The Department of Philosophy, Division in Aesthetics and Epistemology, University of Rijeka and the Croatian Society for Analytic Philosophy issues a CFP for the international conference ART AND THE HUMANITIES to be held on September 9 th and 10th , 2025, at the University of Rijeka.
The organisers invite scholars working in aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of education, and other philosophical areas, as well as those coming from any other branch of the humanities such as film studies, literary studies, art criticism or art history, cognitive scientists and media scholars, social scientists, and others interested in questions concerning the arts and humanities in a wide sense of both terms, to join us at a conference dedicated to the exploration of contemporary philosophical issues that arise at the intersection of art and the humanities. The plenary speakers are:
Malcolm Turvey (Tufts University)
Helen Small (University of Oxford)
One aim of the conference is to explore the way in which our discussions about art can profit from art’s embeddedness in a wider cultural background, of which various subjects in the humanities play a central role, as well as to see what is the distinctive manner in which the humanities relate to art and artistic practices, primarily from the perspective of aesthetic education.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
- What is the value of the humanities, and how should we approach that question?
- What are contemporary challenges the humanities are facing, and how should they be addressed?
- What is the role of humanistic research in the creation, engagement, and evaluation of art?
- How should we conceive of art’s relation to humanism?
- What cognitive benefits are available in various art forms, ranging from literary fiction and film to poetry and theater, and how do these relate to distinctly humanistic concerns?
- Does philosophy need empirical research to properly answer its questions?
- How can philosophers cooperate with other scientific domains in order to answer questions about art’s potential to convey knowledge, inspire aesthetic pleasure, or motivate social change?
- What are some of the methodological or conceptual challenges of such cooperation?
In addition to these issues, the organisers are particularly interested in exploring questions related to the contemporary status of the humanities within our culture and education, and about their capacity to respond to urgent social issues such as climate change, immigration, or armed conflicts, primarily in the context of the growing dismissal of their practical value.
The organisers invite submissions for 30 minute presentations to be followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. Please send your title, along with a short abstract (max. 350 words), by May 20th, 2025, to Iris Vidmar Jovanović (ividmar@ffri.uniri.hr). Notification of acceptance will be sent out by June 1st. There is no conference fee.
This conference is organized as a research activity within the AEtNA research project funded by the Croatian Science Foundation. Organizing committee: Iris Vidmar Jovanović, David Collins, Rafe McGregor and Ema Luna Lalić.