We are delighted to invite you to submit paper proposals for the 3rd Annual British Society of Aesthetics Postgraduate Conference organised by the Aesthetic Research Centre at the University of Kent on 27th-28th January 2017. The conference is entitled: ‘Art, Aesthetics and Beyond.’ The distinctive aim of the conference is to investigate the boundaries of aesthetics, its relevance for the art world and its intersection with cognate areas in philosophy, such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, moral philosophy.
We are seeking papers that will broadly address this theme and are particularly interested in work that is multi-disciplinary. We will be taking two approaches to presentations, traditional and ‘reverse’. Traditional conference papers are to present an argument or viewpoint for around 25 minutes, followed by a Q&A session – which will be around 15 minutes long. In addition to the traditional conference papers, we will be hosting postgraduate presentations with a twist. Rather than reserving the questions for the end of the presentation, they will come right at the beginning of each presentation. These ‘Reversed Presentations’ invite selected participants to give a five-minute talk on a research question they are struggling with or a particularly challenging or controversial issue they are addressing in their dissertation, after which there will be 15 minutes of discussion. During discussion, the audience will be invited to propose possible solutions, alternative approaches, and suggestions for further reading.
This inversion of the traditional Q&A format is designed to help advance the research of everyone in the room, and we are strongly encouraging all postgraduate students to take part no matter what stage they are at. So if you are in the early stages of a PhD, or perhaps an MA student developing a PhD proposal this session will be highly beneficial, though all are welcome to send in submissions!
For traditional paper presentations, please submit an abstract of no more than 750 words excluding bibliography. For reversed presentations, the abstract should be no longer than 150 words excluding bibliography. For both presentation formats, please also include a short bio in a separate document.
Please send your abstracts for consideration by midnight October 14th 2016 to beyond.bsa@gmail.com . All submissions must be prepared for blind review so please do not include identifying information in your abstract. We aim to notify applicants by 11th November.
Bursaries: A £60 travel grant will be awarded to all postgraduate students (excluding students from the University of Kent) whose papers or proposals for either the traditional paper or ‘Reversed Presentations’ session have been accepted; their conference registration fee will also be waived. There will also be limited additional travel grants for overseas students whose papers have been accepted and, subject to budgetary constraints, also for UK-based postgraduate speakers whose travel costs are significantly high. The number and quantity of these additional travel bursaries will be allocated on a case-by-case basis.
Should you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact us at beyond.bsa@gmail.com
We look forward to hearing from you!
On behalf of the Aesthetics Research Centre at the University of Kent,