The ASA Pacific Division meeting convened at the Asilomar Conference Grounds for the 40th consecutive year April 9-11, 2014. Following recent tradition, the program included two panel sessions and fourteen papers with commentary. The Thursday evening panel was an author-meets-critics session dedicated to Dominic McIver Lopes’ 2014 monograph Beyond Art (Oxford University Press) in which Lopes challenges recent approaches to art theory and advocates a ‘buck passing theory of art’; commentary was provided by Thomas Adajian, Renee Conroy, and Stephen Davies. On Friday morning, attendees enjoyed a panel addressing a variety of issues related to everyday aesthetics with papers offered by David Goldblatt, Carol Gould, and Thomas Leddy. Individual papers were presented on a wide range of topics including standard debates about the nature of aesthetic judgment, the ontology of art, and the epistemic potential of artworks as well as more unusual subjects such as ancient pots, puppets, and humor. Papers were authored by: Anthony Cross, Eva Dadlez and Chelsea Haramia, David Davies, John Dyck, Jeffrey Goodman, James Hamilton, Peter Kivy, Derek Matravers, Stephanie Patridge and Andrew Jordan, Belinda Piercy, Madeleine Ransom, Tanya Rodriguez, William Seeley, and Larry Shiner. All the commentaries were thought-provoking and prompted animated discussion that continued at favorite local eateries well into the night. There were forty-four participants from Canada, New Zealand, the U.K, and the U.S., including eight graduate students whose contributions were noted by all to be uniformly enthusiastic and intellectually sophisticated.

The conference organizers were Renee Conroy and Anna Pakes, who would like to thank all the members of the program whose extra efforts made the conference a success. We extend special thanks to Donald Crawford and Russell Quacchia for producing a chronicle of the Pacific Division Meeting of the ASA that included (almost) every conference program since its inception and for making this historical document available to the conference attendees. We also extend special appreciation to Derek Matravers and Peter Kivy for offering thoughtful remembrances of Lee Brown and Ted Cohen.

Continuing the policy adopted in the 2013 business meeting of having conference organizers serve two year terms to improve continuity and preserve institutional knowledge, the 2014 organizers will be Anna Pakes and William Seeley. The Pacific Division meeting will again convene in Pacific Grove, CA at the Asilomar Conference Grounds April 8-10, 2015: the deadline for paper or panel submissions is November 1, 2014. For more information please see the ASA website or email asapacific2015@gmail.com. We hope to see you in sunny California next spring!

Renee Conroy
Anna Pakes