The Departments of Philosophy at Auburn University and the University of Warwick, with support from the 糖心视频 and Warwick鈥檚 Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts, will hold a 2-day workshop to consider the nature and importance of aesthetic community. Some of the questions to be explored at the workshop are:

What is needed to sustain a community of taste? Is agreement in taste required? Is taste the right conceptual focus, with respect to aesthetic community? What is the potential for diversity within aesthetic community? Is the notion of a universal community of taste an ill-conceived aspiration or is it important as a regulative ideal? Broadly, what is good, problematic, or unclear in appeals to aesthetic community?

The organisers invite abstracts for papers that will explore the notion of aesthetic community, via some of the workshop鈥檚 central questions or related ones.

The abstracts should be 500-1000 words in length, with a 30-minute presentation in view. Please submit two versions of your file, one fully anonymized (and identified as such in the file name) and one including your name and information about your academic affiliation and career stage. Send abstracts to resourceaesthcomm@warwick.ac.uk by Monday 10 March 2025. Decisions will be made by 7 April.

The organisers especially encourage submissions from PhD and early-career researchers, and welcome and encourage submissions from members of groups currently underrepresented in philosophy. Some speakers will participate as commentators; if your paper is not accepted for presentation, you may still be invited to speak as a commentator. We do not have funding to support attendance at the workshop, but PhD and ECR researchers whose papers are accepted will be urged to apply for聽travel funding directly from the 糖心视频.

The workshop will take place as part of the Workshops at the Manchester Centre for Political Theory, a leading international forum dedicated to the development of research in all subfields of political theory. The workshop will focus on

Controversial art and freedom of expression

In 2017, Dana Schutz鈥檚 painting 鈥淥pen Casket鈥� was exhibited at the prestigious Whitney Biennial in New York. It is a portrait based on a photograph of Emett Till, a black boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. The painting, which was intended to express the author鈥檚 solidarity with the suffering of the boy鈥檚 mother, became the target of criticism. Representatives of the black community decried the use of the iconic image by a non-black person in the context of the art-world and called for the removal of the painting.

The affair raises questions about freedom of expression in art that have not yet been discussed in theoretical debates, although they are pressing for artists, audiences and art institutions. A common debate concerns the extent to which an artist鈥檚 freedom of speech should be respected when their work expresses controversial ideas. But there is also a question about extent to which freedom of speech may be respected when the context of the work鈥檚 creation is controversial. This includes cases where the work has transformed the landscape in a way that is unacceptable to some (e.g., in land art), where the artist has committed significant offences in relation to their collaborators (e.g., the cases of sexual harassment), or where the work appropriates another artefact to which someone has an intimate, if not proprietary, relationship (e.g., the case of Dana Schutz鈥檚 painting).

The workshop will be an opportunity to bring together disciplines that surprisingly meet very little and where there has been so far little discussion of these issues: free speech scholarship and aesthetics/philosophy of art.

Researchers in these fields will address this topic through the following questions:

• Under what conditions can the controversial creation of artworks be a reason to restrict the artist鈥檚 freedom of expression?
• Under what conditions is it possible to respect the artist鈥檚 interest in expressing themselves regardless of the controversial way in which the work was created?
• If we have to balance between the freedom of speech and the counter-arguments concerning the way a work was created, what approach to freedom of speech is best suited to make an appropriate choice between the two? An autonomy-based, truth-based, or democracy-based approach?
• Can the questions about freedom of speech and the controversial ways of creating art be addressed in similar ways as in the case of works that are controversial because of their content? Or are they different issues?
• When the context of creation is problematic, can a specific form of counter-speech be used as a measure, or is this tool reserved only for polemics against content?
• What important controversies can be raised by limiting freedom of speech for works that we remove because of the problematic way they were created? And what important controversies can be caused if we do not intervene?
• Is it also appropriate to consider legislative adjustments in this type of cases?

The organisers invite submissions for talks which should be 35 minutes in length. A limited number of talks may also be held online.

Guidelines for abstract submission
Max. 600 words (excluding references)
Deadline: June 1, 2023
Notification of Acceptance: June 14, 2023
The abstract should include your name and the name of your institution. It should also mention whether you are considering only online participation. Please submit abstracts to: matheson.philosophy@gmail.com

Registration information
Online attendance: Academics: 拢 45.00 PG: 拢 20.00 Non-speaker: 拢 15.00
In Person attendance: Academics: 拢 230.00 PG: 拢 135.00 Dinner: 拢 30

Bursaries
MANCEPT organisers will offer a small number of fee waiver bursaries. The deadline for bursary applications (available to current graduate students only) will be the 27th June, and successful applicants will be informed by 11th July. Only people accepted to present on a panel should apply for bursaries. In order to apply for a bursary please send MANCEPT organisers (mancept-workshops@manchester.ac.uk) a few lines outlining your financial situation. Unfortunately, they cannot accept late bursary applications.

For speakers and contact information, see聽