Velence 2024

The First Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics

Velence, Hungary, 2-5 May, 2024 (Thursday-Sunday)

Leading theme: Trying Out New Paths in Aesthetics

Welcome to the first Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics!

Do you remember that highly inspiring discussion you were having with a fellow speaker in one of the last conferences you participated in about his/her paper, when the organisers suddenly reminded you of the end of the coffee break, and you had to rush back to listen to the next speaker? Do you remember the exhausting days of the conference that are fully packed with presentations, with barely any time to have more leisurely chats with other participants (except if you skip an otherwise surely interesting talk, hence causing dilemmas and bad conscience...). Do you remember how refreshing it is when in a conference you have excursions, city visits, common dinners, or even hiking? And finally, do you remember how much we all missed, during Corona-times and zoom-conferences, that we can finally meet in person again and have thorough conversations, not only about papers, but on anything else, like a good coffee break?

The Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is planned as a new platform targeting precisely this need. It is a more engaging and dialogical scholarly meeting, in which the proportions of a traditional academic conference are inverted; while in conferences we normally have long lecture sessions of passive listening and short coffee breaks for some talk, this time the focus is on the coffee break discussions – regarding each other’s academic research and beyond.

However, this inversion of the proportions does not jeopardise the scholarly nature of the meeting: The idea of the Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is to share texts on-line beforehand and to then comment on them, BEFORE the meeting. This will be mandatory for all participants. In this way we “gain” a significant amount of time; in other words, we do not spend most of the conference simply listening to and getting introduced to a presentation and its main points and ask basic questions or express our first-impression-reactions. Instead, we can use the time we will spend together to go deeper into ideas, concepts and insights developed in the participants’ texts that, by then, we all already know. We understand the papers better, as we read them, and we do not have to work on straightening misunderstandings, which often is the case after 20-minute talks. During the actual meeting, through moderated sessions and guided discussions all papers will be thoroughly debated, hence we can focus on scrutinising the presented issues.

To further emphasise the informal nature of the conference, there are no keynotes. All participants are keynotes, and their research will equally be in the limelight, no matter how “famous” or “well-published” they are. At the same time, each participant will get profound feedback from all the others, hence it is like having many (friendly) referees for a paper in progress. Everyone will become a “peer-to-peer referee” in this reading-group type discussion meeting.

Programme highlights:

This conference aims for a laid-back, intelligent, but not “professionalist” atmosphere. We hope everyone brings in a good spirit and a thirst for substance-driven discussions. As we share our work already before “walking in”, there is time to go deep. We plan to have our discussions, for example, while sitting in a garden, or while having a light hiking in the forest in the nearby hills, or while sunbathing.

We will visit Milorad Krstic, Silver Bear (Berlin) winning, Oscar-25-shortlisted multimedia artist in his studio. We will have a private piano concert by Marco Bianchi, in his home. We will have traditional carp dinner in a fishermen’s restaurant. We will have an authentic Japanese tea ceremony. There will be a small art exhibition. In order to feel the “Coffee Break-ness” of the conference, there will be a variety of coffees available (beans, coffee making types, with snacks).

About the topic:

The leading theme of the conference is: Trying Out New Paths in Aesthetics, and we rather encourage participants to be bold and take risks, rather than secure customary research outputs (they can follow-up later). We aim for a format which has roots in Greek symposiums, Renaissance academies, 18th century salons and early 20th century coffee house discussions – without forgetting the philosophical education acquired in Japanese tea houses, and the like all over the world. The topics can be both on a meta-level of/about aesthetics and/or applied aesthetics.

Recent works in what could be called extended aesthetics aim to not just extend aesthetic reflection into various territories of life from sport to politics, but to properly apply aesthetic theory to cultural and everyday phenomena and to relocate whole theoretical discussions to new terrains, using aesthetic ideas to X-ray new cultural constellations. “Extended aesthetics” is understood both as expanding the investigation beyond the traditional fields of interest in classical aesthetics, but also to extend its employment beyond mere theoretical research.

This is why what interests us the most is where and how we can extend the use and applicability of our discipline. How does it clash and/or mash-up with other disciplines and what kind of problems arise when aesthetic theory is relocated to new contexts where it has unforeseen explanatory roles? What methodological considerations do we have to take into account when we extend the use of aesthetics? What actual and “tangible” results can be expected if aesthetics is awarded this new role and responsibility? Can aesthetics get a more significant role due to this development?

We sincerely believe that aesthetics has what it takes to become more institutionally important in academic life and that many of its advances have lately proved that e.g. in topics like care, immersion, evolution and philosophy of life. Join us for a long weekend reflecting on this and seeking for ways to make this tendency stronger and better known.

Practical info:

The conference fee is 150 Euros.

The fee includes coffee / tea (including some light snacks) – and of course all the information needed and support for practical issues. The conference starts with a late Thursday lunch 1:30-3 PM and continues with sessions until late Sunday lunch 1:30 PM onwards.

Note: the fee covers only the organisation, cultural programmes (e.g. trips, concert) and coffees/teas – but neither accommodation nor meals. Accommodation can be booked individually by the participants, but of course the organisers will suggest nearby venues. Thus, participants are encouraged to choose from a variety of hotels (including one with a thermal bath and spa). Lunches and dinners will be paid individually by the participants.

Velence is a small town with approximately 6,000 inhabitants, which lies approx. 40 minutes from Budapest by train.

Deadlines:

Submission of proposals (max. 300-word abstract and 100-word bio): 15 January, 2024.

A confirmation of participation will be sent no later than 25 January, 2024.

The payment of the 150 Euros conference fee has to be taken care of no later than 29 February, 2024.

For the accepted participants: submission of a text ready for others to read it (2,000-6,000 words): 15 March, 2024.

The texts will be sent to all accepted participants who have paid the fee, no later than 22 March, 2024. All texts of other participants have to be commented on (1-2 notes or questions) no later than April 30, 2024.

About the text: please note that we do not expect the level of a published article and we will remind the readers about the sketchy nature of the “talks” – but we hope that the main idea could be understood from the text.

Publication opportunity:

Participants can submit chapter versions of the conference presentations in a book we are editing on the current role and the future of aesthetics (across the disciplines). For earlier examples, see:

Max Ryynänen – Zoltán Somhegyi (eds), Aesthetic Theory Across the Disciplines (New York – London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

Zoltán Somhegyi – Max Ryynänen (eds.), Aesthetics in Dialogue (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020)