Outstanding Monograph Prize

Deadline: February 1, 2026

Revised November 20, 2017.

Each year, The American Society for Aesthetics awards a prize for an outstanding monograph in the philosophy of art or aesthetics that was published in the previous calendar year. The selection is made by a committee appointed by the ASA President. The committee members remain anonymous. The review of books by that committee commences in the spring of each year. Anyone may nominate a book. Self-nominations are encouraged.

Only one nomination per year will be accepted.

To be considered, a book must meet the following conditions:
(1) the US publication date must be the previous year,
(2) the book must be an original work written in English,
(3) the author must be a member of The American Society for Aesthetics (in the case of joint authors, at least one must be a member),
(4) the book must be a monograph in aesthetics or the philosophy of art, including the aesthetics or philosophy of individual arts (‘monograph’ is intended to exclude translations, collections of essays, text books, anthologies, introductions and other works intended for a popular audience, and reprints of earlier editions). The judgment of the selection committee as to eligibility is final.

Nominations from publishers or individual authors should be accompanied by at least three copies of the book, and should be received no later than February 1. They should be sent to:
The American Society for Aesthetics
32650 State Route 20 Ste B102
PMB 30
Oak Harbor, WA 98277

The prize, which is $1000 plus reasonable travel expenses to the annual meeting, is announced at the annual meeting.

Outstanding Monograph Prize Winners

Kathleen Higgins, Aesthetics in Grief and Mourning: Philosophical Reflections on Coping with Loss (2025)

Alva Noë, The Entanglement: How Art and Philosophy Make Us What We Are (2024)

Theodore Gracyk, Making Meaning in Popular Song: Philosophical Essays (2023)

Hanneke Grootenboer, The Pensive Image: Art as a Form of Thinking (2022)

Jonathan Gilmore, Apt Imaginings: Feelings for Fictions and Other Creatures of the Mind (2021)

Rachel Zuckert, Herder's Naturalist Aesthetics (2020)

Michael Newall, A Philosophy of the Art School (2019)

Yuriko Saito, Aesthetics of the Familiar: Everyday Life and Worldmaking (2018)

Paul C. Taylor, Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics (2017)

Peter Kivy, De Gustibus: Arguing about Taste and Why We Do It (2016)

Paul Guyer, A History of Modern Aesthetics (2015)

Christy Mag Uidhir, Art and Art-Attempts (2014)

Kathleen Higgins, The Music Between Us: Is Music a Universal Language? (2013)

Whitney Davis, Queer Beauty: Sexuality and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Freud and Beyond (2012)

Peter Lamarque, Work and Object: Explorations in the Metaphysics of Art (2011)

Dominic McIver Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art (2010)

Allen Carlson and Glenn Parsons, Functional Beauty (2009)

Rachel Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment (2008)