31 August – 4 September 2026 , Università di Genova
Organized by SocietĂ  Italiana di Estetica
and the ERC project “PEA – The Philosophy of Experiential Artifacts” (G.A. n. 101040535)

The Summer School aims to offer students, PhD candidates, and early-career researchers (PhD awarded in 2020 or later) an intensive five-day teaching and research programme that brings together aesthetics, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of mind. The goal is to investigate the relationship between art, technology and experience.

On the one hand, works of art are created entities just like artefacts. On the other hand, artefacts have functions but determining the function of art in general, and of individual works of art, is a problematic and divisive task in contemporary aesthetics. A possible solution to this problem is to reconceive works of art as artefacts whose function is to generate experiences. In this way, for instance, paintings can be assigned the function of eliciting visual experiences, and novels the function of generating imaginative experiences. Developing this proposal requires bringing aesthetics into dialogue with the philosophy of technology, in order to develop the notion of experiential function, and with the philosophy of mind, in order to analyse the experiences to be associated with different works of art. The Summer School’s programme will draw on the invited speakers’ specialised expertise in each of the research areas mentioned, providing interdisciplinary training on the relationship between art, technology and experience, so as to lead participants to develop personal research on this topic.

The Summer School is organised across five consecutive days: an initial half-day introduction (Day 1, afternoon only), three central days (Days 2-4), and a final day (Day 5). The structure is as follows: three conference sessions and three workshop sessions during the central days, preceded by a preparatory meeting and followed by a session in which students present their work, and a concluding roundtable.

In order to ensure that the workshop activities are focused, applicants are required to submit, as part of the application, a research idea (max 500 words) to be developed during the summer school workshops. The research idea will be used for selection, for the assignment of tutors, and as a reference point for the last day’s presentations to be developed during the afternoon workshop meetings. See below for further instructions on the submission process.

Coordinator: Enrico Terrone (UniversitĂ  di Genova)

Invited speakers:

María José Alcaraz León (Universidad de Murcia)
Elisa Caldarola (UniversitĂ  di Torino)
Simon Evnine (University of Miami)
Anna Giustina (Universitat de Valencia)
Wybo Houkes (Eindhoven University of Technology)
Derek Matravers (The Open University)
Elisabeth Schellekens (Uppsala Universitet)

Tutors: Luca Marchetti (UniversitĂ  di Genova), Nick Young (UniversitĂ  di Genova)

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Please submit proposals by writing to: pea@unige.it

Submissions should be done as PDF files prepared for blind review and include:

• a research idea (max. 500 words, references excluded);
• a Curriculum Vitae;
• a motivation letter (max. 1 page).

The deadline for receipt is 30 April 2026.

Participants will be notified of decisions by 31 May 2026.

There will be no participation fee. Selected participants will be provided with accommodation for six nights, as well as lunches and coffee breaks during the Summer School. Travel support of up to €300 per person will also be available.

This will also be a hybrid event, featuring talks from Alex King (Simon Fraser University), Clotilde Torregrossa (University of St Andrews), Jinhui Wang (University of Oklahoma), and Mark Silcox (University of Oklahoma).

Programme:

9:30-10:45 Celia Coll (University of Nottingham) ‘Cognitive Value and the Nineteenth-Century Novel

Abstract: There is a well-established tendency in the philosophy of literature to use a small set of paradigmatic cases in support of its theoretical commitments. For instance, in the debate about cognitive literary value, there is a marked tendency in its proponents to favour the ostensibly morally edifying novels of the nineteenth century as case-studies. Where works which fall outside of this paradigm are discussed within the context of this debate, these works are usually also novels from the apparently amoral twentieth century and treated as potential counterexamples to the account of cognitive literary value which ensues from employing the nineteenth-century novel as a case-study. We find an unusual exception to this tendency in Simecek’s (2024) case for the cognitive value of contemporary poetry. Her discussion suggests that the current use of case-studies in the debate about the cognitive value of literature as it stands threatens to unduly narrow our conceptions of this value and of the cognitive gains to be made from engaging with literature. If these conceptions are indeed unduly narrowed, then it follows that we are not presently in a position to make a full case for or against cognitive literary value. This paper aims first to argue that the overrepresentation of the nineteenth-century novel in the debate has indeed shaped our conception of cognitive value and has unduly narrowed it, and second, to offer some insight into how drawing from other forms of literature into our pool of case-studies, namely poetry, narrative works from other literary periods, and bad works of literature can help us better understand the possibility of cognitive literary value and what it entails.

10:45-12:00: Mark Silcox (University of Central Oklahoma)  ‘Don’t be Didactic! Moralism and the Aesthetics of Edification’

Abstract: Any account of the axiology of artworks that tries to blur the distinction between aesthetic and moral value has to give some sort of explanation for why didacticism is generally regarded as a type of aesthetic demerit. If artworks possess value partly or wholly on account of their ability to improve us morally, why do we (often, perhaps normally) find it objectionable when we notice them trying to do this even a little bit too hard? I argue that, while this is a serious problem for many forms of aesthetic moralism and ethicism, the problem goes away entirely to the extent that one embraces moral fictionalism as a more general account of the nature of ethical thought and discourse. For the moral fictionalist, didacticism in art is a flaw when (and only when) it interferes with the coherence and immersivity of the fictional worlds that an artwork represents. For these features are crucial in exactly the same way both to the value of artworks as such and to the prescriptive authority of morality. I contrast my diagnosis of why the aesthetic moralist should condemn didacticism with Charles Repp’s detailed defense of the claim that didacticism is an aesthetic flaw because it is an indicator of epistemic unreliability in authors. My approach is superior to Repp’s insofar as it avoids any suggestion of the “intentional fallacy,” and by virtue of being less susceptible to counterexample. I close with a discussion some examples of borderline didacticism from a few well-known representational artworks in different media that bear out my analysis, including the final chapter of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Goya’s painting The Third of May 1808 in Madrid, and the credit sequence for Lars Van Trier’s film Dogville.

12:00-12:45: Lunch 

12:45-14:00: Clotilde Torregrossa (University of St Andrews) ‘Aesthetic Experience and the Puzzle of Sequential Art’

Abstract: Theories of aesthetic experience can broadly be divided into externalist and internalist theories. The first set tend to identify aesthetic experiences by their contents. The second set, though, tend to identify aesthetic experiences by certain kinds of mental responses, e.g. a certain kind of aesthetic attention or attitude, pleasure, or a more complex mental state such as aesthetic appreciation. In this paper, I defend this classification of theories of aesthetic experience, and argue that neither type can comfortably account for our experience of sequential art, i.e. artworks which are not experienced ‘in one go’, but over time – ‘sequentially’. I delineate the key features of sequential art before outlining what I call the puzzle of sequential art.

14:00-15:15: Jinhui Wang (University of Oklahoma) ‘Hope of Second-Order Convergence: A Novel Approach to the Norm of Aesthetic Discourse’

Abstract: Nick Riggle (2022a; 2022b; 2024; forthcoming) argues that the norm of aesthetic discourse is not convergence but a distinctive form of community, according to which we vibe, appreciate each other’s individuality, and do not mind disagreements. Nat Hansen & Zed Adams (2024) object that Riggle’s theory does not take aesthetic discourse seriously and collapses into mere exchanges of preferences. Indebted to Stanley Cavell, they present an approach called Hope of Convergence that can avoid Riggle’s criticism of Convergence. In response to Hansen & Adams (2024), Riggle (forthcoming) argues that seriousness is not a reasonable requirement for aesthetic discourse. In this paper, I argue that Riggle is right that Hansen & Adams’s account of seriousness is problematic. However, it does not mean that we should entirely rule out the requirement of seriousness in aesthetic discourse. I present a novel approach called Hope of Second-order Convergence: When we speak with each other about the aesthetic value of an object, we hope that we will agree that we are both eligible aesthetic agents who can give, understand, and respond to aesthetic reasons, though we do not hope we can converge on first-order aesthetic judgments. In this way, we take each other’s aesthetic standing seriously and respect aesthetic diversity. I argue that my approach can avoid Riggle’s criticism of Hansen & Adams’s account of seriousness, while is constitutive of good aesthetic discourse in Riggle’s sense.

Afternoon Break: 15:15-15:30

15:30-16:45: Alex King, ‘What is the Aesthetic?’

Abstract:  A recent movement in analytic aesthetics splits apart two questions: one which would demarcate the aesthetic domain from others, and the other which would explain the value to be found in that domain. Advocates of this approach tend to focus on the latter issue, hoping to be able to remain silent on the former. I wish to push back against this tendency. It can give us some of what we want, but it cannot underwrite a complete account of aesthetic value or normativity. This is so even when we focus solely on questions of value and normativity, because it cannot help us to understand anything that might be distinctively valuable in the aesthetic domain. Perhaps a better way to proceed is to face the talk’s titular question head-on, and build an account of aesthetic value on that foundation. In service of this, I propose a view on which the aesthetic has to do with sensation, not narrowly restricted to sense perception, but construed more broadly to include mental imagery as well as feeling and emotion, ideation, comprehension, and understanding, both conceptual and nonconceptual. I then examine which conclusions about aesthetic value and normativity should be drawn from such a framework.

Those interested in attending should email Jon Robson at Jonathan.Robson@nottingham.ac.uk to register their interest. 

Those interested in attending should email Jon Robson at Jonathan.Robson@nottingham.ac.uk to register their interest. 

Programme:

9.30: Manuel GarcĂ­a-Carpintero, “On the Mood for Fiction”

10.45: Samuel Lebens, “Stories, Worlds, Centers, and Contradictions”

12.00: Merel Semeijn, “Ho Ho Hoaxing! What Santa Can Teach Us ÌÇĐÄÊÓÆ” Fiction”

14.45: Eileen John, “Fiction, Humour and Understanding the Atypical”

16.00: Neri Marsili, “The Cooperative Principle in Fiction: Quality and Beyond”

All are welcome. For abstracts, accessibility information and to participate, please see/register .

Organisers:

Filippo Contesi & Elisa Paganini

The Workshop is hosted by the Dipartimento di Filosofia “Piero Martinetti”, UniversitĂ  degli Studi di Milano, and generously supported by the Ministero dell’UniversitĂ  e della Ricerca (PRIN2022 – 2022NTCHYF_003).

“Crisis, Mourning and Everyday Aesthetics”

Professor Paul C. Taylor (UCLA)
Wednesday 29^th May, 2024
4:10-6pm
John Percival Building, Room 0.31, Cardiff University

ALL WELCOME!

Abstract:
In a reflection on what she calls “the future of time,” Toni Morrison discusses art that responds to moments of crisis with, as she puts it, “a mourning, a requiem, a folding away of the future.” She goes on to look for redemptive possibilities in expressive culture, on the grounds that “one looks to history for the feel of time [but] one looks to art for signs of its renewal.” I have argued that reading Morrison through Saidiya Hartman reveals signs of this renewal in the refusal of spectacle and the recovery of dailiness in (of all places) the film “Wakanda Forever.” This talk will expand on that earlier argument’s gesture at everyday aesthetics in part by recommending a distinctively Deweyan approach to the everyday.

Hybrid Attendance
The organisers aim to pilot this as a hybrid event. Details will be made available on the upcoming talks section of .

Dinner & Drinks
After the talk, people will head for a drink, followed by dinner (venue TBC). ÌÇĐÄÊÓÆ” has agreed to cover dinner expenses for up to two students. Students who are interested in this opportunity are invited to contact the organisers (dixond7@cardiff.ac.uk or parisp@cardiff.ac.uk). Anyone else who’d like to join, please also email the organisers, as there will only be limited spaces.

This conference aims to bring into dialogue graduate and early-career researchers working in Aesthetics, Ethics and Philosophy of Mind to discuss the various philosophical issues that occur at the intersections of Art, Imagination, and Morality.

The conference will feature two keynote speakers, Dr. Ella Whiteley (Sheffield) and Dr. James Grant (Oxford), in addition to eight accepted papers from graduate students and early-career researchers which will receive comments from faculty members.

To register to attend, please contact Alex Fisher by 24^th May at <atbf2@cam.ac.uk>. There is no registration fee, and lunch will be provided on each day. (Do please let the organisers know if you plan to only come for one day of the conference.)

Programme:

Thursday 20^thÌꎳłÜČÔ±đ

9.30-10.45 ‘Political Iconoclasm: (when) should political protestors attack artworks?’
Alice Hilder Jarvis (Cambridge)
Respondent: Thomas Sinclair (Oxford)

10.45-11.15 BREAK

11.15-12.30 ‘The Cognitive Value of Discrepant Affective Responses to Artworks’
Emily Kay Williamson (Central European University)
Respondent: Stephen Mulhall (Oxford)

12.30-13.30 LUNCH

13.30-14.45 ‘Standing to Stand-Up: Gender and the Standing to Joke about Sexual Assault’
Anna Hotter (CUNY)
Respondent: Zoe Walker (Oxford)

14.45-16.00 ‘Fitting Emotions and Just Art: How Aesthetic Features Undermine Virtuous Perception’
Anna Morse (Virginia)
Respondent: Michael Martin (Oxford)

16.00-16.30 BREAK

16.30-18.00 KEYNOTE 1 ‘Imaginings and Salience’
Ella Whiteley (Sheffield)

Conference Dinner

Friday 21^stÌꎳłÜČÔ±đ

9.30-10.45Ìę‘Privacy, Ignorance, and the Importance of Fiction’
Sam Rogers (NYU)
Respondent: Robbie Kubala (UT Austin)

10.45-11.15 BREAK

11.15-12.30Ìę‘Speech Acts and Unspeakable Raps’
Tareeq Jalloh (Sheffield)
Respondent: Lucy McDonald (KCL)

12.30-13.30 LUNCH

13.30-14.45Ìę‘Due Respect Makes Demands of our Imaginative Practices: A More Complete Picture of the Ethics of our Mental Lives’
Caroline von Klemperer (Rutgers)
Respondent: James Laing (Oxford)

14.45-16.00Ìę‘Art as a Guide to Imagining the Joy and Suffering of Animals as Our Own’
Maisie Luo (Rutgers)
Respondent: Alison Hills (Oxford)

16.00-16.30 BREAK

16.30-18.00 KEYNOTE 2 ‘Does it Matter if Beauty is Objective?’
James Grant (Oxford)

Conference Organisers:

Dr Zoe Walker and Alex Fisher

Art and Emotion

Art without emotion is hard to imagine. Sadness and joy, disgust and humour: ingredients like these go into many successful works of art. For this reason, contemporary aesthetics boasts a copious literature on the expression of emotion by artworks and the emotional responses that artworks merit. What is it to express an emotion? What, in general, is an emotion? What role do emotions play in cognition? And in action? In aesthetic value? How is it both possible and rational to seek out experiences of negative emotions, such as sadness? What are the mechanisms of emotional expression and arousal in various art genres?

Each of these questions can be asked in a theoretical mood or an empirical one, and each is made more tractable as we answer the others. This two-part event introduces contemporary aesthetics to a rich historical tradition from South Asia. Rasa theorists address all of these questions, often giving them provocative answers.

The Events

Rasa 101 is a two-day crash course on rasa theory for anyone interested in getting up to speed on the topic, either with an eye to teaching it or to using it in their research.

Rasa Fest features presentations by five speakers over two days, with generous time allocated to discussion in formal sessions and during social breaks. It aims to create a community of scholars working on rasa from the perspective of contemporary aesthetics, emotion theory, philosophy of mind, or epistemology.

The organisers expect to include a workshop-demonstration and public performance by Nepathya, a Kutiyattam troupe from Kerala. Kutiyattam is a living heir to the ancient Sanskrit theatrical forms that shaped and were shaped by rasa theory.

A shared goal of both events is to boost efforts to diversify philosophy by modelling how we can equip ourselves with more than a superficial knowledge of problems that are shared across traditions, where answers given in some traditions can benefit other traditions.

Travel funding is available to those who wish to attend, thanks to generous grants from the American Philosophical Association, the American Society for Aesthetics, and the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, matched by the UBC Killam Professorship. The deadline to apply for funding is February 14. 

Registration is free and will be open on March 1. 

For more information, including a list of speakers and information about travel funding, please visit .

In 1936 the philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote about a great change triggered by the technological reproduction of images. Photography and cinema were transforming not only the forms of art, but also the way humans perceived the world. It was the human way of looking at things that was deeply modified. Through these new technologies, humans were learning to come closer to objects and to play with their images. “Optics” and “touch” were becoming strictly intertwined. Today, this idea of an essential change in our way of perceiving the world has become true in a way that largely exceeds Benjamin’s expectations. Digital technologies have become more than just an instrument. Rather, they have also become an environment in which we move, permeating our experience of the world.

The summer school will be organised by the University of Milan in collaboration with the European Seminar of Aesthetics – an international network of academics and researchers founded in 2014 with the aim of fostering critical debate on key topics in aesthetics () – and with the Milano Painting Academy (). It will address the new challenges faced by aesthetics in the digital era. Aesthetics is a discipline that was born in 1700, in a cultural and historical context far removed from the present. However, from the beginning, aesthetics constituted itself as a philosophical investigation of the “sensible knowledge” (Baumgarten), i.e. of the sensory way in which humans experience the world. For this reason, it is an important duty of aesthetics to understand how this experience changes in the context of the new digital technologies.

In fact, the digital reproduction, creation, transformation and diffusion of images, videos, texts and sounds affects not only the domain of art (with the origin of new forms of art such as digital photography, video art, digital art and, more recently, AI art), but in a broader sense, different aspects of our everyday life, too. In fact, through digital technologies everyday life often acquires a strong aesthetic value (let’s think of food photographs, selfies, travel pictures on blogs and social networks
). Moreover, through digital content, we build and convey identities, tastes and desires.

Through an interdisciplinary dialogue among philosophers of aesthetics, philosophers of science, artists, photographers, scholars of visual culture and media studies, the summer school will address four important aspects of digital aesthetics, which will correspond to the four sections (one and a half days each) of the program:

1. Digital aesthetics and values. Digital images and texts have become an expression of values, which are shared by an increasingly large number of subjects. The first day of the school will reexamine the connection between aesthetic experience and values. In fact, values don’t originate from a propositional process. Rather, they are primarily something which has to be felt. Emotions, sensible experience of the world, and values are strictly intertwined. For this reason, it is particularly important to investigate how values can be created, transformed and communicated through digital content. Can digital content convey a true or authentic experience of values? Can the transformative power of digital technologies help to keep values alive? Or is it bound to bury them under a great quantity of fakes instead? These are some of the questions that will be addressed on the first day.
2. Digital photography. At its origins, photography has often been considered not so much as art, but rather as a reproduction of reality. Nevertheless, many photographers have utilised this technology as an extraordinary means to express content in an original way. With digital photography, the transformative power of pictures has become even more evident. Digital photographs can be manipulated at every step: colours, lights and even subjects can be changed and adapted to express the author’s intentions. Can digital images still be considered as “photographs”? What is their relationship to reality? How can digital photographs tell the truth or (in connection with the first day of the school) convey true values? These are some of the topics that will be discussed.
3. Art and artificial intelligence. A very interesting type of art that emerged recently is certainly the art made through artificial intelligence. Can an artificial intelligence be creative? Who is the author of these works, is it the human artist or the algorithm? What does this type of art have to say on the new presence that the AI represents in our society? These are some of the questions that will be addressed during the third day of the summer school.
4. Colour and drawing in the digital age. Colour and drawing have often been considered as two opposite poles of the visual artistic process. Drawing has typically represented the ideal aspect of the picture, the project which the artist can realise and control. Colour, on the contrary, was often regarded as the vehicle of emotion and sensible pleasure. For this reason, it was considered sometimes dangerous and difficult to regulate. In the Nineteenth Century, as it is well known, both colour and drawing became increasingly independent from the reproduction of reality and acquired an autonomous expressive power. Yet what is happening today, in the context of digital images? How have colour and drawing changed, and with it, the relationship between them? These are some of the questions that will be raised during the third and last day of the school, in a dialogue that will involve also the Milano Painting Academy ().

Application

The School is directed toward PhD students, advanced masters students and postdocs. In order to participate, it is necessary to have a bachelors degree (three years). It is not necessary for participants to have studied philosophy; other fields are also welcome, since the philosophical questions will be raised through an interdisciplinary approach, involving performative arts, technology, figurative arts etc.

Participants will have the opportunity to prepare a short talk (5 minutes, 1 page length) and later elaborate upon it in a paper. The best papers will be selected to be published in a special issue of the journal “Itinera” (). The last edition of our summer school, Aesthetics Technique and Emotion () was the subject of “Itinera”, 19, 2020: 

The registration fee will be â‚Ź160 per person. A minimum of 15 students will be required to start the school. Accommodation is not included, but you can find some suggestions on the accommodation page.

HOW TO APPLY: Prospective participants are required to fill out and submit the form at the below link and upload a PDF file (max. 2MB) including a CV.

• Deadline for registration: April 20th, 2023
• Notification of acceptance: April 27th, 2023
• Register

Speakers

Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis (UniversitĂ  degli Studi di Milano) 
Carole Talon-Hugon (Paris, Sorbonne)
Andrea Mecacci (UniversitĂ  di Firenze)
Claudio Rozzoni (UniversitĂ  degli Studi di Milano)
Laura Aimo (UniversitĂ  Cattolica di Milano) 
Andrea Scanziani (UniversitĂ  di Milano) 
Luca Malavasi (UniversitĂ  di Genova) 
Linda Bertelli (IMT, Lucca)
Sara Romani (UniversitĂ  di Colonia)
A. Somaini (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)
R. Eugeni (UniversitĂ  Cattolica di Milano)
A. Barale (UniversitĂ  di Milano)
Elena Tavani (Università di Napoli L’Orientale)
A. I. Miller (University College, London)
Katherine Thomson-Jones (Oberlin College and Conservatory) 
Anna Maria Monteverdi (UniversitĂ  degli Studi di Milano) 
Kamilia Kard (Artist)

The full program can be viewed .

• The ‘Guidelines for Guest Editors’ can be found on the . Alternatively email the editors for a copy.
• We welcome applications either for individual or for joint Guest Editors.
• The Editors would welcome ideas that broaden the appeal of the journal, either to new academic areas or to encouraging a wider, and more diverse, readership (or both).

Applications should contain:

• A statement of the proposed topic (no more than 500 words).
• A list of proposed contributors (between 7 and 12). This need only be speculative; there is no need to contact proposed contributors at this stage.
• A CV for each applicant.

All documents should be sent in a single email, as attachments, to the Editors: Paloma Atencia Linares (atenciap@gmail.com) and Derek Matravers (derek.matravers@open.ac.uk). Applications should be received by the 15^th February 2022.

To submit your proposal please contact Dr Katarzyna Tempczyk at katarzyna.tempczyk@degruyter.com 

Proposals will be collected by October 31, 2021. 

ABOUT THE JOURNAL 

Open Philosophy is an international Open Access, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of philosophy. The objective of Open Philosophy is to foster free exchange of ideas and provide an appropriate platform for presenting, discussing and disseminating new concepts, current trends, theoretical developments and research findings related to the broadest philosophical spectrum. The journal does not favour any particular philosophical school, perspective or methodology.

OUR PAST TOPICAL ISSUES:

2018:

The New Metaphysics: Analytic / Continental Crossovers (ed. Jon Cogburn and Paul Livingston) 

Objects Across the Traditions (ed. Tom Sparrow) 

2019: 

Does Public Art Have to Be Bad Art? (ed. Mark Kingwell)

Computer Modeling in Philosophy (ed. Patrick Grim)

Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics (ed. Graham Harman)

Experience in a New Key (ed. Dorthe JĂžrgensen)

2020:

Imagination and Potentiality: The Quest for the Real (ed. Graham Harman and Kristupas Sabolius)

Changing One’s Mind: Philosophy, Religion and Science (ed. Yossef Schwartz, Paul Franks and Christian Wiese) 

Philosophy of the City (ed. Sanna Lehtinen)

Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics II (ed. Graham Harman)

2021 (in progress): 

Ethics and Politics of TV Series (ed. Sandra Laugier)

Philosophy and Sonic Research: Thinking with Sounds and Rhythms (ed. Martin Nitsche and Vit Pokorny)

Home & Exile – Feminist Philosophy in Thought, History and Action: a multi-disciplinary approach (ed. Nicole des Bouvrie and Laura Hellsten)

Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics III (ed. Graham Harman)