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British Society of Aesthetics
@britaesthetics.bsky.social
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The British Society of Aesthetics (BSA) aims to promote study, research and discussion of the fine arts and related types of experience from a philosophical, psychological, sociological, historical, critical and educational standpoint.
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We often dismiss beauty as superficial. But philosopher Heather Widdows argues it has quietly become the most valuable good in modern life. | https://bit.ly/4rmdrLa

Beauty, she argues, is no longer a private obsession but is a political and ethical issue that calls for serious public scrutiny.
We're risking it all for beauty
<p><em>Beauty is often dismissed as superficial, but philosopher <strong>Heather Widdows</strong> argues it has quietly become the most valuable good in modern life. From risky cosmetic procedures to ...
iai.tv
February 13, 2026 at 12:42 PM
britaesthetics.bsky.social
We are now in Instagram! Follow us there for exclusive content on the BSA and explorations of key themes in aesthetics - our new series ‚aesthetics explained‘ 🖼️ ⬇️
www.instagram.com/britishsocie...
February 11, 2026 at 5:45 PM
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Our new issue is out with not one, not two, but FIVE open access articles 🔓. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky
BJA, January 2026 cover. Riccardo Carli Living with the Everyday Kitsch Object: A New Existential Potentiality   Shuting Liao Xiang 象 as a Dynamic Perceptual Framework: Bridging Sensory Experience and Aesthetic Meaning Christopher Prodoehl Personal and Impersonal Expression   Ellie Jerome Where Ethics and Aesthetics Diverge: Reconsidering the Objection from Creepiness Tony Chackal Record Collecting as a Focal Practice: The Aesthetics and Sociality of Music Formats   Joshua Kelsall Against Moral-Aesthetic Prescriptivism: Rejecting the Foundations of the Moralism Versus Immoralism Debate Yili Zhou (周奕李) Why Follow the Score? Aesthetic Normativity in Performing Classical Music and the Genuine Performing Experience   Jussi A Saarinen From Period Eye to Niche Eye: Re-situating Renaissance Painting in a Landscape of Affordances Alex Fisher Virtual Reality, Seeing-In, and Twofoldness   Peter Lamarque Poetry, Sound, and Form: A Reply to Eliza Ives   Steven Diggin Ethical Presuppositions in Narrative Art   Simon J Evnine Are Titles of Artworks Proper Names of the Artworks They Entitle?
February 4, 2026 at 1:25 PM
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Have a look at this shiny new issue of the BJA! 👇
February 4, 2026 at 10:37 AM
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The Power of Shame in Film and Media

The editors invite abstracts for publications on

1. Shame, Power and Cultural Identity in Media (Bloomsbury Publishing)

2. Watching with Shame: Affects and Ethics in Media Spectatorship (Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind)

Deadline: 3 April 2026
February 3, 2026 at 5:21 PM
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Reminder: New Horizons Award

The BSA awards up to two New Horizons Awards for the best papers submitted to the Annual Conference by a member of a group traditionally underrepresented in Aesthetics.

Deadline: 2 March 2026

Find out how to apply here:
New Horizons Award
british-aesthetics.org
January 29, 2026 at 9:20 AM
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🚨 The British Journal of Aesthetics is calling for proposals for guest-edited special issues to be published in the BJA in 2028. We welcome applications either for individual or for joint guest editors. 🚨

Deadline: 1st March 2026

Details here: british-aesthetics.org/british-jour...
british-aesthetics.org
January 28, 2026 at 7:25 PM
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BSA News: A.W. Eaton Named 2026 Wollheim Lecturer

We are pleased to announce that A.W. Eaton will be the Richard Wollheim Lecturer at the BSA Annual Conference at Oxford University, September 11-13! A.W. Eaton is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
January 28, 2026 at 9:32 AM
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You want a definitional criterion for spatial art? You are a baby. We have THIRTEEN definitional criteria. Open access, too. 🔓 doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
What, if anything, is artistic about, say, the way Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Chair (1932) models physical matter in space? about the way a Vivienne Westwood mini-crini—a skirt, launched in 1985, which combines the construction of the nineteenth-century crinoline with that of a mini-skirt—shapes the body of its wearer? and about the way Laila Gohar’s gastronomic creations are presented to the public for visual and tactile exploration? A better understanding of the arts of space should help us answer these questions. - Elisa Caldarola, What is a Spatial Art?
January 28, 2026 at 7:46 AM
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Wollheim Symposium 2026 | Call for Abstracts

Pictorial Meaning and the Body in Richard Wollheim’s Psychoanalytic Aesthetics

Oxford, 14-15 July 2026

Deadline for Abstracts: 31 March 2026

Find the CfP here: british-aesthetics.org/pictorial-me...
Wollheim Symposium | Call for Abstracts - The British Society of Aesthetics
Pictorial Meaning and the Body in Richard Wollheim’s Psychoanalytic AestheticsSymposium14-15 July 2026St John’s College, Oxford Supported by the British Society of Aesthetics Organizers: Louise Braddo...
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January 20, 2026 at 11:49 AM
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Mind, Art, Knowledge Symposium | Call for Proposals

Deadline for proposals: 1 March 2026

british-aesthetics.org/mind-art-kno...
Mind, Art, Knowledge Symposium | Call for Proposals - The British Society of Aesthetics
Mind, Art, Knowledge: Dialogues between Cognitive Science, Artistic Practice, and PhilosophyLUCA School of Arts/ Palace of the Academies/Cinematek, Brussels, Belgium. 15-17 June 2026Organised by Maart...
british-aesthetics.org
January 14, 2026 at 3:53 PM
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There are still 5 days left to apply for the BSA connection award!
The British Society of Aesthetics is looking to fund one conference with a grant of up to £10,000 for its Connections series of conferences.

Deadline for proposals is Monday 19 January 2026.

british-aesthetics.org/portfolio/bs...
BSA Connections - The British Society of Aesthetics
The British Society of Aesthetics is pleased to announce a tenth round of funding for its Connections series of conferences. The Society is looking to fund one conference with a grant of up to £10,000...
british-aesthetics.org
January 14, 2026 at 3:22 PM
britaesthetics.bsky.social
The British Society of Aesthetics Annual Conference

11-13 September 2026 | Oxford

The BSA Annual Conference is open for submissions for symposia, papers, and student papers in all areas of philosophical aesthetics.

Deadline: 2 March 2026

Find the CFP here: british-aesthetics.org/portfolio/an...
BSA Annual Conference - The British Society of Aesthetics
british-aesthetics.org
January 13, 2026 at 10:34 AM
britaesthetics.bsky.social
The BSA essay prize competition is open to early-career researchers.

The winning author will receive £1,500 and an opportunity to present the paper at the Society’s annual conference.

The winning essay will normally be published in the BJA.

british-aesthetics.org/bsa-essay-pr...
BSA Essay Prize - The British Society of Aesthetics
british-aesthetics.org
December 17, 2025 at 8:11 AM
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We're once again taking submissions for the New Horizons Award.

Two honorariums are available for the best papers submitted to the Annual Conference by a member of a group traditionally underrepresented in philosophical aesthetics.

Deadline March 2nd.

british-aesthetics.org/new-horizons...
New Horizons Award - The British Society of Aesthetics
As part of our commitment to increasing diversity and inclusion within British aesthetics and philosophy of art, the British Society of Aesthetics will bestow up to two New Horizons Awards for the bes...
british-aesthetics.org
December 17, 2025 at 8:08 AM
britaesthetics.bsky.social
The British Society of Aesthetics is pleased to announce a tenth round of funding for its Connections series of conferences.

The Society is looking to fund one conference with a grant of up to £10,000.

british-aesthetics.org/portfolio/bs...
BSA Connections - The British Society of Aesthetics
The British Society of Aesthetics is pleased to announce a tenth round of funding for its Connections series of conferences. The Society is looking to fund one conference with a grant of up to £10,000...
british-aesthetics.org
October 15, 2025 at 8:22 AM
britaesthetics.bsky.social
The British Society of Aesthetics seeks to appoint a paid, part-time Editor for its website, newsletter, and social media. Applicants will be expected to be UK-based postgraduates working in aesthetics.

The deadline for applications is 22 October 2025.
Position Available: BSA Website & Social Media Editor - The British Society of Aesthetics
The British Society of Aesthetics seeks to appoint a paid, part-time Editor for its website, newsletter, and social media. DUTIES OF POST WEBSITEThe Editor will be responsible for editing and maintain...
british-aesthetics.org
September 29, 2025 at 7:10 AM
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Don't miss out on this year's annual conference!

We've got an awesome line-up of speakers and symposia for you on all things aesthetics.

Ticket discounts are available for society members and students.

Find out more and register over at our website.
August 6, 2025 at 7:25 PM
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Today is the last day to apply for the BSA's Undergraduate Diversity Initiative - don't miss out!

Find out more: british-aesthetics.org/portfolio/an...
July 7, 2025 at 11:53 AM
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In our new issue, Panos Paris argues for an account on which one of three types of wellformedness are necessary for the instantiation of beauty. Open access, people, open access. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
[O]n the one hand, by far the longest-standing theories of beauty construed it as partly objective and dependent on form; on the other hand, many of late think that there is little we can say about what makes objects beautiful, other than that they please us. - Panos Paris, On Beauty and Wellformedness
July 7, 2025 at 8:47 AM
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Katharine Jenkins articulates a way of dealing with unjust operas that she calls ‘reparative staging’ in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
The idea of refraining from performing certain works on the grounds of their apparent racism or sexism may raise the spectre of artistic censorship, but this is a red herring: there need not be any kind of formal or informal prohibition in place for an opera company to simply decide to use their limited resources to put on an opera that isn’t racist or sexist. - Katharine Jenkins, ‘Her Fresh Voice’: Reparatively Staging Puccini’s Turandot with Andrea Dworkin
June 17, 2025 at 12:02 PM
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Three authors look at how the performing arts intersect with questions of epistemic justice in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Because they provide pre-reflective, non-propositional knowledge about the environment (what can be done pragmatically or epistemically), and because they can form the basis to acquire reflective, propositional knowledge of this environment, affordances and the worlds they constitute for individuals become a matter of epistemic justice if their distribution between groups is unduly biased. - Camille Zimmermann, Pierre Poirier, & Amandine Catala, Performing Arts and Affordances: Moving toward Epistemic Justice through Embodied Learning
June 17, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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Aesthetics in the post-truth age. Karl Axelsson reviews an "outstanding contribution" from Ole Martin Skilleås in this advance article. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky
Ironically, Skilleås’ tightly-knit account occasionally strikes me as just a bit too faithful to precisely the kind of binary that popular immediacy itself profits from. - Karl Axlesson, Review of Ole Martin Skilleås’ ‘Aesthetic Expertise: An Exploration and Defense’
June 19, 2025 at 12:55 PM
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Registration for this year's conference is now OPEN.

Featuring another fantastic programme of keynote lectures, papers and symposia.

You can find out more and register below.

british-aesthetics.org/portfolio/an...
BSA Annual Conference - The British Society of Aesthetics
british-aesthetics.org
June 23, 2025 at 9:00 AM
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Congratulations to this year's New Horizons winners.

We bestow up to two awards for the best papers submitted to the Annual Conference by members of groups traditionally underrepresented in philosophical aesthetics.

The award includes a £500 honorarium and up to £1000 for conference expenses.
June 10, 2025 at 10:48 AM