Helsinki 2025

CALL FOR PAPERS

                                         The Second Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics

East Helsinki, Finland, August 28-31, 2025 (Thursday-Sunday)    

Organized by the Society of Dialogical Aesthetics

Major topic of investigation:

Forgotten Scholars in Aesthetics

 

 

Welcome to the second 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, hiking or even sauna sessions? And finally, do you remember how much we all missed, during Corona-times and amidst the zoom-conferences that we can finally meet in person again, and have thorough conversations not necessarily only about a paper, but on anything else, like in a good coffee break?

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

However, this inversion of the proportions does not jeopardize the scholarly nature of the meeting: The idea of the Coffee Break Conference of Aesthetics is to first share texts on-line among the participants and (this is a must for all participants) to then comment on them BEFORE the meeting. In this way we “gain” a significant amount of time: in other words we do not spend most of the conference time by simply listening to a presentation for the first time and ask basic questions or express our first-impression-reactions, but we can use the time we will spend together to go deeper in the ideas, concepts and insights developed in the participants’ texts that by then we all already know. Besides that, we understand the papers better, as we read them, and we do not, so, have to work on straightening misunderstandings, which often is the case after 20 minute talks. Hence, during the actual meeting we can focus more on discussing the presented issues, as well as anything else that interests us.

To further emphasise the informal nature of the conference, there are no keynotes. Better to say: all participants are keynotes, and their research will equally be in the limelight, no matter how “famous” or “well-published” they are. 

Most importantly, this conference aims for a laid-back, intelligent, but not “professionalist” atmosphere. No universities are involved, no heavy administration. 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, often in untraditional setting and circumstances – why should sitting in a lecture room be the only way to discuss someone’s paper? Can it be in a garden, or while hiking, going to sauna, or taking the metro to go to visit an artist studio?

About the topic: “Forgotten Scholars in Aesthetics” 

The leading theme of the second edition of the conference is Forgotten Scholars in Aesthetics. Forgotten here refers to forgotten thinkers left with too little attention.

What could this mean? There are countless names that could have something to give to current debates on aesthetics, and they have been forgotten for various reasons, including gender, political circumstances or because of writing in a small language. 

Who do we need today more than we now acknowledge? Who should be more than just a footnote in the history of aesthetics? The level of oblivion can of course vary. Most important here is to bring something “new” back or for the first time in focus. The accent can be methodological, topic-driven, or on our sense of history of the discipline.

Practical info:

The conference fee is 270 Euros.

The fee includes two lunches (two other lunches are paid individually) and coffee/tea breaks with snacks. We have spaces reserved from private homes to local Mansion meeting rooms for our discussions. The conference starts with a snacky breakfast on Thursday August 28 and continues with sessions until the lunch session Sunday August 31.

 In this type of conference, where discussion is everything, there is hardly any point in coming later than the others, or to leave earlier, as the discussion evolves more intensively, and accumulates during the process, so we highly recommend participants to carefully select their travels. We will have a welcome dinner the eve before starting (at own cost).

Note that the fee covers only the program, the lunches mentioned, and coffees/teas, some snacks – but not accommodation nor dinners, for example. 

The site will be East Helsinki, the green but most vibrant housing area in Helsinki, with approximately 150 000 inhabitants (while the whole city has approximately 660 000, and the metropolitan area 1,6 million). East Helsinki is well connected with the metro to the city’s business, restaurant, and night-life areas, without forgetting the historical centre (historical, but not very old), and the West side of the city. The meetings will be held in various locations in the East, which is known to be more international, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual. It is increasingly the area where artists live too, with not too much gentrification yet to destroy the ‘vibe’. It is the place for Middle Eastern food, high quality food shops, rap, alternative artists, free concerts in the summertime, and active neighbour communities.

The Cultural Program will take us to sauna, a city walk or the Helsinki Biennale, attendance to an outdoor concert, to do (light) soma(esthe)tic exercise, and to meet local artists/scholars.

As all the best conversations take place on coffee breaks, we aim, of course, at excellence in them. Different beans and coffee preparing traditions are used.

 

 

The Society:

The Society of Dialogical Aesthetics was established in 2023. It has been officially registered in Finland. The non-profit society is a member of the International Association for Aesthetics (IAA) since 2024. Conference participation provides a three year membership of the Society.

Deadlines: 

Submission of proposals (200-400 word abstract and 100-word bio): March 15, 2025.

Information about the acceptance of the abstract will be sent no later than March 31, 2025.

For the accepted abstracts, submission of a text ready enough so that others can read it (2500-4000 words): June 10, 2025. 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.

 Also the payment has to be taken care of no later than June 10, 2025.

A compilation of all the texts will be sent no later than June 20, 2025.

The texts have to be commented on no later than August 10, 2025.

All comments will be distributed no later than August 20, 2025.

Note that there is a “good read” to be done, so please reserve time for it June 10 onwards. The experience of the participants of 2024, though, was really supportive of this practice. While one does not need to make more than one comment on the sent texts, for the person who wrote the text getting many helpful comments on it is something meaningful, and reading them beforehand makes the discussions deeper during the conference.

 

Publication opportunity: 

For those who are interested, there is a possibility to submit an article chapter in a book (no proceedings) we are planning to edit for a distinguished academic publisher. The organizers have earlier edited several volumes, and the book drawing out of the material of Coffee Break Conference 1 (2024) has also found a distinguished home. See for example:

Max Ryynänen – Zoltán Somhegyi (eds), Aesthetic Theory Across the Disciplines (New York

– London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538176610/Aesthetic-Theory-Across-the-Disciplines

Communication, organisation:  

Please use the Society’s E-mail for all communications:

societyofdialogicalaesthetics@gmail.com

 

 

Main organizers: Max Ryynänen & Zoltán Somhegyi

www.maxryynanen.net, www.zoltansomhegyi.com

Local collaborating organizer: Jussi Pentikäinen. 

 

 

See you in Helsinki, Finland 2025!