Call for Contributions and Guest Editors, 2024

CALLS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

For all the sections in our journal we generally invite submissions on any issue in aesthetics and the philosophy of the arts, taken broadly. We also invite reviews of recently published books in these areas. We can request for a review copy of books with the publisher if we do not have it handy yet. Please contact our reviews editor, Arthur Cools.
Next to a general call for papers, we also invite submissions in the themes specified below. Please find the relevant deadlines for submissions to the different sections below.

CALLS FOR GUEST EDITORS We seek guest editors for special issues to solicit approximately 5 papers on a theme (for Articles, under anonymous peer review regime). Some of the themes are already specified, see below, but we also solicit themes for future special issues. Do no hesitate to contact us with a proposal specifying the necessity and fruitfulness of the theme that you have in mind, and, perhaps, suggesting a guest editor.
We also seek guest editors for Arts & Artists. The editorial board assists with reviewing the contributions in this section. Your selection of contributions may be in line with your own research interests.

(Mark specific deadlines for different sections)

CALLS FOR ARTICLES

7500 words maximum, reviewed anonymously

We welcome articles addressing questions about art and aesthetics. We particularly solicit contributions in upcoming issues of Aesthetic Investigations on the following themes.

In general, we invite guest editors with a strong view on a subject for a special issue. Please send an email to editor@aestheticinvestigations.eu elaborating your subject as well as your aptitude for helping us out as a guest editor.

Volume VII (issue 2), to appear December 2024.

(Guest editors: Mateusz Salwa and Adam Andrzejewski)
Deadline for submissions: 1 June 2024.

Conceived of as all that is banal, ordinary, routine, etc., we typically associate “the everyday” with environments, objects or events that are so familiar and are experienced so directly that they appear necessarily real. This is how aesthetics has tended to approach the everyday. Despite the philosophy of art’s interest in, among other things, questions of artistic or literary fiction, the field of everyday aesthetics has been confined to what is given here and now. It seems, however, that such a perspective should be broadened in such a way as to cover all that belongs to everyday life, including events that absent, yet are closely linked to the unreal, that is to the imaginary. Not only does the everyday define that which exists at present, but it also influences our fears, hopes, desires and fantasies; that is, factors decisive for how we imagine the past and the future. This sort of imaginary everyday may be expressed in various ways – as artistic, cinematic or literary representations – either as utopian or dystopian. It may include a Sci Fi-like visions of the future, or it may show up as events dominated by a climate, economic or demographic crisis. No matter the “look,” “feel” or sense of the imaginary or fictitious everyday has, it impacts the real everyday, since such factors, however imaginary, shape our everyday life. Moreover, if the everyday surrounding us has an important aesthetic aspect, as everyday aesthetics claims, then the imaginary or fictitious everyday must be equally impactful. Hence, we invite papers that reflect upon such issues as:

• aesthetic experience of the imaginary or fictitious everyday
• ontology and aesthetics of the imaginary or fictitious everyday
• impact of imaginary the fictious everyday on the aesthetic experience of the real everyday
• relationships between the imaginary or fictitious everyday and the real everyday
• the everyday in cinema, literature, comic books and other art forms
• the everyday as a Sci Fi, fantasy or horror motif
• the imaginary everyday and escapism
• the imaginary everyday as a utopia or dystopia
• the imaginary everyday and emotions

 

 

CALLS FOR PAPERS IN ARTS & ARTISTS

3000 words max.

Contributions to the Arts & Artists-section are not reviewed anonymously, and should not normally exceed 3000 words. For our Arts & Artists section we welcome short texts addressing questions about particular artists and their art. We particularly solicit papers attempting to initiate or refresh aesthetic discussion in our journal on the following themes:

Ongoing theme for Arts & Artists essays:
Which philosophical problem(s) do you feel you are dealing with in your art today? This may be expanded to: Which philosophical problem(s) is artist X dealing with in their art today?
Alternatively, you can seek to discuss an artist or œvre consistent with the call for the current special issue (see the calls for Articles, above).

CALLS FOR SHORT PAPERS IN FRESH

3500 words max.

Contributions to the Fresh section are not reviewed anonymously, and should not normally exceed 3500 words. For our Fresh section we welcome short texts addressing questions about art and aesthetics. We particularly solicit papers attempting to initiate or refresh aesthetic discussion in our journal on the themes of our special issues, see above with the Articles; and on the following themes:

Ongoing theme for Fresh essays:
Why ... aesthetics / Why aesthetic ...(author to fill in the dots.)
What is your conception of aesthetics? Aesthetic Investigations requests philosophical responses (of no more than 3000 words) to our open-ended discussion on “Why ...Aesthetics”, inviting aestheticians to defend anything from evolutionary aesthetics, the reduction of aesthetics to the philosophy of perception, the tendency toward neuro-aesthetics, the search for wonder, the focus on surprise, or the objections to any of these.