CFP: Resisting the Divide: Part II (Betweonum in Prague)

This conference, to be held in Prague, Czechia, is Part II of Resisting Divides: Contemporary Philosophy of Art that was held at Brooklyn College, NY, in October 2024 and co-organized by Dena Shottenkirk and Martin Nitsche. Here we established Betweonum: Brooklyn–Prague Forum for Philosophy of Art – a group of philosophers and other scholars, curators, and artists who seek to establish in-between spaces that enable resistance to the divides in contemporary approaches to art.

Since then, there has been an increasing movement by various philosophers toward eradicating the western world’s divide between continental and analytic philosophy as seen in the creation of reading groups, published work, and general trends. To be specific regarding the latter, the philosophy of art in the analytic tradition has continued to undergo a revolution by aligning more closely with perception and thus including in its parameters historical, phenomenological, and embodied psychological concerns. Continental philosophers of art have begun to reference science while still focused on the phenomenology of first-person experience. It shouldn’t be a surprise that it is in the philosophy of art where this revolution is occurring because it is this discipline that dovetails with other disciplines such as epistemology, philosophy of mind, politics, and ethics. Thus, it is in the philosophy of art that this divide between the two philosophical traditions can best be resolved.

There is also a second divide that this conference will address, and that is the glaring division between academic philosophers and “on the ground” practitioners in the artworld e.g., curators, art writers, and artists themselves. This, too, is a difficulty, as the ongoing frustrations of a stalemated postmodernism cannot be solved without a consensus between these two groups, thus calling for a need to think of art outside the confines of modernism’s stylistic revolutions and formalist issues, as well as outside the traditional analyses provided by the two camps of philosophers. This cannot be done without an open and critical exchange of viewpoints, and it is this that the conference will provide.

Thus, this conference will address both of those divides: The analytic/continental divide and divide between artworld practitioners and academic philosophers.

We welcome submissions on these possible questions:

1.     How does the increase in time-based art (e.g., performance, video) increase an analysis that draws on phenomenology?

2.    Does AI have a useful role in artmaking? And can it replace artists altogether?

3.     How is the “snapshot” representational theory inadequate to an analysis of art, and why might saliency maps or Gibson’s notion of affordances be more useful?

4.     What is the epistemological function of art?

5.     How does the monetary role in art affect both the artist and the perceiver of art?

6.     How do the mechanics of seeing (e.g., gist perception, peripheral vision, etc.) affect how we experience art?

7.     How does the practice of making art relate to the first-person experience?

8.     What role does empathy play in art, and how do affordances explain that?

9.     Are there specific non-western traditions that provide a better explanatory solution for the role of art than have the competing paradigms of continental and analytic?

10. In what way does philosophy play a role in art itself?

We welcome your participation and look forward to your contributions. Papers should not extend over 30 minutes. Additional Q & A are 15 minutes.

Food will be served. There is no conference fee. Alas, organizers cannot assist with accommodations and travel.

To submit anonymized abstract of 300-400 words BY September 15, 2025: please use https://forms.gle/8E2DZ6PE1NjPvmvS8

or email to: [email protected]

Notification of acceptance by September 30, 2025.