Date/Time
Date(s): 20. February
All Day
Location
University of Bergen
Categories
The Nordic Society of Aesthetics Annual Conference
8-10 June 2017
University of Bergen, Norway
Aesthetic Experience: Affect and Perception
Keynote Speakers
Dominic McIver Lopes, University of British Colombia
Rita Felski, University of Virginia
Angela Breitenbach, University of Cambridge
Peter Lamarque, University of York
The question of the nature and importance of aesthetic experience has been at the core of philosophical aesthetics since its beginnings. Even though attempts to define aesthetics have encountered much philosophical criticism, it seems likely that any such attempt must include some sort of story of the role of aesthetic experience and its distinguishing features. Lately, the discussion of aesthetic experience has gained new impetus from developments in empirical and experimental aesthetics. In this conference, we wish to explore the full range of issues pertaining to aesthetic experience, what may set it apart from other experiences, what its value is, as well as its relations to art, science and the everyday. We propose to analyse and discuss how aesthetic experience connects with affect, percept, and concept, with art and non-art. While we welcome contributions that discuss empirical or experimental aesthetics, we want them to discuss the conceptual issues underlying such research rather than to merely present empirical results.
Possible themes of the conference include, but are not limited to:
– The nature and value of aesthetic experience: What kind of features are we responding to in aesthetic experience?
– Aesthetic experience and aesthetic categories: Has ‘the beautiful’ been displaced by other, more ambivalent aesthetic categories?
– Aesthetic experience, empirical aesthetics and “aesthetic science”: Is the idea of such a science coherent? Can it say anything informative about aesthetic experience?
– Aesthetic experience and its objects: are there any limitations on the kinds of objects that can be experienced aesthetically? Can such objects include scientific ideas, theories, or even mathematical equations?
– The role of experience in literary studies, art history, and musicology: What is the actual role of experience in concrete acts of interpretation and evaluation?
We welcome papers in English, from all traditions, and on any topic related to the conference theme(s). The presentations, which will be organised in parallel sessions, should be no longer than 20 minutes, followed by another 10 minutes of moderated discussion.
We request abstracts of 200-300 words, sketching the main ideas and claims of the paper, together with outlines of the arguments in favor of them. Please submit in PDF-file format, and anonymize your submission to allow for blind refereeing. (We do not accept full papers, and submissions are limited to one per person.) Use this e-mail address: nse2017@uib.no.
The deadline for the submission of the abstract is 20 February 2017. We will make, and communicate, decisions about acceptances by 20 March 2017.
Further information about the conference will be available on our own conference website http://www.uib.no/fof/nse2017 and on the Nordic Society website http://nsae.au.dk/ .
If you have questions, please send them to the conference organisers: nse2017@uib.no
On behalf of the organising committee,
Prof. Ole Martin Skilleås