CFP: Poverty and Aesthetics

Call for Papers: Special Volume of Contemporary Aesthetics on Poverty and Aesthetics.

In addition to standard journal essays, the guest editor will entertain other formats, such as a video essay (limited to 2) and a photo essay (also limited to 2 for the issue). For the latter options, please contact the guest editor in advance. For standard journal essays, please consult submission guidelines for Contemporary Aesthetics at https://contempaesthetics.org/submissions/

Invited contributions: Madalina Diaconu (University of Vienna), Richard Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University), and Rrose (EAUX).

Please submit your contributions to the guest editor, Dr. Valery Vino, at [email protected] by the 1st of December 2025.

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To face one of the gravest perennial issues, it is necessary to evaluate the roots, modalities, and proportions of poverty experienced by many people in their everyday lives. To take one scholarly example, the Springer book series Philosophy and Poverty facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and uncovers the depth and seriousness of the problems at hand. The nexus between aesthetics and poverty, on the other hand, may seem more contentious. However, following a number of recent studies [1], it is safe to say that aesthetics today is essential to connect socio-somatic and cosmo-political dimensions of poverty research.

This special volume of Contemporary Aesthetics aims to develop a more nuanced and pointed understanding of this lacuna. Poverty is the mirror image of social conscience. It has been convincingly established by each major contemporary movement in philosophical aesthetics, from everyday and black to social and somaesthetics, that aesthetic engagement with the world and each other leads to a more intimate understanding of the subject matter, which may in turn spur us to action. Now, it is fair to assume that one’s attitude to somebody or something striking them as poor and eyesore-like (abandoned, grimy, disorderly, decaying, fetid, decrepit) would be negative, at least nominally. How come? To what extent such a reaction is guided by dominant normative values (that in their turn encourage us to look up to the rich, successful, and famous)? And if indeed one feels uncomfortable/hopeless/afraid, does that necessarily entail the choice to turn a blind eye, or perhaps this experience marks a conflict in one’s worldview that can be thereby modified?

Globally, the issue of poverty comes down to the fact that “World’s top 1% own more wealth than 95% of humanity” (Oxfam International, 2024), and that “almost 700 million people (8.5 percent of the global population) live in extreme poverty,” leaving “44% of the global population” in a state of general poverty (“Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report” 2024). While extreme or absolute poverty, a growing problem worldwide, implies no access to basic things necessary for subsistence, general poverty is a more complex concept, since it:

"… measures poverty according to a broader range of commodity consumption typical of a given society. Thus, someone from a richer country might be considered poor if they are without certain commodities, whereas someone from a poorer country might be expected to go without certain commodities" (McClure 2023: 328).

Interestingly, we can find in the history of philosophy a number of great thinkers who espoused a positive modality of poverty. One striking example is Friedrich Nietzsche in his Zarathustra: “Blessed be moderate poverty!” This creed resonates with the likes of Socrates and Kynics, Kamo no Chōmei, Hrohiry Skovoroda, Henry David Thoreau, and, arguably, even Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others. Moderate poverty is tantamount to a simple life, one that is not characterized by privation of basic human needs, on one hand, and that is not driven by the pursuit of comfort, assets, and opulence, on the other.

In light of the above, this special volume is interested in – but not limited to – the following topics:

❖ aesthetic literacy/education: poverty and the dilemma of personal choice ❖ dire/moderate poverty and aesthetics of existence, e.g. architecture (favela, mudhouse, glass mansion) or gastronomy ❖ frugality and greed as ethico-aesthetic practices ❖ “poverty traps” and social violence, e.g. the aesthetics of the prison-industrial-complex, public housing, and orphanages ❖ aesthetics of houselessness/squatting/nomadism ❖ pragmatism and engagement with the Other, e.g. migrants, refugees; or as a migrant/refugee with natives/residents ❖ social aesthetics: poverty and criminality ❖ ecological aesthetics: poverty, health, and climate emergency ❖ aesthetics of war and destruction, e.g. Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan ❖ poverty as invention, i.e. indigenous peoples living in harmony with nature having no concept of money/destitution ❖ the role of art/ist in addressing poverty, e.g. protest art & hip hop

Endnote [1] See: Julia McClure (2023) “The Aesthetics of Poverty and the Logic of Racial Capitalism.” In Aesthetic Literacy Vol II: out of mind (Melbourne/Sydney: mongrel matter): 327-332. Also two papers by Moniza Rissini Ansari: (2022) “Cartographies of Poverty: Rethinking Statistics, Aesthetics, and the Law.” Society and Space Vol. 40 (3): 567-85; and (2020) “Aesthetics of Poverty: Visualizing Territories and Populations.” Evental Aesthetics Vol. 9 (1): 69-94.