ANNUAL MEETING INFORMATION: 2025, 2026, and 2027

The article below is an advance publication of the "News from the National Office" column featured regularly in the ASA Newsletter. It is forthcoming in the Summer edition of the ASA Newsletter, and highlights important information about the 83rd, 84th, and 85th Annual Meetings.

We hope to see many of you in Baltimore at the 83rd Annual Meeting next month!

As fall arrives and the new academic year begins, the ASA looks forward to hosting its Annual Meeting, which will commence for the 83^rd time in Baltimore, Maryland at the Lord Baltimore Hotel October 22-25, 2025.

This yearly gathering is always a special occasion for the society and its members. It is a regular opportunity for those who love the arts, philosophy, and the many aesthetic sides of life to enjoy being in community. It is also an occasion for attendees to present new work, revisit well-known ideas, discuss the future of the society, and forge long-lasting relationships. The ASA’s Annual Meeting, thereby, helps sustain the vibrance of the sub-discipline of philosophy described broadly as “aesthetics,” in accordance with our organizational mission.

In addition to its regular program of papers and panels, this year’s meeting features several special events, including three receptions, a Welcoming Luncheon, the Feminist Caucus Committee Lunch, and a catered business meeting open to all registrants. This year, the ASA also highlights two honored speakers: Murray Smith (University of Kent) and Michael Lamason (Executive Director and a founder of the Black Cherry Puppet Theater). Smith will give the Richard Wollheim Lecture on Thursday, October 23, while Lamason will share his expertise in puppetry at the Arthur C. Danto Memorial Lecture on Friday, October 24. For more information about these events and to see the most updated version of the meeting program, please visit the ASA 83rd Annual Meeting webpage.

At the Annual Meeting, we also honor several prize recipients who, in addition to receiving monetary recognition, will present their award-winning work on the main program. Many congratulations to Joseph Kassman-Tod (California State University Fullerton), this year’s recipient of the John Fisher Memorial Prize for his paper entitled “Towards Ideas: A Kantian Aesthetic Virtue.” Congratulations, too, to Juan Carlos Gonzalez (Colorado College) and Mary Gregg (Yonsei University, SUNY Korea) for being the 2025 winners of the Irene H. Chayes New Voices Award. And kudos to Jacob Blitz for being awarded this year's Outstanding Student Paper Prize. Remember to keep your eyes open for the sessions in which their papers will be presented!

As with the four divisional meetings hosted by the ASA each year, the Annual Meeting is organized by dedicated volunteers from the society who curate the program and work together for twelve months preceding the event to ensure the meeting is a success. Special appreciation for the 83^rd Annual Meeting is due to this year’s co-chairs, Adriana Clavel-Vázquez (Tilburg University) and Jonathan Weinberg (University of Arizona), who have assembled a program with 54 original papers, 7 panels, and 2 Author-meets-Critics sessions that represents the wide range of interests and philosophical approaches characteristic of contemporary aesthetics. Additional thanks is owed to their program committee members – Sondra Bacharach, Sergio Gallegos, Shen-yi Liao, Sheila Lintott, Derek Matravers, Shelby Moser, Jeremy Page, and Angela Sun – who helped review an extremely competitive pool of worthy paper and panel submissions this past spring.

At the time of this publication, the organizers are still looking to fill several chair slots. If you see a “TBA” opportunity listed on the current ASA 83rd Annual Meeting program in a session that interests you, please contact the meeting co-chairs at 83rdannualmeeting@gmail.com to express your desire to serve in this important role.

This exciting opportunity to convene as a society is less than two months away, so we remind readers to register for the meeting as soon as possible if you are participating on the program as a presenter, commentator, or chair. The ASA’s guaranteed room rate at the Lord Baltimore hotel will be available only until September 27, 2025 or the room block has sold out (whichever comes first). In the next few weeks, please ensure your membership in the society is up to date, then log in as a member to register for the meeting and any special events you would like to attend. You will receive the hotel booking code in a confirmation email you will be sent after you have registered for the meeting.

The National Office is also pleased to make two new announcements about future Annual Meetings. In 2026, the 84^th Annual Meeting will be held November 18-21 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center hotel. We are delighted to welcome Shelby Moser (University of Utah) as the program chair for this event and thank her in advance for volunteering to organize next year’s meeting.

We are also happy to announce that in 2027 the 85^th Annual Meeting will commence at the Omni Providence hotel in Providence, Rhode Island October 20-23. Many thanks to those society members who, in recent months, have helped the National Office select and secure this lovely location.

If you are interested in volunteering to help organize or participate on the program committee of the 2027 Annual Meeting, please contact the National Office at secretary-treasurer@aesthetics-online.org to let us know you would like to contribute your talents to this event.

We wish everyone a productive start to fall and look forward to seeing many of you in Baltimore in October.

Respectfully submitted,

Renee M. Conroy

Executive Director and Secretary-Treasurer