Members

Hanne Appelqvist received her doctoral degree from Columbia University in 2007. She is Docent of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku, and currently works as the Deputy Director of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Her work on has published in journals such as The European Journal of Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, The British Journal for the History of Philosophy, The British Journal of Aesthetics, History of Philosophy Quarterly and in collections by CUP, OUP, and Routledge. Since 2018, she has been the Editor-in-Chief of Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics. Webpage.

Research Interests: History of Philosophy, Wittgenstein, Kant, Transcendental Idealism, Philosophy of Music, Formalism.

María José Alcaraz León obtained her Ph. D. with a dissertation on Arthur Danto’s theory of art in 2006. She is currently a Senior Member at the Department of Philosophy (Universidad de Murcia). She is an active member of the group ARESMUR and a trustee of the American Society for aesthetics (ending 2021). She is currently co-editor of the Aesthetics section of Enciclopedia on-line de Filosofía Analítica

Personal webpage

Research interests: Aesthetic justification and rationality, the relationship between aesthetics and other values, the cognitive value of fiction, and environmental aesthetics.


Maja Bak Herrie is a postdoctoral fellow at Department of Art History, Aesthetics & Culture, and Museology at Aarhus University. She was awarded her PhD in 2019 at Aarhus University for her thesis on the epistemological consequences of the increasing embedding of data-driven technologies in everyday life. In her postdoc project, she investigates how today’s digital culture is algorithmically “programmed” towards certain uses and receptions. She is currently working on a series of publications in which she develops an analytical terminology to adequately describe and understand how we sense and make sense of an experience of reality, which is increasingly pre-calculated and anticipated by intelligent systems.

Research interests

Digital aesthetics; Aesthetic perception; Contemporary art; Phenomenology; Art and politics; Digitisation and datafication; Gender studies.


Matilde Carrasco Barranco is Doctor in Philosophy by the University of Granada (Spain). From 2004, she has taught Aesthetics and Theory of Arts in the University of Murcia, where she becomes Senior Lecturer in 2008. She has been member of the Executive Committee and Conference Organizer of the European Society of Aesthetics from 2012 until 2018.

Research interests: Aesthetic experience and judgement, the relationship between aesthetic value and other values of art, art criticism, the revival of beauty, and art and politics.

Maria Danielsen (1983) holds a MA in philosophy and a BA in fine arts. Currently she has a position at the Art academy in Tromsø where she develops the theory program for BA level. She holds reading seminars and lectures at the Art academy based on this program. She also teaches introductory classes in philosophy at UiT while applying for a Ph.D position.

Research Interests: Aesthetic perception, Art and knowledge, Art and emotion, Emotion and knowledge, Aesthetic experience, Phenomenology, Martha Nussbaum, Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Michel Dufrenne.

Elisabetta Di Stefano (1970) is graduate cum laude both in Classical Literature and in Philosophy, (Ph.D. in Aesthetics and theory of Arts). She is Associate Professor at the University of Palermo, where she teaches Aesthetics. Webpage.

Research Interests: Theory of the Arts in the Renaissance (Leon Battista Alberti; Francisco de Hollanda), Theory of the Sculpture in 16thand 17thCenturies (Pomponio Gaurico; Orfeo Boselli), Ornament theory (Leon Battista Alberti; Louis H. Sullivan); Theory of Architecture, The Aesthetics of Everyday Life, Aesthetics of Atmospheres, Artification, Somaesthetics, Performing arts, History of Aesthetics/History of Aesthetic Ideas.


Mette Hjort is Chair Professor of Humanities and Dean of Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University, Affiliate Professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Visiting Professor of Cultural Industries at the University of South Wales. A film scholar with an interest in small nations and film, transnational talent development, human rights filmmaking, and sustainable film production practices, Mette's most recent book-length publication is African Cinema and Human Rights (co-edited with Eva Jørholt, 2019). Webpage

Research Interests: Moving images and Public Value, Environmental aesthetics, Ethics of Filmmaking, Talent Development and Aesthetic Value.


Photo credit: Mikael Wallerstedt

Britt-Inger Johansson is Professor of Art History at Uppsala University since 2012, previously senior lecturer at Uppsala University (2007-2012) and Lund University (2003-2007). Editor at Konsthistorisk Tidskrift (2009 – 2019). Chair of the board for Baltic Art Center in Visby, an international artist’s residence. I was born in Kiruna and grew up in Malmberget, northern Sweden, and took my PhD at Uppsala University 1997. Britt-Inger most recent publications is a co-edited issue of Konsthistorisk Tidskrift on Swedish architectural historiography (2016). Webpage.

Research interests: Achitectural history (cultural heritage buildings, Issues on Usage and Conservation, Architectural and Art Historiography), Art and Artificial intelligence. Another side-interest to be developed is the aesthetics of LARP design where I have conducted a number of participant observations since 2012.

Onerva Kiianlinna (1993) is a doctoral student in Aesthetics at the Doctoral Programme for Philosophy, Arts and Society at the University of Helsinki and a board member of the Finnish Society for Aesthetics. She received the University of Helsinki Aesthetics study track’s recognition award in 2018 and graduated with a MA in Aesthetics in 2019. Onerva is currently working on her doctoral thesis on limitations and possibilities of Darwinism in Aesthetics.

Research interests: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Biocultural Theory, Naturalism, Art and Darwinism, Evocriticism, Consilience.


Bente Larsen is professor in Art History, at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas. University of Oslo. She was awarded her PhD in 1998, University of Oslo, for a thesis on Manet and Adorno, entitled “Silence”. Larsen led till 2014 the interdisciplinary Nordic research network, The Bodily Turn, funded by NordForsk. Since 2015 Larsen has been Chair, NOS-HS workshop panel and from 2016 member of the board of representatives, Henie Onstad Art Center. Larsen is member of the board of The Nordic Society of Aesthetics.

Research Interests: French and Nordic modernist and contemporary art, Epistemologically, continental aesthetics with focus on Critical Theory, hermeneutics, phenomenology and postphenomenology has been in focus. As to teaching, Larsen is member of the Board of Aesthetic Studies, University of Oslo, and among other subjects she is together with two colleagues from literature responsible for the interdisciplinary subject ‘Gender and Aesthetics’.

Sanna Lehtinen (b. 1981, PhD 2015 Univ. of Helsinki) is Research Fellow in the new Transdisciplinary Art Studies Unit (TAS) at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Her publications include journal articles published in Open Philosophy, Essays in Philosophy, and Behaviour & Information Technology, articles in volumes published by Routledge and Springer as well as editing special issues for Contemporary Aesthetics and Open Philosophy. Sanna is the President of the Finnish Society for Aesthetics and Codirector of the international Philosophy of the City Research Group, and an affiliate member of the 4TU – Centre for Ethics and Technology (NL). Webpage

Research interests: Urban environmental aesthetics, Everyday aesthetics, Contemporary environmental and urban art, Philosophy of the city, Philosophy of technology, Environmental philosophy in the context of sustainability science.

Lenka Lee (1980) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Aesthetics at Masaryk University, Brno. She graduated in Latin Langue and Literature and Aesthetics. She teaches Latin, Aesthetics, Medieval Culture and Animal Allegories. She is also member of Czech Society for Aesthetics. Webpage

Research interests: Animal Allegories, Classical allegories in pop-culture, Courtly love and culture, Aesthetics of everyday life, 2D animation versus classical puppets, Labyrinths, Japanese woodprints, Embroideries, Cy Twombly’s artworks.



Irene Martínez Marín (1990) is a Ph.D. candidate in Aesthetics at the Philosophy Department at Uppsala University. Previously, she completed a MA in History of Contemporary Art at the Autonomous University of Madrid— in collaboration with the Museum Reina Sofía (2014)—, and a Philosophy degree at the University of Murcia (2013). Her thesis work concerns the relation between emotions, reasons, and value within our aesthetic judgements. Irene was awarded the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay prize in 2019. Webpage

Research Interests: Aesthetic Rationality, Meta-aesthetics, Philosophy of Emotions, Aesthetic akrasia, Philosophy of Art Criticism, Aesthetic Psychology.

Regina-Nino Mion is a researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) in 2014. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Society of Aesthetics (since 2018). She was the guest editor of the special issue “Depiction: Contemporary Studies on Pictorial Representation” published at the Studies on Art and Architecture (Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi) in 2020. She is also the editor of the PhilPapers.org category Husserl: Imagination.

Research interests: aesthetics, phenomenology, Husserl, depiction, pictorial experience, seeing-in



Elisabeth Schellekens (1974) is Chair Professor of Aesthetics at the Department of Philosophy at Uppsala University, Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, and Vice-President of the Nordic Society for Aesthetics. She was awarded her PhD in 2003 at King’s College London for a thesis on Aesthetic Objectivism. She currently leads the research project ‘Aesthetic Perception and Cognition’ (2019-2022) and the research Network ‘Cultural Heritage and Ethics in Peace and Conflict’. Webpage

Research interests: Aesthetic perception, Art and knowledge, Art and morality, Normativity, Objectivism/Subjectivism; Realism/Anti-realism, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Non-perceptual (or conceptual) art, Cultural heritage, Moral psychology.


Elisabeth Swartling is an independent postgraduate associated with Uppsala University. Since defending her Master’s Thesis "In Defence Of Hume’s On The Standard Of Taste", she has given several papers at conferences across the continent. Her latest talk concerned Walton’s notion of make-believe and was given at Filosofidagarna in Umeå 2019.

Research Interests: Analytical Aesthetics, Musicology focusing on the Intersection between Music and Drama in Opera, Aesthetics in a digitalised age, Aesthetic Disagreement, Criticism.