Nominees Announced for ASA Trustee and Vice-President

The American Society for Aesthetics announces an election for two new trustees and a new Vice-President in December 2024. As provided in the ASA By-laws, Article VII, the current Board of Trustees has nominated four ASA members to stand for election as trustee. The trustees elected will serve for three-year terms (February 1, 2025 - January 31, 2028). Bios of the nominees will be available in the December 2024 ASA Newsletter, the ASA Web site, and bulk email announcements to all ASA members.

NOMINEES FOR ASA TRUSTEE

• Luvell Anderson is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the semantics, ethics, and aesthetics of racial language and racial humor. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Ethics of Racial Humor and has published numerous articles on humor and satire, as well as done interviews on humor for podcasts with The Point Magazine and The Prindle Institute for Ethics. He was a member of the planning committee for the 81^st annual meeting in 2023. As a trustee, his primary goal would be to increase participation in the organization by scholars of color working on aesthetic issues.

• Darren Hudson Hick is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Furman University. His work lies at the intersection of aesthetics, law, and ethics, focusing centrally on matters of authorship, intellectual property, artist–audience relationships, and associated issues. He has published several books, including Introducing Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art  and Artistic License: The Philosophical Problems of Copyright and Appropriation. His articles have been published in  JAAC, BJA, and Contemporary Aesthetics , as well as a variety of generalist philosophy journals, law journals, psychology journals, and collected volumes. He has been a member of the ASA for nearly 20 years, and has served on the program committees for the National, Eastern, and SAW meetings, and is currently co-chair of the Eastern Division meeting. As a trustee, his central goals for the ASA would include supporting continued efforts in diversity initiatives, as well as increasing support for contingent faculty and independent scholars.

• Sheila Lintott is a Professor of Philosophy and Affiliated Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at Bucknell University. She has been a member of the ASA for 25 years. During that time she has served the society in a variety of ways, including as program co-chair for the Annual and Pacific Division meetings, co-chair of the ASA Feminist Caucus, co-editor of the ASA Newsletter, and program chair of the ASA sponsored conference, The Ethics and Aesthetics of Stand-Up Comedy. She publishes on a broad array of topics, from environmental art and friendship to pregnancy and stand-up comedy. Sheila is especially interested in expanding the scope of aesthetics within the society and beyond and increasing the visibility of aesthetics within philosophy to grow and diversify membership and participation in the ASA.
  
  
• Nils-Hennes Stear earned his PhD at Michigan and is now assistant professor of aesthetics at Uppsala. Most of his work spans aesthetics, ethics, and feminist philosophy. It has appeared in JAAC, the BJA, Ethics, Hypatia, as elsewhere. An ASA member since 2012, he has attended every annual meeting, and several regional ones, since. Besides participating in two program committees and the feminist caucus, he has served as diversity committee chair (2019-2021) and annual meeting program chair (2022); drafted and spearheaded the Irene Chayes Award; and conceived and instituted the Welcoming Luncheon—all in collaboration with valued ASA colleagues and friends. Nils’ priorities include (1) finding actionable, effective ways to make the ASA more inclusive and just; (2) expanding the ASA’s membership and reach; and (3) maximizing the benefit of the Society’s multimillion dollar endowment, while ensuring it continues to protect against future financial challenges. For further information, see here: http://nilsstear.me.

The Trustees have also nominated two ASA members for Vice-President. The new Vice-President will serve a two-year term from February 1, 2025 - January 31, 2027, and will then ascend to the Presidency for two years.

NOMINEES FOR ASA VICE-PRESIDENT

• Sherri Irvin is Presidential Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma and longtime member of the ASA. She has served in many roles including trustee, program chair for the Annual and Pacific meetings, and member of the JAAC editorial board. She recently co-chaired the committee to recruit a new Secretary-Treasurer candidate and recommend structural changes in the role and workload. She has published on many topics in aesthetics and is author of Immaterial: Rules in Contemporary Art (Oxford, 2022) and editor of Body Aesthetics (Oxford, 2016). Her goals include (1) expanding our efforts to make the ASA a welcoming and inclusive community, (2) enhancing the visibility of aesthetics by supporting innovative conferences and forms of research dissemination, (3) supporting early-career and contingently employed aestheticians, and (4) ensuring that the society is prepared to weather challenges in a shifting higher ed and publication landscape.

• Peg Brand Weiser has withdrawn.

Additional nominations can be made by any eight members of the Society. All such additional nominations, with the signatures of eight supporting members, must be filed with the Secretary-Treasurer no later than the two weeks following the annual meeting (November 9, 2024). These can be sent by e-mail (secretary-treasurer@aesthetics-online.org) or through the US Mail (American Society for Aesthetics, 1550 Larimer Street #644, Denver, CO 80202-1602).

Voting will be conducted on the ASA web site from December 1-31, 2024, with an announcement of winners in early January. All members of ASA in 2024 are eligible to vote by logging into the web site, looking for the red "Members" button in the upper-right, and clicking the "Trustee elections" sub-menu. Members unable to vote on-line should notify the Secretary-Treasurer no later than December 1, 2024, and will be sent a mail-in ballot; notification should be sent to the ASA mailing address, above. Sondra Bacharach and Jennifer Judkins will complete their terms as trustees on January 31, 2025. 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.

Updated November 12, 2024