Popular Inquiry, The Journal of the Aesthetics of Kitsch, Camp and Mass Culture quiere ampliar el horizonte de la Everyday Aesthetics e investigar los temas que han sido excluidos, olvidados o pasados por alto en el debate angloamericano. Fecha límite: 10 de agosto de 2021.
David Henry Brown Jr., «Schitzo Salad Man»
“When we go out in the morning to collect trash…” “When we fly with our private jets…” “At 6 AM, when all of us prisoners wake up…”
None of the aforementioned examples do sound like typical examples for the Everyday Aesthetics discourse. Looking critically at examples mentioned in articles on everyday aesthetics, one easily gets the feeling, that they touch mostly upon the aesthetics of the lives of the Western middle class. There are, of course, differing approaches too. Some touch upon issues like junkyards and roadside clutter (Leddy), and, of course, a lot in the discussion is just about theoretical frameworks, e.g. about seeing the everyday as a set of objects (Saito) or patterns that we are routinized to do and experience (Haapala).
This special issue of Popular Inquiry would like to explore perspectives in Everyday Aesthetics from this point of view: what is lacking in the discussion?
Everyone has an everyday life, and everybody has an everyday aesthetics. What does the aesthetics of the everyday look like in rural areas in Sahel and Central Asia, in an Inuit village in the Artic, in the slum in the outskirts of Delhi or Lagos – or on a farm in Ukraine? What about refugee camps, prisons and hospitals? And what is the everyday for someone living in the streets, or for the mentally ill who does not share experiences with fellow individuals?
In what way does aesthetics and particularly Everyday Aesthetics make sense and offer theoretical concepts for characterizing, analyzing, understanding, and improving different forms of the everyday, that we haven’t thought of yet?
We ask for reflections on the aesthetics of the everyday, in particular, but not exclusively, in relation to the Everyday Aesthetics debate, to discuss the critical potentials of the discussion (this includes the possibility to claim that there is no such thing). The editors of this special issue would like to challenge the Western middleclass approaches. We encourage authors to dive into history, unseen lifestyles, forced lifestyles (prisons, hospitals) and any other topics, that, through their examples, might also touch upon a string in the more theoretical frameworks typical for the topic.
We welcome contributions in different academic stylistic traditions.
For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the editors/
Elisabetta Di Stefano, Carsten Friberg and Max Ryynänen
CfP webpage/ https://www.popularinquiry.com/cfps-and-news
Deadline for articles: August 10 2021
E-mail/ popular.inquiry@aalto.fi
Manuscript Submission Guidelines/ https://www.popularinquiry.com/submissions
Read our articles/ https://www.popularinquiry.com/issues-articles