Voting Open for New Trustees

Voting is now open for new trustees of the American Society for Aesthetics.

Only current ASA members are eligible to vote.

• Log into the ASA web site. https://aesthetics-online.org/
• Look for the big red Members button on the upper right.
• Click the drop-down submenu for Trustee Elections and follow the instructions.

The ASA members are electing three new trustees this December.  As provided in the ASA By-laws, Article VII, the current Board of Trustees has nominated six ASA members to stand for election.

The nominees are: Gemma Argüello-Manresa, Christopher Bartel, Kristin Boyce, John Dyck, Saul Fisher, and Elizabeth Scarbrough. The three trustees elected will serve for three-year terms (February 1, 2024 - January 31, 2026).

No additional nominees were received for any of these positions. Voting is being conducted on the ASA web site from December 3 – December 31, 2023 (through 12 midnight EST). Cumulative voting is allowed for Trustee (i.e., you may cast all three of your votes for trustee for the same person). Results will be announced as soon as possible after voting closes.

Ivan Gaskell, Thi Nguyen, and Aili Whalen will complete their terms as trustees on January 31, 2024. For more information on the current 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.

This web site will only let members who have logged in vote in this election. You will only be permitted by the site to vote once. Please vote carefully, as it will not be possible to change your vote later. The site administrators will know who has voted, but not how they voted.

Bios of the nominees are available below.

NOMINEES FOR ASA TRUSTEE

• Gemma Argüello-Manresa  is a researcher, adjunct professor at the Department of Philosophy at UNAM, and curator. Her research focuses on Aesthetics and Politics, Feminist Aesthetics , and Performative and Socially Engaged Practices. Her work has been published in the USA, Netherlands, UK, Holland, Australia, France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico. Recently she was beneficiary with other researchers of the Fellowship of the Jumex Contemporary Art Foundation (2021,  2023) and the Fellowship of the Patronato de Arte Contemporáneo (2022) with the collaborative research, book and exhibition "Coordenadas móviles: Redes de colaboración entre mujeres en la cultura y el arte (1975 -1986 )”, as well as the Support Program for Production and Research in Art, Media, and Disability (2021) for her accessible book "Arquitectura hostil. Tecnologías urbanas de la exclusión" (2022). For the ASA she plans to promote race, ethnicity, and gender diversity and inclusion, as well as the work in Aesthetics of underrepresented groups.
  
  
• Christopher Bartel is Professor of Philosophy at Appalachian State University. His research interests primarily focus on video games, music, and technology ethics. He is the author of Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy: Killing Time  (Bloomsbury 2020) and is currently writing his second book, Aesthetics and Video Games (Bloomsbury). His essays have appeared in the  Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism as well as in the British Journal of Aesthetics,  Ethics and Information Technology, and the European Journal of Philosophy. His service to the ASA includes co-chairing the Eastern Division Meeting, serving on the program committee for the national meeting, and organizing small workshops on behalf of the ASA. He is also acting as co-chair of the ASA’s annual meeting in Chicago, 2024. His goals for the ASA include expanding and diversifying membership, and increasing engagement with academics who work in adjacent fields to philosophy.
  
  
• Kristin Boyce is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Mississippi State University. Her primary interests are in the philosophical significance of the arts, especially literature, dance and film.  She has been on the Organizing Committee for both Eastern Division and National meetings of the ASA.  She has also organized two conferences with the support of Major Initiative Grants from the ASA. The most recent of these, "Making Space for Lucy: Philosophy, Race and the Arts in Nashville Ballet's Lucy Negro Redux," brought the artists who created the work into conversation with Junior and and Senior Scholars from African and African American Studies, Philosophy, and Performance Studies.  As a trustee, she would be especially interested in finding ways to foster more robust participation in the ASA from artists as well as from scholars in fields that are adjacent to the academic discipline of philosophical aesthetics . 
  
  
• John Dyck is Lecturer in Philosophy at Auburn University. His research focuses on philosophy of music, philosophy of film, and the border between aesthetic value and aesthetic agency. He has published in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, European Journal of Philosophy, British Journal of Philosophy, and JAAC. John has organized or co-organized both divisional (Eastern) ASA meetings and ASA-funded conferences, including the Graduate Conference in Aesthetics. John believes that, at its best, the ASA provides an excellent model of academic community. He would help to build opportunities for early-career researchers within that community, so that we can keep welcoming new people in. He would advocate for non-tenure-track faculty. His goals for the ASA include (1) greater engagement with aestheticians and aesthetics groups outside of the United States; (2) more interdisciplinary engagement; (3) more engagement surrounding issues in popular culture, to highlight the profile of aesthetics for inclusivity and outreach.
  
  
• Saul Fisher is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Provost for Research, Grants, and Academic Initiatives at Mercy University (NY). He received his PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center, MA from Rice University, and AB from Columbia University. Previously, Fisher was Associate Provost and Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College; Director of Fellowship Programs of the American Council of Learned Societies; and program officer at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Fisher’s research focuses on philosophy of architecture—for which he was awarded a Graham Foundation grant (2009)—and on intersects of aesthetics with social and behavioral science. He has reviewed for JAAC, served on the ASA 2015 Annual Meeting Program Committee, and currently chairs the ASA Diversity Committee.   His institutional priorities for the ASA include fiscal care and effectiveness; collaboration with scholarly partner organizations and individuals; internationalization; and inclusive diversity in all dimensions.
  
  
• Elizabeth Scarbrough (she/they) is an associate teaching professor at Florida International University. Scarbrough's research has focused on the beauty of immovable cultural heritage (such as ruins). This research has been published as journal articles (The Philosopher's Magazine, JAAC, Journal of Applied Philosophy), in book chapters (e.g., Philosophical Perspectives on Ruins, Monuments, and Memorials), and in more public-facing work (e.g., in Aesthetics for Birds). Recent work on the ethics and aesthetics of racist monuments has been published in The Philosopher's Magazine and Aesthetics for Birds. Current projects include work on perfume and memory, architectural preservation, cinematic experience, and tourism and gender. She currently serves as the co-chair of the Feminist Caucus Committee for the ASA and has served as co-chair for the ASA’s Southern Aesthetics Workshop. They also worked in audio engineering and as a 35 mm projectionist at art house cinemas in the Pacific Northwest.  elizabethscarbrough.com