ASA Rocky Mountain Division Announces Call for Abstracts for 2022 Meeting

The Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Division of the American Society for Aesthetics will take place at the Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 15-17, 2022.

The Call for Abstracts is now available: Word format  PDF format

We welcome presentations in all fields and disciplines pertaining to the history, application, and appreciation of aesthetic understanding. We are always particularly interested in research involving interdisciplinary and intercultural approaches emphasizing the natural and cultural character of the American Southwest.

The conference is organized into 1.5-hour sessions with each of three speakers allotted 20-25 minutes to present and 5 minutes for Q & A. The ASARMD Division’s long-standing practice has been to invite proposals, in the form of abstracts, for papers that speakers wish to present. Proposals should be no more than 250 words in length and follow the format of a typical abstract, which is to say, offer a formal, albeit succinct, summary of the work to be presented, including conclusion(s) to be drawn. Panel presentations should consist of either three or four papers and include each participant’s abstract.

Proposals are due March 15 and must be submitted via EasyChair . Documents must be in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format. Notifications of acceptance and rejection will be made via EasyChair as well. If you are interested in organizing an entire panel of three or four papers for the conference, please query the officers for information about how to put together a panel proposal. Panel proposals must have at least three participants. We encourage complete panel proposals.

Conditions of Acceptance

• Membership: Non-members may submit papers or panel proposals, but must join the ASA within thirty days of acceptance of their contribution to avoid removal from the program. All participants must be ASA members and register for the meeting.
• Duplication: Papers presented at another 2022 ASA Division meeting, the ASA Annual Meeting, or the 2022 ASA/BSA Virtual Summer Festival are not eligible for the 2022 RMD Meeting.
• Either/Or: People may submit one paper or be included on one panel proposal, but not both.
• Attendance: All presenters must be able to attend in person.

Our conference is annually held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a region that is still recognized as O’gah’poh geh Owingeh, meaning “White Shell Water Place,” by the Tewa people. This region was inhabited for thousands of years by the communities of the Northern and Southern Tewa, and this area is richly described in the oral traditions of the Nambe Pueblo, the Diné, Cochiti, Tao, and Hopi Pueblos. The Santa Fe area was colonized by the Spanish in the 17^th Century, and this colonization resulted in the displacement and subjugation of these indigenous people groups.

As a conference, we acknowledge this indigenous and colonial history, and we pledge allyship to the peoples and traditions colonial practices have harmed and violently displaced. The Rocky Mountain Division of the American Society for Aesthetics will strive to perpetuate the stories of the indigenous people who call Santa Fe their ancestral home, and we see acknowledgement of these realities as a first step toward equity for these peoples.

Because of our commitment to the traditions and history of Santa Fe, we have a specific interest in the aesthetics of indigenous and Latinx communities geographically adjacent to our division. To this end, we are excited to announce the O’gah’poh geh Owingeh Essay Prize. We are interested in essays of 3000 words in length devoted to Latinx and/or Native American indigenous art practice and cultural thought. This prize is not merely devoted to traditions and peoples of the American Southwest, as our division extends into the Rocky Mountain region of Canada; we encourage submissions devoted to Canadian First Nation aesthetics as well. Essays may draw from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, but they should advance and advocate for greater representation from these communities and to promote allyship and shared understanding, both within the academy and beyond.

Winners of this prize will receive a $500 award and their conference fee will be waived. The winner will be asked to read their essay in a special session of the conference program. Those who wish to submit their essay for the prize should provide both an abstract  via EasyChair by March 15 and a full, complete essay for consideration (pdf, .doc, .docx format) by May 15 to Jeremy Killian ( jkillian@memphis.edu).

The Center for Philosophical Studies (CPS) at Lamar University will again be offering its Best Graduate Student in Philosophy Essay Prizes, up to 4 awards, in the amount of $125.00 each. Dr. Arthur Stewart, CPS Director, and Professor James Mock, of the University of Central Oklahoma, will serve as primary referees. Professor Eva Dadlez, also of UCO, will serve as a third, tie-breaking voter, should the need arise.

Competition Procedure: Graduate students in philosophy should provide along with their abstracts (due March 15  via EasyChair ) information about their official degree aspirations and academic affiliation. Upon acceptance to the program, full completed essays will be required and will be due no later than May 15. They should be sent to: afstewart@lamar.edu  and to jmock@uco.edu . Referees’ decisions will be announced no later than June 1.

Irene H. Chayes Travel Fund

The Division has $1000 provided by the American Society for Aesthetics to support travel to the meeting for persons with papers accepted for the program who have no other access to professional travel funds at their teaching institution(s) during the academic year.

To be eligible for a travel grant from these funds:

• You must be a member of ASA in good standing in the calendar year of the paper submission and presentation and you must register for the meeting.
• Eligible persons include faculty members, independent scholars, and students.
• If you have some access to travel funds from your institution but prefer to use it for a different meeting, you are not eligible for a Chayes Travel Grant this year.

To apply for a travel grant this year:

• Submit your abstract via EasyChair  as you normally would by March 15.
• Include at the end of your abstract a statement that you wish to be considered for a Chayes travel grant and an explanation of why you are eligible.

The Division’s review committee will make the final decisions on which persons receive a Chayes travel grant and the amounts.

The British Society of Aesthetics has a program that provides travel grants for full-time students and recent PhDs to present their work at an aesthetics meeting not sponsored by BSA. That includes all four ASA divisional meetings. If you are eligible for those funds, it will be possible to combine grants from both BSA and ASA Chayes funds for your travel.

Registration Fees and Hotel Rates

Registration Fees

• Regular Registration: $135 (early bird rate, up to one week prior to the conference; $5 surcharge for onsite registration)
• Emeritus Faculty, Unemployed, and Students: $75

To register for the conference, please go to: http://aesthetics-online.org/

June 2 is the deadline for reserving hotel rooms. The conference room rate at the Drury Plaza Hotel for registered ASARMD conference attendees is as follows:

• Single/Double Room: $179.
• Triple Room: $189.
• Quad Room: $199.0

The guestroom rate will be extended for guests arriving/departing three days pre/post conference dates, based on availability.

Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe is the home of the world-renowned Santa Fe Opera, and many of our members attend performances on Friday and Saturday of our conference. During the conference, the Opera is offering performances of Bizet’s Carmen and Verdi’s Falstaff. Tickets can be obtained at www.santafeopera.org .

For more information about the meeting: https://aesthetics-online.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1173362&group=