Auburn Philosophy establishes exchange program with Sweden

Published: June 17, 2021

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The Department of Philosophy at Auburn and the Philosophy Department at Uppsala University in Sweden have established a three-year exchange program to enhance research at the two institutions.

“Uppsala has arguably the strongest aesthetics program in Europe; and we arguably have the strongest in North America,” said James Shelley, chair of the Department of Philosophy at Auburn. “The rationale for the exchange is to strengthen our already robust research in aesthetics.”

The exchange program is set to begin this fall semester (2021). As part of the program, a professor and a doctoral student from Uppsala will visit Auburn for six weeks, from mid October to late November. Both will participate in the usual activities of Auburn’s Aesthetics Forum, including seminars, reading groups, panels and invited talks. Both will participate in the annual Southern Aesthetics Workshop, to be held at Pebble Hill on Oct. 15 and 16. The doctoral student will guest-lecture in Auburn undergraduate courses. The six-week visit will culminate in an aesthetics conference at Pebble Hill on Nov. 5 and 6. Both visitors from Uppsala will appear on the conference program as featured speakers.

The exchange will resume in late spring 2022. An Auburn professor and aesthetics post-doc will visit Uppsala from mid May to late June. Both will participate in the normal aesthetics activities at Uppsala. Both will present their own research. The Auburn professor will teach in intensive course in aesthetics to Uppsala doctoral students. The six-week visit will culminate in an aesthetics conference sponsored by Uppsala, at which the visiting professor and post-doc form Auburn will present their research.

The exchange program will then continue with this same format for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years.

The program aims to accomplish many things, including: yielding several co-authored publications, increasing the international reach of both departments and forming a permanent research partnership between the two departments.

Submitted by: Victoria Santos