ASA Election Results Announced

The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce the results of the election of a new Vice-President and three new Trustees. The three new trustees will serve for three-year terms (February 1, 2021 - January 31, 2024). The Vice-President will serve from February 1, 2021 – January 31, 2023 and will then become President for a two-year term. 

Paul C. Taylor has been elected Vice-President. He teaches at Vanderbilt University, where he is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy and chair of the philosophy department. He has earned degrees from Morehouse College, Rutgers University, and the Kennedy School. His research focuses primarily on aesthetics, critical race theory, and Africana philosophy. His books include Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics, which received the ASA’s monograph prize in 2017. A longtime member of the ASA, Taylor served on the ASA’s first diversity committee (2009) and has since served on the annual meeting program committee (2010 and 2017) and on the board of trustees (2017-20). Taylor has three primary goals as a member of the ASA leadership: 1) making aesthetics a more visible and viable area for professional philosophers; 2) bolstering the sustainability and efficiency of ASA operations; and 3) expanding the ASA community and its horizons.

The three newly-elected trustees are Aili Bresnahan, Ivan Gaskell, and C. Thi Nguyen. 

Aili Bresnahan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton and is a 2020-21 Fulbright Research Scholar for “Cross-Cultural Ethical Agency in Dance and Philosophy” at the Centre for Dance Research at Roehampton University in London. She is a former professional-level ballet dancer with a PhD in philosophy from Temple University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center. Her primary areas of research are in the philosophy of dance and performance, improvisation, interpretation, and style. Among publications in philosophy and in dance studies journals and anthologies, she is the author of “The Philosophy of Dance” entry forThe Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Her service to the ASA includes Co-Chairing the ASA Eastern Division meeting, ASA national program committee membership, Vice-Chairing the ASA’s Diversity Caucus, and being Editor and Mentor for ASAGE. Goals include being part of ASA executive decision-making and supporting its diversity and equity efforts.

Ivan Gaskell is Professor of Cultural History at Bard Graduate Center. An active member since 1998, Gaskell has spoken at thirteen ASA meetings. He is a long-term member of the Feminist Caucus Committee, and joined the Diversity Committee at its inception. He has contributed three articles to JAAC, for which he regularly reviews submissions. Gaskell served on the Program Committee three times, and was a trustee between 2004 and 2007. The author of numerous articles and chapters in philosophy, history, and art history, he has published sixteen books, including Paintings and the Past: Philosophy, History, Art (2019). As an interdisciplinary scholar, and an immigrant of culturally and ethnically mixed origins, Gaskell's ambitions for the ASA include expanding its fields of inquiry, enhancing membership diversification by inviting participation by scholars of color, fostering the empowerment of women members, and supporting students and early career scholars through programing and grants.

C. Thi Nguyen is as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. He has recently published aesthetics work in Mind, Phil Imprint, Ergo, and Phil Review — and a book, Games: Agency as Art. He has served as the Program Chair of the 2020 ASA Annual, Chair of the Diversity Committee, and organized a number of workshops in aesthetics. He is also Associate Editor of Aesthetics for Birds, and Associate Producer of aesthetics content for the YouTube philosophy channel, Wireless Philosophy. His goals for the ASA include working to increase the visibility of aesthetics in the profession and the world at large. Aesthetics work is among the most sensitive and exciting in philosophy, and its lowly status deserves correction. Bringing aesthetics to a wider audience is a long-term plan for increasing the number of jobs in aesthetics. His goals also include diversifying the ASA, in content and membership.

Voting was conducted on the ASA web site from December 1-31, 2020. María José Alcaraz León, John Gibson, and Jonathan Neufeld will complete their terms as trustees on January 31, 2021. Kathleen Higgins will complete her service as Past President on January 31, 2021. David Davies will become President of the ASA on February 1, 2021 for a two-year term.

For more information on the trustees and the ASA By-laws, see the ASA Web page (http://aesthetics-online.org). Look for the "ASA" red button in the upper-right and click the "About the ASA" sub-menu. Two new trustees will be elected in December 2021.