Max Ryynänen is senior lecturer in Theory of Visual Culture at Aalto University Finland. He is the ex Chair of the Finnish Society for Aesthetics and the Editor-in-Chief of Popular Inquiry: The Journal of the Aesthetics of Kitsch, Camp and Mass Culture and The Journal of Somaesthetics. He is or has been also on the advisory board of e.g. Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, Terra Aesthetica, ESPES, Aesthetica Universalis, The Journal of Global Popular Culture, and Research in Arts and Education. His latest books include e.g. Learning from Decay. Essays on the Aesthetics of Architectural Dereliction and Its Consumption (2018, cowritten with Zoltán Somhegyi), Aesthetics in Dialogue (ed. with Zoltán Somhegyi, 2020), On The Philosophy of Central European Art (2020) and Art, Excess, Education (ed. with Kevin Tavin and Mira Kallio-Tavin, 2019). He is also editor of Aesthetic Perspectives on Culture, Politics, and Landscape (with Elisabetta Di Stefano and Carsten Friberg, Springer 2021) and a contributor of many journals in varieties of aesthetic theory and cultural studies like Ágalma, Contemporary Aesthetics, Journal of Asia-Pacific Popular Culture and Poetics. Zoltán Somhegyi is a Hungarian art historian with a PhD in aesthetics and is associate professor of art history at the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. Previously he was based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates and was working as Chair of the Department of Fine Arts of the College of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Sharjah. He is the Secretary General and Website Editor of the International Association for Aesthetics, member of the Executive Committee of the International Council for Philosophy and Human Sciences and Consultant of Art Market Budapest: International Contemporary Art Fair. He is advisory and editorial board member of numerous academic journals of aesthetics and is Editor-in Chief of HAS – Humanities, Arts & Society Magazine. His recent books are Reviewing the Past. The Presence of Ruins (2020), Aesthetics in Dialogue. Applying Philosophy of Art in a Global World (2020; co-edited with Max Ryynänen), Learning from Decay. Essays on the Aesthetics of Architectural Dereliction and Its Consumption (Berlin, Peter Lang, 2018; co-authored with Max Ryynänen) and Retracing the past. Historical conti- nuity in aesthetics from a global perspective – 19th Yearbook of the International Association for Aesthetics (2017; editor and contributor).
Aesthetics pervades our lives, and it pervades thinking about our lives. Aesthetic Theory Across the Disciplines surveys the boundaries of philosophical aesthetics, its points of contact with the arts disciplines, such disciplines as cultural studies and urban studies, and also the history of philosophy. Some essays provide sweeping visions of the potential benefits of more dialogue. Other essays diagnose obstacles to dialogue. They are by turns personal, passionate, and persuasive. --Dominic McIver Lopes, fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, University Killam Professor, University of British Columbia Max Ryynänen and Zoltán Somhegyi have assembled an international team of scholars who consider the ways that aesthetics operates in a variety of related disciplines. Their scope is wide, including such fields as philosophy, architecture, music, cultural studies, human evolution, and ecology. The comprehensive literature reviews and diverse individual perspectives in Aesthetic Theory Across the Disciplines offer informative and valuable insights. --Carolyn Korsmeyer, research professor of philosophy, University at Buffalo