aesthetics at ubc The Philosophy Department at the University of British Columbia is home to a lively research group in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. In addition to three phiosophy faculty, the group numbers several philosophy graduate students who are either writing dissertations or papers in aesthetics. Faculty and students in Interdisciplinary Studies, the Department of English Literature, the School of Music, the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture also participate in the group's activities. Events include reading groups, visiting speakers, mini-conferences, and seminars.

Josh Johnston speaking at the Pacific ASA

Kendall Walton visits Fiction

Dustin Stokes, Vince Bergeron, and Dom Lopes studying oeno-aesthetics in Napa

Gemma Celestino Fernandez explaining fictional contingencies in Hamburg

Emma Esmaili, Oisin Deery, Taylor Davis, Josh Johnston, Derek Matravers, Jill Isenberg

faculty Dominic Lopes teaches philosophy at UBC and works on depiction, the evaluation of pictures, theories of art and the ontology of art, and computer art and new art forms. His new book on computer art is out in August 2009, and his next major project is a book on art and appreciation. Christopher Mole teaches in Philosophy and in the Cognitive Systems program at UBC. His interests in aesthetics focus on the aesthetics of literature. He is particularly interested in the relationship between aesthetic value, moral value, and the value of truth. Brad Murray has come to the UBC Philosophy Department, having just completed a DPhil at Oxford. He works on the ontology of art, the aesthetics of nature, the theory of artifacts, metaphysical questions relating to artifacts and material objects, and Kant (especially the Critique of Judgement). John Woods is Professor Emeritus at UBC and divides his time between UBC and Kings College London. Although he sometimes dabbles in logic, he's now getting down to truly serious work on fiction. current students Gemma Celestino Fernandez is a PhD candidate whose main interests are in philosophy of language, metaphysics, formal semantics, aesthetics, and ethics. She's writing a dissertation on fiction and propositional attitude ascriptions. Steve DiPaola is an Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University. An expert in computer graphics systems, he is working towards an interdisciplinary PhD at UBC on painterly rendering of portraits. Jillian Isenberg is a PhD student working on issues in philosophy of language at its intersections with biology and art. Her main interest in aesthetics is fiction, particularly with respect to reference and epistemology. Josh Johnston is writing a dissertation defending a particularist conception of ethical and aesthetic value. Other interests include the history of aesthetics, the epistemology and metaphysics of aesthetic value, perception and taste, genre classification, and the philosophy of film. Zoe McDougall is a PhD student in interdisciplinary studies working on collaborations between artists and engineers developing smart environments. past students Yuichi Amitani wrote a doctoral dissertation in philosophy of biology but also wrote on the ontology of photographs. Vincent Bergeron now teaches at the University of Ottawa. His interests in aesthetics include musical expression, ontology of art, artistic value, and aesthetics and cognitive science. Eden Kail Fenrick wrote an MA thesis on the role of identification in dance appreciation in 2003. She now teaches philosophy in Halifax. Nick Jones visited UBC from the University of Nottingham in 2004, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation with Gregory Currie. Brian Laetz had published papers in several journals including the British Journal of Aesthetics and Philosophy and Literature before his untimely death in the spring of 2010. He was posthumously made a Doctor of Philosophy in November 2010. Jennifer Neilson took a BA and an MA in philosophy at UBC, writing an MA paper on the paradox of negative emotions, before moving to the University of Texas to do a doctorate. Sahasra Pedersen was an MA student in philosophy engaged in issues at the intersection of environmental aesthetics, virtue aesthetics, and virtue ethics.Other interests include artistic value and the history of aesthetics. Alessandro Pignocchi was a visiting student from Paris in the spring of 2007. While at UBC, he wrote a paper on motor schemas in drawing. Nola Semczyszyn works on scientific and medical images, having defended her dissertation, Signal to Vision, in 2010. She is a postdoctoral fellow at Franklin and Marshall College. Dustin Stokes works on creativity as a cognitive phenomenon. Following postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Sussex and the University of Toronto, he is now Visiting Assistant Professor at the U of T and will be starting a tenure track job at the University of Utah this year.

aesthetics group news Congratulations to Nola Semczyszyn, who is taking up a postdoc at Franklin and Marshall College after having successfully defended her doctoral dissertation. Nola was the 2010 winner of the British Society of Aesthetics prize for best graduate paper presented at its annual conference in London this September (Josh Johnston won the same prize in 2008). Jill Isenberg and Bence Nanay presented papers at the same conference. Sadly, Bence has left UBC to take up a post as Research Professor at the University of Antwerp. He will be missed. Dr Nola Semczyszyn Derek Matravers has a eureka moment A fond farewell from us all to Derek Matravers, who visited for a year in 2009–10. Derek brought a sparkle to aesthetics at UBC that we will never forget. He leaves armed with a book manuscript that will revolutionize work on literary fiction. past events Summer 2010 Taylor Davis (UBC), Matthew Kieran (University of Leeds), Derek Matravers (Open University), and Gerry Viera (UBC) gave talks in a day-long workshop in June. Summer 2009 Nola Semczyszyn led a reading group on topics in aesthetics, beginning with Glenn Parson and Allen Carlson, Functional Beauty. 2008–09 Talks this year included one by Steve DiPaola on "Computationally Modeling Aspects of Cognition, Creativity and Art" and one by Brad Murray on "Artworks, Artifacts, and Ontology: Puzzling Over Driftwood." An invited lecture series on creativity organized by John Beatty and held at Green College included presentations by Peter Kivy, Brad Murray, and Dustin Stokes. Summer 2008 John Woods led a reading group on Mark Sainsbury's Reference Without Referents. Catharine Abell (University of Manchester) visited from July to September. 2007–08 Kathryn Brown (UBC AHVAT), Bence Nanay (UBC), and James Young (UVic) spoke as part of a day-long interdisciplinary Workshop on Art and Spectatorship co-hosted by the Philosophy Department and the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory. Berys Gaut (St Andrews University) gave a seminar on his work and presented a paper on "Medium-Specificity Arguments and Cinema" in the Philosophy Colloquium. Dominic Lopes taught an undergraduate course in aesthetics during the fall term featuring his book manuscript on computer art. During the spring term, Bence Nanay gave a seminar on Fiction, Narrative, and the Mind. Summer 2007 Bence Nanay ran a weekly discussion group on depiction at sundry watering holes around town. 2006–07 Dominic Lopes gave a seminar on topics in aesthetics and epistemology. The seminar culminated in a one-day mini-conference in May. Meanwhile, Gemma Celestino and Jillian Isenberg ran a biweekly reading group in partnership with LOGOS Barcelona on the logic, semantics, and aesthetics of fiction. Visiting speakers this year included Gary Iseminger. 2005–06 Dominic Lopes gave a seminar on the ontology of art in conjunction with the Art, Technology, and Ontology Project sponsored by the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. The project brought faculty and students together from several disciplines to discuss new technologies in art. Visiting speakers this year included Robert Hopkins, Peter Kivy, Amie Thomasson, and Kendall Walton. Pre-2005 In August 2003, UBC hosted the Knowing Art Conference, which was sponsored by SSHRC. Speakers who visited to give colloquium talks included Noël Carroll, Jerrold Levinson, and Jenefer Robinson. James Shelley spent a term at UBC as a Visiting Professor and gave a seminar on early modern aesthetics. Matthew Kieran spent a sabbatical year at UBC in 2002–03.