CFP: Journal Special Issue | AESTHETICS AND LEISURE: Historical, Intercultural, and Theoretical Perspectives

Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics  

SPECIAL ISSUE - Aesthetics and Leisure: Historical, Intercultural, and Theoretical Perspectives  

Guest Editors: Alberto Merzari (Academy of Fine Arts of Urbino, Italy) and Petros Satrazanis (University College Dublin, Ireland)  

In his famous 1930 essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”, J.M. Keynes notoriously predicted that technological and economic advancements would dramatically reduce the need for labor. He envisioned a future where the greatest challenge would not be economic survival but the meaningful use of free time. As we move through the 21st century, his forecast has proven both prescient and problematic: automation and AI continue to reshape the workforce, and free time has indeed increased, albeit unequally, but the implications and potential of leisure for human life remain largely underexplored.  

This special issue invites scholars to examine the relation between leisure and aesthetics, in historical, comparative and theoretical terms. Contributions shall try to determine how aesthetics is related to leisure, and/or how this relationship looks like in different traditions. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which the experience of leisure has changed in modern times, and how this transformation has influenced our aesthetic practices. Additionally, this issue seeks to explore whether and under what conditions, the increasing availability of free time in a post-work society could provide new and/or better opportunities for cultivating aesthetic thinking and the aesthetic dimensions of life. We welcome submissions that engage with the topic in one or more of the following directions:  

1. The aesthetic conceptualization of leisure  

The concept of “leisure” is both obvious and elusive, as it calls into question complex and historically multifaceted notions such as those of time, freedom, pleasure, experience, and work.

• How can the experience of leisure be conceptualized from an aesthetic perspective?

• Is leisure itself an object of aesthetic enjoyment, a form of aesthetic experience, or the very condition of possibility for aesthetic experiencing? Is aesthetic experience intrinsically a leisurely kind of experience?

• What kind of freedom is at stake in the experience of leisure? Can e.g. the theories of play (e.g., Schiller, Huizinga, Gadamer) contribute to its understanding?

• How can leisure and the related experiences of entertainment and recreation be differentiated?  

2. Aesthetics and leisure in a global perspective  

Different cultures, both in a historical and geographical sense, have defined differently the ways of enjoying free time or engaging in aesthetic experiences within it.  

• What alternative experiences of leisure exist across different cultural traditions or historical periods?

• How has leisure been linked to artistic enjoyment, creativity, and inspiration in other times or cultures?

• Which different aesthetics underly e.g., the Greek scholè, the Roman otium, the Arabic lahū or ‘uṭla and the Japanese yoka?

Contributions that approach leisure from global, non-Western, and postcolonial perspectives will be particularly welcome.  

3. Aesthetics and leisure today  

The experience of leisure has been undergoing profound transformations in modern times, which have crucially modified its relationship with aesthetic experience. On the one hand, the activities that occupy our leisure time seem to have an increasingly exclusively aesthetic character; on the other, the growing incorporation of certain artistic practices into market dynamics, and even more the overcoming of an aesthetic prejudice against what is “functional”, seem to make the boundary between aesthetics and work more permeable than in the past.  

• Do aesthetics and/or aesthetic experiences still have a structural link with leisure?

• Has leisure lost part of its social, political, and experimental significance and undergone a process of “comfortabilization”? And if yes, what implication does this have for aesthetics?

• Are digital and virtual environments reshaping our experience of leisure?

• Does contemporary leisure encourage genuine aesthetic engagement and artistic creativity?

Special attention will be devoted to contributions that address the issue with non-traditional approaches or drawing from artistic experiences.  

4. Aesthetics in a post-work society 

The implementation of new technologies promises—at least potentially—a future where work may no longer hold a central or predominant role in an individual’s life.  

• How is the marginalization of work going to reshape our relationship with leisure and aesthetic enjoyment?

• What potentially negative implications might it have?

• How could the role and function of art change?

Ultimately, we seek to understand what benefits or challenges the aesthetic dimension might encounter in a post-work society.  

The deadline for the submission of abstracts (300-500 words) is 30 June 2025. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 15 July 2025. Full papers (5,000-10,000 words) will be due by 31 December 2025. Please follow the MLA 9th edition formatting guidelines and submit to all of these addresses: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. The submissions will undergo a double-blind peer review process.