British Journal of Aesthetics

Symposium Fictional Game Spectatorship Nele Van de Mosselaer Fictional Game Spectatorship: On Pretend-Play and Collective Imagination in Gaming Communities Alexandre Declos Spectating Games can be a Form of Gameplay Ben Campion Video Game Photography and Spectator Gaming: A Flusserian Perspective

Our newest issue has a three paper symposium on spectatorship of fictional games. So grab your quaffle, round up your chasers, and get....pfffff.... I wanna say... bludging? I didn't read the books, okay. So sue me. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

[I]n addition to further highlighting that it is correct and essential to love our children, a reflection on reading with children shows its potential as a strategy to manifest love and secure the bond built through love over time and through the development of children and their relation to their immediate caregivers. - Laura T Di Summa, Who's Reading? On Children's Aesthetics and Parenting?

Perfect weather to cuddle up for a story... doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

And if anyone can explain why Patrick is drumming during what appears to be an underwater genocide, answers are welcome.

[T]he case of drumming is particularly interesting because this form of musical performance is characterized by a unique relation between the whole body of the performer and his/her musical instrument, namely the drum kit. This relation involves the synchronization and coordination of all of the limbs of the musician, which must ‘resonate’ with the different percussions included in the drum kit (drums, cymbals, bells, etc.) in an appropriate, coherent, and meaningful way. - Stefano Marino, Drumming as Embodied and Mindful Performance: Observations on the Aesthetic Theories of Bill Bruford and Shaun Gallagher

Get into the swing of things with Stefano Marino's piece on embodied drumming from our newest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

In every garden, one can appreciate specific aspects or objects in their natural state, and so a modified Positive Aesthetics, localized to these aspects or objects, would, if the theory works, work here. - David Fenner, Positive Garden Aesthetics

As Jack Frost's hand scratches at your window panes, take a minute to visualize a blossoming, buzzing garden awash in the vanilla light of a spring afternoon. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

In every garden, one can appreciate specific aspects or objects in their natural state, and so a modified Positive Aesthetics, localized to these aspects or objects, would, if the theory works, work here. - David Fenner, Positive Garden Aesthetics

As Jack Frost's hand scratches at your window panes, take a minute to visualize a blossoming, buzzing garden awash in the vanilla light of a spring afternoon. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

What is distinctive of a mood, then, is not a cognitive element like judgment but a kind of mode of engagement with the objects in one’s environment. My grumpiness as a whole is not about any particular object, but it involves a particular kind of interaction with a variety of different objects. - Guy Rohrbaugh, The Aesthetic Value of Food

Guy Rohrbaugh offers some food for thought in our newest issue. Or is it thought for food? Well, now I'm hungry. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

‘What is distinctive of a mood, then, is not a cognitive element like judgment but a kind of mode of engagement with the objects in one’s environment. My grumpiness as a whole is not about any particular object, but it involves a particular kind of interaction with a variety of different objects.’ - Tatyana Kostochka, ‘A Little Mood Music: On the Relationship between Musical and Psychological Moods’

How can music have moods? Tatyana Kostochka has the answers in our new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

In his discussion of forgeries, Dutton is very clear on one point: creating a forgery is a kind of achievement, just not the kind of achievement that we might have initially thought it was. The same is no doubt true of AI-generated art; Allen’s work is an artistic performance, and it is to some degree an achievement. But, as Dutton puts it, ‘the fundamental question then is, what has the artist done, what has he achieved?’. This is a question which, for AI-generated art, has hardly even been asked. - Anthony Cross, Tool, Collaborator, or Participant: AI and Artistic Agency

AI art anyone? 😬

Anthony Cross takes the plunge in our brand new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

[E]ven if Shakespeare could not intend to tell us anything specific about the 2016 election, he has tried and non-accidentally succeeded in providing us with prompts that can be applied to topics that, by their very nature, resonate widely in subjects far beyond those his plays address. In order to work out just what the magnitude of Shakespeare’s cognitive achievement is with respect to these themes, we have to test just how far this resonance goes, which involves exploring specific political subjects in the wider world. - Christopher Earley, Co-Producing Art's Cognitive Value

Chris Earley defends a collaborative account of an artwork's epistemic value in our brand new issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

The DivCom reading group will be starting up again soon, and this year we'll be reading the 2019 Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism special issue on aesthetics and race.

See aesthetics-online.org/news/713965/... for details about how to join.

Hannah Kim & Nicholas Whittaker
DivCom Co-Chairs

Cover of newest BJA.

List of Articles in latest BJA.

List of review articles in latest BJA.

Symposium on Spectator Gaming in latest BJA.

A little peek at the content in our brand new issue. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

Navy blue cover of the British Journal of Aesthetics - Volume 65, Number 4, October 2025.

Volume 65, Issue 4 has landed my friends, and it's a banger. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

Robson is open to the idea that some kinds of pessimistic intuitions might be explained by widespread, tacit acceptance of folk relativism. I wonder how compatible this is with the idea that there is a widespread, tacit acceptance of the idea that aesthetic assertions indiscriminately signal qualities such as intelligence, creativity and skill. The latter implies the presence of some kind of shared standard of knowledge. - Rebecca Wallbank, Review of Jon Robson’s Aesthetic Testimony: An Optimistic Approach

Becky Wallbank reviews Jon Robson's defence of knowledge from aesthetic testimony in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

‘When I read the poem in my accent, which retains some of its regional inflections, tones, and cadences despite my own years in the formal institutions of British life, the lines do not rhyme. And they do not rhyme to the ear of those with many of the standard accents of the north-east or south-west of England, for example, or of Wales and Northern Ireland. More significantly for what follows, the lines do not rhyme in the voices of those from the post-industrial heartlands of central Scotland, from working-class regions of London, Birmingham, or Liverpool, or from traditional rural constituencies across the United Kingdom.’ - Tom Roberts, ‘Voice, Rhyme, and Aesthetic Injustice’

Poems as socioeconomic gatekeepers? Open access in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

[P]rettiness is often described as ‘shallow’, but beauty is described as ‘deep’. Depth seems to be primarily intended in its metaphorical sense in this context, as referring to importance or significance, but at times also has intimations of its literal meaning of referring to spatial depth. It is common to hear prettiness spoken of as a property of mere sensory surfaces and appearances, and as trivial, and of beauty as somehow reaching beyond appearances, and as being significant or even profound. - Ryan P Doran, True Beauty

Ryan Doran is getting to the philosophical bottom of true beauty in this open access 🔓 advance article...

...by ranking the most beautiful philosophers' bottoms 🍎. (You'll never believe who made number 5 😱).* doi.org/10.1093/aest...
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*might be bollocks.

I take no responsibility for any brain explosions as a result of this paper.

There is a second aspect to our awareness, simultaneous to our awareness of represented content. Our experience is twofold. Yet this is so without our awareness of the configuration of virtual reality images—we have a twofold experience without seeing-in. - Alex Fisher Virtual Reality, Seeing-In, and Twofoldness

In this advance article, Alex Fisher argues that the phenomenal experience of virtual reality does not involve seeing-in. And yet it's twofolded 🤯. Unexplode your brains and click the link, people. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

BSA Connections - The British Society of Aesthetics The British Society of Aesthetics is pleased to announce a tenth round of funding for its Connections series of conferences. The Society is looking to fund one conference with a grant of up to £10,000...

The British Society of Aesthetics is pleased to announce a tenth round of funding for its Connections series of conferences.

The Society is looking to fund one conference with a grant of up to £10,000.

british-aesthetics.org/portfolio/bs...

We do not play with toys because we expect to gain something of practical value from them. Rather, we play with toys for aesthetic reasons. This is a broad topic that would require a much longer treatment than I have the space for here. This essay has the more modest goal of attempting to provide a framework for thinking of the aesthetic value of toys by looking at them in relation to games. - Christopher Bartel, When a Balloon is Enough: An Attention-Based Account of Toys and Games

Chris Bartel is playing with toys in this advance article. Come for the nerf guns, stay for the syllogisms. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

We are pleased to announce that the new issue of The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (83.3) is now available online.

ASA members have free access to all content via the Oxford site by logging into your account on the ASA web site.

Humour’s combination of non-literality, imaginative distance, and play allows it to disarm, provoke, and invite reflection, even from resistant audiences. That distinctiveness supports a more permissive ethical stance: immoral jokes often expose social and moral incongruities, making them valuable tools for moral-epistemic growth. - Connor K Kianpour, Learning by Laughing: Humour as Moral Error Detection and the Ethics of Immoral Jokes

Connor Kianpour defends (many) immoral jokes in this advance article. Will he have cancelled himself by the time you reach the conclusion? Only one way to find out... doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

In a remarkable feat of stamina, Neumark Jones gives a compelling performance in which he never leaves the stage, and the set […] never changes. This results in almost continuous movement at a frequently frenetic pace along a narrative track that meanders less than the novel’s on the way to its tragic terminus. If the novel is a tense commuter service stopping periodically at ominous stations, the play is a runaway express train on which the emergency brake has snapped. - Nils-Hennes Stear, Review of The Passenger, Finborough Theatre, London

In this advance article, Nils Stear reviews The Passenger, a play adapted from Ulrich Boschwitz's recently rediscovered novel, and reflects on the challenges and promise of literary adaptations. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

As our bodies age, we experience predictable changes in both appearance and functionality. […] The voice also ages, most notably because the vocal folds of the larynx become thinner and gradually harden (Stadelman-Cohen and Hillman 2019: 34). The singing voice changes with age, the vocal range diminishes, and therefore the prime years for many opera singers have been brief. - Theodore Gracyk, The Beautiful Voice in Opera: The Injustice of Vocal Discrimination

Ted Gracyk looks at the resistance to casting ugly voices in leading opera roles and its relationship to questions of justice in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

"Is it a long way to the golf course?"
"Well, it depends on what you mean by a long way."
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING DIRECTIONS OUTSIDE THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT PAL.

The British Society of Aesthetics seeks to appoint a paid, part-time Editor for its website, newsletter, and social media. Applicants will be expected to be UK-based postgraduates working in aesthetics.

The deadline for applications is 22 October 2025.

HAIL OUR GLORIOUS LEADER!

...well, editor, I suppose. Co-editor. Our glorious co-editor. Hail.

In a remarkable feat of stamina, Neumark Jones gives a compelling performance in which he never leaves the stage, and the set […] never changes. This results in almost continuous movement at a frequently frenetic pace along a narrative track that meanders less than the novel’s on the way to its tragic terminus. If the novel is a tense commuter service stopping periodically at ominous stations, the play is a runaway express train on which the emergency brake has snapped. - Nils-Hennes Stear, Review of The Passenger, Finborough Theatre, London

In this advance article, Nils Stear reviews The Passenger, a play adapted from Ulrich Boschwitz's recently rediscovered novel, and reflects on the challenges and promise of literary adaptations. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky

As our bodies age, we experience predictable changes in both appearance and functionality. […] The voice also ages, most notably because the vocal folds of the larynx become thinner and gradually harden (Stadelman-Cohen and Hillman 2019: 34). The singing voice changes with age, the vocal range diminishes, and therefore the prime years for many opera singers have been brief. - Theodore Gracyk, The Beautiful Voice in Opera: The Injustice of Vocal Discrimination

Ted Gracyk looks at the resistance to casting ugly voices in leading opera roles and its relationship to questions of justice in our latest issue. doi.org/10.1093/aest... #philsky