Guest Editor
Andrej Démuth, Comenius University (Slovakia)
What is beauty? Even after 300 years of modern aesthetic research, we do not have a generally acceptable definition of beauty. What is the reason? Do we even need a definition of beauty? Is beauty still necessary for Aesthetics and for everyday life? And what can current scientific research tell us about beauty?
Probably due to the decline of modernism and postmodernism – which minimized the importance of beauty in art – and attempts to base (neuro)aesthetics on scientific foundations (Zeki 1999, Ramachandran 1999, Chatterjee 2015), at the end of the last century beauty came once again to the centre of aesthetic research. Examples of such rehabilitation of beauty can be found in Danto (2003), Sartwell (2004), Nehamas (2007), Scruton (2009) and others. It was evident from these works that the classical concept and understanding of beauty required intense revision and reframing, in the sense of Derrida’s deconstruction: theorists needed to go back to the source of the issue and phenomena. The last decade has also witnessed a growing interest in beauty, e.g. in the Aesthetics of Everyday Life, Environmental Aesthetics, but also in the onset of empirical research in the field of Empirical Aesthetics (e.g. Menninghaus, 2019) as well as in many other areas.
Are we ready for a re-evaluation of beauty – for rethinking the role of beauty in art and everyday life? Is the topic of beauty still needed and attractive for aesthetics? Is this the right time to reframe beauty – in concepts, the body, environment, and art?
To promote discussion on this timely issue, ESPES – The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics intends to dedicate a special Thematic Issue to the topic: Reframing beauty: body, environment, art, guest-edited by Andrej Démuth (Comenius University, Bratislava).
We encourage predominantly philosophical-aesthetic studies that set out to rethink the ‘essence’ and role of beauty in the context of contemporary interdisciplinary knowledge, (contemporary) art, as well as in everyday aesthetic experience.
Subtopics:
Beauty in historical perspectives
Beauty in the era of digital media
Beauty as a synonym for aesthetic value
Beauty in contemporary art
Beauty and the body
Beauty and the city
Beauty and the environment
Beauty in the language
Beauty in the Cognitive Sciences
Instructions
Types of Contributions
Research articles are original contributions that initiate a debate, offer a point of view on current trends in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, or introduce a scholarly discussion. Contributions to the Research articles section should not normally exceed 7,500 words (including bibliography). An abstract in English should be added of no more than 150 words.
Interviews offer a portrait of the life and work of leading figures in contemporary Everyday Aesthetic debates. Contributions to the Interviews section should not exceed 3500 words and the proposal must be formerly discussed with the editors before submission.
Translations include seminal essays in different languages newly translated into English. The translated essays are selected based on their relevance for the development of current discourses in Everyday Aesthetics. Contributions to the Translations section should not normally exceed 7,500 words and must be formerly discussed with the editors.
Stylistic Guidelines
Language of Contribution: English.
The complete formatting instructions are available at: shorturl.at/ftESY. Submissions that do not comply with these instructions will be returned to the author.
All submissions will undergo a double-blind review process.
Timeline
Submission deadline: May 31, 2023 Publication date: December 2023
Submission via espes.ff.unipo.sk. If you have any questions, please contact the editors at: espes@ff.unipo.sk