Welcome

The Aesthetics Research Centre coordinates, enables and promotes research in philosophy of art and aesthetics at the University of Kent. ARC brings together faculty and postgraduate students from four different departments and three different schools and is characterised by a strong interdisciplinary ethos.

UPCOMING EVENTS
Spring 2023

THE AESTHETICS OF PSYCHEDELICS
23rd-24th March 2023 | International conference
University of Kent; Darwin Conference Suite

The Kent Aesthetics Research Centre are pleased to announce an upcoming conference on the aesthetics of psychedelics.
Read more here.

29th Mar 2023
Aesthetic Properties: Heterogenous, Historical and Hard to Explain.
Sonia Sedivy, University of Toronto
Teams link here

NEWS
Prof. Murray Smith’s latest book Film, Art, and the Third Culture has been translated into Italian by Kent graduate Angelo Cioffi.
Cinema, evoluzione, neuroscienze: Un’estetica naturalizzata del film

SELECTED PAST RESEARCH EVENTS

Links to each session can be requested by contacting ARC directors;
m.s.smith@kent.ac.uk | d.declercq-324@kent.ac.uk

22nd Feb 2023
Collingwood, “Political Art”, and the Political Value of Art
David Collins, University of Oxford

25th Jan 2023
What’s Getting Us Through: Grazia UK as Affective Intimate Public During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Rosie Findlay, University of Kent

17th Nov 2022
Pedestrian at Best: the Politics, Philosophy, & Aesthetics of Walking When Poor,
Kathrine Cuccuru, University of Sussex

7th May 2022
BSA Symposium on Revaluing the Life Model in Art Practice
More information here

10 June 2021
Book Symposium on Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight: A Philosophical Exploration, edited by Hans Maes (University of Kent) and Katrien Schaubroeck (University of Antwerp).
Symposium programme here

12 May 2021
‘The Reality of Aesthetic Injustice.’
Daisy Dixon, University of Cambridge.
Abstract here

23 March 2021
ARC Book Symposium: Dieter Declercq’s Satire, Comedy and Mental Health
More info and recordings here.

10 February 2021
‘The Paradox of Football’ – Presentation by Murray Smith
A Kent Philosophy Work in Progress Seminar. More info here

9 February 2021
Aesthetics Research Centre Postgraduate Work in Progress Seminar
Presentations by Claire Anscomb and Dr. David Brown

Thursday 28 May 2020
Associate Professor Jason Leddington (Bucknell University)
“Savouring the Impossible”
watch recording

28–29 February 2020
British Society for Aesthetics Postgraduate Conference. Beyond Human: Aesthetics of Nature and Technology
Keynotes: Glenn Parsons, Katja Kwastek.
Info here

7–9 February 2020,
British Society for Aesthetics Conference: Art, Aesthetics and the Medical and Health Humanities.
Keynotes: Rita Charon, Paul Crawford, Sheila Lintott, Jenefer Robinson.
Info here