Announcement and Call for Abstracts: Aesthetics and the Feminine Conference

Friday 17th – Saturday 18th July 2015

The ‘Aesthetics and the Feminine’ Summer conference is supported by The Society for Women In Philosophy Ireland (SWIP-I) and the Philosophy Department at University College Cork and aims to provide a supportive, engaging environment for all researchers working on the topic of the feminine in aesthetics, or the thought/work of female aestheticians/artists. Both females and males are encouraged to present their papers!

Possible topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

· Studies on the work of female artist(s)

· Relevant topics in aesthetics generally and especially the work of female aesthetician(s)

· Representations of women in the visual arts

· Critical analyses of “feminine” characters in literature/film

· Analysis/Application of feminist criticism

· Analysis/Application of feminist psychoanalytic criticism

· The role of art in the creation and perpetuation of Myth of Woman

· “Feminine” beauty 

· “Feminine” art

· Androgyny in art/literature/film

· Representations of female sexuality in art/literature/film

· Interpretations of the “feminine” in art as empowering/degrading

· Feminist art/literature/film

· “Masculine” or un-“feminine” females in art/literature/film

· Tragic heroines

· “Feminine” Vs “Masculine” Art

· Écriture féminine

· The femme fatale

· “Chick-flicks” and “chick-lit”: art for females?

Submissions: Abstracts of 200 words for 20-minute presentations (a l lo w i n g f o r 1 0 minutes Q&A after ward), in Word document format should be prepared for blind review (together with a separate cover sheet detailing institutional information etc.) and emailed to:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

We welcome proposals from a broad range of disciplines including philosophy, comparative literature, art history, gender studies, cultural studies, The social sciences and other relevant disciplines. Interdisciplinary studies are encouraged as well as proposals for
co-presentations and panels. We also invite artists, working on relevant
themes/subjects, to discuss and present their work at this event.

The deadline for submissions is Monday 20th April 2015 and we aim to respond to applicants with the results of our selection processes in early May 2015. Please send any queries to: Mary Edwards at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.