AESTHETIC LITERACY VOL.1

Mont Publishing House & Valery Vino
Aesthetic Literacy: A Book for Everyone Volume I
First Edition
Print Read PDF, 279 pages, A5 sized, Summer 2022
(Out of print! Second edition forthcoming from Mongrel Matter.)

Aesthetic Literacy: A Book for Everyone is a three volume series of books in aesthetic education. Volume I features 50 contributors from around the world in an eclectic range of styles. Subjects span the exploration of canonical thinkers to experimental and critical interrogation of aesthetics.





Contents and Contributors:

An Adage  by Arnold Berleant
Arnold Berleant is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Long Island University, former Secretary-General and Past President of the International Association of Aesthetics, former Secretary-Treasurer of the American Society for Aesthetics, and the founding editor of Contemporary Aesthetics. His books and articles in philosophy focus on aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, and ethics.

I. 1  A Philosophical Walk During COVID Times  by Thomas Leddy
Thomas Leddy is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at San Jose State University. He is a specialist in Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics having published several articles in the field.  His book The Extraordinary in the Ordinary:  The Aesthetics of Everyday Life was published by Broadview Press in 2012.  

I. 2  Never Without A Perception by Clive Cazeaux
Clive Cazeaux is Professor of Aesthetics in the School of Art and Design at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK. He is the author of Art, Research, Philosophy (Routledge 2017) and Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: From Kant to Derrida (Routledge 2007), and the editor of The Continental Aesthetics Reader (Routledge 2011, 2nd edition). His main areas of philosophical interest are aesthetics from Kant to phenomenology, and the philosophies of artistic research audio drama, and metaphor, especially the role metaphor plays in how we carve up the world and think.

I. 3 Aesthetic Dimension: Dynamic Sensibility by Mónica Uribe-Flores
Mónica Uribe-Flores (b. Mexico City, 1968) is Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Guanajuato, Mexico. Aside from book chapters and articles, she has published the books La interpretación estética como experiencia del arte; Addison. Los albores de la estética moderna; and Descartes.

I. 4 Z-K: A Dialogue on Aesthetics by Katya Mandoki and Eddy M. Zemach
Katya Mandoki, born in 1947 in Mexico. Has published eight books on everyday aesthetics and evolutionary aesthetics in Spanish and English, the most recent The indispensable excess of the aesthetic . She studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Visual Arts and Art History at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico. She presented various artworks on individual and collective art exhibitions and is presently professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico.
Eddy M. Zemach was born 1935, in Jerusalem, Palestine (now Israel). He published ten books in English and Hebrew on aesthetics and literature. Zemach studied at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Yale University. He was lecturer at the former and is now retired Professor Emeritus. Zemach has been considered one of the most brilliant Hebrew philosophical minds and salient analytical thinkers.

I. 5 Scale and Proportion: Guiding Beauty  by Lars Straehler-Pohl
Lars Straeher-Pohl graduated in Philosophy, Psychology and History at Freie Universität Berlin. Simultaneously he was educated in orchestral conducting. Publications focus on aesthetics of music, philosophy of mind and the hermeneutics of psychology. Straehler-Pohl is conductor of various orchestras. Centrepiece of his interdisciplinary artistic work is the question of presence.

I. 6  How to Say “Beauty” in Ancient Greek  by David Konstan
David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University.  He is the author of Roman Comedy (1983); Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (1994); Greek Comedy and Ideology (1995); Friendship in the Classical World (1997);Pity Transformed (2001); The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks(2006); Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (2010); Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea (2014); and In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome (2018).  He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

I. 7  A Gloss of the Dictum ‘Beauty is Nothing but a Promise of Happiness’ by Ken-ichi Sasaki
Ken-ichi Sasaki is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo, and formerly President of the International Association for Aesthetics, Japanese Society for Aesthetics, and Vice-President of the FISP (Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Philosophiques).  The main fields of his research are the general theory and the modern history of aesthetics, and Japanese culture.  His publications include: 日本的感性（Japanese sensibility, 2010）, タイトルの魔力（magical power of title, 2001),  Aesthetics on Non-Western Principles (1998), 美学辞典（dictionary of aesthetics, 1995）,  ディドロ『絵画論』の研究（Study on Diderot’s Treatise on Painting, 2013）and many papers in Japanese, English and French.

I. 8  What Is Art? Or When Is Art? by Curtis L. Carter
Curtis L. Carter is Donald J. Schuenke Chair Professor of Aesthetics, Department of Philosophy, Marquette University and Les Aspin Center for Government, Washington, D. C. He is an author of Border Crossings: Aesthetics into the Arts, and numerous other works on the arts including visual arts, dance and philosophy of art; published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the Asican Journal of Aesthetics, and various Chinese venues. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences in China, Europe, and the USA. 

  I. 9  Fourteen Aphorisms About Art by Theodore Gracyk
Theodore Gracyk specialises in both the aesthetics of music and 18th century aesthetics. He is author the widely cited Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock (Duke University Press, 1996) Other publications include I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity(Temple University Press, 2002, and co-winner of the 2002 Woody Guthrie Award),On Music (Routledge, 2013), and numerous essays. Co-editor (with Andrew Kania) of The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music (2011), he also co-edited (with Robert Stecker) The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism from 2013 to 2023. His most recent book is Making Meaning in Popular Music: Philosophical Essays (forthcoming, Bloomsbury Academic).

I. 10  Traces and Testimonies by Ryan Wittingslow
Ryan Wittingslow is an assistant professor of philosophy of art and culture at the University of Groningen, and received his PhD in art history and philosophy from the University of Sydney. Most of his research sits at the intersection of aesthetics, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of design.

I. 11  Seeing a Face in Some Patches of Paint  by Edward Winters
Edward Winters studied painting at Slade School of Fine Art and wrote his PhD in Philosophy at UCL. He writes on visual arts and is writing a book on architecture. He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). He taught at the universities of Westminster and Kent.

I. 12  A Trip to the Zoo by Michel-Antoine Xhignesse
Michel-Antoine Xhignesse is an instructor at Capilano University. His research focuses primarily on art’s status as a social kind, the explanatory role that intuitions play in grounding judgements about the ontology of art and social kinds, the constraining power of authorial intent, and the problem of truth in fiction.

I. 13  Animal-Made ‘Art’?  by Anita Lunić
Anita Lunić is a teaching assistant at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Croatia. She holds a MA degree in Philosophy and a MA degree in History. She is a Ph.D. student at the postgraduate doctorate studies in humanities.

I. 14  The Lie That Makes Us Realise –  Facts and Truth in the Work of Art by Frederik-Emil Friis Jakobsen
Frederik-Emil Friis Jakobsen (b. 1993), M.A. in philosophy from University of Copenhagen and The European Graduate School. Areas of research include aesthetics and values, particularly in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, and the themes of otherness, ontology, and phenomenology in the works of Emmanuel Levinas. Beyond academia, a major fan of Werner Herzog’s cinema and a passionate follower of professional road cycling.

I. 15  In Medias Res - Aesthetic Literacy and Everyday Media Communication by Bálint Veres
Bálint Veres is associate professor of aesthetics and head of PhD-in-practice program at Moholy-Nagy University of Art & Design, Budapest. Active in a number of subfields of aesthetics. Besides being an author of academic papers, and a book in Hungarian, Bálint has participated as curator both in art festivals and in inclusive design initiatives.

I. 16 Responding to Breaking Bad by Richard Eldridge
Richard Eldridge is Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Swarthmore College and a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of seven books, including Werner Herzog––Filmmaker and Philosopher (2019) and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art (2002, 2014), as well as many articles in aesthetics, German philosophy, and philosophy and literature. He is the General Editor of Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Literature.

I. 17  At the Crossroads Between Art and Morality by Gemma Argüello Manresa
Gemma Argüello Manresa is a researcher, professor and independent curator. She is researcher for the National Research System in Mexico and teaches at the Department of Philosophy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in which she was recently Secretary of Academic Affairs. She is Chair of the Feminist Caucus and Social Media Editor for the American Society for Aesthetics. Her research focuses on Aesthetics and Politics, Feminist Philosophy, Processual and Participatory Art, and Social-engaged practices in Latin America. Her work has been published in Mexico, the United States, England, Holland, France, Italy and Spain. She has worked as an independent curator for many contemporary art museums and exhibition venues in Mexico.

I. 18  Once More, With Art: The Aesthetics of Buffy the Vampire Slayer by James and Mona Rocha
James Rocha is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Fresno. James is the author of many works of popular culture and philosophy, with chapters in Mr. Robot and Philosophy, Veronica Mars and Philosophy, and Psych and Philosophy, among others. Additionally, James is the author of The Ethics of Hooking Up (Routledge 2020) and co-author of Joss Whedon, Anarchist? (McFarland 2019).
Mona Rocha is an Instructor for the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at California State University, Fresno. Mona is the author of many works of popular culture, with chapters in books such as Psych and Philosophy, Westworld and Philosophy, among others. She is also the author of The Weatherwomen: Militant Feminists of the Weather Underground (McFarland 2020) and co-author of Joss Whedon, Anarchist? (McFarland 2019).

I. 19  Art, Value, Form  by Jessica X. Daboin
Jessica X. Daboin is a visual artist and a doctoral researcher in aesthetics at the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, who has also worked in cultural mediation and diplomacy at UNESCO. She has a forthcoming book titled La teneur de vérité de l’oeuvre d’art autonome dans l’esthétique d’Adorno, which will be released by French publishing house L’Harmattan.

I. 20  Money is the Worst Invention by INO
INO is a visual artist from Greece who studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts and is worldwide known for his large scale murals. His first experimental pieces emerged when he started creating graffiti fonts and characters back in 2000. In recent years, INO has participated in various exhibitions and art projects around the world. His work has been featured in numerous publications as well as in the New York Times.

I. 21  What Nick Cave Taught Me About Aesthetic Experience by Sarah Woodland
Sarah Woodland is a researcher, practitioner, and educator in applied theatre and participatory arts. She has over 25 years’ experience in the arts and cultural sectors in Australia and the UK, with a particular focus on engaging communities and groups from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, and those with experience of the criminal justice system. She is currently Dean’s Research Fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne.

I. 22  Behavioural Aesthetics by Jale Nejdet Erzen
Jale N. Erzen is Professor Emeritus (Middle East Tech. University, Faculty of Architecture), painter, and art historian. Paintings exhibited in Turkish and International collections; published on art, architecture and aesthetics in Turkey and abroad; guest lecturer in the US, France, Japan, Italy and Slovenia. Past President of the International Assc. of Aesthetics, founder and president of Sanart Assc. for Aesthetics and Visual Culture (1991-2010), recipient of Turkish and international awards for art and architecture; and French Ministry of Culture Chevalier distinction.

I. 23  Notes on Participatory Performance in the Time of COVID-19 by Gareth White
Gareth White teaches at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. His research focuses on questions of participation and aesthetics, in publications including Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation, and Applied Theatre: Aesthetics. He is also a theatre director specialising in participatory performance.

I. 24 Adversus Empathicos! Almost a Dialogue in Three Scenes by Fabrizio Desideri
Fabrizio Desideri is professor of Aesthetics at the University of Florence. He is Editor in Chief of the online journal «Aisthesis». For the Publisher Mimesis, he directs the editorial series «Estetica/Mente/Linguaggi». His last two books are: Origini dell’estetico. Dalle emozioni al giudizio (Carocci 2018), and Walter Benjamin e la percezione dell’arte (Morcelliana 2018).

I. 25  The Playfulness of Aesthetic Experience by Emily Hodges
Emily Hodges is a Doctoral Candidate in Philosophy at Brown University. She is fascinated by intersubjectivity, especially in terms of attention, aesthetic experience, moral psychology, community, and place-creation. Her research has recently focused on aesthetic free play in relation to architecture and place, as well as moral contemplation and self-cultivation in relation to community.

I. 26  Seeing Again, for the First Time  by Dimitris Apostolopoulos
Dimitris Apostolopoulos is assistant professor of philosophy at NTU Singapore. His research is focused on phenomenology and its history, and he is especially interested in how conceptual resources from phenomenology can clarify questions and debates in aesthetics, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of history. He regularly teaches classes on a range of periods and topics in the history of Western philosophy.

I. 27  The iPhone is the Poet by Matthew Kruger
Matthew Kruger is Assistant Professor of the Practice in Theology at BC.  He is the author of three books, Spiritual Exercises for the Postmodern Christian (Cascade, 2018), The Gospel and Nothingness (Chisokudo, 2019), and What the Living Know: A Novel of Suicide and Philosophy (NFB, 2020). His research is focused on two main areas: spirituality and spiritual exercises; and nihilism and nothingness in Japanese philosophy, Continental philosophy, and Christian sources.

I. 28  A Poetic Pilgrimage by Stefan Valdemar Snævarr
Stefán Snævarr was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1953. He is professor of philosophy at the Norway Inland University, Lillehammer, Norway. His main professional interests are in the field of aesthetics in a broad sense of that expression. He has published eighteen books of various kinds in three languages (Icelandic, Norwegian, and English). Some of these books are volumes of imaginative literature, others are philosophical tomes. His last book in English was Metaphors, Narratives, Emotions. Their Interplay and Impact, published in 2010. He has also published articles in various languages. In 2010 he won the first prize in an essay competition, arranged by The International Association of Aesthetics (IAA) for the essay “Aesthetic Wisdom”.

I. 29  Nietzsche’s “Aesthetic Science”  by Babette Babich
Babette Babich is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University in New York City and has taught in Boston, Tübingen, San Diego, and Berlin. She writes on the philosophy of art and music as on museum culture and poetics in addition to philosophy of science and technology. She also writes on the ethnography or sociology of philosophy as on women in philosophy, and the stylistic differences between analytic and continental philosophy.

I. 30  The Man of Taste or How to Lose Interest in Art by Iria Grammenou
Iria (Kyriaki) Grammenou was born and raised in Greece. Having also lived in the U.S. and Germany, she studied Political Theory and History of Philosophy. My PhD was about the intersection of Philosophy and Literature. I enjoy spending time with both human and non-human companions and discussing philosophy with friends and strangers.

I. 31  Is Taste “Just a Matter of Taste”?  by Timothy M. Costelloe
Timothy M. Costelloe is Professor of Philosophy at the College of William & Mary.  He holds Doctoral Degrees in Philosophy (Emory University, 2001) and Sociology (Boston University, 1996), and has primary research and teaching interests in aesthetics and history of philosophy. He is the author of Aesthetics and Morals in the Philosophy of David Hume (Routledge, 2007), The British Aesthetic Tradition: From Shaftesbury to Wittgenstein (Cambridge, 2013), The Imagination in Hume’s Philosophy: The Canvas of the Mind (Edinburgh, 2018), and editor of The Sublime: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge, 2012).

I. 32  Kitsch by Max Ryynänen
Max Ryynänen is tenured as Senior Lecturer in Theory of Visual Culture at Aalto University Finland. He is the former chair of the Finnish Society for Aesthetics and Editor-in-Chief of Popular Inquiry: The Journal of the Aesthetics of Kitsch, Camp and Mass Culture and The Journal of Somaesthetics. His latest book On The Philosophy of Central European Art: The History of an Institution and its Global Competitors (Lexington Books, 2020) rewrote the story of the concept and institution of art from an intersectional and intercultural point of view, focusing also on the cultural systems that the art system globally overshadowed. March 2022 he is publishingBodily Engagements with Film, Images and Technology: Somavision through Routledge. He is also the editor of e.g. Aesthetics in Dialogue (with Zoltan Somhegyi, Peter Lang 2020) and Art, Excess, Education (ed. with Kevin Tavin and Mira Kallio-Tavin, Palgrave 2019).

I. 33  The Conquest of Time: The Forgotten Power of Art  by Derek Allan
Derek Allan is a Visiting Fellow in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the Australian National University. His principal research interests are the theory of art, European literature, and visual art. Derek’s publications cover topics such as Dostoevsky, Laclos, Goya and the twentieth century art theorist and novelist, André Malraux.

I. 34 Japanese Art and Aesthetics  by Jesse Prinz
Jesse J. Prinz is a Distinguished Professor of philosophy and Director of the Committee for Interdisciplinary Science Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Prinz works primarily in the philosophy of psychology and ethics and has authored several books (like The Emotional Construction of Morals and The Conscious Brain, with OUP) and over 100 articles, addressing such topics as emotion, moral psychology, aesthetics and consciousness.

I. 35  At the Museum with Mr. B  by Gene Fendt
Gene Fendt is Albertus Magnus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, where he has been teaching for 35 years.  Beside the usual academic writing, he has also written poetry (several recently translated into Polish) and plays, for which he has won a number of prizes.

I. 36  Picture-body – Body-picture  by Béla Bacsó
Béla Bacsó is Professor of Aesthetics at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. He has been Head of Department of Aesthetics (1996-2016) and Head of the Institute for Art Theory and Media Studies (2000-2012) at ELTE and President of the Hungarian Philosophical Society (2007-2010). He has published extensively on aesthetics and the philosophy of art, focusing on Husserlian phenomenology, Aristotle, Herder, Nietzsche and Heidegger’s existential philosophy, Schleiermacher’s and Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. He has edited numerous volumes on aesthetics and translated many cardinal works of continental thought into Hungarian (e.g. Heidegger, Gadamer).

I. 37  Disarming Disaster Porn: The Use and Abuse of Aesthetics by Rob Marks
Rob Marks writes about aesthetic experience, its relationship to how our bodies encounter and reveal the world, and its capacity to unite body and mind as one to interpret perception and grasp “truth.” BA, University of Pennsylvania; MA, Journalism, University of California, Berkeley; MA, Visual and Critical Studies, California College of Arts.

I. 38  What is this Feeling We Call ‘Sublime’? by Sandra Shapshay
Sandra Shapshay is Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College & the Graduate Center (CUNY). Her research areas are aesthetics and ethics in the 19th c, with focus on Schopenhauer and Kant, and contemporary environmental aesthetics. Outside of working on a book tentatively titled “Bodies in Stone and Steel: An Aesthetics of Monuments and Memorials,” she likes to immerse herself in art or nature, preferably with a human or canine companion.

I. 39  From Aesthetics Education to Zines: A Primer for Arts Educators by Courtney Lee Weida
Courtney Lee Weida has worked as an artist and educator in schools, museums, galleries, studios, and community centres in urban settings.  She is also mother to a six-year-old artist, and works as an associate professor of Art Education at Adelphi University in New York.

I. 40  Decolonial aestheSis: Colonial Wounds / Decolonial Healings by Walter Mignolo and Rolando Vazquez
Walter D. Mignolo is William H. Wannamaker Professor of Romance Studies and Professor of Literature; and Director of the Center for Global Studies and the Humanities at Duke University. Co-authored with Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analysis, Praxis, co-, 2018;The Politics of Decolonial Investigations, Duke Press, 2021).
Rolando Vázquez Melken is Associate Professor of Sociology and Diversity Fellow at University College Roosevelt and affiliated researcher at the Gender Studies Department and at the Research Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Utrecht. Since 2009, he coordinates the annual Middelburg Decolonial Summer School together with Walter Mignolo. He co-authored the report of the Diversity Commission of the University of Amsterdam in 2016 under the direction of Gloria Wekker. He founded the initiative CRIDE (Critical Decoloniality) for sharing of decolonial practices among academic and cultural institutions.

I. 41.  The Emperor’s New Clothes by Majid Heidari
Majid Heidari is a researcher interested in metaphors that construct social tensions. To study how opposing narratives impact aesthetics, he has adopted a range of different approaches such as organising intergroup dialogues, writing for independent media and art journals, publishing a collection of short stories and podcasts, conducting action research and knowledge-to-action projects such as participatory performance arts and collaborative art projects. He wrote on Iran’s Aesthetics, the Tension between Islamic Mysticism and Scholastic Theology, the Role of Rhetoric in Iranian Aesthetics, and Metaphors of Oppression and Discrimination.

I. 42.  Autonomy (and Why We Should Move On From It) by Ruth Sonderegger
Ruth Sonderegger is a Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetic Theory at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria. She completed her PhD in Philosophy (1998) at the Free University Berlin, and from 2001 to 2009 she taught at the Philosophy Department of the University of Amsterdam. Since 2004 she has been a member of the editorial board of Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy. Currently, she researches the history of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline and its entanglements with the history of colonial capitalism as well as theories and practises of critique.

I. 43. Aesthetics of Modern Decay by Niklas Arnold
Niklas Arnold is a young photographer from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. After obtaining his bachelor degree in photography in 2019, he is working on several projects, including wedding photography, experimental portraits, macro and Lost Places photography. Highlighting a certain aspect of reality by relying on primal forms is the foundation of his compositions. For more see: Niklasarnold.photography

I. 44  Medusa, Perseus and Pegasus in the Realm of (Crooked) Mirrors by Martin Boszorád and Peter Brezňan
Martin Boszorád (1985) received his PhD in the field of aesthetics after earlier studies in aesthetic education and German language and literature. He is currently the head of the Institute of Literary and Artistic Communication (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia) and member of the Slovak Association for Aesthetics and the Czech Society for Aesthetics. His research interests include mainly the theorization of popular culture, in a wide sense. Although he is a man of the periphery, he considerably appreciates the mainstream.
Peter Brezňan, PhD (1978) – poet and aesthetician. He works at the Faculty of Arts of Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. He observes the sphere of aesthetics from the the vantage point of Critical Theory. With a group of Slovak writers and poets, he organises the international literary festival Novotvar which takes place in autumn in Bratislava. His poems have been published in several literary journals in Slovakia and Czech Republic. He published a collection of poems entitled The Experiences of These Days (of Animals) in 2017.

I. 45  Paradox by Tom Cochrane
Tom Cochrane is a senior lecturer in philosophy at Flinders University in Adelaide. He specialises in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. He is the author of 'The Emotional Mind: A control theory of affective states' (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and 'The Aesthetic Value of the World' (Oxford University Press, 2021). He also edited the collection 'The Emotional Power of Music' (Oxford University Press 2013).

I. 46  Aphorisms on Art and the Nature of Being 
by Richard D. Hickman
Richard Hickman is Emeritus Professor of Aesthetic Development at the University of Cambridge. He is an Emeritus Fellow and artist in residence at Homerton College, where he was Dean for several years. He is also a fellow of the National Society for Education in art and design. He has been actively involved in the training of art and design teachers since 1985, at the University of Reading, the National Institute of Education in Singapore and (since 1997) at the University of Cambridge. He has been awarded the Pilkington prize for outstanding teaching at Cambridge, has served in Singapore as Outstanding Educator in Residence; and in 2020 was a visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University. He has received the Sir Herbert Read lifetime achievement award from the International Society for Education through Art, presented in Melbourne, Australia.

I. 47  Aesthetics Gets a Joke by Doris Sommer
Doris Sommer is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. She is founder of "Cultural Agents," an Initiative at Harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities, specifically through “Pre-Texts” in the USA, Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship. Among her books are Foundational Fictions: The National Romances of Latin America (1991) about novels that helped to consolidate new republics; Proceed with Caution when Engaged by Minority Literature (1999) on a rhetoric of particularism; Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004) for our times of contested immigration; and The Work of Art in the World: Civic Agency and Public Humanities (2014). Sommer has enjoyed and is dedicated to developing good public school education. She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, and Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

I. 48  Socrates, Inc. Part I by Lycinus Secundus
Lycinus Secundus is a possible forgotten later ancient satirist, possibly of the school of Lucian of Samosata.

I. 49  Why Do I Like It by Alexander Kremer
Alexander Kremer is a habilitated associate professor of philosophy at the University of Szeged, Hungary. His professional field of interest includes hermeneutics, ethics, aesthetics, and pragmatism, especially neopragmatism. He is the author of four books (Chapters from the History of Western Philosophy from Thales to Hume (1997); Why Did Heidegger Become Heidegger? (2001); Basic Ethics (2004), Philosophy of the Late Richard Rorty (2016)) and has published numerous articles on philosophical hermeneutics, Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism, and Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics. He is the editor in chief of Pragmatism Today.


Cover art: Eugene the Blissful
Homo Aestheticus : Martin Boszorád