The Welsh Aesthetics Forum | Fforwm Estheteg Cymru (WAF) was founded in 2024 by Daisy Dixon and Panos Paris at Cardiff University, and was launched with a talk by Prof. Andrew Huddleston (Warwick). WAF was formed with the aim of providing a Welsh counterpart to existing fora in England and Scotland (notably the London and Scottish Aesthetics fora), bringing speakers to present on central and current issues in aesthetics to academic and non-academic audiences in Wales. Its current base is Cardiff University but its aim is to offer a pan-Welsh aesthetics network to cater for an emerging centre of interest in aesthetics across Wales.
WAF is made possible through the generous support of the 糖心视频 and, like other similar projects, its lectures are free and open to the public, and are followed by a dinner which offers the opportunity to students, as well as others with research interests in aesthetics who wish to do so, to meet the speaker and engage in discussion in a more informal setting. WAF is committed to gender equality in its talks and, where possible, seeks to maintain balance between female and male speakers, as well as striving to promote inclusivity across other dimensions, including class, race, career stage, etc.
WAF has already been running over the best part of the last two academic years between 2023/24 and 2024/25, so it鈥檚 time to take stock. We鈥檝e thus far hosted six talks, all of which have been recorded to be made available publicly in due course (WAF had a website that had begun hosting the recorded lectures, but we have since taken the website down due to issues with the host, and aim to relaunch sometime in the next academic year). This will hopefully enable audiences elsewhere in Wales and beyond to view WAF lectures, regardless of whether they were able to attend the events in person. In the future, we plan to further enhance WAF鈥檚 outreach and online presence, both by increasing visibility and by organizing non-academic-focused, more public-facing events.
WAF lectures to date have covered a broad spectrum of topics, covering interest from all across the contemporary aesthetics research horizon. Specifically, since its launch, WAF has hosted the following talks:
Spring 2023-24
Andrew Huddleston (Warwick), 鈥淎bstracting the Divine: The Rothko Chapel鈥�
Paul C. Taylor (UCLA), 鈥淐risis, Mourning, and Everyday Aesthetics鈥�
Autumn 2024-25
Zoe Walker (Oxford), 鈥淒ark Comedy: The Strange Relationship Between Immorality and Amusement鈥�
Heather Widdows (Warwick), 鈥淭his is What a Philosopher Looks Like鈥�
Spring 2024-25
Tom Roberts (Exeter), 鈥淎rtificial Fictions鈥�
Adriana Clavel-V脿zquez (Tilburg), 鈥淭owards a Decolonial Universalism in Aesthetics鈥�
All WAF lectures to date have been very well-attended in person, with an audience of between 20-40 attendees, which includes staff and students from other Welsh Universities (notably Cardiff Met), and Cardiff University students and staff not just from Philosophy, but also from English Literature, Linguistics, Creative Writing, Welsh, and Music.
Finally, as part of our effort to create a pan-Welsh forum, we have brought together colleagues from other Universities, including Cardiff Met and Swansea University, and are currently considering how we may best collaborate to make the Forum accessible to audiences across Wales.
Daisy Dixon & Panos Paris (Cardiff University)
