The organizers warmly invite abstract submissions for the 2023 Annual Conference of the Nordic Society for Aesthetics, with the leading topic, “Aesthetics and the body”. Aesthetics is inextricably linked with the body; with the body as sensing and as sensed; with objects as embodied, forming the shape of artworks, gestures and rhythm. As bodies we sense the world, at the same time as our experience is mediated, opening up a field of tension and distance, of the object as ‘the other’, as an opening for the sensuous.
Temporary ecological concerns also upon up reflections concerning the reconfiguration of relationship between the body and the sensitive world. Through his concept of force, Christoph Menke grounds aesthetics in an anthropology of difference, a difference between force and faculty, between human and subject, where aesthetics is defined as a force belonging to the human not the subject. In line with this, genealogical anthropology has become aesthetic anthropology leading behind the subject to man. This opens up reflections on aesthetics in relation to the human as embedded in nature, or aesthetics in relation to the Anthropocene.
The conference is an invitation to consider:
- the relation between phenomenology and aesthetics
- the relation between aesthetics and cognition
- the status of “applied Aesthetics” (Analysis, Interpretation, Criticism, Commentary...) within discussions and reception of artworks and art-phenomena today
- methodological questions related to aesthetics as an approach to artworks as ‘the other’
- aesthetics as embodiment, performance, rhythm, and time.
- the relation between aesthetics and the gendered and situated body
- the relation between aesthetics and the political
- aesthetics and the Anthropocene
- questions related to aesthetics as providing a perspective “from the outside”
- the aesthetics of practice
Information about the conference will be announced on the website of the society: https://www.nsae.fi
Proposals can be addressed to: NSAE.conference@gmail.com
The time allocated for a paper is 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion. PhD students are strongly encouraged to submit a proposal. The Society grants up to two scholarships of 500 euros each to PhD students who do not have any other funding to cover their travel and accommodation costs to attend and give a paper at the conference. Priority is given to applicants studying in one of the Nordic universities, but all applications will be taken into consideration. Those applying for the scholarship should mention it in their abstract.
We also encourage panel proposals. The time allocated for a panel consisting of 3–4 contributions is 90 minutes, including time for discussion.
Please send abstracts not exceeding 300 words (papers) or 500 words (panels) no later than 15 February 2023.
Selection will be based on quality, relevance to the conference theme, and program considerations. Notification of acceptance will be sent out by 15 March 2023.
Conference fee, standard: 50 EUR. PhD Students and scholars without institutional affiliation: 30 EUR. A small supplementary fee might be added, in which case it will be announced beforehand. The fee includes one year membership of The Nordic Society of Aesthetics and one year subscription to The Nordic Journal of Aesthetics.
The organizers:
Professor Bente Larsen, Dept. of philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, section of Art history, University of Oslo
Associate professor, Nanette Nielsen, Department of Musicology, University of Oslo
Emil Bernhardt, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Musicology, University of Oslo
Rémy Richard Martin, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Musicology, University of Oslo
Ingvild Melby, PhD student, Dept. of philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, section of Art history, University of Oslo