CFP: Studi di estetica

Studi di estetica 3/2019

"Aesthetics and economics reconciled"
(edited by Giovanni Matteucci and Gioia Laura Iannilli)

Aesthetics and economics, both born as scientific disciplines in the 18th century, have
represented polarized and mutually exclusive realms of experience for a long time. The disinterestedness traditionally ascribed to the ideal dimension of the aesthetic has symmetrically paralleled the direct instrumentality that has typically connoted the practical dimension of the economic. Yet, today, this oppositional relationship is greatly confuted by the constant redefinition of their actual traits. Both aesthetics and economics, in fact, are no longer fields in which “ideal” and “practical” modes of experience are exclusively and respectively carried out: it is as naïve to
claim that focused and disinterested contemplation is the distinctive feature of aesthetic experience as it is unthinkable to maintain that use value is the value which orientates current market dynamics. “Capitalisme artiste” (Lipovetsky and Serroy 2013) and “Ästhetischer Kapitalismus” (Böhme 2016) are only two of the most recent labels coined to describe a coupling that is proving to be increasingly inextricable.
Thus it can be said that the relationship between aesthetics and economics went from being polarized to being circular. A reconciliation that both qualifies the aesthetic as a fundamental factor in the valorisation processes which are typical of economic activity and allows the economic to diversify and to make gratifying (hence aesthetic) aspects of experience explicit and accessible. Not least it is noteworthy that these two fields borrow models and motifs from each other and employ them in their own practices. On the one hand current forms of management and organization are guided by artistic-aesthetic principles, on the other hand it is quite common for artistic-aesthetic production to incorporate managerial components into its articulation. And in both of them the paradigm and the decisive role of creativity is reconsidered as the specific trait of our age (see Reckwitz 2013).

This call for papers welcomes original and innovative contributions on the topic of the relationship between aesthetics and economics. Areas of interest for this call include, but are not limited to:
- The role of aesthetics in economic theory
- Organizational aesthetics as perspective for management theory
- Marketing and aesthetic ephemerality
- Forecasting, cool-hunting and influencing activities as new paradigms for the production
of economic value and aestheticity in the current age
- The aesthetic root of sustainable production and consumption
- Conservation and consumption of beauty: differences and interactions between economic
and aesthetic value
- Commodification and experience design: annihilation or promotion of aesthetic value?
- Art and cultural economics
- Forms and practices of creativity
- Globalization and branding as configuration principles of taste standards
- The economy of lifestyles: between artificiality, mimesis and spontaneity

This issue will be edited by Giovanni Matteucci and Gioia Laura Iannilli.
Articles will be submitted to double blind peer review. The languages admitted are Italian, English, German, and French. The articles should include an abstract (up to 150 words) and three keywords, both in English. The articles, which should be anonymous, should be sent to Simona Chiodo, Politecnico di Milano ([email protected]), by September 1st, 2019, in .doc or .docx, together with a further document containing the author’s information.