strategy of Continuity Theorists?	Katilina White The Human Environment As It Should Be	Andrew Wynn Owen Equanimity and Aesthetic Experience
17:00–17:45	(the panel continues)	Nele van de Mosselaer and Nathan Wildman Fictions, φictions, and Phictions	Tom Roberts Space, Wind, and Embodiment in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature	Giulia Sicuro Imagination, affect, and norms: what political engagement reveals about aesthetic experience

19:00 Conference Dinner
Venue: Restaurant Vesilinna / Maps

10.06.2026 / Wednesday

10.06.2026 Wednesday	Transcultural Aesthetics Chair: Jakub Stejskal Room S110	Music Chair: Francisca Pérez-Carreño Room S203	Architecture Chair: Anna-Kaisa Koski Room S204	Existential Aesthetics Chair: Jochen Schuff Room C310
9:00–9:45	Alberto Merzari East and West. Imagination, Image-Making, and Imaginal Geographies from Hegel to Suhrawardī	Carlos Ibáñez On the Supervenience of Musical Meaning	Borbala Jasz Symbol, Landscape, and Architectural Meaning	Matteo Andre Authentic Self-Creation Through the Encounter with Art
9:45–10:30	Tae-seung Lim Anticipation in Stillness: The Aesthetics of »Static Force« and Resonance in East Asian Painting	Tiago Sousa The Role of Mistake in Understanding the Ontology and Appreciation of Musical Improvisation	Ken Wilder Towards an Aesthetics of Architectural Adaptation	Paul Moerman Teaching Dance as Aesthetic Teaching. Towards an Aesthetics of Resistance in Education
10:30–11:15	Yixuan Liu Generative Space-Time in Visual Art Practice: Merleau-Ponty and Chinese Landscape Painting in Dialogue	Kalle Puolakka Listening to Music with the Light Switch on: Critical Notes on Concatenationism	Constantinos Proimos Projecting the Past: Peter Eisenman on Architectural Form as Time Machine

11:15–11:45 Coffee Break
S building, 2nd floor lobby

10.06.2026 Wednesday	Histories of Aesthetics II Chair: SJ Cowan Room S110	Aesthetic Matters VI Chair: Johan Kalmanlehto Room S203	Environmental Aesthetics II Chair: Pauline von Bonsdorff Room S204	Atmospheres Chair: Nathan Wildman Room C310
11:45–12:30	Thomas Meijs Metaphor as a Mode of Real Expression: Baumgarten and the Ontology of the Sensible	Tereza Hadravova Art Form Cognitivism	Raluca Ileana Oancea Uncanny Earth, Sublime Skies: Toward a Critical Ecological Aesthetics	Michael Fix Mood and Atmosphere in Aesthetic Expression
12:30–13:15	Jonas Frankenreiter Normativity after the Avant-Garde: Peter Bürger between Lukács, Adorno, and Contemporary Aesthetic Theory	Ksenija Savcic Toward an Inferential Account of Beauty: Immediacy Reconsidered	Stefan Niklas Contours of a Planetary Aesthetics	David Collins and Moe Touizrar The Music-to-Image Relation in the Formation of Cinematic Atmospheres

13:15–14:15 Lunch Break

10.06.2026 Wednesday	Aesthetic Matters VII Chair: Anna Talasniemi Room S110	Aesthetic Experience III Chair: João Lemos Room S203	Judgment II Chair: Orsola Stancampiano Room S204
14:15–15:00	Jukka Mikkonen (and Kaisa Raatikainen) Aesthetics, Ecosystems, and Science	Gaia Penna Puzzle Paintings and their Appreciation	Clara Campuzano Gómez Being Affected by Others: On the Normative Force of Aesthetic Reasons
15:00–15:45	Thomas Adajian Aesthetic Goodness, Ideal Sensibilities, and Truth: Pragmatic Thoughts	Jakub Stejskal and Mark Windsor The Archaeological Sublime	Guillaume Soucy From Faces to Beauty: Why Hanson’s Analogy Fails and What It Reveals About Aesthetic (and Moral) Evaluation

15:45–16:15 Coffee Break
S building, 2nd floor lobby

16:15–17:45 Keynote Session
Max Ryynänen
Aesthetics as a Companion Discipline
Chair: Pauline von Bonsdorff
Room S212