The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce that it has funded a new workshop from its Major Grants Initiative program.

This two-day event will be held at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama on April 17-18, 2026.

Invited speakers from the University of Warwick include: Diarmuid Costello, Eileen John, and Eliza Starbuck Little.

Image from Auburn University website (https://calendar.auburn.edu/department/office_of_the_provost)

Workshop Information

Abstracts will be accepted until February 25, 2026.

Call for Abstracts (full version)

Basic CFA Information

What is needed to sustain a community of taste? Is agreement in taste required? Is taste the right conceptual focus with respect to aesthetic community, or is it outdated and limited? What is the potential for diversity within aesthetic communities? How can aesthetic modes of presentation and activity constitute meaningful relationships? How do aesthetic communities simultaneously both include and exclude, and what is the aesthetic and ethical significance of these functions? How should we think about the public nature of aesthetic and artistic objects of attention and their potential to give us access to reality, including the reality of other minds? What are the intersecting and differing roles of reasons and norms for conversations within aesthetic communities? What is the role of art and beauty in destabilizing community? Broadly, what is good, problematic, or unclear in various appeals to aesthetic community?

We invite abstracts for papers that will explore the notion of aesthetic community, via some of the workshop’s central questions or related ones.

The abstracts should be 500-1000 words in length, with a 30-minute presentation in view. Please submit two versions of your file, one fully anonymized (and identified as such in the file name) and one including your name and information about your academic affiliation and career stage. Send abstracts to kzg0003@auburn.edu by February 25, 2026. Decisions will be made by March 2.

We especially encourage submissions from PhD and early-career researchers, and we welcome and encourage submissions from members of groups currently underrepresented in philosophy. Some speakers will participate as commentators; if your paper is not accepted for presentation, you may still be invited to speak as a commentator. We do not have funding to support travel to the workshop, but the meals during the workshop will be covered. 

Questions? Contact Keren Gorodeisky at kzg0003@auburn.edu.